An Embarrassment of Riches (28 page)

With a cry of frustration Maura ran back into the drawing-room. Alexander was now astride his father's still struggling figure, his hands tighter than ever around his throat.
‘She wasn't good enough for you, was she? You wanted a daughter-in-law with a title. A European aristocrat! Someone with a name in the Almanach de Gotha!'

Maura flung herself on her knees, tugging at one of his arms, trying to make him break his hold.

Victor was purple in the face, his tongue beginning to protrude, his eyes bulging.

‘Well, let me tell you what your lies and deceit have achieved!'

Maura felt as if she were two different people. One of her could hear every terrible word that Alexander was saying. She had been deceived as cruelly as Alexander had apparently been deceived. He hadn't married her to please a father who was dying, or because he needed her or had fallen in love with her. He had married her out of a need for revenge. Out of hatred. And for the moment it didn't matter. All that mattered was that she should succeed in breaking Alexander's hold on his father's throat.

‘Here she is!'
he was shouting. ‘
This is your new daughter-in-law! An Irish peasant.
' With each word his fingers pressed harder on his father's windpipe.
‘An … illegitimate … illiterate … Roman Catholic … Irish peasant!'

Maura didn't hesitate. Her head darted low over his hands and she sank her teeth so deep into his flesh that she tasted blood.

In the next split second Haines, with an army of blue-and-grey liveried figures at his heels, burst into the room; Victor Karolyis rolled free as Alexander's grasp was broken; and as Alexander realized that Maura's action had saved his father's life he delivered a blow to her still-bent head that sent her sprawling on the floor, half-senseless.

Half a dozen footmen hurried to her aid. Her head and shoulders were raised from the floor; she was proffered water; a linen handkerchief to wipe the blood from her mouth.

Dizzily she could see Alexander's father staggering to his feet, clutching at his throat, gasping and retching for breath.

Haines and a squad of footmen had seized hold of Alexander by the arms and were trying to drag him from the room.

‘I want Ginnie's letters!'
he shouted as he struggled against their restraining grasp, his fists clenched, blood oozing from her teethmarks and dripping on to the pastel coloured carpet.

His father tottered towards the ebony-framed chair and fell down into it.

‘They're burned,' he croaked savagely. ‘Destroyed.'

A footman pressed a glass of brandy into his hand, another began to nervously gather up the shards of priceless china.

There was truth in Victor's voice and as Alexander realized that he was never going to know what Genevre had written to him, that he was never going to even see her handwriting again, all the fight left him. His grief was too great for his fury. Unashamedly and unrestrainedly he began to weep. Sensing his capitulation Haines and the footmen cautiously eased their hold of him.

His father swallowed the brandy with painful difficulty and, indicating Maura with a contemptuous movement of his hand, said, ‘Is this girl your wife? Is she the whore you've married?'

Despite the singing pain in her head outraged fury propelled Maura to her feet. Her Irishness had been referred to as if it was the world's biggest insult; her illegitimacy had been paraded; her faith sneered at; she had been accused of illiteracy when she was quite sure that her education was equal to anything that Alexander had ever received; and now, to crown everything, she was being referred to as a whore!

‘How
dare
you speak of me in such a manner?' she spat at Victor Karolyis, her eyes blazing, her chest heaving. ‘You seem to be under the impression that the Irish are the lowest of the low! Let me tell you that even the most illiterate of Irish peasants has better manners than the manners you and your son are displaying!'

For the first time Victor looked at her, and he knew instantly that Alexander had made a huge, colossal, irredeemable mistake. He sucked in another lungful of blessed air and turned his gaze towards his son, who was winding a handkerchief around his bleeding hand.

‘So you thought you would make me pay, did you?' he rasped. ‘You thought you would marry a scummy emigrant and shame me. And then I suppose you thought you would pay her off cheaply and forget about her?' It wasn't often that Victor laughed but he began to laugh mirthlessly now. ‘Open your eyes, for Christ's sake! Does she look as though she's dumb enough to be paid off and forgotten about?'

