An Embarrassment of Riches (54 page)

‘Other Schermerhorns have been receiving her. Charlie Schermerhorn's mother. Her sister-in-law.'

Alexander had been brushing his hair when Ariadne had drawn his attention to the
Post's
society column. He picked up his silver-backed hairbrush again and completed the task in savage, angry movements.

‘Gussie Schermerhorn has only been receiving her as a favour to Charlie.'

Ariadne's sensuously full-lipped mouth tightened. She didn't like the way the only two men to have befriended the Irish girl had so completely come under her sway.

‘You've told her, of course, that there will have to be a divorce?'

Alexander slammed his hairbrush down on the ivory inlaid dressing-table.

‘Yes,' he lied, wondering how he had managed to embroil himself with two such infuriatingly tenacious women. ‘But if our own reputations are to be protected, it isn't a matter that can be rushed.'

There was no need for him to spell out the implication behind his words. A contested divorce would be worse than no divorce at all. What Ariadne wanted was for Maura to agree amicably to a divorce on whatever grounds would cause the least damage to Alexander's reputation, and without any mention of herself whatsoever, and for her then to disappear conveniently with her handsome financial settlement out of his life.

Not only was Alexander aware that it was an agreement Maura would never come to, but it was an agreement he had no desire that she come to. He had long ago come to regret bitterly his drunken action in walking out of his home and once again into Ariadne's coils. Perhaps if he had stayed he and Maura would have somehow made friends again. She might even have said that she hadn't meant it when she had said that if Genevre were alive she would no longer love him. And she might have said that she hadn't meant to indicate that she no longer loved him either. But he hadn't stayed. He had left and he had rekindled his affair with Ariadne and now Ariadne was urging him to divorce Maura.

He shuddered at the thought. Divorce from Maura would mean marriage to Ariadne and though Ariadne gave undoubted satisfaction in bed, she was a bossy woman and a lifetime spent enduring such bossiness was not a prospect to be relished.

Ariadne slipped out of bed and crossed the room towards him, her French négligé floating wispily around her. ‘Don't worry, my darling,' she said softly, winding her arms around his neck. ‘Our problems will soon be over. I promise.'

Alexander was too grateful that the subject had come to a close to hear any danger bells. He was thinking about Stasha. Now sixteen months old, Stasha was far more interesting than eight-month-old Felix. He wondered how old Stasha would have to be before he could be put on a small pony. He wondered if he should, perhaps, take him and his nurse to Tarna. He wondered how much longer he could keep up the pretext that Stasha was the orphaned child of distant Karolyis cousins. He wondered how he was going to bear going through life having Stasha refer to him as ‘Uncle'and not as ‘Papa'.

Ariadne had not the slightest doubt as to what she would find when she instructed her coachman to take her to the Karolyis mansion. That the Irish girl was passably pretty she had no doubt. Alexander, after all, had fathered a child by her and, although dangerously reckless, he was also commendably fastidious. She also knew enough of the Irish girl's background to be prepared for a shallow veneer of good breeding. What she hadn't been remotely prepared for was her very obvious pregnancy.

Maura rose from the sofa as Ariadne Brevoort was announced, her heart slamming so painfully she could hardly breathe. It was a confrontation she had both looked forward to and dreaded. She Had imagined it happening in a public place, the Opera perhaps, or Delmonico's. Ariadne's effrontery in paying her a personal call at home was so audacious that she had to admit to a sneaking admiration.

In the few moments between Haines apprising her of Mrs Brevoort's presence on her doorstep and Ariadne's arrival in the drawing-room, Maura came to an assumption about the reason for the visit. Ariadne was trying to cloak her affair with Alexander in an aura of respectability. If she could be perceived by the rest of society as being a friend not only of Alexander, but of Mrs Karolyis as well, then the tongues that had begun to wag would be stilled.

No doubt Ariadne would proffer an invitation to dinner or supper. If she did, she would be very disappointed. Maura had no intention of playing polite games with Ariadne. But she did want to see what Ariadne looked like, close to.

‘Mrs Ariadne Brevoort, madam.'

Maura took in a deep, steadying breath. She wondered if Alexander had been apprised of the visit. She wondered if he had encouraged it.

