The Necklace Read online

  “Maybe I should keep you here as my captive. Never let you go back.” He’s teasing, of course, playful, and not at all serious. It would have been a turn-on before, but it frays the same nerve now. She’s not some damsel. He’s not some knight.

  She checks herself, again. She hasn’t been with anyone since the last time with him, and she’s feeling pent-up, ready for a night of sense pleasure, if he’d just stop talking.

  But he’s not reading her silence correctly, probably thinking she’s nervous.

  “ ’Cause I could, you know. Keep you here with me, keep you all to myself.”

  Three strikes and you’re out, she thinks. She’s fully annoyed now.

  “You know, I really should be getting back,” she says.

  “Wait, what?” he asks, shrugging his shirt back on. “What just happened?”

  “I need to go back to the farm.” Let’s see if he can be accommodating, she thinks. “You could come with me,” she says.

  “But we’re here. You don’t need to go.”

  “I do.”

  “Let’s not leave.”

  “Look,” she says, sighing, realizing the truth. “We both know this is impossible.”

  Stunned, he says, “Impossible?”

  “Well, I mean, you won’t even come out to the farm. Are you going to move?” At the look on his face, she says, “Right. It’s not like you’re going to move across the country, and so it’s going to be me who’s going to have to uproot her life. And frankly I’m too old and too good at what I do for that. So really, what is the point of this? You’re not keeping me here. I’m not staying back here. My parents left for a reason and they never came back. We don’t come back.”

  He freezes and then says, “You just did a whole thing in your head.”

  “Maybe. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “Do I get a say in any of this?”

  “You have something to say, say it.”

  When he’s silent, she turns to gather up her stuff and go.

  “Wait. I’m thinking,” he says. “You’re so damned fast.”

  But Nell wants to leave, to move, to put miles between herself and this. She’s not coming back here. She doesn’t belong here. It’s instinct—certainty without thinking—that urge to flee. Nevertheless, at the look on Louis’s face she pauses, waiting.

  “This is some bullshit,” he says. “Marry me.”

  “What? You’re not serious.”

  He comes to her then, takes her in his arms. “As a heart attack.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “So? I know what I want. Why wait?”

  “Even the way you said it, I marry you. Why isn’t it you who marries me?”

  “Okay,” he says quickly.

  “Be real.”

  He kisses her then, a most persuasive argument. “I love you. I knew it that night. We’ve gotten to know each other all long-distance and chaste-like. I know who you are, and I don’t want to wait or be without you. I was coming out there to get you.”

  “You were coming to get me?”

  “Yeah. That’s where this is all going anyway. It’s where you went in your head just now. You feel it, too, don’t you? So why draw it out? Why not do the romantic thing? The impractical thing. The impossible?”

  “You can’t propose to get me to spend the night with you. You can’t coerce me like that.” It’s a blatant attempt to manipulate her with the brass ring every woman supposedly wants. His proposal is infuriating, but it’s also enticing. She’s never been that woman, pining to be a bride, but she isn’t immune to a brash and handsome man either.

  Nell wonders at his confidence, his outrageousness. Does he really feel this way, or is he merely throwing out a proposal he knows she won’t accept? And what if she did? What if she called his bluff? He’d likely backpedal. Or he might book tickets on the next plane to Vegas. She wouldn’t put it past him. And this thought softens her a bit.

  “Stay. Let me convince you how right we are for each other.”

  She has a thought for staying, for one more night of his particular brand of escape, a way to forget about the world. She’d like to forget again.

  He is energy and optimism, competence and calm, and she just wants to feel him pressed up against her skin. “You’re going to convince me?”

  “Just need one more night,” he says with a playful smile.

  “One night, then,” she says, looking forward to a getaway from the mundane.

  “Excellent,” he says as he kisses her, his hands in her hair, backing her up toward his bed. “I can work with one night.”

