by Jessica Bird
"Interesting name."
She smiled, remembering the story.
"My great-great-grandmother, who was from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, hated the idea of summering in Newport after her marriage. Her family had always spent July and August in the Adirondacks and she regarded the lack of crisp clear air at the ocean's edge as a respiratory insult."
"I can think of some worse ones," he said dryly.
"She was a woman with high standards." Grace looked over at him, pleased that they were talking about something other than the logistics of the job he was doing for her. Since the night he'd spent in her bed, she'd had the impression he'd deliberately kept the conversation professional. "After much cajoling, and some serious architectural planning, my great-great-grandfather presented her with a set of house plans. She indicated that if the place lived up to its potential, she might be willing to come seaside. Two years later, in 1879, the builders were finished, she was indeed willing, and the mansion had its name."
They turned onto Bellevue Avenue, passing Marble House and the Breakers, the former summer homes of the Vander-bilt family that were now open to the public through the Preservation Society of Newport County. A quarter of a mile later, Wilhelm pulled off onto a circular driveway and halted the car in front of a three-story mansion.
Grace hesitated before looking up at the towering white house with its terraces; columns, and porches. It was the first time she'd been back since the funeral. Then, she'd been distracted and overwhelmed by the guests offering their condolences. Now, in the quiet, she could feel the absence of her father much more keenly.
"Your mother is awaiting your arrival anxiously,” Wilhelm said while opening the car door for her.
Grace stepped out and slowly approached Willings's formal entrance. Five white marble steps led up to a pair of massive, wrought iron and glass doors that were set inside a columned portico. Above the doors, dangling down from the ceiling on a thick black chain, there was an old-fashioned, heavy lantern still lit by beeswax candles at night. A pair of boxwood topiaries in stone urns framed the doors and Grace recalled having decorated them with red, white, and blue ribbons on the Fourth of July when she was young.
Wilhelm walked by, holding some of their luggage and glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. Smith was close on his heels, carrying the rest of their things easily and thus breaking one of the butler's hard-and-fast rules. The old man had never been comfortable with guests being self-sufficient and had long disapproved of Grace's own independence. He regarded her unpacking for herself or merely driving into town to get her own groceries as a failure in the natural order of things. His Old World ways were part of the reason she loved him.
Grace followed the men through the front doors and, as the sound of their footsteps echoed through the vast foyer, she tried to see her home through Smith's eyes. The typical response of people as they came inside for the first time was of awe and wonder and the architects had planned for just such a reaction. There were marble fireplaces on either side of the hall with enormous gilded mirrors hanging above them. Massive brass doors opened to the formal dining room and a parlor but neither they nor the glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling were the main attraction. Ahead, rising up like the wings of a great bird, was a bifurcated marble staircase. Among all the home's details, the stairway, with its two arms joining together to form the second floor's landing, had been photographed the most.
She glanced over at Smith. He wasn't looking at the art or the architectural details. He was marking the doors and windows, and she smiled to herself. For all the interest he was showing the decor, they could have walked into a dim cave, and she liked the fact that he wasn't impressed.
As she shrugged off her coat, she saw her father's stand of walking sticks in the corner. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, some ivory handled and thin, some thick and gnarled as tree roots. She could remember her father taking them on their walks around the grounds, a stylish ornament he would use to point out flowers that interested him or boats on the horizon.
Wilhelm was taking her coat just as her mother came in from the parlor. Carolina was dressed in a pale cream suit, looking elegant as a tea rose.
"Darling, how was your trip." As they embraced, her mother's attention was on Smith. "Grace, won't you introduce us?"
"This is John Smith. Er—John, this is my mother, Carolina Woodward Hall."
Her mother offered him a thin hand and a thinner smile. "We don't know many Smiths. It is s-m-i-t-h, correct? "
He nodded.
"Yes, I had a feeling it wasn't with a 'y' and an ‘e’," she murmured. "Didn't I see you at the Congress Club recently?"
"Maybe."
"Whose guest were you?"
Grace interrupted. "When are Jackson and Blair coming?"
Turning to her daughter, Carolina said, "They should be arriving any minute. We will be ten for dinner tonight, with Mr. Cobith, the Raleighs, and the Blankenbakers. Marta is working on a fabulous roast beef."
There was a pause and Carolina glanced back at Smith, fixing her eyes on his leather jacket. "We dress for dinner here."
When he neither looked away, nor showed any reaction, her mother's brow rose.
Grace jumped in again. "I think we better get settled. Why don't I show John to his room."
"He is in the green suite."
With Wilhelm and Smith behind her, Grace headed up the staircase. On the upper landing, she asked Wilhelm to take her bags to her room and took Smith down the hall in the opposite direction.
When she opened the door to a masculine room steeped in dark greens and wood, he didn't even bother looking inside.
"Where are you sleeping?" he asked.
"At the other end of the house. This is the guest wing."
“How far away?"
"Down the hall, take a left, go past the stairs. I'm the corner room, ocean side."
"Show me."
Grace noticed that he kept his bags with him as they went to her room.
"Who's across the hall from you?" he asked as she opened her door.
