Newport: A Novel (7 page)

February 1898

Y
ou’re a drunken sot,” a female voice proclaimed, and a bucket’s worth of water splashed across Adrian Delano’s face.

“Hey!” he protested, sputtering from his horizontal position on the ground. Remaining flat on his back, he wiped his face with one hand as he tried to recall exactly where he was. Outside. Definitely outside. That was terra firma beneath him, frozen and hard, dusted with snow. The air was so cold that each breath drawn into his lungs hurt. Stray facts hammered at his foggy brain. He remembered disembarking from the S.S.
New York
in New York City hours earlier, just returned from the European tour he’d begun after last year’s graduation from Harvard Law School. That meant it must be February (although he wouldn’t even try to fathom the date).

The information was dull, but at least it made sense. He still needed to determine where he was and why he was wet.

He propped himself up on his elbows and struggled to open his eyes. An angel’s face floated across his blurred vision, its eyebrows lowered, lips pursed.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the angel said. “I saw you fall and thought that someone ought to bring you into the house before you froze to death. Now that I’m here, though, it appears you’ve swallowed enough alcohol to prevent that. Can you stand?”

Everything came together with a sobering thud. He was back at his family’s estate outside Poughkeepsie—sprawled in the front yard, to be precise. The angel dropped her bucket with an exaggerated clang and Adrian winced, finally understanding exactly what had happened.

The young woman—she was too unforgiving to be an angel—extended a hand. He grasped it and allowed her to help him to his feet. He was too cold to even entertain the notion that he should be mortified by his condition.

“A fine mess you are, Adrian Delano,” the woman said and, shocked into cognizance by the frigid early morning wind, his whirling mind placed her as well.

“Cassie? Cassie Walsh?”

“Very good. And now you’ll want a medal, I suppose.”

“You’ve grown up.” His voice grumbled through his shivers.

Cassie gave a weary sigh. “Between university and Europe, you’ve been away for a very long time.”

Cassie was the cook’s daughter, an amusing little spitfire who’d spent her childhood turning up for games of chess or backgammon in the Delano family quarters when she was supposed to be peeling
potatoes in the kitchen. She was five years younger than Adrian, and he’d actually enjoyed shielding her from her mother’s wrath, claiming he had no idea where she might be as she pressed her small self against the back of the parlor door in hiding. She’d written him once at school, an oddly solemn letter about how dull the place was without him. He’d responded with a brotherly letter or two, but nothing since November of freshman year.

He caught a glimmer of his disorderly self through her eyes and wished he were still drunk enough that it didn’t matter. “So,” he started weakly, hoping to remind her of the friends they’d once been, “who’s been saving you from scrapes since I’ve been gone?”

Her dark eyes were relentless. “Nobody,” she said. “And it doesn’t look like you’re up to the task anymore, either.”

He gave up. “Not at the moment, anyway,” he said. “Might I have a cup of tea? And would your mother have a slice of her splendid Madeira cake laid away?”

Cassie Walsh studied him for a moment. Then she turned on her heel and led him toward the servants’ entrance. He remained upright by concentrating on the swing of her thick, dark braid as she walked. A hem of vanilla-colored lace peeked from beneath her pink chenille bathrobe. Her bedroom slippers left shallow footprints in the light snow as they rounded the side of the house. The poor thing would probably catch her death of cold, and it would be his fault—one more casualty of his reckless, stupid decisions.

A dull headache started at his temple. “Damn it, Cassie. I’ve botched everything up, haven’t I.”

Her hand hovered above the doorknob. “Yes,” she said. “You have.”

He’d left the S.S.
New York
with every intention of quickly traveling
home to Poughkeepsie. A chance meeting with friends, a comradely supper in the city—even the women who’d joined them during the course of the lengthening evening—had all seemed logical at the time. His parents had expected him home for dinner, but now, in the warm kitchen of his family’s estate, the clock above the pantry showed that it was half past two in the morning. There was no point in trying to justify his actions to Cassie in the face of such damning evidence.

