Chapter Four
For such a beautiful place, Newport could be quite boring. Or rather, Newport parties could be quite boring.
Jane studied the gathering from her hiding spot behind a bank of tall palms in their silver engraved pots on the terrace.
Mrs Beresford’s house was beautiful, made to look like a Loire Valley chateau with a sweeping view of the Newport cliffs and sea, all pale stone sparkling in the sun.
The lawn spread like a green velvet carpet towards a teahouse and conservatory, dotted with people in pale suits and pastel frocks sipping champagne and moving in and out of the refreshment tent.
She knew that Connor and May, and definitely her mother, only wanted her to enjoy the summer, to make friends and to have fun as she hadn’t been able to when she’d been a child.
She would certainly like that, too, but Newport seldom felt fun.
She watched people whispering together, maybe making secret plans; watched the matrons sitting in their wicker chairs, judging and managing everything.
Matches were being made and broken. Maybe she should write a novel about all her observations from behind palms. A person could see a lot from there.
Did these people never tire of each other’s company?
They always moved about in a pack, from ballrooms to horse races, from regattas to operas, the same people, same conversation.
She feared she would never fit in among them, no matter how much her mother and May might wish it.
She longed for more, for something real.
‘There you are,’ she heard a voice say, and she turned to see Amy, delicate as a china shepherdess in pale yellow muslin. She held out a glass of lemonade. ‘I always know I can find you behind a plant at a dull party. Mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all. I just needed a little breath of fresh air.’ Jane slid over to make room for Amy, their frilled, pastel muslin and lace skirts crowding together. She took a sip of the delightfully tart lemonade. Mrs Beresford never stinted on her refreshments.
‘I don’t blame you. A person can hardly breathe with all the eau de violette in the air. I’ll be glad when it goes out of fashion,’ Amy said.
‘Is May looking for me?’ Jane asked.
‘Not yet, she’s busy talking to Mrs Fish about the Opera Guild. I don’t think we have much time, though; I saw my mother looking out with her eagle eye.’
‘Is she still trying to push you towards Henry Schuyler?’ Jane knew Amy had her heart set on marrying Harrison Pye, but her mother thought she should find someone of larger fortune.
Amy grinned. She knew her mother would give way in the end. ‘Of course. Always matchmaking, that’s my mama! Though she’s been distracted lately by thoughts of the Duke of Trent. Have you seen him yet? She would love a daughter she could call Your Grace and curtsy to; it’s a rare dream.’
Jane laughed. ‘The duke does seem to be all anyone can talk about these days.’
‘Frightfully dull, all this speculation about a man most of us haven’t even spoken to yet.’
‘They’re surely waiting to unveil him in a crash of symbols, like the curtain going up at the opera.’
‘Beryl says she saw him and his aunt in their carriage. And one of the Van Joorts claims to have met him at a ball in London last year. It’s all she can talk about now, but all she says is he was “charming”.’
‘He accepted May’s invitation to her housewarming, which precipitated an avalanche of more acceptances. I admit I’m a bit curious about him now, though I wish he was not the only topic of conversation.’ The curiosity overcame her at that moment. ‘What does the Van Joort who saw him say?’
‘That he was very handsome, quite young for a duke. His father died suddenly, you know, an apoplectic fit at his club. Rollston Court, his estate, is legendary. Parts of it date back to the Conquest! A young, handsome, unmarried duke in our own town…amazing! A dream come true.’
‘So many dreams, it seems.’ Jane wondered what such a man could possibly look like, talk about. ‘I wonder why everyone thinks such a paragon wants a wife from here when he has all of England’s young ladyhood to choose from. Girls who grow up knowing how to be a duchess.’
‘Just think of it!’ Amy leaned closer and whispered.
‘It seems that the apoplectic father had a terrible gambling problem. He was deep in debt, and the whole estate is crumbling around the new duke’s handsome ears.
There aren’t any English ladies with a large enough dowry to put it right.
And I think there was some scandal years ago about his mother, though I’m not sure what. ’
That would certainly explain it all. ‘And there are plenty of heiresses on the ground here.’
‘Who would jump off the Cliff Walk for the chance to be a duchess.’
Jane sighed. It didn’t sound like a duke in a poem at all, but all too real. ‘It does make sense. Look at Miss Jerome!’