"I don't know. Probably no one."
"Then I'm taking that room."
"But you can't—"
His cocked eyebrow stopped her. "Unless you want me sleeping on your floor?"
When she shook her head vigorously, he walked into the other room.
As his bags landed with a thump, Grace tried to corral her anxiety into a manageable bundle of snakes. It was highly unlikely her mother would venture outside the new first floor master suite to check exactly who was sleeping where.
Although it wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility.
Grace went into her own room, feeling frustrated at her mother. At Smith. Most of all at herself. In the grand scheme of things, she had to wonder why she was so scared of giving a guest of hers another room to sleep in. She was thirty now, for Chrissakes. When was she going to be enough of an adult to stand up to her mother?
If she kept on her current course, she was going to be gumming soft foods and using a walker before she found her backbone with that woman.
As Grace looked around, she felt time contract. She'd spent some, if not all, of every summer at Newport and the room hadn't changed in thirty years. The drapes and wallpaper were the same pale yellow they'd always been and the furniture hadn't been moved since she'd graduated from the nursery into her "grown-up room" when she was three. The windows, which overlooked the ocean and the gardens, still let in the light in a familiar pattern across the floor. And the French doors, which opened out onto the terrace, made that comforting, chatty noise as the offshore breeze came up against the house.
Grace opened one of the doors and stepped onto the second-story porch, which ran around the house. Down below, past the gardens and the lawn, the ocean rushed and retreated at the shore. It was a sound she associated with the house, with her room. With happy times.
When she heard footsteps behind her, she stiffened.
"I
just wish you weren't so conspicuous—" She turned. "Jack!"
Grace laughed out loud and threw her arms around her friend. She was pulling back, a wide smile on her face, when she caught Smith watching the two of them from the hall with narrowed eyes.
"Er, John," she said, stepping back into the room. "I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine, Jack Walker."
Jack smiled in the direction of the doorway but then cocked an eyebrow. "Well, this is a pleasure. How are you doing, stranger?"
Tensions rose as Smith came in from the hall and the men shook hands. As they squared off at each other, she remembered that night at the Congress and wondered what had sparked such friction between them.
"Where's Blair?" she asked, hoping to diffuse the testosterone surging in the air.
Although if that was the goal, she'd probably have better luck giving the two of them a manicure and a makeover.
Jack looked over at her. "Blair cracked a molar and needed a root canal. She stayed behind to have a bonding experience with her endodentist and a hell of a lot of Novocain. She'll be here, on Motrin, sometime tomorrow."
Grace grimaced. "Sorry to hear that."
"And Ranulf?"
"Not here. Busy." The words rushed out of her mouth. "He's been very busy. He's in Europe. Being busy."
Oh, that sounded believable, she thought, remembering wryly that there must have been a time when she'd been articulate.
Jack gave her a wink and slipped a casual arm around her shoulders. "It's just as well. What they don't know, can't hurt them."
Grace watched as Smith stalked out of the room.
It was going to be a hell of a long weekend, she thought.
chapter
15
By the time drinks were served in the library, night had settled in and the temperature had dropped. To cut the chill, Wilhelm had started a fire in the fireplace and Grace stood with her back to the flames, sipping a chardonnay.
The room was one of her favorites in the house because, unlike most of the others, it wasn't cavernous. The walls were covered with bookcases of leather bound volumes and she'd always liked the way the gold lettering on the spines glowed in the firelight. Armchairs and couches, covered in dark red silk, were stationed strategically by the windows for reading and heavy velvet drapes fell to the floor in great sweeps. A dark ruby oriental rug added to the jewel-like color scheme.
When she was younger, she'd been convinced it was a wizard's room, relocated from some fantastic place.
Jack came over to her, looking handsome in a black suit. With his patrician features and hooded eyes, Grace wondered why she'd never been attracted to him. Plenty of women were. Most women, as a matter of fact.
He smiled at her. “So, your friend doesn't say much, does he."
Grace glanced over at Smith, who was leaning up against the doorjamb across the room. He was wearing all black, though not a suit, and in the dim light, his eyes seemed especially dark.
She offered Jack a smile. "You just don't know him."
"And I'm not in a big rush to. As dinner companions go, that guy makes a cold draft seem damn appealing."
"You know, I’m really looking forward to seeing Blair tomorrow," she said, eager to stop talking about Smith. "Tell me, when are you two tying the knot?"
Jack laughed and took a drink from his bourbon. "Changing the subject. Good defensive maneuver and a particularly well-chosen topic, too. Shall we talk about the weather?"
Grace laughed. "You are going to ask her, aren't you?"
Her friend's eyes narrowed as he looked down into his drink, swirling it casually. "I’ll get around to it at some point. Who knows? Maybe even sooner rather than later."
"What are you waiting for? "
An elegant shrug was followed by a wicked smile. "The planets need to be properly aligned. My moon needs to be ascending, but for the past thirty years or so, it's been sinking fast. Or maybe it's the other way around."
"She's a lovely woman."
