It was her favorite chamber in the Newport cottage, even more so than the guest bedroom she’d been given, which was lovely in aubergine and lilac, and fairy tale enough by itself.
Mother gestured toward the windows. “There is the colonel back from town, out there on the lawn. He’s looking for you, I presume. Don’t keep him waiting, love. Go on. Go be his sun.”
Madeleine crossed the herringbone floor of the ballroom and opened another set of doors, the ones leading to the outside world, letting in the salt air with the light.
As if he’d expected her to emerge from the ballroom instead of anywhere else, Jack turned. Saw her there paused, framed in all that sunny rococo elegance. He did not smile at her. He only watched her come to him, her steps sinking one by one into the prickly lush grass.
The wind took her dress and molded it against her body, turning the chiffon tail of it into a primrose flag that snapped along behind her. Sheep Point Cove, indigo and foam, pitched ahead, the source of the wind and the salt, and when the last of her hairpins surrendered, she only let it happen, feeling the weight of her chignon give way, unscrolling down her spine. Feeling the freedom of that.
Since he didn’t smile, neither did she, but only approached him like one of the painted nymphs in the ballroom, a mythical being unbound by rules.
This was, after all, still a dream.
When they were near enough to touch, she stopped, her hair blowing into heavy dark tangles between them. A bent hairpin tumbled to the grass.
“You’ve come undone,” he said, still serious.
“So I have.”
“It suits you.”
“Does it?” She shook her head and lifted her arms to the sky, then let them fall again, her hands reaching for his.
Their fingers met, slipped together and then apart.
She took a step closer. Placed her palms upon his forearms.
“Did you have a fruitful trip into town?” she asked, and without answering he took her into his arms and kissed her, right there on the vast lawn that opened up to the cove with anyone in the world to see, the Vanderbilts in their mansion on one side, the Oelrichses on the other, and all the servants, and all the fishermen, and all the angels in heaven up above them.
Vincent, the dog, the cat.
Their second kiss.
From somewhere back inside the cottage, Kitty let out a piercing bark.
He put her away from him almost hastily, and the look on his face let her know she was no longer trapped in a dream: he looked baffled and hungry, his breath tugging uneven. Just like hers.
He smoothed a hand along his hair—also windblown—and then his moustache. There was a hint of color staining his cheekbones that wasn’t there before.
“I’ve brought you something. I hope you like it.”
She said nothing, still ragged around her edges, uncertain of her voice.
Jack unbuttoned his jacket and reached inside, pulling out a small black leather box stamped with silver. He gazed down at it a moment, a line between his brows, then handed it to her.
“I thought—something simple. Sophisticated. Peerless, like you.”
She accepted the box, opened the lid.
It was a ring, a white oval diamond the size of a filbert catching the sun, instantly smarting her eyesight. She had to look away from it to see clearly again, just as she did for the camera flash explosions that followed her now.
He waited. She blinked a few times, loosened the band from the slot that kept it fixed in place.
“Would you put it on my finger, please?”
He took it from her, the platinum band bright, the diamond utterly blinding, and Madeleine lifted her left hand and opened her fingers. The metal pushed cool against her knuckle, smooth and heavier than she’d expected.
“There were others,” he said, hesitant. “I know the fashion now is nothing so plain. I could exchange it for something more embellished. Or a ruby, if you like. An emerald. Perhaps a diamond stack—”
“No,” she said. “This is the one. This one is mine.”
She held out her hand between them and they admired it together, rainbow fire and white sparks dancing along her dress and skin.
The hummingbird darted by again, a jeweled trilling song traced across the sky.
Someone let Kitty out of the cottage. She bounded across the lawn in enormous loping strides, barreling toward them with her tongue flipped sideways and her paws a blur.
*
Madeleine wore his ring to sleep. She could not wear it out in public yet—not yet—but she could do this, at least. All night long she felt the weight of it against her finger, a sensation both alien and comforting. Twice the prongs holding the diamond caught in the lace of her nightgown, and she’d rouse enough to free it, then sink back into her slumber.