“Placement. It’s in Brooklyn,” Bridget said, barely acknowledging her fiancé. “No one goes to Brooklyn to be married.”
Winfield and his wife looked at each other with old love, clearly remembering their own wedding. Apparently it had been quite modest—he had not made his fortune yet. Neither one of them had minded. And yet they were willing to indulge their youngest daughter in her most expensive flights of fancy.
Lydia smiled and murmured something to Damon, who wasn’t really paying attention. She didn’t mind where she was married. While it was to be a double feature with us two “happy” couples tying the knot at the same time, she had graciously allowed her sister to decide all the details.
The Sutherlands were at least nominally Episcopal, but apparently neither Damon’s nor my religion, or lack thereof, was a bother, nor was a proper church necessary to the proceedings; a family chapel—a very rich family’s chapel—would be enough. Bridget was very modern that way.
“So why did we bother seeing those mansions on Prospect Park?” Margaret muttered. “If Brooklyn is out, I mean.”
“I rather liked the one with all the Romanesque arches,” I said, eager to get this portion of the sham weddings out of the way.
“Fear not, brother,” Damon said, chucking me on the shoulder. “Only four more to go. Back in Manhattan.”
We clattered down the steep, wooden, and rather old-fashioned stairs to the ground floor, thanking the butler for letting us in. Then it was a walk back down to the Fulton Ferry landing, where a boat would take us across to a veritable caravan of carriages for the long uptown commute.
“This would be a nice place for an ice cream parlor,” Lydia remarked, walking around the dock pensively.
“You want an ice cream?” Damon asked, as if to a four-year-old.
If being with Bridget was bad enough, with me constantly cringing at the things that came out of her mouth, the nervous tension of waiting for Damon to say or do something horrible was even worse. I was on pins and needles the entire day. Because Damon would say something horrible, at some point, to Lydia, as soon as he tired of playing the game of attentive suitor. His attention span for games—other than ones he was betting on—was incredibly limited.
“Yes,” Lydia said. “And there’s no ice cream here. And there should be.”
“Won’t matter,” Bridget said, trying to add something useful to the conversation. “Soon there’s going to be a giant bridge and this will all be shaded off and there won’t be anything except for loud carriages and the stink of horses.”
Bram, the original source of this information, shook his head. “No, Bridgey, the angle is fine. Look where the sun is . . .”
I leaned on a dock railing, surveying our little party. The girls in this setting looked like a scene from a painting, the four ladies’ cheeks rosy with sunlight and the exertion of the day, the long ribbons from their straw hats blowing in the wind, their fluffy walking skirts swept up against their legs by the sea breeze. They were all beautiful, and for just a moment I could forget my present situation.
Margaret bought a paper from a newsboy to read on the trip over. It was a fine day for a boat ride and strangely the East River didn’t repel me the way fresh running water usually did. Bridget went to sit down inside the ferry, not wanting any more sun on her skin, which was ironic and hilarious considering my own situation. I was relaxing for the first time that day, my face up to the sun, letting my Mediterranean skin take on a bronzed, healthy glow.
And then Margaret plopped down in the seat next to me.
“You seem to be at least a bit more reasonable than the other fiancé,” Margaret snapped. “Tell me. What do you want with my family. Money? The business? What?”
I groaned inwardly. “You have to believe me,” I said, fixing her blue eyes with my own hazel ones. Without compelling her, I willed my voice to sound as genuine as I could. I took her arms in my hands, which was bold, but I needed her to understand. “I am not after Bridget’s wealth. All I want is your family’s safety and happiness. I swear to you by whatever you want.”
“That’s just the problem. I don’t know what your word is worth. I don’t know you. Nobody knows you,” Margaret said. Sighing, she took off her hat. “It’s just . . . so . . . odd. I can see why Bridget likes you, you’re certainly handsome and well-mannered. . . .”
I cast my eyes down, embarrassed.
“But really—no papers, no history, just an escapee of the South? This is Bridget we’re talking about. She wanted Papa to take us all on a tour of Europe so she could capture the heart of a king, or prince, or at least a duke. Nothing less than royalty for her. And no offense, you’re about as far from royalty as one can get.”
“Well, and Lydia got her count, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Margaret said thoughtfully. She eyed me, pushing a black tendril of hair back behind her ear. “And what about Damon DeSangue . . .”
I shrugged, trying to look innocent.
“What do you think of him? The two of you have been . . . unusually close since your double declarations of love.”
I stared into the distance south, where the mighty Hudson and East rivers joined and became the sea. I shaded the city from my eyes, blocking it out, and the sun was bright white and rose over ancient, exotic waters.
How much could I tell her without endangering her? She seemed to be the only one in the family with a sensible head on her shoulders. I thought once more about Katherine and whether my family would have been better prepared with some warning.