Alexander looked across at Maura. Her heavy dark hair was still encased loosely at the back of her neck in her snood. Her high-necked, blackberry-coloured dress looked even more well cut than it had aboard the
Scotia.
She looked every inch a lady and he realized with a shock that was almost a physical blow, that she
was
a lady.

Incredibly he temporarily forgot about his father. He breathed in harshly.

‘Who are you?' he demanded, all his previous doubts returning in full flood. ‘Why were you in steerage? Why the devil did you marry me when you knew nothing about me?'

The footmen were staring from one to the other, mouths agape. Furious at how much had already been carelessly said in their presence, Victor Karolyis rounded on Haines. ‘Out!' he hissed hoarsely. Haines retained his expression of mask-like imperturbability with difficulty and led his inferiors from the room.

When the double doors closed behind them Maura looked at father and son. Then she said with crushing poise, ‘My name is Maura Sullivan and I was born in Killaree, County Wicklow.'

‘And you're a Catholic?' Victor Karolyis grated, still fingering his throat on which welts were now rising.

‘I'm a Roman Catholic and I'm illegitimate.'

‘But you're not illiterate?'

It was so obvious she wasn't that Maura didn't even trouble to reply. Instead she said icily, ‘When I was eight I was taken into the home of Lord Clanmar to be a companion to his granddaughter. We were both educated by Lord Clanmar until his death, two months ago.'

She turned her head towards Alexander, her eyes holding his. ‘I was in steerage because at Lord Clanmar's death I was left destitute. And I married you because … because …'

For the first time her voice faltered. It was impossible to say that she had married him because she had been confounded by desire for him; because she had believed an instant bond had sprung up between them; that he had needed her and that she had wanted with all her heart to respond to that need.

She said instead: ‘Because it seemed to be the most sensible thing that I could do.'

For a long moment they stared at each other and then Alexander suddenly began to laugh. It wasn't the bitter, mirthless laughter which his father had so recently given vent to. It was genuine and from the heart. He had been caught. Bamboozled. And it didn't matter. His father was still socially destroyed. No education in the world could erase the fact that Maura had been born a peasant and that she was a Catholic and illegitimate.

He stretched out his uninjured hand towards her, not caring that it was obvious he wasn't going to be able to get rid of her as easily as he had thought. She was beautiful and bright and he liked her. He liked her a lot. As her hand slid into his he remembered that they had a marriage to consummate. Suddenly it seemed a very pleasant prospect.

He walked with her to the doors and then turned and gave his father a last, contemptuous look. ‘We're going to bathe and change and then we're leaving for Tarna. I don't intend seeing you again. Not ever.'

Victor stared at him, knowing that he meant every word, recognizing in him his own implacable will. He had never intended that there would be a permanent rift between them and he was seized with a sudden surge of near panic.

‘I did it for your own sake,' he said harshly, and it was as near to a plea as he had ever come to making. ‘I did it because I wanted you to marry Karolyis wealth to indisputable blue blood! I did it because I wanted you to become the uncrowned king of American society!'

Alexander opened the doors and stood for a moment, staring at him. ‘I didn't want to be a king,' he said at last, his voice thick with pain. ‘I only wanted Genevre.'

Outside the doors the footmen tried to look as if nothing was amiss. Alexander kept hold of Maura's hand, finding it strangely comforting. ‘By rights, you should use the room that used to be my mother's to bathe and change in, but it's in the opposite wing of the house to mine. Do you mind using the guest room adjoining my own suite?'

She shook her head. After two weeks amid the stench and lice of steerage, the prospect of a hot bath was so blissful that she didn't care where it was situated.

At the foot of a curving, gilded staircase he said to the nervously hovering Haines: ‘My wife requires a hot bath and someone to attend to her. She will be occupying the guest room adjoining my own suite.'

‘Yes, Mr Alexander. At once, Mr Alexander.'

‘And she requires a new wardrobe of clothes until such time as she can choose a new wardrobe for herself. Please see to it.'

