Alexandra awoke early the next morning, eager to work and even more eager for one of the big country breakfasts that had made Cook famous from one end of East Hampton to another. She dressed quickly then hurried downstairs where to her surprise, Matthew intercepted her at the entrance to the dining room.
He looked a trifle rumpled and he had yet to shave, but it was instantly obvious he was sober and she found his disarray strangely appealing. He'd barely spoken to her since their interlude near the gazebo two nights ago and if it weren't for the miniature locked safely away in her armoire, the whole thing might have been a dream.
"I'm going into town after breakfast," he said without preamble. "Dayla usually picks up the art supplies for Andrew but this time, we thought that..." His voice trailed off and she found herself staring up at him.
"Are you asking me to come into town with you?" she asked, unable to mask her amazement.
He met her eyes briefly then looked away. "Dayla thought you would better understand Andrew's needs than any of us."
An art store, she thought, her mind racing. Shelf after shelf of pastels and charcoals, oils and canvas and beautiful sable brushes with tips softer than a baby's kiss.
"I would love to," she said. "When shall I be ready?"
Was she going mad or was there a decided glimmer of pleasure in his blue-green eyes? "Half past the hour," he said. "If you're not there, I go without you."
He wheeled and headed down the hallway, all male bluster and beauty, and suddenly breakfast no longer had the power to entice her.
"Matthew!" she called out. "I believe I am ready now."
#
"Mr. McKenna!" Evangeline Ames beamed up at Matthew as he entered the post office Thursday morning. "How wonderful to see you."
"Good morning, Mrs. Ames." It was impossible not to smile at the cherubic woman with the rosy apple cheeks who always greeted him with such enthusiasm that he could almost convince himself he deserved it. "Beautiful day, is it not?"
"Ah, yes, indeed it is. The lilacs are near to blooming all around town. In another two weeks it will be a veritable paradise."
Lucky Evangeline Ames to have a life that allowed time to enjoy such simple pleasures. When had he last noticed anything as simple as a lilac bush in bloom?
"Any mail for Sea View today?"
Evangeline nodded and bustled into the back room of the tiny country post office, emerging with a stack of envelopes.
"Afternoon mail isn't in yet," she said, handing the mail to him across the oak counter. "It's arriving on the Sag Harbor train again. I do wish they'd throw it off at Bridgehampton the way they used to do." A pale blue envelope slid from the stack and fluttered to the floor near her feet. "Well, will you look at this!" she exclaimed as she retrieved it. "I declare, I've never seen such a pretty stamp in all my days. France!" Her big brown eyes widened comically. "You have visitors out there at the house, do you?"
"Andrew Lowell has a new assistant," Matthew said, taking the perfume-scented letter from the woman. "I believe she grew up in France."
"Well, well. I would certainly love to meet her one day. My sister Hester taught me a little French when I was a girl."
Matthew was at a loss as to how to respond to that. Alexandra had ridden into town with him and was currently across the street in Osborne & Hand, purchasing the local newspaper and sundry items. Somehow he didn't think it prudent to whisk her over to meet Evangeline Ames, the town crier.
Evangeline, however, had another topic to pursue. "You cannot know how pleased we are that Mr. Andrew Lowell will be attending the musicale tonight. The Ladies' Auxiliary is in an absolute tizzy of excitement over it."
Matthew's jaw dropped open. "Andrew is coming into town tonight?"
"Of course he is," Evangeline said, looking at him as if he were a backward boy. "He sent Emmy Dwyer in to purchase two tickets for him the day before yesterday."
Andrew sent Cook into town to buy tickets to see the Silver Lake Quartette? It didn't sound credible. More than likely Cook and Johnny were going to take advantage of their evening off and enjoy the musicale themselves but rather than get into a discussion with the garrulous older woman, Matthew wished her a good day then strode off back to the trap to read his mail and await Alexandra.