"I know. And she puts up with me which makes her a saint." Jack looked up. "Just don't ply me with the whole marriage is fabulous routine. My mother's been using that line a lot lately and it's losing its punch."
Grace raised her glass to her lips and remained silent, thinking that would be the last thing she'd tell anybody.
When Marta announced dinner was served, Jack raised his elbow and she took his arm. As they walked through to the dinning room, she felt Smith's eyes boring into her back. She had to fight the urge to wheel around and tell him his intensity was making her nervous. She was in her own home, among friends, for heaven's sake. It wasn't like Hugh Blankenbaker was going to rush at her with his salad fork or something.
Although, as soon as they sat down, she had other things to worry about.
In the middle of the soup course, her mother's voice cut through the conversation like a scythe. "Now tell me, Mr. Smith, what do you do?"
Everyone stopped talking and all eyes went to John, except for Grace's. She looked down at her plate, wondering if there was a way to deflect her mother's attention.
She could always bring up her impending divorce, she thought wryly.
"I'm in the service industry," John said, sounding bored.
"What kind of service do you offer?"
Grace answered before he could. "He helps with organizational development. I asked him to come to the Foundation and work on team building after Father's death."
Carolina's eyes shifted down the table and held her daughter's for a long moment. "Well, if you must. Although I still can't understand why you don't let Mr. Lamont run things. Your father had the highest confidence in him."
Maybe so, Grace felt like tossing back, but he didn't leave the guy in charge, did he?
Instead, she smiled graciously around tight lips. "Thank you again for the suggestion."
As the conversation surged again, Grace met Smith's eyes across the table.
Jack nudged her arm. "So?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What are you auctioning off for the Gala this year?"
Before she could answer him privately, the others at the table quieted down again and looked her way. She pinned a smile on her face and did a little PR dance.
"We've relocated the event this year. We're having it in the atrium of the Hall Building instead of at the Plaza. It's going to be spectacular in that space, assuming we can get the acoustics right."
Mr. Blankenbaker leaned forward while pushing his glasses higher onto his little nose. "What is the auction piece?"
"We're trying to decide," she answered.
And it's a bitch of a choice. Between nothing and nada.
"Would you be interested in Copley's portrait of Nathaniel Walker?"
Grace slowly lowered her spoon to her plate, sure she'd heard him wrong. "Excuse me?"
"John Singleton Copley's painting of Nathaniel Walker. It was done in 1775, I believe. Right before the battle of Concord in Massachusetts, wherein Walker was captured by the British and spirited away to Fort Sagamore. Surely you recall the history.''
"Of course, I do. And the Foundation would absolutely be interested in the painting."
Mr. Blankenbaker nodded to Jack. "Your ancestor has been hanging over our fireplace for a rather long time. My wife purchased it from your father."
There was a subtle disapproval in the tone, as if the man couldn't fathom why such a family treasure would have fallen out of a Walker's hands.
"I remember when he sold it," Jack muttered, obviously sharing Blankenbaker's sentiment.
The man nodded, acknowledging their accord on the matter.
"Well, Walker looks outstanding in our parlor but my wife, she just keeps acquiring things whilst our wall space remains constant. I think donating the portrait to the Foundation would meet with her approval. Especially if you end up being the buyer."
"If it comes up for sale, he will come home with me. Whatever the price." Jack's smile did not temper the fierce light in his eyes.<
br />
Blankenbaker turned to Grace. "Tomorrow, you shall come to Edge Water and view the painting. I must say, it needs to be cleaned. He's rather dark, but it's an excellent example of Copley's early work, before he went across the pond and made a name for himself in London."
As she thanked the man, Jack leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Does this mean you don't want that old pair of long underwear I've got in my closet? Word has it they were worn by Benedict Arnold."
Rolling her eyes, Grace elbowed him, then looked up.
Smith was staring at her from across the table, his eyes stern. She felt as though he were offended in some way and thought maybe it was her mother who had put him out of joint. God knew, Carolina Woodward Hall had done that to plenty of people.
As she took a drink from her water glass, Grace wondered whether her father and Smith would have gotten along and decided they probably would have. Cornelius had liked strong people and Smith was certainly the dominant type. She doubted, however, that her father would have approved of Grace's attraction to the man.
When she'd confessed the poor state of her marriage to him a couple of months before his death, his response had been emphatic. He'd told her she should immediately go home and make things right with her husband. He took great pains to stress the international significance of the von Sharone family and point out all the good that came out of her having a royal title. Of having royal children. When she'd pressed him, explaining how unhappy she was, he'd glossed over the fact that she didn't love the man she was sleeping next to at night. In his eyes, he felt that she'd made a commitment to a worthy man and had better live up to it.
Her father had disappointed her that day. But she'd gone back to Ranulf.
Grace looked over at the portrait of Cornelius that hung on the wall behind the head of the table. He stared out of the frame sternly, his dark red hair brushed off his autocratic forehead, his eyes hooded, judging.
No, he wouldn't have approved of the way she felt about Smith. Not at all.
* * *
After dinner was over, and the party had dispersed, Smith saw Grace to her bedroom and went across the hall. Pacing around the room he'd commandeered, he was not a happy man.