  THE LEATHER JOURNAL

  Days passed in a haze for Ambrose. He and May spent most of their time outdoors to avoid the staff. Riding to secluded spots, he would coax her off Blueskin and down next to him on saddle blankets he’d take from the barns and spread on the grass. They did things that apparently frightened the horses, who both managed to slip their leads and take off at a pace for the stables. Ambrose and May dressed and ambled after them, straggling back in rumpled clothes, to the raised eyebrow of the barn manager.

  Down at the pond, Ambrose dared her to climb up on the top of the bathhouse and jump. She’d done it and come up laughing, complaining that her feet hit mud when she leapt from that height. They’d wasted afternoons in the humid sun and the mossy water.

  They ate together in the dining room at night, small dinners à deux, with furtive clasped hands under the table and whispered plans that stopped when the maids would come in with more champagne or to clear plates. Ambrose rarely let May out of his sight; he was so absorbed by her and the real physicality of her after so many daydreams that he couldn’t think about anything else. But when she was in her bath or riding alone or discussing things with the cook, when he had even a moment by himself, he was silently plotting their escape and a return. Ambrose wanted it, and he’d create it—the chance to begin again, to go back and make a decision differently, for the both of them. And he didn’t care now which one of them should have chosen differently, if the fault lay with him for trying to jump May through a set of hoops or with May for marrying while he was gone. It didn’t move anything forward to look back like that.

  Each night before dinner he brought her violets from the greenhouses, though she didn’t wear flowers in her hair anymore, which he thought a pity.

  Each night after dinner she tiptoed down to his room in her long white nightgown, returning back to her end of the house before morning, lest the help talked.

  This morning she’d announced the need for a walk, alone. Though it made his stomach sink, Ambrose smiled, wary of seeming overbearing. Continually beating under any moment that May wasn’t with him was the desire to just take her away, to convince her to leave before Ethan came back and go where no one would be able to find them. He sat in the living room, fumbling over a leather-bound journal, trying for calm. He was inspired, as he hadn’t been since India, to try writing verse. His frustrated scribbling and many crossed-out words showcased his inability to capture the moment.

  He worked, hoping to have something to give her by the time she was back. When he heard the front door creak, thinking it was she, he called out, “Darling.”

  Heavy footfalls alerted him that it wasn’t May, and Ethan entered the room, his face placid.

  Ambrose rose, willing himself not to blush, and hoped his “Darling” sounded casual, like an offhand, teasing thing between a hostess and her long-standing houseguest.

  “You’re back. How’d it go?” Ambrose regretted it the minute he said it. He’d kept in little contact with his father’s office, making only a few halfhearted phone calls, during which he’d been told all was under control and there was nothing for him to do, no decisions to be made. They’d call if he was needed, they assured him. Ambrose suspected that they were glad to have him out of the way, and he’d been only too happy to oblige. There’d been telegrams from Ethan, and letters, too, which Ambrose had left unopened on a never-used ta
ble in the library.

  He felt it then, the fragile bubble he’d been living in with May, and seeing the look on Ethan’s face, Ambrose felt it pop.

  “Drink?” Ambrose asked, searching for something to do, something to offer.

  When Ethan had his glass and was settled, the sound of the front door silenced the brothers. Ambrose tried to think of some way to warn May as her boots clacked across the hall. “There you are,” she said, coming in the room with a wide, fond smile. “You were right, I feel so much . . .” She turned then, seeing the look on Ambrose’s face.

  “Surprise,” Ethan said flatly.

  She looked so young, her hair a shiny curve at her cheek, baggy jodhpurs with a rip at the knee and an old tuxedo shirt of Ambrose’s, wrapped so she didn’t need studs. She’d been on the mountain, and mud was splashed up the leg of her britches—a wild thing wearing a small fortune from a maharaja around her neck while tromping through the woods. It was the sort of careless thing that attracted him to May, and he knew his brother was attracted to it, too, knew Ethan would have had no quarrel with it if the jewels had been from him.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.