Another letter from Edward Strawbridge glared up at him from the pile and he tossed it on the seat next to him with letters and bills for Andrew. He didn't need reminding that his life was going all to hell back there in San Francisco; Edward's last missive had done a damn good job of telling him exactly how bad things with Madolyn were.
Besides, Stephen was taking the afternoon train out and that alone was enough to make him feel better than he had in a very long time. He'd seen Alexandra's face each time he and Lowell sniped at one another; God knew he didn't want to bring that frightened look to her eyes but—damn it! Each time he was around that dandified excuse for a man, he couldn't help himself.
It was nothing less than a miracle that his fist had yet to connect with Stephen's jaw and he had the feeling that if the younger Lowell were to remain in East Hampton much longer, it would take much more than a miracle to prevent that from happening.
Strawbridge's letter stared up at him until he could almost hear Edward's voice berating him.
Muttering low, he ripped open the envelope and began to read.
#
Osborne & Hand was the most fascinating emporium Alexandra had ever seen and time quickly slipped away from her. The sign painted on the window in cheery red letters said, "Purveyors of Pure Drugs and Medicines," but she had found a great deal more on their shelves than Ayer's Sarsaparilla and Marshmallow Lotion for the Hands. Eager to learn more about her new home, she purchased the East Hampton Star, a weekly newspaper, and placed down the unconscionable sum of twenty-five cents for a glossy magazine called Cosmopolitan that promised to tell her what the elegant ladies in New York were wearing that season.
How wonderful it felt to be away from Sea View for a little while, reveling in the art supplies store, mingling with the townspeople, strolling along the wide tree-lined street and peering into the shop windows as she passed. Gentlemen in white flannel trousers and dark jackets with shiny brass buttons tipped their hats as they walked by and she couldn't contain her answering smile. Ladies in walking dresses that barely touched the ground in the front, exposing soft kid boots with tiny heels, laughed and chatted their way up Main Street as if they had not a care in the world.
What would it be like to be one of those ladies, Alexandra wondered as she made her way back to the trap. How would it feel to have nothing more pressing on her mind than purchasing a new settee at Van Scoy & Dayton's or lunching on watercress sandwiches and strawberry ice cream at Lawrence's.
She doubted if these fine ladies with their ostrich-feathered hats had ever burned with the need to capture an autumn sunset with their hands or make the sound of the ocean visible on canvas, and she wondered if her ambition could ever be compatible with their fancy lives. But, no matter. A fancy life was not in the cards for her and that was fine.
She had her place at Sea View and she accepted it. Finally—finally!—she had made her peace with the fact that Provence and her old life were lost to her as surely as if it had never been. She had posted a letter to Gabrielle her first week in America but truly did not expect an answer. Gabrielle had a husband and a daughter and another baby on the way. What time would she have for writing letters to a childhood friend who had somehow become a threat?
Let it go, she whispered silently as she approached the trap where McKenna sat waiting for her. Let it all go and build a new life.
"I am sorry," she said as he jumped down to help her climb into the vehicle. "I hope I haven't inconvenienced you in any way."
She held out her hand, expecting him to provide leverage as she mounted the step and took her seat. To her surprise, he ignored her hand and, placing a hand on either side of her waist, swept her up into the air and placed her down squarely on the bench. Her heart lifted in response to his quick smile.
How handsome he was! The late morning sun caught the light blonde strands that mingled so appealingly with the deeper chestnut tones of his thick and shaggy hair. For the first time she noticed how long and lush his eyelashes were with their tips bleached the color of pale wheat. Fine lines crisscrossed the outer corners of his eyes and she wondered if some of the sun-bleached strands were not prematurely silver.
Stephen possessed the ideal of male beauty portrayed on the cover of Cosmopolitan as drawn by Mr. Gibson: the short hair parted to the side with the neatly-trimmed moustache and look of wide-eyed boyish charm. But there was nothing boyish about Matthew McKenna as he easily jumped back into the cart and took his seat next to her on the narrow red leather bench. He needed no moustache to proclaim his masculinity, no tailored suit and tie to proclaim his position in life. Dressed in his black trousers and sparkling white cambric shirt, he seemed to Alexandra to be all a man could be.
