Deenie accepted this, turning back to her dinner plate. I looked out once more over the water and, beyond that, the shimmering coastline of the Riviera. Daylight had given way to the glimmer of candlelit cafés and colorful dance halls. I could hear the faint echoes of their music. Where was Ned amid all that activity? And when would he come back?
* * *
—
“Any word of Mr. Hutton?” I asked once I was back in my stateroom, Renée helping me undress for bed. The French girl simply shook her head, lowering her eyes as she turned away from me and crouched low to return my shoes to the wardrobe. I sighed and got into bed, but I did not sleep much that night.
Ned did not return the next morning. Or the next afternoon. I had Cook prepare dinner for the three of us, certain that Ned would have returned by then, but he did not. As Deenie became more confused, I went from feeling frustrated and guilty to being just plain furious. “Where is Daddy?” she asked again. I mumbled something about business that he had to tend to onshore, and she accepted my answer, but we both settled into an uneasy quiet for the remainder of the meal. Finally, after we had finished dinner and I’d sent Deenie off to watch a movie with Mrs. Tytler, as I stood alone on the deck, I saw a small light blinking toward us from the coast. The humming rasp of a small, far-off boat engine and the faint smell of petrol. One of our dinghies. Ned!
I groaned aloud, a mixture of relief and anger, as I braced for his return and the confrontation that I knew would come. The night was dark, but I saw the outline of his small dinghy getting bigger as he approached, and then I saw his figure steering the small craft.
Ned pulled up alongside our starboard side as several crew members scrambled to help him aboard. I felt ill as I watched him fumble with the rope to tie off the dinghy, and I knew instantly that he was in some state. My relief at seeing him hardened to fury. As he clambered up onto the yacht, he looked disheveled and unsteady on his feet, and I guessed it had nothing to do with the gently rolling surf. He saw me standing there, watching, and he didn’t attempt to hide his grimace. His hair was ragged, his cheeks ruddy with sunburn and God knew what else. Eyes red-rimmed, as if he hadn’t slept in days. Which, I assumed, he hadn’t. “Where the hell were you?” I demanded, hating the desperation that was so evident in my voice. But bother that, I decided; I’d waited two days for answers, and now I’d have them.
His breath was terrible when he answered, “Well, hello to you, too, my dearest Miss Post.”
I ignored his sarcasm, repeating my question: “Where, Ned?”
He shrugged, pointing toward the bright coast, and then turning back to me, he said only: “Ashore.”
“How dare you?” I leaned toward him. The servants, I noticed, had scrambled off, leaving us alone on the starlit deck with nothing but the beautiful Mediterranean night and our ugly, seething anger.
Ned leaned on the railing, eyeing me sideways, his blond hair drooping over his glassy expression as he said, “What, am I one of your servants now? I failed to punch in for duty, that it?”
“No, you are my husband,” I said, my voice sharp against the lovely sounds of rolling water and wind. “You are my husband, Ned, even if you…even if you refuse to act like it.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, looking me squarely in the eyes for the first time. A challenge.
What did it mean? I wondered in silence. And did I even have the courage to say it aloud?
Chapter 30
Hillwood Estate, Long Island
Spring 1934
“Poor Billie,” I said, reading the newspaper with a frown. The society articles regularly roiled with insinuations of Flo’s liaisons, but recently his outings with his golden-haired stage star Marilyn Miller had gotten so regular and flagrant that Billie had an all-out scandal on her hands.
Ned responded with a vague grunt, not looking toward the newspaper spread before me. I cleared my throat, pressing on: “I know that Billie turns a blind eye, but don’t think for a minute that I’d do the same, Ned Hutton.” I attempted to keep my tone light as I said it, as if it were a mere hypothetical quip I was tossing out, but inside, my heart clamored. Answer me, Ned. Tell me I have nothing to worry about.
But instead, Ned simply rose from the breakfast table and left the room in silence, leaving my heart not only clamoring, but aching as well.
Billie had kept quiet in spite of an abundance of evidence, but the truth was, so had I. Now there was no longer any denying what I had for so long trembled to admit, either aloud or even silently to myself: my husband, whom I still adored madly, certainly seemed to look—and behave—like a man on the stray.