By the time I left Thelma’s, the clouds had thickened and the sky matched the dirty dishrag white of the rest of the landscape, a sure sign that the snow would come soon. In a month this would be a distant memory as we raced to get ready for bud break in the vineyard and the flowering trees burst into bloom at the beginning of spring. But today the potholey roads were bleached with crisscrossing white streaks already laid down by salt trucks over the last few months, and the curbs were edged with drifts of dirty sand. My Jeep and the other cars I passed on Atoka Road as I drove home were coated with swaths of dried-on road spray kicked up from piles of blackened roadside snow or graceless heaps that overran parking lots.
A small convoy of plows drove by in the other direction, heading toward town, and I knew the salt trucks would already be congregating on Mosby’s Highway on the outskirts of Middleburg. The predictions were all over the place about how much we were going to get. But no one disputed that we would be hammered by a fast-moving clipper of intense swirling snow that would come up from the south, barge through the metropolitan Washington area like a rude guest, and then continue up the East Coast. We could get six inches, or maybe ten, or possibly a foot on top of the five inches that had fallen a few days ago. Since it was so bone-chillingly cold, at least it would only be snow that fell, rather than sleet or ice, which would be far worse.
I had promised Frankie I would stop by Mick Dunne’s to pick up a photo album he’d agreed to loan her. For a moment, I debated going directly home from Thelma’s before the snow began, but Frankie really wanted the album and I was driving right past Mick’s place anyway. I slowed down and turned onto his private road. This wouldn’t take long.
The lane had been plowed out from last week’s snowstorm and the saucer magnolias and dogwoods that grew like sentries on either side were winter-bare. In spring, thousands of tulips and daffodils bloomed underneath the flowering trees, and the sight was breathtaking. But today there was nothing but dirty churned-up snow lining an ice-rutted road, just like everywhere else in this eternal, relentless winter.
I pulled into the circular drive and parked the Jeep. Mick’s housekeeper, a pretty dark-haired Hispanic woman, answered the door and invited me in, promising to tell Mick I was there and asking if I could wait in the enormous marble-floored foyer.
A mutual friend of Mick’s and mine had redecorated the house a few years ago and Mick had given her carte blanche with the place while he threw his attention into the stables and his horses. The result was too grandiose for my taste—acres of dark woodwork, rich saturated colors on the walls, oil paintings in heavy rococo frames of bearded men in uniform or hunting scenes, brocaded curtains, English and American antiques—but Mick liked the masculine baronial splendor and, to be honest, it suited him.
The housekeeper returned, gesturing to a set of double doors down the hall. “He’s in the library. And he’s having tea. Can I bring you something, as well?”
“No, thank you, I just had coffee.”
She smiled and I headed for the library. It was probably my favorite room in the house, the one that seemed the least museumlike. Mick collected rare first editions and the most valuable books were here, rows of beautiful leather-bound volumes lining the shelves of dark-paneled floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the old gilt titles gleaming in the soft light of table and floor lamps scattered around the room. A fire burned in the stone fireplace and the salmon-colored pages of the Financial Times lay creased and folded on a dark green leather sofa.
He was standing with his back to me, bent over an antique trestle table covered with an untidy collection of old photographs and news clippings. He must have heard me walk in, because he straightened up and turned around.
“Hello, darling.” He crossed the room and gave me a breezy kiss on the lips. “How lovely to see you. You’re looking quite gorgeous today.”
I had swapped the wine-stained sweatshirt for a thick white ribbed turtleneck, but I was still dressed in old work clothes. No makeup. “Flattery will get you whatever you want,” I said. “I presume you need help with something, since I look anything but gorgeous.”
He grinned and put an arm around my shoulder. “Come take a look at this.” He walked me over to the trestle table.
“What are you working on?”
“The history of the Goose Creek Hunt,” he said. “This year’s our centenary. I finally got all the photographs and newspaper clippings and fixture cards and the like together in one place. Now we just need to sort through them and put them in chronological order … which, as you can see, is going to be a hell of a job.”
I picked up a yellowed newspaper clipping of a triumphant owner at the Upperville Colt & Horse Show, holding an enormous silver platter, a ribbon pinned to the horse’s bridle. There was no mention of what year it was.
“Good luck,” I said.
We both turned as the housekeeper appeared carrying a tray with a silver tea service on it, two Portmeirion cups and saucers, and a plate of butter cookies. She set the tray on a coffee table and said, “I thought you might change your mind about having tea, Ms. Montgomery, so I brought another cup and saucer.”
When we were alone again, Mick said, “Join me in a cuppa?”
I nodded. “Just half, please. What are you going to do with all your pictures and clippings once you get them organized?”
He fixed my tea and brought it over to me. “Turn it into a book for our members. Sell copies at the spring steeplechase races and the Hunt Ball. We’ll raise funds for the care of the hounds, plus donate a portion to the equine center and the Sporting Museum.” He picked up a photograph of a raven-haired woman sailing over a fence on a beautiful bay horse and turned it over. “Bootsie and Sal … at least there’s an inscription.”