Dangerous thoughts for a spring day.
"Have you been waiting long?" she repeated as Matthew took the reins and they headed back toward Sea View.
"Not terribly," he said, eyes straight forward.
She sighed. She searched for the glimmer of good humor that had been present in him on the drive into town but it had vanished. Certainly nothing about his demeanor suggested that this trip into town had been anything but a burden to him.
How could she have been so foolish as to think otherwise?
She tried again: "The apothecary store was a marvel! I have never seen so many items in one place before in my life." Her trips to London and Vienna with Marisa had been restricted to modiste shops and museums. "Did you fare well on your errands?"
Ignore me all you wish, Mr. McKenna. I shall continue to speak regardless!
He motioned toward a stack of letters on the bench between them. "There is one for you."
"Gabrielle!" she exclaimed, sifting through the pile. "Who would have imagined the post worked so swiftly?"
But it wasn't from Gabrielle at all. She knew that the moment the scent of jasmine and musk reached her nostrils and felt the expensive vellum notepaper in her hands.
"Aren't you going to read it?" Matthew asked as she placed it atop her bag of treasures from the apothecary shop.
"Later," she said, swiveling in her seat to catch a better glimpse of Hook Pond as they rode by.
He glanced at her. "It isn't everyday a letter from France comes through the post office. Mrs. Ames was beside herself with curiosity."
She pointed toward two men who were wading in the pond. They were wearing cotton shirts, much like Matthew's, with the sleeves rolled up over heavily muscled forearms and were working the bed with what seemed to be long pointed sticks. "What on earth are they doing?"
"Clamming," said Matthew. "It's the town sport."
"Clamming," she repeated, remembering the thick red broth with the succulent pieces of shellfish Cook made on a regular basis. "Do you go clamming?"
"I went last night," he said, urging the chestnut on. "On the beach at low tide."
She conjured up a vision of him knee deep in the ocean, his white shirt open and the sleeves rolled up. Surreptitiously she cast a look at his forearms as he held the reins.
A gust of wind ruffled her hair and caused Marisa's scent to float toward her from the bag on her lap.
Why on earth would her mother be writing to her so soon? Alexandra had posted her duty letter to Marisa but one week earlier and in the best of times her mother had never been one to indulge in lengthy correspondence.
Only something very important would cause Marisa to post a letter so quickly.
Had this all been a dreadful mistake and Marisa was now writing to tell her to come home? Was it possible that this letter contained a voucher for a berth on the next steamer out of New York?
"It's from my mother," she said by way of explanation.
He turned to her and his look was sharp. "I thought your mother was dead."
She tried to explain the tangle of her life with a minimum of words. "Would you mind terribly if I—"
"Go ahead," he said gruffly. "And don't worry: I can't read French."
"Why must you always say things like that?" she said, opening the envelope with her fingernail. "That thought never occurred to me."
"Maybe it should have."
Her hands shook as she unfolded the sheet of perfumed vellum and saw her mother's childish scrawl slanting across the page. How she had longed for her mother's infrequent letters when she was at the Aynsley School. Now the sight of Marisa's hand brought equal amounts of hope and dread.
Alexandra: I trust you are settled in your new home and that your accommodations are adequate. This is to tell you I am leaving Paris for Switzerland for an indefinite time. I will send you my new address when I am settled.
Your Mother
No words of affection and encouragement. No inquiry about her health or happiness or anything else that might be dear to Alexandra's heart.
And, most telling of all, no reprieve.
"Bad news?" McKenna asked as they approached Old Beach Lane and Sea View rose up in the distance.
"No," she said. "Nothing I hadn't expected." She tore the letter into tiny pieces and scattered them to the ocean breeze but not before she caught the look of compassion in his beautiful blue-green eyes.
