“Just for the holidays,” he’d assured her. “Then we’re off again, out into the yonder.”
And because she was a little tired, and more than a little in love, she agreed.
*
Breakfast was a ritual at the Fifth Avenue chateau, far more so than it had been aboard the Noma or even back at Beechwood. At sea, with a stoical New England chef installed in the yacht’s galley, they had dined at their leisure, which was whenever the newlywed couple bothered to peel themselves from the bed and crack apart the curtains to find the sun in the sky. At sea there were johnnycakes and jam and syrup, fried bacon and eggs, strong hot tea, strong hot coffee, sausage and oatmeal and fishcakes （a particular favorite of Jack’s which Madeleine never touched, because it was fish, for breakfast）。
Should the sun be dancing far enough above the horizon by the time they bothered to squint at it, they skipped the bacon and oatmeal entirely and moved straight to luncheon, when it was perfectly all right to have fish—so fresh it had been swimming in the blue only hours before—lightly grilled or sautéed or in sauce, or curried chicken from the stores, or plump scallops, or roast beef. At sea, they made their own timetable and followed their own rules.
But, the chateau.
On her first morning there as the new Mrs. Astor, Madeleine awoke alone, enrobed in a pale shaft of sunlight, her cheeks chilled, her nightgown twisted, and she sat up and glanced around her, bewildered. The chamber was entirely unfamiliar—gigantic and unfamiliar—with the paisley-patterned curtains along the windows pulled back, and that colorless winter light flooding in, falling, absorbed by the Turkish medallion rug on the floor, the sapphire walls that seemed to stretch for miles above her head. There was a fire sputtering in the hearth across the room, but from here it seemed feeble and underfed; no heat reached her past that black walnut mantel.
This was one of Jack’s homes, obviously. This was—this was her home now. They had arrived so late the night before, she’d hardly registered any of the chambers or corridors she’d been wondering about for months, all the private, family-only spaces beyond the great hall and reception rooms and salons. She’d been conducted to this bedroom, had undressed and fallen into an exhausted stupor nearly at once in her husband’s arms, but there was no sign of him now, no hint of any other human being anywhere nearby, save for the fact that someone must have crept in earlier to lay that fire.
Dust motes spun and drifted through the sunlight surrounding her, a thousand winking specks soundlessly lifting, turning, falling.
There was a red marble clock inset in that distant fireplace mantel, just beneath a painting of a pretty girl surrounded by flowers, also inset. Madeleine leaned forward from the mess of her bedding, straining to read the time. It was nearly ten-twenty; no wonder Jack was gone.
Her stomach growled.
The linden floor beneath her feet was a cold shock. It took her a moment to find her slippers, then another moment, much longer, to find the bell pull for the maid. She yanked at it, hopefully not too hard. If it rang, it must have been somewhere deep inside the mansion. Madeleine heard only silence.
She thought about retreating beneath the covers again but worried about how it would look, to be discovered back in her marital bed when obviously she had to rise from it to pull the bell, like she was too spoiled to withstand a little chill. So she shuffled to the fireplace instead, trying to control her shivers, trying not to look as disheveled and uncertain as she felt.
She didn’t know this place. She didn’t know this room, its customs, or even where her clothes were, and yet she was supposed to be the mistress here. She was the mistress here.
Madeleine inched closer to the dying fire.
The inscription beneath the painted girl framed by the mantelpiece read:
Innocent.
*
So, that first morning in the Manhattan mansion, she washed, she dressed, and then she found her way downstairs to the dining room alone. She encountered no one else, not even a footman, although the silver chafing dishes along the sideboard were still warm, and there was toast （not warm） lined neatly upright in a pair of porcelain racks.
A garland of evergreen, woven with holly, decorated the mantelpiece of the fireplace, a nod to the season.
She took a plate, a pale omelet topped with herbs, bacon, toast, no fishcake. She filled a crystal goblet with water from the decanter, another with orange juice, and found a seat near the middle of the table, covered in yards of off-white jacquard. After a bite of the omelet, she got up and moved to the foot of the table instead of the middle, to the high-backed chair where the lady of the house was supposed to sit.