The Gates of Rutherford Read Free Page B

everything. Lightly kissing his cheek, she took his arm. “Shall we walk a little way? Out to the terrace perhaps? You’re feeling well enough?”
    â€œI am feeling very well,” he told her.
    As they walked, he could feel the spring in her step. “Do you think Charlotte looked charming?” she asked.
    â€œVery charming.”
    â€œShe fussed so, you know,” Octavia mused. “About the veil, the dress. But then, she was always quite unlike Louisa.” She turned to him. “Louisa’s coming-out gown, do you recall, dear? And the pink ball gown, all in silk.”
    â€œI do indeed.” It had cost him an absolute fortune.
    â€œYou would think that I had been dragging Charlotte across the Styx when we went to the dressmakers,” Octavia laughed. “But she will look back on it with pleasure.”
    He doubted that.
    â€œYou did terribly well today,” she said quietly. “The new car was a delightful touch. A Silver Ghost at that! It was splendid. I recall the days when you would have thought a barouche much more the thing.”
    â€œI am trying to be modern,” he replied.
    â€œAnd succeeding beautifully.”
    God, he wished that she were not so happy. Pretty complimentsflew from her. He would much rather have had her silence, even the unendurable silences they once had together at Rutherford. He would have rather had her expressionless face at dinner than to dine alone, as he often did now.
    He stopped walking; she looked at him inquiringly. “Shall you come to Rutherford?” he asked.
    She paused, evidently considering. “Are you going back there?”
    â€œThis week.”
    â€œThen I shall come the week after,” she told him. “There is something that I want to talk to you about.”
    William frowned. “Not that subject.”
    â€œNo, dear. Not that subject.”
    She had suggested a divorce last year, when Gould had suddenly reappeared at Rutherford after Mary and Nash’s wedding. A matter of hours merely, and she had been packing her bags. “I thought him dead,” she had said simply. “So did the world. So did you. But he survived the
Lusitania
. Don’t tell me that you didn’t hope he would never come back, William. But he is here, and there’s an end to it.” She had turned a calm, serene face to him. “You may divorce me if you wish.”
    He had denied her. He would not see their name dragged through the court to the accompaniment of the horrific scandal that would ensue. More importantly, he would never—never, never—let her marry Gould. Dally they might . . . play the lovebirds. Even live together in their outrageous sin. He’d thought, when Gould had left two years ago, that she’d turned her face from her lover. Ridiculous in his hopes. But he would retain the reins, however slackly, in his hand. And one day she would come back, when Gould tired of her.
    He was living for that day.
    Octavia reached up and drew down one of the cherry blossom bows. “Such a dreary spring we’ve had,” she murmured. “I’m glad the sun shone a little today.”
    â€œWhat subject, then?” he asked. “What subject are you coming to Rutherford to discuss?” He narrowed his eyes. “Where is Gould?”
    â€œAt home,” she told him. “Preparing to go to France.”
    â€œWhat for?” William felt furiously irritated that she referred to the little Chelsea love nest as “home.”
    She gave him an indulgent smile. “You know full well,” she said. “America is coming to the war. He is going to Arras. The push that’s going on. So that he can report back to his New York newspaper. ‘In the teeth of battle, the true picture of war, how we are needed’ . . . all that.” Her voice had traces of sarcasm and anxiety. “He says he will try to find Harry to speak to