Chapter 13
I was so sorry to miss the premiere, I truly was.
I did read about it, though, back in England.
We all did, Maman and Papa and Alfred and I.
The Sketch had a photograph of you and Giuseppe walking arm in arm into the theatre.
You were stunning in spangles, looking straight at the camera with a smile, but the count was looking at only you, rapt.
Through some quirk of the camera or the lens (I’m not sure what), the sparkles from the circlet of diamonds in your hair were captured as well, but they were refracted, forming this most astonishing circle of lights around your head.
It looked as though you wore a crown of stars.
Perhaps that was why that particular image was printed everywhere.
You looked celestial.
And amid all those distracting lights and famous faces, the photographers begging for your attention, it was so obvious from even that single shot that, for Giuseppe, you were all that mattered. Crown or no, you were his queen.
APRIL, 1915
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK
New York was a darker place now in nearly every way, talk of the war threading its way through even the most mundane conversations.
Here’s your coffee and change, Joe, and, say, did you hear about them Huns and that poison gas they’re using now?
Not just tear gas anymore but chlorine gas, for chrissakes, chlorine.
Melts your lungs right in your chest, drowns you right then and there in your own juices …
Spies were rumored to be listening around corners.
Diplomats from opposing nations took their meals in the same exclusive restaurants, eyeing each other across the tables while offering sarcastic toasts and sneers.
The United States remained officially neutral, though the fact that she openly supplied munitions to the Allies chafed the Central Powers beyond measure.
Germany was said to have covert operatives stationed all along the coast, and especially in New York, with orders to sabotage any ship carrying soldiers or arms. Even ordering a bratwurst from a street cart was cause for suspicion now: slow, measuring looks from passersby, ears primed for a whisper of any language other than English.
Did they add mustard or ketchup to their meal? Because only a Hun would use mustard …
One by one, the historic German carts and butcheries and beer gardens run by generations of immigrants or their descendants were either closing down or changing their names. Herr Schmidt was now Mr. Smith. J?gers Metzgerei became Hunter’s Fine Meats. Lowes Biergarten was now the Lion’s Den.
No one trusted anyone else these days; no one was truly neutral, truly safe … although, as Rita lazed in a ribbon of lemony light that fell through her open bedroom window, listening to the call of a mourning dove on the sill, she imagined she’d be forgiven for thinking thoughts of peace.
Giuseppe was still asleep, a faint blue-dusky shadow of beard defining his lips and jaw, one arm flung above his head against the pillow. He was tired, this lovely tanned nobleman who had arrived at the smoky confusion of New York’s piers only hours ago, not much before dawn.
She’d sent her auto for him, down to Cunard’s Pier 54, because the liner was late and who knew how quickly he’d be able to procure a taximeter cab at the ungodly hour of three-thirty in the morning all the way at the west end of Fourteenth, if at all.
She’d waited up until he’d arrived, putting a serious dent in a pot of coffee she’d brewed herself, since her cook had retired long past.
Then he was here, slightly more disheveled than usual, even more handsome and precious than usual, because he’d come all this way for her, just for her, braving the U-boats and who knew what else, rogue waves, icebergs, the cold spring storms that could swirl across the North Atlantic with the whip-crack ferocity of a toddler’s tantrum, screaming along the waves.
She’d argued with him, via telegram, not to take a Cunard steamer, or a White Star steamer, or any steamer that was British-flagged.
But he’d replied that as he was already in London for business, there was no time to travel to another departure point, and all the American liners were full.
He’d booked a ticket for the Lusitania, and everything was going to be fine.
She was the swiftest passenger ship afloat these days, in addition to being the most famous and foremost. The Germans wouldn’t dare target her, but even if they did, her top speed was twenty-five knots, twice as fast needed to outrun a U-boat.
Rita needn’t worry. He’d ended the last telegram with: BE WITH YOU SOON MY MARGHERITA, and there was nothing she could do after that.
There was nothing she could do before it, either, but at least she’d tried.