“Which one’s the horse?” I asked.
“You don’t recognize either of them?” he asked as I shook my head. “You’re the one whose family has lived here for donkey’s years. I was hoping you’d help me figure out some of these. Maybe come by some night for dinner?”
He went over and poured his own tea.
“I’m not sure I’d be much help, since I don’t hunt,” I said. “And speaking of photos, Frankie said you have an album that belonged to the Studebakers from the days when they threw some of their legendary parties.”
“That’s right. She was chatting me up the other day in the Cuppa Giddyup. I told her she could borrow it if she wanted to have a look before your big dinner dance on Saturday.” He walked across the room and picked up a leather book from a bookshelf and brought it over to me. “Are you going with anybody? And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer when I invited you to dinner.”
I took the book and traced a finger over the intricate tooled design on the leather cover. My face felt hot. “If you’re asking if I have a date for Saturday, I’m going to be busy working, so … no. No, I don’t.”
“Would you like one?” he asked.
“Mick,” I said, “we’ve been down this road before.”
“Is that a yes or a no? You might give a fellow a break.” He took the album from me and set it on the trestle table. “Besides, the world and his wife will be there, from what I hear, so we’ll have loads of chaperones. Come on, darling. It’s just a dance.”
A dance on Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year.
“Quinn,” he said, when I still hesitated, “sees you every bloody day. Not to put too fine a point on it, but apparently he didn’t ask you. And I just did.”
I’d have bet money that Frankie had somehow worked into the conversation at the Cuppa Giddyup that Quinn and I weren’t going together. Mick was right. Quinn had had all the time in the world to ask me to go with him.
If he’d wanted to.
“I know you did,” I said. “All right, then, yes. I accept.”
“Good.” He stared into my eyes with a look that should have made my heart flutter.
“Mick?”
“Yes, love?”
“Can I take a look at your photo album?”
He gave me a fake wounded look. “You’re a cruel woman, Lucie Montgomery.”
“Yes, I know. Heart of stone. The album?”
“Oh, all right. Come and sit down. Actually, there’s something I wanted to show you.”
We sat on the sofa together and I opened the leather book. Between each set of pages was a protective sheet as thin as tissue paper. Every picture was labeled, white ink on black paper.
I caught my breath. “Will you look at these? They’re great. ‘Mary & her new roadster’ … ‘Chas on the links’ … ‘Dickie and Mary by the pool’ … ‘Buffy’s new pony’ … I wonder when they were taken.”
“I talked to one of Jim Studebaker’s sons after I found the album,” Mick said. “He reckoned the early 1920s, once I described the pictures to him.”
“He didn’t want it back?”
“God no. He said he’s had to rent a couple of storage units and they’re filled with boxes of not only his parents’ stuff but also his grandparents’ things. It’ll take him an age and a half to go through all of it. He told me to keep this one, since it was part of the history of the house.”
“What did you want to show me?” I asked.
“This.” He leaned over and draped one arm around my shoulder while he flipped through the album. “What do you think?”
It was a group photo of a good-looking man surrounded by a dozen or so beautiful young women dressed to the nines in flapper dresses, laughing and hoisting flutes of champagne, an uninhibited, giddy group bent toward him, a sultan surrounded by his harem. A stunning young woman who looked like she couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty sat on his lap, wearing a gauzy décolleté dress with a high side slit. One of her arms was wrapped around the man’s neck, and she held her glass of champagne tilted crazily, as if she had already spilled it and didn’t care. His glass was upright, his grin lascivious, and his other hand rested possessively on her exposed thigh.
I read the caption out loud. “‘Warren Harding and friends, September 1920.’” I looked up at Mick. “The Warren Harding? As in President Warren Harding?”
He nodded. “The very one. I did some checking. In 1920, Harding was still a senator, though he would have been running for president, two months away from being elected. He didn’t take office until 1921.”
“Maybe he was out in Middleburg taking advantage of the fact that women had just gotten the right to vote,” I said. “Though most of the women in that group don’t look old enough to use it. And I don’t think that sweet young thing on his lap is Florence Harding.”
“She was considerably older and didn’t look anything like that gorgeous creature,” Mick said. “Harding was a notorious womanizer, slipped out without his wife for a little something on the side all the time.… Lucie? What’s wrong? Did I say something to upset you?”
“No,” I said. “It’s just that I recognize one of the women in that photo.”
Actually, what had caught my eye was her dress—the exquisite flapper dress I’d found in the attic, the one I was planning to wear to the party on Saturday. Smiling, with a vampy, flirtatious look in her eye, was a woman who made me feel as if I were looking in a mirror.
I pointed. “Her.”
“Good God.” Mick sounded startled. “She’s the absolute portrait of you, love. Who is she?”
My voice sounded as if it came from far away. “Leland’s great-aunt, my great-grandmother’s sister. Her name was Lucy Montgomery.” I looked up at him. “But everyone called her ‘Lucky.’”