Instead he accepted the tea towel she presented and wiped the remaining rivulets of water from his face and hair. Then he sank into a chair at the kitchen table and propped his chin in one hand. “Very well, Cassie Walsh. There are some years between us now, but we’ve always been straight with each other. Should I cower at the thought of meeting with my father this morning?”

Cassie lit the flame beneath the kettle before standing on tiptoe to lift a teapot down from a shelf. “You’ve returned from Europe only because he ordered you home at once. What do you think?”

Adrian’s cheeks burned. Even the help knew of his disgrace. But of course they would: gossip crossed the ocean faster than any bird could fly. His biggest mistake had been believing that his stellar academic record would shield him against wagging tongues. Even he had to admit that his European achievements had had more to do with drinking and carousing than with intellect and potential. He’d suspected that fact as he’d escorted the Comptesse de-What’s-Her-Name through the theaters of Paris, ignored it while drinking his way through Rome, and embraced it thoroughly as he’d gambled away a ridiculous sum of money in London.

“I see,” he managed to say. “Well. Perhaps I’ll be off after I’ve had some tea, then. Father and I can talk later, once I’ve had the
chance to redeem myself a bit. I’ll leave a note to let my parents know I’ve returned safely to the country.”

“Off? You’ve just arrived.”

“I’m invited to a wedding in Newport this weekend, a friend of mine from Harvard. I’d planned to leave this afternoon, but perhaps it would be wise to postpone my reunion with my parents just a little longer. I’ll have my things sent.”

Cassie lifted the cover from a cake plate and there it was, the fragrant Madeira cake Adrian had craved for so long. The thought of it warmed him even more than did the steaming radiator in the corner.

He jumped as Cassie sank a knife into the cake with more vigor than necessary. She slapped a piece onto a plate and thrust a fork in his direction, tines pointed straight at his chest.

“You infuriate me,” she said.

He fell against the back of his chair, startled. “I’ve only just come home. What could I possibly have done to you?”

Her cheeks flamed red. The cake plate trembled in her hands. “You’ve got everything—wealth, education, a sure position with your father’s firm—and you don’t care. You’re willing to fritter it all away in scandals. And such scandals! Good grief. They were third-rate at best.”

The skin beneath Adrian’s collar burned hot. “I’d remember your place,” he began in a low voice.

“And I’d remember yours.” The plate clattered onto the table before him, the noise slicing through his head. Cassie spun around to the kettle, lifting it from the stove to the teapot in one smooth, easy arc. “To think I once looked up to you,” she murmured beneath her breath. “To think I once believed you might help me.”

Adrian sat frozen in his seat, longing to humble her with a few harsh words. She was insolent beyond belief.

But she was also right.

“You don’t want what I have, Cassie,” he answered quietly. “The benefits of my station come with too many expectations.”

Her back remained rigid as she poured boiling water into the teapot. “Poor Adrian Delano,” she said, although the tone of her voice did not match the words at all.

A
DRIAN SLUMPED AGAINST
the leather chair behind Bennett Chapman’s library desk, allowing its cushioned back to relieve some of the tension from his shoulders. That night’s séance had shaken him well beyond its worth.

He prided himself on planning for all possible contingencies, but nothing in the world could have prepared him for this. Cassie Walsh did not belong here. She belonged securely wedged in memory, anchored to a time passed through long ago.

He reached for his cigarette case, examining the cigarettes nestled there as if each one were a work of art. He chose precisely, lifting a lighter from the desk.

The twentieth century had been kind to her. She was older, of course, but he had long ago come to see increasing years as a gift rather than a burden. Her chin-length curls were a departure from the luxurious mane he remembered, but her eyes—those eyes!—were as deep and beautiful as the ones that still occasionally haunted his dreams. He exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke into the still air of the library, lost in the undercurrents of a life he’d once known.

