By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  ****

  Cindy Seton brought the silver Mercedes to an abrupt stop and waited impatiently for the top-hatted valet to open her door. She hated driving big cars, and she particularly hated arriving at balls unescorted. She deduced that therefore she hated Alan Seton, since he was responsible for both conditions. The door to the Mercedes was opened, and Cindy, remembering in time that her driving foot was bare, slipped into a glove-soft, high-heeled shoe, scooped up the bottom few yards of her gown of black Crêpe de Chine, and swept out of the sedan and under the raised sabers of an honor guard of soldiers in Revolutionary War uniform.

  The Great Hall of Finnesterre was ablaze with dozens of electrified candelabra whose soft, shimmering light seemed designed to enhance the almost old-fashioned paleness of Cindy's heart-shaped face and the subtle blondness of her silky hair. In a town which virtually insisted on at least a minimum depth of tan, Cindy turned heads: her paleness, strikingly beautiful as it was, labeled her as "uninvolved." It was obvious that she was not spending any time out on the water following the 12-meter yachts during the elimination trials, all who saw her agreed. Beyond that, opinions as to who she was differed.

  The hangers-on guessed that she was a hanger-on herself, one who lacked the simple decency to bother making the effort to look as if she belonged. The politicians saw at a glance that she was wealthy and therefore either was powerful or had access to someone who was. The yachting community (including the skippers and their crews, the major syndicate backers, the Race Committee, the Selection Committee, various yacht club commodores, and the vast network of worker bees and industrious ants known as the Syndicate Support Groups) knew very well who she was: Cindy Seton, wife of Alan Seton, the skipper of Shadow, one of four American yachts hoping to defend the Cup in 1983. Cindy Seton—a charmer on land; a whiny bitch at sea. Immature. Terminally bored. Not strong enough, they whispered, to be a Skipper's Wife.

  Not everyone disliked Cindy. There were those in society whose hearts overflowed for the neglected, unsung wives of the men who sailed the twelves. Mrs. Cyril Hutley, for one, liked Cindy very much, and Mrs. Cyril Hutley counted. She was wife to the heir of a Providence manufacturing dynasty, and perhaps because she was childless and Cindy was a trust-fund orphan, Mrs. Hutley had recently taken the young woman up. The imposing, middle-aged socialite spotted Cindy immediately as she wove her way uncertainly through the waltzing couples in the Great Hall, and intercepted her on the edge of the dance area.

  "Alone again, poor darling?" Mrs. Hutley cried, taking Cindy lightly in her arms and kissing her cheek. "He isn't coming, then?"

  "I don't know what he's doing," Cindy moaned. "Apparently it's still complete chaos down on the dock. Alan said the spare mast was too long or too short or some stupid thing, so they've got to add something or subtract something, I'm not sure which. All of the crew are still down at the dock, undoing things from the broken mast and putting them on the new mast. I'm sorry," she added, "but I don't think any of them will be coming. And you've worked so hard." Cindy looked around through glazed eyes, unseeing. "Everything looks so perfectly lovely."

  "Thank you, dear. It's not the America's Cup Ball, of course," she said deprecatingly, "but it's a lovely warm-up for the main event, if I do say so." She looked around contentedly. "We couldn't decide on a motif, so we thought perhaps just lots of flowers and palms. You know—a tropical look. But still … it's terribly time-consuming. This is positively my last ball."

  She squinted appraisingly at Cindy. "Your gown is marvelous, dear, but I must say you look piqued. Have you had dinner?"

  Cindy's laugh was short and bitter. "Dinner! As a matter of fact, Alan called me a little while ago. He actually wanted me to bring a dozen pizzas and a case of beer down to the dock for the crew and him."

  "He didn't! Tonight?" Mrs. Hutley squealed. "What can the man be thinking? Someone should be right here, right now, from the Shadow syndicate. I mean, really. There are dignitaries here! Ambassadors, governors, commodores, from five different countries! And it's not as though they're from banana republics. These are our allies, darling: Australia, France, Canada, Italy, and ... and ..." She struggled for the name of the fifth foreign challenger.

  "Great Britain."

  "Of course. England. It goes without saying. So what does your husband hope to achieve, internationally speaking, by his undiplomatic behavior?"

