“There’s bound to be curiosity about the newest Bennett bride,” Geoffrey mused.
“Children hiding in the trees?”
“More likely some of the ex-slaves who remained on the island after the war and continued working Bennett land. It’s happened all over the South. They get a shack, a bag of beans, and a few coins if they’re lucky. Almost as though they’d never been freed.”
“Surely not.” Prudence knew next to nothing about the lives of men and women who worked from sunup to sundown to put a crust of bread in their children’s mouths and a patchwork of rags on their backs. She’d grown up in a household of well-paid and well-treated servants whose loyalty to her family was real and unquestioned. Casually cruel exploitation on a grand scale was something she had never witnessed and could not imagine.
“Eleanor’s father bought the island with the express intention of building an estate on it that would rival anything his competitors could come up with. This mania for constructing Fifth Avenue palaces has infected the entire Four Hundred. New York City isn’t big enough for them anymore.”
Prudence rarely questioned Geoffrey’s arsenal of knowledge. His network of acquaintances and informants was both broad and deep, his encyclopedia of facts seemingly boundless. “What does that have to do with what Eleanor believes is happening to her?”
“Only that when Philip Dickson purchased Bradford Island, he took advantage of the near-bankruptcy of the family that had owned it for over a hundred years. Plenty of other Southerners reclaimed the lands that were confiscated from them during the war. By hard work they’ll manage to hold on to them this time and eventually edge their way back to prosperity. It was unfortunate for the Bennett family that their fate fell into the hands of Teddy’s father. He’s the worst kind of Southerner, Prudence. A man who believes as firmly in his right to do nothing for the people who depend on him as he does in the sun’s promise to rise in the east every morning.” Geoffrey paused for a moment. “I asked a few questions before we left New York.”
Of course he had.
“The single concession Philip Dickson agreed to was that the Bennett family would be allowed to continue to live at Wildacre for as long as they could pay the taxes on it. If they ever fail to meet that obligation, the plantation house and its immediate acreage will devolve to Dickson for whatever sum is due. It was a crafty bargain on Dickson’s part.”
“And Wildacre is far enough away so the two families never have to lay eyes on one another?”
“On the far northern shore of the island.”
“Out of sight, out of mind,” Prudence said. “Except that when Eleanor’s father began to build his mansion, they had to be curious.”
“It’s not every day a rich Yankee invades with money instead of an army.”
She hadn’t expected the bitterness that soured his voice and darkened his eyes to unreadable black pits.
“I’d say every man, woman, and child on the island is obsessed with the Yankee bride. Think about it for a moment, Prudence. They all know she’s her father’s only child, and that Philip Dickson is not a young man. Sooner rather than later she’ll be mistress of Bradford Island, but as a Bennett. Like you, I don’t think she’s in any danger, but I do believe she’s going to have to get used to spending her every waking moment under constant scrutiny.”
“Poor Eleanor. I don’t think I could stand it.”
CHAPTER 2
Prudence slept late but fitfully the night after the Dicksons entertained Teddy Bennett’s family for dinner at Seapoint. She’d had enough wine to doze off quickly when she climbed into bed shortly before eleven o’clock, but it was also enough to wake her several times out of restless dreaming. Once she thought she heard voices echoing through the night air, but she couldn’t make out who they might be, and finally decided they existed only in her tense, restive mind.
She coaxed herself back to sleep by picturing Eleanor in her wedding gown, a stunning confection of white silk and Valenciennes lace, the veil so light and fine it would float cloudlike around the bride’s delicate features as she walked toward her groom. They’d had such a wonderful time together during the fittings, as seam by seam and layer by layer the dress became exactly what Eleanor envisioned. Prudence hadn’t had to exaggerate when she told her friend she had never seen anything more beautiful.