Cassie Walsh—Catharine—was not his concern. He’d already
allowed the distraction of her presence to affect him adversely: he should have dictated a more thorough agreement about the séance to Jim. He would slam the door on the past and jam the deadbolt securely into place.

But Bennett Chapman was his client. He couldn’t ignore Cassie’s presence at the older man’s expense. He knew all too well that while Cassie had missed being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she more than made up for it with a silver tongue.

His wedding ring glinted in the dim light as he stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. Straightening, Adrian reached toward the telephone and his wife.

I
t’s cooler out here than I thought,” Amy said, skimming down Liriodendron’s front steps and onto the circular driveway.

Jim followed more slowly, waiting for his eyes to distinguish the flat of each step from its edge before stepping forward. He reached the bottom of the short flight and slid his spectacles up his nose. “I’ll wait if you want to fetch a shawl or something.”

“No. I’d rather freeze than go back into that place.”

He took her in from head to toe. She was indeed clad in something pale blue and flimsy. Still, he doubted that her shiver had anything to do with the temperature of the night air.

He shrugged off his dinner jacket and draped it across her bare shoulders. “Here. It looks better on you, anyway.”

Her sunny smile was thanks enough, but the Sir Galahad moment still ended all too soon as she turned and darted down the driveway.

He hurried to keep up. “Where are we going?”

“Cliff Walk. The Forty Steps at the end of Narragansett Avenue. You wouldn’t have an auto at your fingertips, would you?”

He hesitated. “It belongs to Mr. de la Noye.”

“Oh, never mind. Calling for it would take an eternity anyway. We’ll walk. It’s not quite two miles.”

He quickly computed the sum: two miles there, two miles back . . . alone in the moonlight with a girl who had the potential to make his pulse unreliable. This was luck, pure and simple.

A soft breeze lifted the blond tendrils around Amy’s face as she walked briskly toward Bellevue Avenue. Jim’s jacket, too big in all directions, threatened to swallow her whole. She tugged it more closely around her, an unconscious action that nearly sidelined his vigilance by melting his heart.

“Have you been to Newport before?” she asked as they turned onto Bellevue.

“No.”

“Cliff Walk skirts the ocean. You’ll like it. It’s one of my favorite places in this town.”

“You’ve been here before?”

Her shrug was nearly indiscernible in the fuzzy darkness. “Nope. But I get antsy if I sit around in one place for too long, and we’ve been at Liriodendron since May.”

“An invitation from Mr. Chapman, I assume.”

“Of course. It was nice of him to ask, considering we’d only met in April. I suppose the rich are more accustomed to entertaining than we mortal folk are.”

Jim mulled over this new nugget of information. Bennett Chapman hadn’t known the Walshes before April? It was now mid-June.
Even the most sentimental sap would have to question the swiftness of Cupid’s arrow.

“I can show you around Newport in the daylight, if you’d like,” Amy was saying. “I can’t believe you’ve never been here before. Boston isn’t that far away.”

“Yeah, well, my family doesn’t run in these circles.” He nodded toward the massive outline of Belcourt to his left. “Do you travel with your aunt often?”

“I live with her.” Amy picked up her pace. “I’ve always lived with her. She took me in after my parents died. My father was her brother.”

Apparently Catharine Walsh had either a soft heart or a strong sense of duty. Somehow, Jim hadn’t expected either. “Where do you two live?”

“Sacramento.” Amy stopped suddenly, posed in the middle of the sidewalk like an escaped Liriodendron statue. “You’re just chock-full of questions, Counselor. Am I on trial?”

“Not at all,” Jim said, grateful that the darkness hid his sudden blush. “Just getting to know you better, that’s all.”

A smile broke full across her face as her small hand crept into his. “Well, that’s just ducky,” she said, pulling him into a brisk walk. “I think that getting to know each other better is an awfully good idea.”