  "I suppose he hopes to win," Cindy said with a shrug.

  Cindy, even Cindy, was startled by Mrs. Hutley's complete failure to grasp the exhausting mechanics of a successful defense effort. First you had to knock out all the other competing Americans; then, having won the right to defend the Cup, you had to beat the equally successful foreign challenger. Alan was still trying to whip the other Americans, and already Cindy had gone through every boutique in Newport, dined at every restaurant, attended fêtes at every mansion, driven every mile of coastline, gone to countless teas, brunches, and cocktail parties—and all without Alan. Life had become a complete and utter bore.

  Reading the obvious chagrin on the young woman's face, Mrs. Hutley said, "Does Alan have any idea that a Cup summer should be fun?"

  "Fun? He doesn't know the meaning of the word," Cindy answered sullenly. "He has this idea that I'll be closer to the crew if I feed them pizza. I don't know why he just doesn't have me shine all their shoes and be done with it."

  "Poor dear. I do understand. After all, your picture isn't going to be splattered on the cover of every sports magazine in the country. The America's Cup is just like the Olympics. Who knew what Eric Heiden's wife—if he had a wife—looked like? Who on earth cared? You just come along with me. I'm going to find you a crushingly handsome partner for the evening."

  Mrs. Hutley gave the unhappy girl a hug, and in doing so, upset the tiara that sat precariously on her thin gray hair. The coronet was a pearl-and-diamond-encrusted token from Mrs. Hutley's great-grandfather to his wife, presented on the night she hosted her first great ball.

  "Oops! Your crown's come undone," Cindy said with a high-pitched giggle. She could not get herself under control tonight.

  "Be a dear and fix it for me, would you?" Mrs. Hutley asked.

  Cindy, shorter than her patroness, reached up to fasten the tiara more securely, exposing new expanses of firm white breast from the slippery confines of her strapless gown.

  "Perhaps we should do this some other place," Mrs. Hutley said in a low voice. "You seem to be attracting rather fierce attention, Cindy. That ... Continental gentleman can't seem to keep his eyes off you. Do you know him?" she asked, inclining her head discreetly toward a forest of Boston ferns beside the string orchestra.

  "Please hold still, for heaven's sake!" Cindy turned to look, but the man, perceiving that he was being noticed, had turned away and was swallowed up by the greenery. "No, I don't think so," she said, distracted. "This isn't working. I can't see what I'm doing."

  "Very well; I'll have it looked to." Mrs. Hutley plopped a manicured hand on top of her head. "Oh, and do stay away from the dance tent; someone told me it reeks of marijuana. Champagne, you know, can be just as much fun."

  She left Cindy alone and looking for someone to latch onto. She had arrived much later than she had planned, and it just wasn't fair. Instead of dining at the Viscountess Marchemont's pre-ball dinner, Cindy had wasted the evening waiting for Alan. Not that she was hungry, but ... she should be hungry, she realized vaguely.

  The hors d'oeuvres were outside. As was usual in such affairs, all uncouth functions—provocative dancing, eating, smoking, serious drinking—were relegated to the huge pastel-striped tents pitched over the groomed, rolling lawn. The ground floor of the gabled mansion itself was given over to more genteel occupations; if one were fond of a Strauss waltz, or graceful conversation, or merely posing, one would certainly remain inside.

  But if one were too sober for the dance tent and too drunk for the Great Hall, there was always the veranda. The veranda was an illogical afterthought to the Hutley house,
added during the height of the palazzo competition during Newport's Gilded Age. In contrast to the rambling fieldstone and clapboard of the house itself, the veranda was a massive marble affair, rigidly symmetric in the manner of Versailles. It gave the huge Victorian "cottage" an oddly schizophrenic look: whimsical and playful from the front; severe and formal from the ocean side.

  Those who gathered on the veranda under the rainbow of silk Chinese lanterns were more interested in observing than in being observed. Cindy stood there with her plate of untouched shrimp and tiny teriyaki sticks, desperately scanning the guests below her for someone she knew who was unescorted. Damn you, Alan, she thought. If you were here this wouldn't be necessary. The champagne had rushed straight to the motor control center of her brain, knocking out coordination and filling her with a lightheaded recklessness. In her exalted state she thought she could see the wind blowing the champagne bubbles over the rim of her glass and down, like a comet's tail, into the darkness of the lawn below.