Haines struggled to assess the new Mrs Karolyis's dress size without committing the impertinence of looking directly at her. As she had arrived without any other luggage but an inadequate-looking carpet-bag he assumed that new apparel would be needed by the time she had finished her bath.

He gave Alexander an obsequious nod of the head and departed hurriedly in order to deputize a lady's maid to wait on the new Mrs Karolyis. Then he sent a maid with a pleasing figure to the nearest exclusive gown-shop with instructions to buy lavishly in her own size and a third to A. T. Stewart's for French bonnets, cashmere shawls and gloves.

Alexander began to escort Maura up the wide, crimson-carpeted stairs. Now that the long-awaited scene with his father was over he felt drained and exhausted. He still didn't know how his father had ensured that none of his letters had reached Genevre and that none of her letters to him had been delivered, but he could guess. He wondered which of the Hudsons'servants had proved susceptible to bribery and how much his father had paid. It wouldn't have needed to be much and yet the amount, whatever it had been, had destroyed his life. Ginnie had died without him being at her side. She had died believing him to be faithless.

Maura was well aware of his change of mood. He had the same brooding, grief-stricken expression on his face as he had had when he had stood on the first-class deck, looking unseeingly out at the ocean. For nearly two weeks she had wondered as to the source of his grief and despair. And now she knew.

She wondered what she was going to do about it. There hadn't been time for her to marshal her own chaotic thoughts in order. One moment she had believed herself to be a happy bride about to be welcomed into the arms of her new family, the next she had been confronted by a truth so monstrous she still didn't know how she was going to come to terms with it.

They walked down a corridor hung with Bouchier tapestries and paused outside a door flanked by two of the ever-present, knee-breeched footmen.

‘This is the guest suite adjoining my own suite,' Alexander said in explanation. ‘Charlie often stays in it.'

He suddenly realized that he was still holding her hand. He felt himself flushing as he released it. She knew now why he had married her, what he had thought of her when he had done so. With a touch of sensitivity wholly uncharacteristic of him, he said: ‘I'm sorry for what happened in the Chinese room. For what I said … for what my father said …'

She couldn't say that it was all right and that it didn't matter, for it would have been a lie. It
had
mattered. She was proud of her Irishness and no-one had ever before attempted to make her feel ashamed of it. And her illegitimacy was her own affair. She had told him of it before they were married because, if he was to be her husband, she felt that he had a right to know. But it wasn't for anyone else to know about.

As to his father's description of her: she wondered how Isabel would have reacted if she had been called a whore. How Kieron would have reacted if the word had been used of either of them in his presence. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. If Kieron had been in the Chinese drawing-room, there would have been more than an attempted murder. There would have been murder outright.

As he looked at the lovely curve of her lips, Alexander was suddenly sure that everything was going to be all right. Whatever understanding they came to, it would be an amicable one. No matter what his father thought, there weren't going to be any difficulties. She would be sensible, he was sure of it.

‘I'll see you in an hour or so,' he said, feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘Tell your maid we'll be leaving for Tarna as soon as possible.'

She was about to ask where Tarna was but the footmen had already opened the doors and she could see a maid waiting for her and could hear the blissful sound of gushing water. The whereabouts of Tarna would have to remain, for the moment, a mystery.

The bedroom she entered was as big as a salon and decorated entirely in rosewood and mother-of-pearl. A vast bed was raised on a dais and covered with a gold silk-brocade baldaquin. A rug of peacock tails fronted a dressing-table that looked as if it had been made for Louis XIV.

The maid, still out of breath after her run up the backstairs, bobbed prettily. ‘My name is Miriam, madam. And your bath is being run.'

‘Being run?' It wasn't a phrase Maura had ever heard before and there was no sign of a hip-bath or an army of maids ferrying giant jugs of hot water from the kitchens.

Steam issued from an open inter-communicating door. Intrigued, she walked across and looked into the first purpose-built bathroom that she had ever seen. In the centre of the room a giant, white china bath rested on four golden claws. At the far end of the bath were two gold taps and from one of the taps came a steaming stream of hot water.