Jim shoved his free hand into his pocket, breezing past architectural splendors with scarcely a glance. Sacramento was quite a long journey to undertake just to visit someone you really didn’t know. Surely there was a life left behind, obligations dangling back in California. At least one of the Miss Walshes had to have a job that put food on the table. As for Bennett and Catharine’s engagement,
no matter how many ways he tried to calculate the days of its inception, he came up with the same answer: whirlwind.

It took a minute to realize that a woman—a pretty one at that—had just flirted with him and currently held his hand. The tips of his ears burned. Was this what practicing law did to a man? For years he’d dreamed of being the object of flirtation. Now that it seemed he actually might be, all he could do was interrogate the cuddly young lady in question.

He took a deep breath as they turned onto Ruggles Avenue. A whiff of Amy’s perfume went straight to his head, inspiring pleasant ideas that had no business being there. The press of her fingers against his was enough to make his legs unsteady. And when she turned those big eyes up toward him, it didn’t take much to imagine an invitation beckoning behind the flutter of her lashes.

Instead, more questions fell from his mouth. “Tell me about the late Mrs. Chapman. Did she just join you at the dinner table one night? Do you regularly conduct séances back in Sacramento?”

Amy dropped his hand and sped ahead. Her words floated back over her shoulder. “No, I do not regularly conduct séances back in Sacramento,” she said, and he thought she sounded more puzzled than perturbed. “Do you think I’m a quack too, Mr. Jim Reid?”

“Of course not.” She moved faster than any human he knew. The pale edge of her frock peeked out from beneath the jacket. He used it as a beacon, picking his way across the cracks of the unfamiliar sidewalk as carefully as he could.

Amy had almost reached the corner before turning to see where he was. “Are you all right, slowpoke?”

“Yes. I don’t see very well in the dark, that’s all.”

She doubled back. “You don’t?”

Jim pointed to his spectacles. “I’ve worn these for as long as I can remember. I do just fine in the daylight, but my night vision is atrocious. It’s the reason I couldn’t go to war. To be honest, I couldn’t have driven us anywhere tonight even if the car had been smack-dab in front of us.”

There. It was out. He hated mentioning his eyesight. It was one more reminder that he was less than a strapping specimen. His grandmother had always told him to thank God for his superior intellect, but women had never cared much about the workings of his fine mind. They’d always smiled indulgently at him, calling him a real pal while clinging to the muscled arms of his handsome, brickhead friends.

Amy Walsh seemed to take the information in stride. “Why didn’t you say so? I wouldn’t have left you back here on your own.”

Jim flinched. “I don’t like talking about it. In fact, I’d be much obliged if you didn’t mention my eyesight to anyone.”

“Of course.” Amy hooked her arm through his. “Why would anyone need to know?”

She brushed against him as they turned onto Ochre Point Avenue. Jim cleared his throat and tried not to think about how warm she felt against his side. Questions tickled the roof of his mouth. This time, he managed to hold his tongue.

“Okay, Mr. Lawyer,” Amy said after several minutes of silence. “You’ve had your turn. May I ask some questions now?”

He couldn’t stifle his indulgent grin. “Only if I have the right to cross-examine afterward.”

“You may examine to your heart’s content,” she said demurely, and he resisted the urge to stop in his tracks to take his own pulse.

“Are you friendly with Mr. de la Noye outside the office?” Amy asked.

He deflated a bit. Maybe this interlude was about Adrian after all.

“He’s charming,” Amy continued, squeezing the crook of Jim’s arm. “Do you know him well?”

Whether or not Amy was yet another woman intrigued by Adrian de la Noye, Jim could never be anything less than loyal to the man who’d taken such good care of him over the years. “I’ve known him practically my whole life. He’s not only a mentor, he’s part of the family.”

Her eyebrows rose. “How did that happen?”