  She leaned both arms on the balustrade and peered down over it. The coolness of the marble sent delicious rippling sensations through the thin fabric of her dress as she pressed into the unyielding stone. Champagne always affected her that way: it made her feel intensely erotic.

  "Careful, Cindy. You wouldn't want to pitch head over teakettle into the bushes below." The voice was cool, ironic, and not particularly cautionary.

  Chapter 2

  Cindy swung her head around, instantly hostile at the tone. "Mavis. Hello." Her glance was quick, nonchalant, and photographic, the kind of look only women can give other women. She took in, almost without looking, the sleek gown that clung to her slender waist and rounded hips. Her breasts were rounded too. It was annoying. And of course, to complement the deep tan and the white gown, Mavis wore emeralds. No other jewel interested her. This time it was a choker of immense cabochon stones set in a thick wide band of gold, and a matching bracelet.

  Cindy supposed that rubies would not have flattered Mavis Moran's deep auburn hair. But sapphires might, or diamonds, and God knew Mavis could afford them. But mixing her stones would have made Mavis just another fabulously wealthy woman in a town overflowing with them. How much more chic, Cindy thought with reluctant admiration, to be associated with one stone only. Besides, emeralds matched Mavis's eyes. She really did look radiant tonight. And then it dawned on Cindy: for the first time since her husband's death, Mavis was not wearing black.

  "I see that you're out of mourning," Cindy said.

  "And I see that you are not. Alone again?"

  "Alan will be along later," Cindy lied.

  "I doubt that. I swung through the shipyard on my way here; the crew was in the process of setting up lights around the masts. What a pity that Shadow was dismasted today. Their night won't be nearly as much fun as ours." She stood directly below a Chinese lantern whose bulb flickered loosely in its socket, from light to dark to light again. Mavis reached up and with gingerly little nips tightened it.

  Cool, tall, and detached. Cindy was not tall and she disliked women who were. She found Mavis Moran positively Amazonian in her bearing; all she lacked were the bow and arrows. Something in her reminded Cindy of Alan: a kind of confidence that she found unacceptable. Irritated anew, she said, "I can't understand why Alan doesn't just have the shipyard do the work."

  Mavis laughed, and this time Cindy detected condescension.

  "Money," she answered. "Have you priced out a yard hand lately? If Alan Seton can get the job done by coaxing his ten willing crew, I'm sure all will be forgiven. After all, there's an undeniable cachet in picking up the tab for an America's Cup campaign all by oneself. Unfortunately, little economies like tonight's are sometimes necessary."

  "Alan likes to have total control of a program," Cindy said vaguely in reply, but her thoughts were on the evening before, when she'd been trying on her gown with different bits of jewelry before a full-length mirror. Alan had walked into the bedroom, stopped, and roared, "What? Another gown? We'll be in the poorhouse before the August trials." Cindy had answered, "Don't be tiresome, Alan. Pearls, or not?" and thought no more about his remark. Until now.

  Cindy took a cigarette from a gold case in her bugle-beaded handbag and tapped it on the marble balustrade. "What do you suppose," she asked casually, "is the absolute minimum it costs to campaign a yacht in an America's Cup competition this season?" Alan, as a rule, told her nothing. But Mavis would know. Mavis and her husband had been looking for new ways to spend money; just before her much older husband died, the two had thrown in with one of the other American syndicates.

  "More millions than I want to admit," Mavis answered, giving Cindy a curious look.

  "Really."

  Millions? When all along Cindy had been thinking in terms of mere hundreds of thousands? Millions? For what, dear God? For a sixty-foot aluminum shell that you couldn't sit down and take a pee in? Alan was insane. Truly, certifiably insane. One thing was certain: it was going to be so much simpler, leaving a penniless lunatic. "Well!" she said, laughing, trying to cover her shock, "one certainly doesn't get much bang for one's buck nowadays."

  Mavis ignored that. "Why does Alan spurn help, Cindy? If a Vanderbilt wasn't too proud to form a syndicate, why should Alan Seton be?"

