had dropped the names of mutual acquaintances and other grandees and had also managed to convince him that it was his idea to invite her to his midtown corporate headquarters to see the art collection, which she had already researched quite thoroughly. She just adored Remington, she told him, so vigorous and masculine, naming qualities that, she hinted, she also appreciated in a tycoon. Remington was just so American—something that, as a European, she found terribly romantic. She had spoken knowledgeably as well about his business, while implying that she herself was burdened with the responsibility of tending to a significant family fortune.
Mary Trotter owed Alysha, who had gotten the Trotters invited to Blenheim the previous summer, and had been happy to seat her next to the recently divorced timber heir. After insisting that Mary recite the guest list, Alysha had decided against asking her to remember to use the title “Contessa” on her place card, after discovering that two European couples, including Lord and Lady Beecroft, had been invited. She had learned to be cautious in this regard; although she had two separate claims to the title, neither was quite beyond reproach. Alysha's mother had once been married to an Italian count and, furthermore, her second-to-last husband, Frederick de Sante, had also been a count, although, in fact, the elderly de Sante, it turned out, was still married to his second wife when Alysha called a priest to his sickbed to perform the wedding service. The prior wench had ended up with most of the count's estate, after an ugly legal battle; having lost three houses and two apartments, Alysha was damned if she'd give up the name, as well. She had continued to use it during her next marriage, to Sam Grossman, heir to an Atlanta-based retail empire. Sam himself had been perfectly comfortable with her decision to keep the name, even if certain third parties had chosen to be malicious. Everyone knew her as Alysha de Sante, and it would have been confusing were she to have changed her name. The fact that Sam was Jewish had nothing to do with it. Billy Laube, who'd recently moved east from Denver, knew none of this, and Alysha was eager to protect him from unpleasant gossip and give him an opportunity to form his own impressions.
Laube's grandfather was one of those giants who had won the West, a self-made financier with an uncanny knack for buying up vast tracts of wilderness that just happened to lie directly in the path of the advancing railroad. The Laube Corporation, of which Billy was president, was now a sprawling conglomerate with interests in timber, paper and chemicals. And unlike most of the local tycoons, he stood well over six feet, with a broad-shouldered athletic build, a thick mane of steel gray hair and—or so it seemed to Alysha—a kind of straight shooting, curmudgeonly frontier manner. His rough edges were charming—much as stubble can be attractive on the face of a younger man.
Like many rich men, he seemed to have a minor obsession with household economy. “My daughter spent four thousand dollars on a dress last month,” he complained after she had asked him if he thought her own dress wasn't perhaps just a bit too low-cut. “Something she can apparently wear only once. I never in my life spent more than a thousand dollars on a suit, and I keep them for years.” He held up the sleeve of his navy suit as if to demonstrate, and indeed the edge of the sleeve was frayed, the buttonholes fake. While the European men of her acquaintance tended to have their clothes custom-made, and often, she had learned to appreciate the shabby, frugal aesthetic that characterized a certain venerable subset of the American plutocracy. A mountain man by way of Deerfield and Yale, Laube had clearly taken his sartorial cues from the preppy New Englanders. It was all very charming; and later, she believed, she would have plenty of time to take him to Huntsman or Anderson & Sheppard.
“I don't believe there's any reason for young women to spend that kind of money on clothing,” she told him, truly believing that the advantages of youth should be handicapped; it wasn't fair that an unlined face and buoyant bust should be further enhanced by a couture gown.
“It's ridiculous is what it is,” he said. “Not so long ago, you could get a new Buick for less than that.”
“I think it's important to set limits for