  “I know you weren’t, ” Ethan said evenly. “I didn’t want to waste time telephoning, so I just came on the train as quickly as I could.” But Ambrose knew this was not why Ethan had surprised them. He’d wanted to catch them unawares.

  “Is everything all right?” May asked with genuine concern. Ambrose couldn’t help it. Even that small amount of gentleness from May kindled jealousy.

  Ethan slumped down in his chair while May stood in front of the cold fireplace.

  “As good as it can be, I guess.” He turned toward Ambrose. “It was hard for Father. Quite a strain. He seems to feel . . .”

  Ambrose could imagine their pious father’s mood.

  “I didn’t realize how responsible he feels,” Ethan continued. “You know how he is.” Ambrose did know how Israel could be—absolute, certain, bleak, and uncompromising.

  “Once he’s made something into a moral issue—” Ethan raised his glass for a long draw. “It becomes quite black-and-white for him. Frankly, given his morose state of mind, I’m a bit worried.”

  “Worried how?”

  “He kept talking about man’s duty to man and the nature of sin.” He looked at his brother then. “Maybe you and your philosophers got to him. He was constantly reading his Bible. Even on the train.”

  They sat one full beat, letting this sink in. Though he knew his father was religious, he couldn’t imagine him reading his Bible on a public train. Ethan continued, “In any case, I think he needs company now. You should head into town. For some reason, I feel like he shouldn’t be alone.”

  It riled Ambrose, this demonstration of how easily Ethan could kick him out of the house if he wanted.

  May piped in then. “But we’re going to Arabella Rensselaer’s dog-racing party.” At Ethan’s blank face, May continued. “You’ll have to come now. She’s showing off those new little Italian dogs of hers. Skinny things—whippets, they’re called. I told her you were gone, but now you’re back.”

  “I’m not going to a party. Besides, I’m sure Ambrose will have a better time with his ladylove if we’re not there.” Ethan watched his brother’s face as he said this.

  “I hear she’s going around with your man O’Brennan now,” Ambrose said, meeting his brother’s gaze.

  “Well, I want to go; if you don’t want to . . .” May trailed off.

  “You wouldn’t go without me, would you dear? Not after I’ve been gone.”

  She rose then. “I’m going to rest and have a bath,” she said. “And then we’re all going to the party.”

  Ethan rose to meet her. And Ambrose watched as Ethan took her in his arms. Ambrose felt only slight vindication that she looked stiff even from across the room.

  “A kiss for your husband,” Ethan said, seeming to linger on the last word.

  She kissed him quickly, a fast, closed-mouth peck against his lips, but he wouldn’t let her go. His right arm locked around her until she yielded and kissed him properly. Ambrose looked away. Then she headed for the stairs, her gait only slightly under a run.

  THE STEAMER TRUNKS

  In the morning Nell tries to slip out with no good-byes. Not that she’s running away from Louis’s place, exactly, but she’d like to stay thought-free a little longer. If she has to turn her brain on, and get out of this delicious haze, then she wants space to think. Alone. They’d discarded his proposal, along with their clothes on the floor. But she’s dressed now, and she’s almost made it to the door when she remembers the Moon on the windowsill in his bedroom and stealthily turns around.

  “Such a sneaker,” Louis says, opening one eye when she reenters the scene from last night. “Are you actually tiptoeing?”

  She has her phone out; it’s already vibrating with incoming emails and texts. One from her assistant, late last night on West Coast time; something from Chuck the lawyer at five o’clock this morning; more from clients; and a text from Pansy—formal and deferential with no abbreviations or emojis—giving notice that she’ll be out at the farm with Emerson today putting their names on the pieces of furniture they want. Nell walks over to the bed and holds it up for Louis to read, blue light reflecting off his calm, intelligent eyes.

  “If you go out there, I’m coming with you,” he says, sitting up and scrubbing his face.

  “No need.”