Ariadne swept into the room as if she owned it. Her bustled gown was of raspberry silk, a nonsense of raspberry velvet ribbon and veiling was perched provocatively low over her forehead, her silk-fringed shawl was Kashmiri. Maura recognized it because it was nearly identical to one Isabel had owned.

‘I want to talk to you about Alexander …' Ariadne began. She had determined from the outset not to lower herself by indulging in polite niceties with a woman unworthy of them. She wasn't visiting her socially. She was there on a business matter. She wouldn't deign to refer to her as Mrs Karolyis, nor would she make any pretence of friendship. She would simply state her business, show the Irish girl the financial advantages of being compliant, and then triumphantly announce to Alexander that divorce proceedings could be immediately instigated.

Instead she didn't even finish her first sentence. She simply stared disbelievingly. Beneath an oyster-silk day-dress the Irish girl's stomach was unmistakably rounded. She was well aware of the reason for Felix's conception. In order for the marriage to have caused the utmost anguish to Victor Karolyis it had had to be consummated. Alexander had explained all that to her when he had admitted the validity of the marriage. But after their months of separation, when Alexander had returned from his inexplicable long stay at Tarna and after he had voyaged to England and back, he had not said one word to indicate that he had resumed marital relations with his wife.

Yet he quite obviously had. Had he been enjoying them after their own reconciliation? An unspeakable thought nearly rendered her senseless. Was he still enjoying them?

Maura's sense of shock was no less great. Ariadne hadn't come in ostensible friendship. There were to be no polite and meaningless exchanges. She wasn't even going to hide the fact of her adulterous relationship with Alexander. Her referring to him intimately as Alexander was insult enough, but there were obviously worse insults to come. At the thought that Alexander may have sanctioned whatever Ariadne was about to say, Maura felt steel enter her heart. She still loved him but she wasn't going to allow herself to be hurt by him any more. She couldn't allow herself to be. To suffer any more hurt would be to die from it, and she wouldn't give him, or Ariadne, that satisfaction.

‘I have no intention of discussing my husband with you,' she said freezingly, turning to the tasselled bell-pull to summon Haines.

‘And I have no intention of leaving until we have a frank and full discussion,' Ariadne said, rallying herself manfully.

Maura's hand hesitated. What on earth was Ariadne going to say? Curiosity got the better of her. She turned away from the bell-rope.

‘Does Alexander know you are here? Has he sent you?' There was an imperiousness in the question that incensed Ariadne. The Irish girl spoke as if she were speaking to an equal – and she did so in an undeniably cultured voice. There was the merest hint of an Irish lilt in it, but nothing that even she could accuse of being a brogue.

‘Four lives are being ruined, all for the sake of a divorce,' she said, ignoring the question. ‘It seems to me that perhaps Alexander has not pointed out to you the advantage to yourself if you were to agree to one.'

Maura blinked. The impertinence was almost beyond belief. ‘Four lives?' she queried. ‘I don't quite see …'

‘Your own. You cannot possibly be comfortable living a life so friendless and so different from all you have been accustomed to. Alexander's. Obviously I know of his reason in marrying you. He was insane with grief at the time and not responsible for his action. It would be an act of premeditated cruelty for you to hold him to his marriage vows knowing as you must, that by so doing you are ruining his life.'

‘You said four lives,' Maura prompted, wondering how on earth Alexander could find such an arrogant, insensitive, self-centred woman even remotely attractive.

‘My own life,' Ariadne said without a blink of shame. ‘And Stasha's.'

‘I fail to see how I am ruining Stasha's life, or anyone else's life.' Maura was beginning to be bemused by the situation. Ariadne Brevoort was beyond belief. And she was also a lady in a corner. She wanted to marry Alexander and she was desperate enough to be quite open about her desire. ‘If anyone is ruining lives it is yourself,' she continued, and at the hint of compassion in her voice, Ariadne flushed scarlet. ‘You are the one conducting an adulterous affair. My husband has never asked me for a divorce nor, being a Catholic and having been married by the rites of the Catholic Church, would I agree to one if he did so.'