“He and my father served together in the Second Massachusetts Infantry during the Spanish-American War. They’d already become friends when the regiment shipped out to Cuba, but then my father saved Adrian’s life at El Caney and, well, helping to look after me was Adrian’s way to repay him. I’m the youngest of our brood, you see, and Da’s health was never quite the same after the war. He died when I was twelve. Thanks to Adrian, though, I’ve always had everything I need.”

“He’s got some money, then. I thought so. Does he come from a wealthy family?”

“I couldn’t say.”

She didn’t miss a step. “Really? You don’t know his background?”

Jim shrugged. “I know his wife and children; I’ve met some of his friends and colleagues. Sure, he’s obviously well-off. But he’s always been just Adrian to me.”

“And it never occurred to you to ask questions.” The statement verged on accusatory.

Jim lengthened his stride, forcing Amy to skip to keep up with him. “No,” he said, challenging her to refute his statement. “It never did.”

“I see,” she said, deliberately dragging their pace back to its original speed. “Well, you’ve explained that relationship as best you can, I guess. I don’t suppose you can tell me how he knows my aunt?”

Up to this moment, he’d assumed he’d been the only one to notice a connection between Adrian and Catharine Walsh. He passed Amy a sideways glance. Her expression was as guileless as ever, those big blue eyes belying any concept of deviousness. She was adorable, easily the cutest little thing he’d seen in quite a while. But so were kittens, and they made him break out in hives.

“What makes you think he knows your aunt?” he asked casually.

“Don’t you think he does?”

Jim stroked her fingers, hardly aware that he was doing so. “Oh, you’re good, Amy Walsh. A natural-born lawyer.”

“Turn right at the corner,” she replied. “We’re nearly there.” She entwined her fingers through his and held on tight.

Jim reminded himself that he was here in Newport solely for business purposes.

“We’re on Narragansett Avenue,” Amy said. “The street ends at Cliff Walk. The Forty Steps are wonderful—I hope you’ll like them as much as I do.”

The breeze lifted her hair, teasing it around her graceful neck. Jim allowed his gaze to wander there. He was close enough to see that vulnerable spot near the collar of her borrowed jacket, right below her ear, a place just begging for a nuzzle.

Too many questions still dangled. How had Amy and her aunt met Bennett Chapman? Did Amy make a habit of speaking for the dead, or did Elizabeth Chapman have an exclusive agreement? And just how did Adrian know Catharine Walsh?

The answers to those questions could affect the wishes of his client in detrimental ways. Jim regretfully disengaged his hand from Amy’s.

The street ended; the ocean spread before them in a dark vista of motion. A staircase appeared as they drew closer to the sea, dropping down the side of the cliff to a stone balcony just above the water.

“Come.” Amy reclaimed Jim’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “We’ll take the steps as slowly as you want.”

But there was no need to go slowly at all. The sea air filled Jim’s lungs as they started down the steep incline, cleansing his crowded mind with salty vigor. With this entrancing young lady on his arm, his footing felt sure.

“Back around the turn of the century, servants from the summer cottages used to come here at night to play music and dance,” Amy said. “Can you imagine how lovely that must have been?”

He gazed across the star-dappled sea, straight out to the point where water met sky in a velvet union of darkness. He could see those servants. His Irish ancestors, mostly, smothered by starched uniforms and stuffy protocol during the day, free to let loose at night and dance by the ocean to the swirling pipes of home. This may not have been their native country, but it was certainly their sea. It cradled Mother Ireland, had carried their boats safely to this land of opportunity.

He could almost feel the pressure of Granny Cullen’s hand on his
shoulder as her familiar words echoed through his mind:
You’ve a good mind, boyo, but never fear to follow your heart.

Yes, there were still questions, but maybe they didn’t all need answers at the moment.

“All right, Miss Amy Walsh,” Jim said. “Let’s talk about these supernatural powers of yours. Can you read my mind?”

Her eyes met his. “Yes. But that’s just because you’re a man.”

Jim hesitated, then slid an arm around Amy’s waist. Together they studied the bright moon.