personal secretary to Axel Wenner-Gren. A terrific catch for Marie, don’t you think? Exactly the reason you bring your gorgeous redheaded daughter to a place like Nassau. Anyway, Marie was thick as thieves with Nancy Oakes, also a redhead, so you see Mrs. Gudewill had authority to speak on pretty much anything, and I was happy to let her do it. Part of my job, to let people rattle on indiscreetly.
“Really? An adventuress?”
“Well, that was before I knew her, you know. Now I’ve seen all the good she does around here, how hard she works. And you can’t deny the love they have for each other.”
“No, indeed,” I said. “It just touches the heart.”
The windows were open, and as I rested my elbow on the doorframe, I thought I tasted the humid, golden, salty scent of summer. In New York, the air would taste of garbage and car exhaust, would slosh with coal smoke and sleet. We slowed to a halt before the gate at the west entrance. A guard stepped from the booth.
She poked her head out the window. “Good afternoon! Mrs. Gudewill and Mrs. Randolph. We’re delivering the Christmas parcels from the Red Cross.”
He glanced down at his metal clipboard. “Of course. Straight on through. You know the way, don’t you?”
“Naturally.”
We drove through the gates and stopped outside the portico, where a dull green motorcycle sat next to the curb, sidecar attached. As we rolled to a stop, a tall spindly man emerged from the door, exchanged a jaunty salute with the guard, and climbed aboard the motorcycle. The sun glinted briefly on his hair before he slid a leather helmet on his head, a pair of goggles over his eyes. I swallowed my heart. Mrs. Gudewill set the brake. “Why, isn’t that Mr. Thorpe?” she said.
“Mr. Thorpe?”
“Yes, I’m sure it is. He must have been visiting the duke. Well. Come along. I’ve got a hairdresser appointment in an hour! You are going to the party tonight, Mrs. Randolph?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for diamonds,” I said.
By now, the guards and the footmen and Marshall the butler all knew me pretty well. Marshall scooped up an armful of presents and escorted us down the hall to the drawing room, where the duchess usually received me on the sofa near the fireplace, impeccably groomed, chaperoned by her private secretary, Miss Drewes, and her own enormous image above the mantel. There would be tea, and we would chitchat. I’ll say no more. Today, of course, that mantel was dressed in holly, and the duchess wore a festive dress of crimson. Miss Drewes sat on the chair at her right, pencil poised.
“Why, good afternoon, ladies,” said the duchess.
I perceived a trace of agitation at my side. Mrs. Gudewill, who must have been forty-five or fifty—a solid, dependable matron resembling a chintz cushion—sort of fluttered, at least so much as you could flutter while carrying an armload of Christmas presents.
“Good afternoon, Your Highness!” she trilled.
“Good afternoon, Duchess,” I said. “Shall we just deposit these under the tree?”
“Oh, yes. Thanks ever so much,” said the duchess, not so much as flinching from her position on the sofa.
We carried our burden in the direction of the Douglas fir—naturally, a genuine Douglas fir for Government House, and hang the expense—that stood a dozen feet tall in the corner of the room, all decked in tinsel and candles. I followed Mrs. Gudewill, and last came Marshall in his white gloves.
“Just scattered around the bottom here?” said Mrs. Gudewill.
“That will do,” said the duchess.
Together we placed the presents in their thin, cheap, colorful paper atop the skirt of scarlet velvet that surrounded the base of the Christmas tree. The poor thing had already dropped a layer of needles, didn’t like the climate at all. I rose and brushed my hands.
The duchess called out, “You’ve just missed our friend Thorpe, Mrs. Randolph. Popped by for a visit.”
“We saw him on his motorcycle!” said Mrs. Gudewill. “Just leaving!”
“It’s a funny thing, how you always just miss him.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” I said.
“But then he’s constantly in and out,” said the duchess.
Miss Drewes piped up. “He turned up at that tennis tournament last month, didn’t he? At the British Colonial.”
“I don’t recall,” I said. “Did he?”
The duchess laughed. “Yes, he did. I believe I caught him looking your way a hundred times, poor fellow.”
There was a dainty pause. A clink of somebody’s cup into somebody’s saucer. Mrs. Gudewill turned back to the tree and made some admiring noises.