When the knocking on her bedroom door woke her, Prudence couldn’t at first remember where she was. Strong morning sunlight streamed across her bed and a breeze of sea salt and honeysuckle perfumed the air. From off in the distance came the rhythmic swooshing sound of a rotary mower making its way back and forth through the lush green grass of the rear lawn. Then she remembered. Geoffrey had said they would scythe or mow the grass a full two days before the wedding. Any closer to the date and clouds of mosquitos and midges would be buzzing and biting around their ankles as they processed across the new stubble to the stone chapel where Eleanor and Teddy were to say their vows.
“Prudence?” Eleanor’s mother stepped hesitantly into the room. “Aren’t you girls awake yet? It’s nearly eight o’clock.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Dickson. I must have overslept. Too much good company last night.” Prudence struggled to sit up, unbraided hair tumbling over her shoulders.
“Isn’t Eleanor with you? She’s not in her bed. I thought for sure she’d come in to spend a girls’ night giggling and gossiping until dawn.” Abigail Dickson frowned and set down the jewelry box she carried. She walked across the room and out onto the covered porch, shading her eyes against the sun. “Eleanor!” she called, twirling left and then right to sight down the length of the second-floor veranda. “She knows I don’t like her to walk on the beach alone without first telling someone where she’s going.”
A maid carrying a morning tray of hot coffee and biscuits wrapped in a white linen napkin edged through the open bedroom door.
“Never mind,” Abigail Dickson said. “You and I can have a nice chat while we’re waiting.” She poured coffee into two gold-rimmed cups while the maid helped Prudence into her dressing gown. “That’s all for now, Lilah. You can come back later to dress Miss Prudence.”
The maid closed the door softly behind her.
It was on the tip of Prudence’s tongue to tell Eleanor’s mother that she hadn’t seen her daughter since they’d parted in the hallway late last night, but she caught herself in time. Wherever her friend had gone this morning she’d obviously wanted a few private moments before being engulfed once again in last-minute wedding preparations.
And Eleanor certainly deserved it. She’d smiled and nodded her way through a dinner that Prudence had found increasingly uncomfortable as course succeeded course and the conversation faltered and grew progressively more stilted and constrained. Teddy’s two younger sisters, both unmarried and edging into irreversible spinsterhood, had seemed so awed by their surroundings that they’d said very little and rarely lifted their eyes from their plates. His father and younger brother radiated a subdued anger that seethed closer to the surface of their self-control with every glass of wine they drank. By the time the ladies adjourned to the parlor, leaving the men to their brandy and cigars, Prudence had exhausted her reserve of politely inoffensive topics. Fortunately, Abigail Dickson could chatter on for hours about absolutely nothing.
Now she was holding out the black velvet jewelry case she’d carried into the room. “This is what my beautiful Eleanor will wear with her wedding gown,” she said, opening the case to display a many-coiled rope of matched pearls nestled around a large diamond clasp. “They belonged to my mother and my grandmother before her. They each wore them on their wedding day, and so did I. Now it’s Eleanor’s turn.” Tears sparkled in Abigail’s eyes. She dashed them away with a lace-trimmed handkerchief and spilled the pearls out onto the small table at which they’d sat to drink their coffee. The diamond clasp flashed like lightning as it caught the brilliant Georgia sunlight.
“They’re magnificent,” Prudence declared, runni
ng a forefinger along the strand of satiny white pearls.
“And this is for you, my dear,” Abigail said, handing a small robin egg blue Tiffany box to Prudence. “Your maid of honor gift, but also an expression of our appreciation for the years of friendship you and Eleanor have shared. Open it.”
A pair of exquisite pearl and diamond earrings twinkled up at Prudence. Tears misted her vision.
“We’re a sight, aren’t we?” Abigail laughed, handkerchief to her eyes again. “I’m so happy for her.” Unspoken was the apprehension every mother felt on handing her daughter over to a husband whose control of her would go unchallenged once the vows were exchanged. “Her father and I couldn’t have found Eleanor a better husband if we’d picked him out ourselves.”