#
"Hell, no!" Matthew paced the length of Andrew's studio to which he'd been summoned upon his return from town. "That's a goddamn dirty trick, Andrew, and it's not going to work."
Andrew tapped the two tickets to the Silver Lake Quartette's musicale on the edge of his easel. "Are you finished haranguing me?"
Matthew glared at the older man. "I haven't gotten started. If you have become such a music lover, you go."
Across the room, Dayla opened her mouth to speak but Andrew motioned her silent.
"I have sorely neglected my social responsibilities to this town."
Matthew arched a brow. "And sending me to a musicale at Clinton Hall will remedy that, of course."
"It will be a start."
"Start some other time," Matthew retorted. "Have Stephen delay his trip." But Andrew was not to be bested. "Stephen has his duties, you have yours."
"Are you ordering me to go, Andrew?"
"If it comes to that."
"How do you know I won't put a blot on your social reputation?"
"I know you, boy. I trust you."
"You're a damn fool then."
"Yes," said Andrew, "I probably am."
Matthew raised his whiskey glass to his lips then thought better of it. "What time does this damn thing start?"
"Seven-thirty." Andrew's voice was impassive but his lion's eyes twinkled. "There's one more thing you need to know."
Matthew leaned against the doorjamb. "I should have known there was more to this."
"You seem to forget there are two tickets, Matthew."
Matthew's eyes sought Dayla's. "I didn't think you would leave Andrew."
Dayla's laugh was amused. "I would not," she said, "not even for so nice a night."
Suddenly Matthew remembered Evangeline Ames. "You're not going to ask me to escort Cook, are you?" If Emmy Dwyer smiled once each full moon that was saying much.
"Cook is a kindly woman," Andrew said evenly. "Does she not deserve a night out?"
Let it never be said Matthew McKenna was a man who let opportunity slip by. "She certainly does. In fact, I would be pleased to make the supreme sacrifice and send Cook with her beloved husband Johnny. I would even ready the coach for them to go into town."
"A wonderful attempt, Matthew, but I'm afraid your theatre partner has already been chosen."
An odd feeling crept up his spine. "Alexandra?" he asked.
Andrew smiled. "Alexandra."
Strawbridge and his letters; Madolyn and her stunts; even, for one split second, the memory of his son all receded and joy, plain and simple, filled his heart.
#
Stephen had been waiting for Alexandra on the back porch when she returned home from her trip to town and she hadn't missed the look of displeasure on his face when he saw Matthew grasp her by the waist and lift her from the trap. Unceremoniously Stephen had led her into the library where he presented her with the key to the medicine chest that held Andrew's pills and powders. He gave her a handwritten list of instructions and made her read each one aloud twice until he was satisfied she understood what was expected of her. His patronizing attitude set her teeth on edge and for the first time she understood how Matthew must feel.
How odd, she thought, turning from the window as the coach bearing Stephen to the railroad depot disappeared around the curve of the driveway. Twenty-four hours ago she would have been awash in tears that Stephen should be going to Paris while she remained in a strange country, far from everything she knew and loved, but now she was able to wave goodbye to him and feel only the slightest twinge of pain.
Now her thoughts were with Matthew, traveling down pathways fraught with dangers she didn't understand. Thank goodness the demanding Andrew Lowell kept her too busy to brood over the impossible.
She worked in the carriage house through her normal lunchtime making lists of watercolor landscapes in a ledger she'd purchased at Osborne & Hand and it wasn't until her stomach rumbled alarmingly that she realized the afternoon was nearly over. Perhaps she would go back to the main house and fix herself a platter of last night's roasted chicken and a glass of lemonade to bring back up to the attic.
Hundred year old oaks and red cedar cast long shadows across the backyard as she made her way back toward the house. Here and there a random patch of cord grass popped up to mar the emerald perfection of the lawn while in the distance the mournful cry of gulls mingled with the sweet sound of chickadees.
