Continuing along Fifth Avenue she found herself enamored of the architecture and the changes to the city. Hacks and carriages were lined up, moving slowly, steam rising from the piles of manure. Pushcart peddlers, bundled up in ill-fitting coats and fingerless gloves, were on nearly every corner. When she came to Twenty-Third Street, she saw the familiar blue awning of the Glenham Hotel and something caught in her chest. Jeremiah. She missed him and his reckless counsel, the hours they spent inside his decrepit room, commiserating and conspiring. He’d been gone eight years and she still thought of him every day.
On a whim she decided to go into the lobby, uncertain if she was purposely trying to ruin her good mood, replacing all that optimism with melancholy and nostalgia. Sabotage or punishment? She wasn’t sure. She walked up the carpeted steps and nodded as the doorman showed her inside. Just as she remembered, the lobby was dark and gloomy, quiet and nearly empty save for a man sitting in a wingback chair, reading a newspaper. Alva wondered if George Terry still lived there. She thought about calling on him, seeing if he was in, when she looked at the big gilded mirror over the fireplace and saw Charlotte Astor—well, now Charlotte Astor Drayton—coming through the doorway.
What would she be doing at a hotel like the Glenham?
A moment later, she understood completely. The man in the wingback chair set down his paper and crossed the room to greet her. Tall, handsome, with a slightly receding hairline. Alva had no idea who he was other than the fact that he was most certainly not Coleman Drayton. Alva could feel the spark between them when their eyes met, their lips curved into smiles. And then of course there was no denying that subtle way he’d placed his hand on the small of Charlotte’s back just before whisking her into the elevator.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Caroline
Caroline had foolishly hoped that all the nonsense about Ward McAllister’s list would die down, replaced by some other salacious gossip, but the public’s fascination showed no signs of abating. If anything, it was just the opposite. She couldn’t pick up a newspaper without seeing that list. That list—it had taken on a life of its own. It had even become a proper noun, The Four Hundred.
It had been reported that Ward McAllister had in fact only provided 319 names and that because of duplicates and other errors, the actual total had been a mere 169 families. That left 81 missing names, and now everyone was stirred up again, curious about those missing individuals. She found it all so tedious and petty. Caroline couldn’t bring herself to look anymore, and set her morning papers aside on her breakfast tray. Instead, she glanced out her bedroom window, only to see the back of Waldorf’s hotel, still under construction.
He was hell-bent on opening his hotel the following year, and last she heard, it was supposed to be a staggering thirteen stories high. It would entirely block her views and would surely bring a bad element to the neighborhood. Technically, it might have been a hotel, but as far as she was concerned, it was a tavern. A tavern with bedrooms.
Thankfully she had only a couple more weeks and the season would be over and she could leave New York, as she did every year. The last week in February she would retreat to her apartment in Paris, where she was also the pinnacle of the social scene. She’d stay there until July, when it was time to summer in Newport. And it wasn’t just the construction she wanted to escape, but Ward McAllister, who had come to her house nearly every day, begging her forgiveness.
“Everyone’s turned against me,” he’d said, pacing about her drawing room, all his pride now deflated, replaced with desperation. “They’ve mocked and shunned me, don’t you know. You’re the only one who can bring me back into the good graces of society. Please, my Mystic Rose, I beg of you.”
“There’s nothing I can or will do.” She’d hated to be cruel, but he had brought this on himself. She’d stood by him after he’d published his absurd memoir, but now, this was asking too much. She was still angry with him, or perhaps she was more disappointed, which was far worse. Despite all his gossiping and pretension, he had been the one person, outside of Thomas, whom she’d confided in. But no more. He was not to be trusted, which was all the more reason why she wasn’t going to save him now.
There was a knock on her bedroom door, and much to her surprise, it was William. He was wearing a Harris Tweed hunting jacket and looked as though he’d been outside, his cheeks tinged red. “May I come in?”
“You may.” She was stunned and couldn’t remember the last time William had stepped foot inside her room. She felt suddenly modest and pinched her dressing gown at her throat. She worried about his seeing her without her wig, her gray hair so thin and limp. She thought she was past caring what he thought of her, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
She could tell by the way he held his arm close to his side that his shoulder must have been bothering him. A sure sign that damp, colder weather was coming. In another time, she would have gone over and massaged away the ache, but to do so now would have only been awkward for her and possibly unwanted by him.
He took a chair opposite hers in the little seating area by the fireplace. “I’ve just spoken with Coleman. Apparently this affair of Charlie’s is still going on.”
“But she ended it. She told me she did. She gave me her word.”
“Well, according to Coleman, she’s still carrying on and the man can take no more. He’s confronted Borrowe and challenged him to a duel.”
“Oh, dear God, no.”
“What choice has he got?” William said with a shrug. “Coleman said someone from the New York World is reporting that Charlie and Borrowe were seen together at Delmonico’s and again at Sherry’s and also at the Glenham Hotel.”
“No.”
“The World is prepared to run with it, and you know it’s only a matter of time before all the other papers pick up on it, too.”
* * *
—
William was right. The headlines were everywhere. One more incriminating than the next: The Astor Girl Scandal, said the New York Times. Mrs. J. Coleman Drayton Seen Embracing Mr. Hallett Borrowe in Public appeared in Town Topics. Injured Husband Challenges Wife’s Paramour to a Duel was what the New York Sun published.
It had been ages since Caroline and William were in agreement, but they both knew something had to be done. Caroline canceled her trip to Paris in order to deal with her daughter, and the day the New York Times ran a story, More Scandal Befalls the Astor Family, Charlotte was called into her father’s library.
The construction work next door, the intermittent pounding and chiseling, intruded upon them. Charlotte had arrived in a formfitting gown with a satin sash accentuating her bosom, which Caroline found inappropriate. If her daughter wasn’t dressing in rags, she was parading around like that. But now was not the time to bring it up. Caroline sat up straight, gripping the armrests of her chair, watching William pace, his cheeks flushed red with fury.