So far, not one of the papers had dared to charter a boat to follow them.
So far.
They would reach Beechwood by dawn. Mother and Vincent and a handful of guests would meet them there.
The full moon hung behind the drifting clouds, round and pale, encircled with mother-of-pearl mist. The long, slender bow of the Noma sliced through the waves as easily as a sword might a soufflé; on this evening, the deck hardly rocked beneath Madeleine’s feet.
In the water all around her crested night castles of foam, white-maned horses, sinuous mermaids with splashes of tails and wild flowing hair.
It was cool out; it felt always cool to her on the ocean after dark, no matter the daytime weather. But the wind skimmed by with that first bite of fall to it, briny still, sometimes pungently fishy from a gust pushed from shore.
The season had changed yet again, and this time, Madeleine was going to change with it.
“Penny for them,” said Katherine, standing at her side on the foredeck, gazing out at the broken reflection of that great fat moon.
“Only that everything is changing.”
“True enough.” Katherine sent her a wise look. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be a new woman. I do emphasize woman.”
“Stop. You’re making me blush.”
But she wasn’t blushing. When she thought of Jack, of whatever tomorrow would bring, she didn’t feel afraid, or ashamed, or bashful. She felt impatient. Her blood seemed turned to champagne, fizzing and euphoric.
She cupped her hands around the edge of the railing and thought, What will this moon look like tomorrow night? Will it be different, because I will be?
“How grown up you are now, little sister.”
“Am I?” She smiled, dry. “Most of the time I don’t feel so. At least, not lately.”
“More than I am, I think, because there isn’t a man alive who could drag me to the altar yet. From now on, I shall have to call you missus, and you’ll have to wear your hair in a curly pile on top of your head, along with pounds of pearls around your neck, and when young ladies walk by, you’ll cluck at them and think them saucy just for the sparkle in their eyes.”
“Good gracious. I sound horrible.”
Katherine snuck her arm through Madeleine’s. “But I’ll still love you, even though you’ll have become so unbearable. And you’ll let me borrow your pearls.”
“What’s mine is yours.”
“How reassuring.”
They fell quiet again. From back inside the main saloon came the sound of the dinner service being cleared by the stewards, china clattering, the occasional silvery chime of crystal meeting crystal. The last, lingering fragrance of the asparagus hollandaise, the veal cordon bleu, wafting past the door.
Katherine said, “Do you remember that Easter back when we were fourteen or fifteen, when we went to supper at the Mackays’， and there was that boy staying there, that handsome, handsome boy—”
“Alasdair something,” Madeleine said, flashing on a set of bright green eyes, a golden mane of hair, a roguish smile.
“Yes. Alasdair . . . something. A cousin come to visit all the way from Scotland, with that gorgeous accent.”
Madeleine nodded at the water. “I remember.”
“I never told you this before—I never told anyone—but he kissed me that night.”
She turned. “What?”
“He kissed me in the portrait gallery off the dining room, in the shadows, in the dark. And it was lovely. He kissed me more than once. And then he told me that he wanted to marry me—in retrospect, I’m sure he’d gotten into the Riesling—and for that, I let him kiss me a fifth time.”
Madeleine’s mouth had dropped open. Katherine smiled, pushed the end of her finger against her sister’s chin to close it up again.
“Do you know what I said to him, that boy with the soft red lips and the gorgeous accent, who tasted of sweet, forbidden wine?”
“No.”
“I told him that I would not marry him, because we were too young, and I didn’t want to fall in love with the idea of love. I wanted actual love, not a looking-glass reflection of it. Not stolen kisses, or sotted promises. I wanted the truth of love, the pure molten core of it, because anything short of that was just a cheat.”
“My. I had no idea you were so sagacious at fifteen.”
“Then he asked me how I knew this wasn’t the truth, real love, instant love, and I told him that we had only just met, but even still I knew it wasn’t because my skin didn’t melt from my bones at his touch, and my soul didn’t sting, and I didn’t have butterflies in my tummy, only the shredded ham and egg salad from supper. I let him kiss me one more time, and then I walked away.”