Suddenly the slam of the back door pierced the air, followed closely the sound of Janine's voice shattering the pastoral scene.
"Off with you, you worthless beggar! How dare you be comin' around to the door after the trouble you caused this town!"
Alexandra heard a man's voice raised in protest but he was no match for Janine.
She caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man and woman disappearing through the azalea bushes planted along the back and side of the house.
"Whatever was that all about?" she asked Janine, who stood, hands planted on her narrow hips, on the back porch. "You sounded as if Satan himself had shown up on the doorstep."
"And he might as well have," Janine said, her cheeks flushed with anger. "Bold as brass they were, tapping on the door and looking to see what we have so they could fill their sacks with ill-gotten gain!"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Gypsies, miss, that's what. They came right onto the property and knocked on the door, they did. Why, they even—"
Alexandra didn't wait to hear the rest of the sentence. Instead, she lifted her skirts, flew down the porch steps and headed after the man and woman she'd seen fleeing Janine's tirade.
They'd headed in the direction of the Talmadge estate. More than likely, their camp was set up on the crest of the dune behind the house. An angry bee buzzed around her head and she brushed the air absently as she ran. She had just cleared a tiny stream meandering through the Talmadge property when a hand caught her ankle and she sprawled headlong on the grass then looked up into the dark brown eyes of a girl no older than she.
"We do nothing," the girl said, her teeth brilliant white against her deeply tanned skin. "We not steal anything. Why you chase us?"
Alexandra's eye was caught and held by the enormous gold earrings dangling from her ears. "I want to talk," she said, gasping for breath. "I mean you no harm."
The girl still glared suspiciously at Alexandra as if she found it hard to believe a white woman could possibly tell the truth.
"You chase us," the girl said. "For what reason?"
"My mother was Rom," Alexandra said. "I was pleased to know you're here."
"You?" The girl's lip curled in a sneer. "I do not believe."
"You and your man are tinkers, are you not?"
"You have heard talk. You know this already."
Alexandra tapped into a deep well of memory for the words. "Si khohaimo may patshivato sar o tshatshimo." There are lies more believable than truth.
She laughed as the girl's mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Now do you believe me?" she asked, and then hummed a gypsy tune she'd learned on Esme's knee.
"Who goes there?" sounded a voice from the back porch of the Talmadge house. "I shall send the dogs out if you do not leave the property this instant!"
"I must go," the girl whispered urgently. "We break camp tonight and we need no more trouble."
"Please, no!" Alexandra cried, anxious to be among ways she found familiar. "I have so many questions, so much I'd like to know."
The girl hesitated a moment then moved closer to Alexandra. "Then I tell you something you should know, lady. The man is evil. He means you harm."
Alexandra shivered despite the warm spring breeze. "Who means me harm?" Matthew. Please don't say it is Matthew. "Is it one of your people?"
"He lives in the house on the hill," the girl said, motioning back toward Sea View. "He plans great evil."
"Please tell me who," Alexandra said, grabbing the girl's forearm. "Please!"
The backdoor slammed and they heard heavy footsteps clattering down the porch stairs.
The girl pulled away from Alexandra. "Yellow hair," she said as she turned to run. "The yellow-haired man."
She disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
It took Alexandra a second to gather her wits about her and the moment she did she fled back to Sea View as quickly as her feet would carry her.
The yellow-haired man. How utterly ridiculous.
As if Stephen Lowell would be sneaking around plotting mishaps and mayhem. With his spotless kid gloves and impeccably tailored suits it was hard to imagine him doing anything more taxing than taking the reins of the trap on a trip in from town.
She leapt the narrow stream and headed through the yard once more on her way to the porch. The girl had been skittish as a colt, anxious to escape Alexandra who, to her eyes, represented the enemy.
How far she'd traveled since leaving Provence.
Matthew had said no good would come of approaching the gypsies in their camp.
Sadly, she understood now exactly how right he was.