  At her mention of the two famous names, heads near them swiveled, avid to hear more. It was July, and Newport was well into the throes of Cup hysteria. Normally decent people, everyone from busboys to the mayor, were becoming shameless eavesdroppers and gossips, desperate for the latest scuttlebutt. Spies, showoffs, and reporters were everywhere.

  "I've told you," Cindy answered, oblivious to the blatantly curious looks, "Alan likes to call the shots." Was there nothing else to talk about? She'd love, for instance, to have asked Mavis who created her emerald choker; it was absolutely fabulous. The child in her wanted to reach out and caress the smooth, unfaceted surfaces of the stones. "Mavis, I'm dying to know—"

  But Mavis was shushing her to silence. Throwing two gaping men a withering look—Mavis was taller, after all, than either of them—she led Cindy by the arm down the steps of the veranda and onto the lawn. "Let's get away from the crush. We can't talk here."

  Leading Cindy purposefully through the crowd, Mavis acknowledged greetings with royal detachment, discouraging familiarity. At Cindy's insistence they paused at a linen-covered bar to refill her glass. By the time they reached a quiet little nook downwind of the chattering guests, Cindy was feeling less panic and more tipsy anticipation.

  They stopped at a low stone bench, and Mavis said, "This is good. Sit here next to me."

  Much as she hated to admit it, it gave Cindy a sense of pleasure to be ordered about that way. She slid shyly into place next to Mavis, snugly sheltered from the damp ocean breeze. She had absolutely no idea why Mavis had singled her out this way but waited with naive pleasure for what was to follow. Cindy loved surprises.

  "Cindy," Mavis began, "has Alan ever spoken of me?"

  She hadn't expected that. "I ... only once. At the time he seemed upset." Which was an understatement. His exact words were, "That rich, conniving, devious, ball-busting ….!" When Cindy had interrupted him to ask what all the screaming was about, Alan had answered cryptically, "Haven't you heard? Mavis Moran is shopping for a new falcon for her wrist." And that had been that.

  To Mavis, Cindy said, "He never told me what it was about," which was the truth.

  Mavis grimaced. "No. I don't suppose he would. The fact is, my husband had always been a Cup fanatic; he'd contributed to several campaigns before this one. After I married him I became interested myself. That was during the Ted Turner years; one could hardly not be interested," Mavis added with a sudden, total grin of sly good humor. Even in the near-blackness, it was obvious that her teeth were straight and white and added to her classic Irish beauty. "Of course," Mavis added amiably, "you're too young to remember the phenomenal impact Turner had on the public, the media, the sport itself."

  "Too young! That was less
than ten years ago. How young do you think I am?"

  Mavis's laugh was low and lovely. "Well ... twenty-two? Twenty-three?"

  "I'm twenty-seven!" Cindy said with the huffiness of a thirteen-year-old accused of being a preteen. (The truth was, there was a chronic whine in her voice which would always label her preteen.)

  Mavis smiled. "Darling, don't be indignant about it; be grateful. Over a year ago," she continued, "sometime after my husband's heart attack, we—I—approached Alan with the idea of backing his campaign. All the syndicates were still in flux; we wanted to go where we felt most effective. We thought—I still do think—that Shadow might be the fastest of the American twelves. Possibly Alan is even the best skipper," she added magnanimously. "But Alan refused our help, not very politely, I might add, and Bill decided to take his money over to the competition. It was Bill's last campaign."

  And mine too, thought Cindy. The bubbles in her champagne were flattening, and so were her spirits. She felt headachy and weary of all the Cup talk, and she wanted, more than anything, to go home. "Is that what you wanted to tell me?" she asked Mavis.

  "Obviously not," Mavis snapped, and then smoothed her voice to a confidential purr. "I do understand Alan wanting to run the show himself. But it's become obvious to everyone that he's wearing himself—and his crew—into the ground doing it. It certainly will hurt Shadow's performance on the water."

  She rested her hand on Cindy's thin, bare shoulders, so much more fashionably angular than her own, and said quietly, "Were you aware that Alan's group are the only Americans who've been refused credit by the local chandlery? The food supply houses? The sailmakers? How long do you think Alan can continue trying to pay for it all himself, and on a cash-and-carry basis?"