Prudence glanced toward the door leading onto the porch, sipped her coffee, and wondered where Eleanor had gone. And why. Two days ago she’d been afraid of unfriendly eyes watching her from the live oaks. Had something changed? Something happened that she hadn’t shared with her friend? Surely, she wouldn’t have walked into that forest of misshapen trees by herself? Not in the dark, and not this morning, either, Prudence decided. She was probably on the beach, just as Abigail had said, out of sight from the house, tiptoeing barefoot through the shallows.
Prudence decided to do her best to distract Eleanor’s mother until her errant daughter returned. “You’re certainly responsible for their having met.”
“I suppose you’re right. If Philip hadn’t bought Bradford Island as a place to get away from the dreadful New York winter, they might never have been introduced. Not that they ever were, of course. Properly introduced, I mean. I’m sure Eleanor has told you the story.” Without waiting for an answer, Abigail trilled on. “Philip hadn’t met any of the Bennetts during the negotiations for the sale of the island. Hadn’t wanted to, actually, since their situation was precarious.”
“Bankrupt, is what Eleanor said.”
“My dear husband does not get enjoyment from the spectacle of another man’s misfortune,” Abigail explained. “So he left everything to the lawyers and the bankers.”
Geoffrey had had a harsher and more realistic opinion of why the transaction was handled the way it was. In his view, when men like Philip Dickson reached a certain pinnacle of financial power they preferred hiring surrogates to do the type of wrangling, bargaining, and other dirty work that had gotten them where they were in the first place.
“Eleanor has always loved to ride. She’s in Central Park nearly every morning when the weather is fine. So one of the things her father impressed on the architects was the necessity to have decent stables large enough for riding stock as well as carriage horses. You should have heard the arguments, Prudence. I hardly understood a word of them myself, but Eleanor and her father knew exactly what was needed.” Abigail paused for a breath and a sip of coffee.
“We visited the stables yesterday,” Prudence said, thinking that was another answer to where Eleanor might have gone this morning. If she wasn’t on the beach, she’d probably ridden out just as the sun was coming up. “They’re as spectacular as everything else on the estate.”
“Except for the wretched insects.” Abigail shuddered. “It’s all right as long as there’s a good breeze blowing in from the ocean, but when the wind shifts or drops entirely, they’re unbearable.”
“You were telling me how Eleanor and Teddy met.” Prudence wondered how different Mrs. Dickson’s version would be from what her friend had already confided.
“So romantic. And very inappropriate. Eleanor had gone out before breakfast and refused to allow one of the grooms to accompany her. She’d ridden along the shore and at some point decided she wanted to wade in the ocean. So she dismounted, took off her boots, and walked along in the surf. But she hadn’t knotted the reins around her hand. When something spooked her horse, off it went. She said it bolted so quickly and galloped so fast she hadn’t a prayer of catching up to it. Being Eleanor, she continued walking along the sand in her bare feet. Can you imagine, Prudence?”
“I can.”
Eleanor had a way of ignoring convention when it suited her that was both engaging and slightly scandalous. It was one of the traits the two young women shared that endeared them to each other.
“When Teddy came along leading her horse behind him, she didn’t know who he was, of course. But by the time he’d accompanied her safely to the house they were talking a blue streak and laughing to beat the band. He was the first Bennett any of us had ever met.”
Absent from Abigail’s tale was Eleanor’s account of a wild, splashing ride through Atlantic shallows, horses and riders alike glorying in the speed of the run and the feel of the spray against their skin.
“And then he followed her to New York,” Prudence prompted.
“He did. We went back early, before Christmas, because it was obvious what his intentions were, long before he declared them. Philip was opposed to the match for various reasons I shan’t go into, and he thought if he separated them, especially during the height of the social season, Eleanor would forget all about this odd Southerner. And he her. But they refused to remain apart. Before we knew it, Teddy was at our door, making his case for why he should be allowed to court our precious daughter. He was persistent, and eventually he won Philip over. Or rather, Eleanor did. She’s always been able to wrap her father around her little finger.” Abigail took a sip of cold coffee and grimaced. “Now I’m starting to get just the least little bit annoyed,” she said, sweeping the rope of pearls into its velvet-covered case. She stepped out onto the veranda again, searching the beach for a slender figure dawdling along the shore.