‘And there’s his aunt, Lady Louisa Parker. She married an American years ago! I heard she’s been making quiet little enquiries on his behalf.’
‘So who is to be the front runner? Regina Van Joort? Or maybe Miss Vanderbilt?’
Amy smiled slyly. ‘Why not you, Jane?’
Jane burst out laughing, putting their hiding place in danger. ‘Me—an Irish colleen—become a duchess? How funny.’
‘Not funny at all. You are pretty and kind and smart. Your dowry is one of the largest in New York, thanks to Connor. Any duke would be lucky to have you.’
‘I’ll just send him to you.’
‘You wouldn’t dare! My fortune is less than half of yours, and I love New York too much to leave it.
Not to mention there is Harrison, though don’t tell my mother; I want to tease her a little more.
I can be your lady-in-waiting, or whatever duchesses have, and you can give Harrison a job managing your American properties so he doesn’t have to work for his awful father. ’
Jane laughed even harder. ‘Oh, I see your designs in marrying me off, you minx! But it won’t work.
A duke wouldn’t look twice at me. I’m just an Irish girl; I wouldn’t know how to behave in a stately home.
’ And, even if he did look at her, surely he wouldn’t be the sort of man she wanted—stuffy and tradition-bound?
She thought of Benedict. He had been English, but nothing like a stuffy old duke!
She remembered the way he’d looked at her, as if he’d really seen her.
Remembered the way he’d touched her hand and kissed her.
She’d liked the person she was in his eyes, the version that existed in the glow of his attention. He was her quiet, secret corner.
Beyond the green bower of their hiding place, a stir moved through the terrace on a wave of whispering and rustling gowns. Jane peeked past a leaf to see what was happening. She couldn’t glimpse anything but a wall of pastel skirts, yet she heard a murmur. It’s him!
‘I think we might indeed be about to see the duke,’ she said.
Amy bounced in her seat. ‘Oh, hooray! Come on then, Jane. That should pick this party right up.’
Jane felt suddenly nervous, a little flutter of anxiety in her midriff. So ridiculous! A duke was nothing to be afraid of. ‘No, you go on. I’ll watch from here a little longer.’
‘Don’t be silly! It will be most amusing.’ Amy reached up to smooth Jane’s lace-edged sleeve. ‘And you really are the prettiest girl here, as well as the richest and sweetest. You will have the duke at your feet in no time.’
Jane laughed. ‘I don’t really want a duke at my feet! I would be afraid to step on him, and I’m sure that’s against some stern rule of etiquette.’
‘Then I want to watch what happens when you spurn him right in front of Regina Van Joort and her friends. It would be better than an opera.’
Before Jane could stop her, Amy grabbed her hand and tugged her out of their hiding place into the party. The crowd had flowed towards the doors and were clustered there in a knot of pastel lace and muslin. Amy ploughed right through them, until they found May and Jane’s mother near the front.
‘Jane,’ May called. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. It seems the guest of honour has arrived.’ She reached up to pluck a leaf from Jane’s carefully arranged hair. ‘Behind the palms again?’
‘All the better to observe everything, dearest May,’ Jane said cheerfully.
She smiled reassuringly at her mother as she nervously fussed with her emerald-green skirt and her diamond earrings.
Even after all this time, her mother felt unsure in society.
A ducal son-in-law could fix all that for her.
The O’Neills would never feel uneasy again.
Surely she owed them for all they had done for her?
May sighed and squeezed Jane’s hand. ‘Well, I am sure you’ll want a front-row seat for this. It’s not every day a real duke comes to town.’
A young, penniless, single duke; she was curious, it was true.
How could she not be, with a man who caused a subtle shift in a whole room’s energy just by appearing?
It was not just the title that made her wonder about him, it was the myth of it.
Surely he wasn’t merely a man; there would be history, land, legacy.
His presence hinted at castles and kings.
She inched a little closer. The doors opened onto the terrace, and Lady Louisa Parker came in on the arm of a tall man in a fashionable bottle-green coat.
Jane knew Lady Louisa a bit; she mostly kept to her own company, but she belonged on a few charity boards, and always seemed polite and rather witty.
She looked beautiful in her lavender-striped gown and elaborate hat, so surely her nephew would be handsome too?
A rising tide of whispers rippled around the room as their hostess sailed towards the newcomers, an eager smile on her face.