  “My car’s still at the hunt club. You’ll drop me off, and then we’ll head over caravan style. We’ll need food first.” Despite having just woken up, he’s neatly organized her day and inserted himself in the middle of it as he heads to the kitchen to make breakfast. “You need a neutral third party with you. Not that I’m neutral,” he says, checking over his shoulder that she’s still there, that she isn’t objecting to his bossiness. “But I am a third party.”

  “You’d do all that for me?” she says, mock-touched, and heads for the mirror in the bathroom to put the Moon back on.

  “I think it’s pretty clear after last night that I’ll do anything you want.”

  * * *

  A contractor’s Dumpster, forty cubic yards, sits in the farm’s driveway, blocking the front door. Whoever ordered it knew the size of the job ahead.

  Inside the house, little packing tags with Emerson’s or Pansy’s name on them are tied to the legs of chairs and placed on top of tables. To Nell’s eye there looks to be a lot of them, and it gives her pause. She wonders for a moment just what her ancestors would think of this, of Emerson and Pansy and Nell dividing up everything from the linens to the Limoges. Would they be pleased at the frugality, the appearance of respect for legacy? Or would they be appalled that this was all that was left of a formerly vast empire?

  Louis’s calling through the house for the cousins, and Nell’s relieved she’ll have the place to herself for a moment. She’s interrupted, though, by a knock on the door.

  Two of the oldest members of the farm crew come in. Both in their sixties, they’ve each worked on the place since they were young men. Combined, they know more about the ins and outs of Quincy family politics than Nell does. One has a five-gallon bucket in each hand, filled with green blocks. The other carries a cardboard box.

  “Saw the car. We’ve been waiting to do this.” The buckets, Nell now realizes, are filled with blocks of rat poison.

  “Is that all going in here?”

  “Some goes in the attics, most goes in the basement. Just getting on fall now, and that’s when the little furry guys start looking for a place to spend the winter.”

  Nell doesn’t want to add poison to the house. Doesn’t it make dust? She feels it’s one of the few things she and Pansy might agree on right now. No more toxins.

  “Do we have to?” she asks. There’s an awkward silence, and she realizes they’re wondering if she has the authority to stop them.

  “You don’t have to,” says the shorter one, set
ting a cardboard box down on the first stair step. “But it’s gonna look like a New York City subway station in here if you don’t. Rats everywhere.”

  “No, they’re field mice,” says the other. “Pretty cute, I guess.”

  “You know, maybe today’s not the right day, fellas,” Louis says stepping in. “We were going to take a crack at the attics.”

  “Thought you might,” the shorter one says, nodding toward the box.

  She sees now that it’s filled with dust masks, black contractor’s trash bags, and latex gloves.

  “That’s really nice of you,” Nell says.

  “You’re gonna stir up a lot of crud,” he says with a shrug.

  Mission complete, they head out the door, load the poison into the bed of the pickup,and each take a Swisher Sweet out of the pack on the dashboard.

  “You call us when you’re done, now, and we’ll come put it in,” the shorter one says. He nods toward her, starts up the ancient farm truck, and rattles off.

  When they’ve left Louis says, “Starting in the attic isn’t a bad idea, you know. Since it’s all leftover crap anyway, it’s probably filled with the easiest decisions. Bet you fill that thing in a day or two.” He nods toward the Dumpster.

  Nell is grateful he’s here with his clear-sighted counsel and his calm demeanor. He’s probably advised loads of families on cleaning out an old place.

  She changes into jeans, and with thoughts of Pansy lurking, keeps the Moon fastened and tucked inside her T-shirt. Then, taking Louis’s advice, she heads for the attics. They won’t be able to call her a flake or a shirker now.

  The door to the attic off the third-floor dormitory creaks open, and she’s filled with trepidation, as if breaching a tomb. Dust sparkles in shafts of sunlight and she silently thanks the old architects who deemed huge dormer windows a necessity in an attic.

  She pulls the dust mask over her mouth, dons gloves, and grabs a black contractor bag, feeling like she’s suiting up for a biohazard. And she kind of is—she read somewhere that dust is 90 percent human skin. She will be breathing in her ancestors.