Trying not to be obvious about it, Prudence looked quickly for a note that might have been slipped under her door or left on her dressing table when, she presumed, Eleanor decided not to wake her before going out. Nothing. “I’m sure she’ll be back any moment now.”
Abigail, a distracted frown puckering her forehead, patted her on the arm as she left the room.
The maid who brought a pitcher of hot water for her morning wash a few minutes later found Prudence already dressed, hair tidied into a loose bun, boots buttoned, sunhat in hand.
The maid wasn’t sure, but yes, she thought Mr. Hunter might still be in the breakfast room.
Prudence sped down the stairs with the agility born of having left her hated stays on the floor of the armoire.
Eleanor’s mother had said she was growing annoyed, but Prudence had begun to worry.
* * *
“You don’t suppose something’s happened to her, Geoffrey?”
“We’ll start in the stables,” he answered. “You’re certain her bed hasn’t been slept in? She didn’t just pull the covers up herself this morning?”
“I checked before coming downstairs,” Prudence told him, waving off the plate of scrambled eggs he held out to her. “The covers look just the way mine did last night. Turned down neatly, ready to climb into. But nobody slept in them. I’m sure of it. Her night clothes were folded over the back of a chair, slippers laid out in front of them.”
“And you don’t think Mrs. Dickson noticed that?”
Prudence shook her head. “I think she poked her head in the doorway, saw the bed was empty, and assumed Eleanor had come to my room. I don’t believe she took the time to wonder if there was another possibility.”
“Could she have slipped away to meet Teddy?”
Prudence thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not in the middle of the night. Eleanor can be impulsive, but she wouldn’t do anything that might worry either of her parents.”
“Perhaps she was having second thoughts about the wedding. Decided to go somewhere quiet where no one would think of looking for her until she worked it out.”
“She would have said something to me. And she wouldn’t have left the grounds in the dark by herself. She really believed there was someone, or several someones, watching her. Spying on her from the live oaks. I wish you could have seen her f
ace when she asked if I felt their eyes on me, too. She was frightened of those woods, Geoffrey.”
“Then your first guess is probably the right one. She’s gone out for an early morning ride and probably assumed she’d be back before anyone in the family was awake and up. The horse could have gone lame, she might have been thrown, or she’s just lost track of time.” Geoffrey smiled reassuringly at her.
By the time they stepped out onto the flagstone terrace on the ocean side of Seapoint, Prudence almost believed him.
* * *
The stable hand who was mucking out the stalls was positive Miss Eleanor hadn’t been there that morning. “No, sir,” he said, leading them to where her mare stood placidly pulling fresh hay from its feed box. “This horse ain’t been out yet today.”
The perfectly groomed animal bore no traces of a late night or early morning ride, hide gleaming from the curry comb, hoofs devoid of caked-on mud, mane lying flat and unsnarled against its neck.
Geoffrey didn’t ask if any other horses were missing, but Prudence watched his eyes sweep across the row of boxed stalls, then return to meet hers. It was too early to pose the kind of questions that might set the staff to gossiping about why Miss Eleanor wasn’t where she was supposed to be. And where she’d gotten herself off to.
“She’s on foot, wherever she is,” Geoffrey said, leading Prudence back across the wide sweep of lawn.
“The chapel?” It seemed far-fetched, but it was the only place outside the house Prudence could think of where Eleanor might feel safe. “If you’re right, Geoffrey, and she started having bridal jitters after spending the evening with those horrible Bennetts, perhaps she went out to the chapel to work out how she was going to put up with them and eventually fell asleep on one of the pews.”
Death Brings a Shadow Page 2