Now here he was in the flesh, the tempting toned flesh, his face peaceful, close to angelic, really, if she considered it.
A dusky tanned angel fallen here into her bed, and he lost none of his beauty in repose.
She sat up carefully and drew her knees to her chest, much like she’d done as a younger woman years past, examining the very first man she’d ever kissed and embraced and tumbled with into the delirium of wedlock.
There was none of the disappointment she’d felt back then, taking in the drooling mess of Freddy Stern.
There was only Count Giuseppe de Cippico, here and now, scented of ship and sea and salt, a hint of lavender from the sprigs Rita’s housekeeper sprinkled across the stored linens.
She wondered if somewhere in his luggage there was a small, square box holding an emerald and platinum ring, sized just for her finger, then pushed the thought from her mind. Tonight was the premiere. That was all she needed to think about. That was enough.
But still she followed his heartbeat, the pulse in his throat, the slow rise and fall of his chest. She watched him until the ribbon of light shifted, sliding off the bed to warm the floor, and the dove flew off in a soft, musical murmur of wings, hurrying toward a different world.
HE DID NOT ask her to marry him. All damned day long, he didn’t ask her.
She was primed for it, waiting, and as the hours passed, her nerves grew more taut, but he was nothing but easy smiles and teasing banter, wondering which cufflinks he should wear tonight, which shoes.
He’d never been to an American movie premiere before, only Italian ones.
“I can’t imagine it’s all that different,” Rita had said.
“But it is. It’s your photoplay debut in this country, a major film, and you’re the star. So of course it’s different.” He turned to his valet, switching to Italian. “I think the gold knot cufflinks, yes? They photograph better than the moonstone.”
“Sì, conte.”
It was four o’clock now, less than an hour before they had to leave.
She was leaning a shoulder against the doorframe to his room, already dressed in a bespoke Lucile gown of indigo crêpe de chine trimmed with peacock feathers and sequins, a slender cut that hugged her figure and ended in a long, tiered train.
Her hair was laced with diamonds, her face highlighted with a hint of cosmetics.
Her wrists were dabbed with a Parisian perfume her mother had given her last Christmas, one with notes of violets and tuberose and phlox.
It reminded her of Winter Queen, as no doubt Pauline intended.
The valet moved to the leather jewelry case (no ring box in view, not that Rita could see), finding the correct cufflinks, returning the moonstone ones to their sliding drawer.
The count lifted his arms, straightened his cuffs, and his man inserted the links, fastening them with delicate care.
If the valet had an opinion about his employer crossing the ocean to share an apartment with an unmarried woman, he was smart enough to keep it to himself.
Besides, she’d gone through the social niceties of ordering the spare room freshened up for her lover, even if he only used it to dress.
The undressing, naturellement, was done in her own chamber.
There was an art to donning evening clothes, one Rita understood very well, but it came to her in that moment, observing the count and his servant complete their rituals, that she’d hardly ever watched a man dress.
There had been Freddy, of course, but he was cut from a markedly different fabric than Giuseppe: shirts of worn flannel or linsey-woolsey, scratchy woolen jumpers, moleskin trousers and leather work gloves stained with grease.
Everything donned quickly, efficiently, arms crammed through sleeves already rolled up, head popping through neck openings only partially unbuttoned.
Messy hair and a boyish grin if he caught her looking.
On their wedding day, he’d traded his usual flat cap for a billycock she hadn’t even known he’d owned, but that was about it.
At least he’d forgone the work gloves, normally stuffed in a back pocket.
But here was Giuseppe, and it was like watching a man—a man, not a boy—from another realm, another time and place compared to Freddy. Every movement was deliberate, graceful; every item of attire properly cleaned, bleached, starched, buttoned, brushed.
A silk dress shirt. Cotton piqué waistcoat. Gold studs, narrow white bow tie, black tailcoat. A black silk scarf (her Christmas gift to him) and custom white kid gloves so fine they could be worn only once before stretching out. He had pair after pair of them, ordered from the best shop in Rome.