‘I don't believe you!' The blood was still high in Ariadne's face, but her lips were white.

‘That Alexander hasn't asked for a divorce or that I wouldn't agree to one even if he did?'

‘That Alexander hasn't asked for a divorce! You're lying! You're everything that he says you are! Cheap! Conniving!'

Maura tugged the bell-rope.

‘Mercenary! Ill-bred!'

Haines entered and Maura said smoothly, ‘Please escort Mrs Brevoort from the house.'

‘Vulgar! Uncultured! Ill-mannered!'

Haines coughed discreetly. ‘This way, madam, if you please.'

‘Inelegant! Plain! Graceless!'

The epithets continued as she was led from the room and down the corridor.

Maura stared after her, heartsick. She didn't for one moment believe that Alexander had used any of those words about her, but one thing was indisputable. Alexander preferred making love with Ariadne to making love with herself. Ariadne knew things about Alexander that only she, his wife, should know. She knew what his mouth tasted like; what the weight of his body felt like; she knew how slim-hipped and handsome he was naked.

All the pain that she had tried so hard to suppress for so many weeks, came roaring to the surface. Image after image assaulted her. Ariadne and Alexander in bed together; Ariadne and Alexander giving and receiving the joyful intimacies that once she and Alexander had exchanged. Since the moment Alexander had first embarked on his affair with Ariadne she had fought against jealousy, knowing it to be an ugly, corroding emotion. Now she could fight no more. She was swamped by it; drowning beneath it. And there was no relief. Alexander no longer loved her and she couldn't imagine ever loving anyone else.

By the end of the month the presidential election had been held and Lincoln had been returned to power. In Atlanta, General Sherman evacuated the entire city turning it over to the military, excusing his action with the words, ‘War is cruelty and you cannot refine it; the crueller it is, the sooner it will be over.' He then began to march his army southwards through Georgia to the sea.

‘And if he succeeds, he will then no doubt turn northwards through the Carolinas to join up with the Army of the Potomac outside Petersburg,' Henry said to her knowledgeably. ‘It will be a tremendous feat. Quite remarkable.'

‘And it will bring the South to the point of surrender?' Maura asked, thinking of all the hundreds rendered homeless in Atlanta, all the thousands already dead.

‘It will bring the South to its knees,' Henry said grimly. ‘It will make continuing with the war nothing short of suicide.'

At Christmas Alexander announced that he would be coming home for a few days. Maura was under no illusions as to his reasons. To continue in residence at the Fifth Avenue Hotel when his wife and child were a mere ball's throw away would be to court the kind of gossip he could well do without.

‘And besides, I see no reason why we shouldn't at least be civil to each other,' he said, hoping he sounded coolly reasonable.

‘I've never been anything less than civil to you,' Maura retorted, stung to anger by the inference that she had behaved as badly to him, as he had behaved to her.

‘It wasn't bloody civil accepting Lansdowne's invitation to sit on the Citizens'Association committee!' he flared, responding in kind.

She pressed a hand into the small of her back. She was five months pregnant now and far heavier and bulkier than she had been when six months pregnant with Felix.

‘If you had accepted a similar, earlier invitation, I wouldn't even have been asked!'

‘I didn't accept because to have done so would have been rank hypocrisy on the scale of that being exhibited by Astor and Delano!'

‘I hope you're not accusing me of hypocrisy?' she demanded, her eyes flashing.

He didn't want to accuse her of anything. He wanted a Christmas as happy as the one they had spent last year at Tarna and he couldn't have one because neither Henry nor Charlie were speaking to him, and because she was quite obviously no longer head over heels in love with him.

‘I'm accusing you of behaving worse than any suffragette,' he snapped back frustratedly. ‘By allying yourself with Lansdowne and his cronies you have openly criticized me in the worst way possible, allowing the whole world to know that as a wife you are neither obedient nor loyal!'

‘And is that worse than being faithless? At least I haven't broken any of my marriage vows!'

‘Maybe not, but neither have I asked you to keep some of them for quite a while. Perhaps over Christmas I should.' There was no mistaking the meaning behind his words and despite all her anger and all her hurt and her six-month pregnancy, desire coursed through her.