Chapter 1
August 1895
The tide splashed against the boulders at the tip of my property, the spray pattering my face to mingle with the single tear I could not prevent from rolling down my cheek. I stared out over the ocean in an attempt to channel all that great strength and make it my own. The waves, however forceful, didn’t quite drown out the footsteps receding through the grass behind me, and I wrapped my arms tightly around my middle to keep from calling out, from turning and running and speaking the truth that crashed like a thunderous sea inside me.
I stood immobile, buffeted by the briny winds while Derrick Anderson—no, I now knew he was Derrick Andrews—strode away. He had lied to me about his identity for days on end, and the sting of his deceit had left me feeling like a naïve fool. But that wasn’t the only reason I’d sent him away, or why, however much I yearned to recall my cold words, I could not. Not if I wished to remain true to myself, to continue to be the woman I had struggled, and would continue to struggle, to be.
Finally, when I deemed him far enough away that I would be safe from temptation, I turned and glimpsed his retreating back—his dark hair and tall figure and the sturdy shoulders I’d come to depend on so much in the previous days. Shoulders with the power to make me lose all sense of myself, and that even at this distance proved an enticement I very nearly could not resist.
And wasn’t that but one more reason to deny his suit? How long had we known each other? Days? A couple of weeks? In that time, we’d lived through more than most people experienced in a lifetime. Our emotions, sensibilities, indeed our very lives had been thrust into turmoil as fierce as any ocean storm. We had survived. We had triumphed. Is it any wonder, then, that we might have become caught up in an attachment to each other? But one that might not last once the final currents of upheaval had settled.
Despite the blustery winds, the sun shone sharp and bright that morning, the glitter on the water dazzling, while glaringly white clouds scuttled gaily across a brisk blue sky. How dare a morning be so happy. Tears fell like frigid rain on my cheeks as Derrick disappeared around the corner of my rambling, shingle-style house.
I stood for an indeterminate length of time, staring at that space beside the hawthorn hedges where he had disappeared. I wondered which would finally win out—regret or resolve. I allowed myself that much self-indulgence before straightening my spine, dropping my arms to my sides, and giving myself a hard shake. Did I love Derrick Andrews? If this sinking, ill sensation inside me could be interpreted as love, then perhaps. Or then again perhaps what I felt had more to do with being thrown together into a maelstrom of events over which we had little control, other than to form an alliance and pool our resources.
Either way, I’d made my choice. I would not be the wife of a wealthy, influential man and have my life mapped out in a series of festivities that would accomplish nothing of substance in this world. Yes, Vanderbilt blood ran through my veins, but I wanted no part of the gilded prison in which my aunt Alice and all the other society matrons resided.
I glanced back out at the tossing ocean and realized the brine of Newport, of rocky, resolute Aquidneck Island, also ran through my veins to mingle with the blood of the Commodore, that first stubborn Vanderbilt who had set out to build an empire. So yes, I was a Vanderbilt, but I was also a Newporter born and raised—salty, sturdy, and fiercely independent.
Thus assured, I picked my way over my shaggy lawn—I really needed to purchase a new goat since poor Gerty had died last spring—toward Gull Manor, the house my equally independent aunt Sadie had left to me in her will. She would be proud of me today. She would approve.
Yes. There. I wished Derrick Andrews well, always, but I’d made the right decision. For me, and in all likelihood for him as well.
The jangling of the telephone startled me as I neared the open windows. Knowing there were others at home, I didn’t run to answer the device, installed months earlier at my uncle Cornelius’s generous insistence. I sighed. As independent as I liked to be, sometimes it was easier to accept my relatives’ largess rather than argue a case I’d likely lose in the end anyway. If my illustrious extended family was happy to provide little luxuries I couldn’t afford, who was I to deprive them of that satisfaction?
As I said, I didn’t run to answer the ringing summons. It had been reverberating all morning, not for me but for my half brother, who was temporarily staying with me. Friends and acquaintances—some of them barely known to us—had been calling almost nonstop to congratulate Brady on being released from jail the day before. He’d been accused of murdering Uncle Cornelius’s financial secretary on the night of our cousin Gertrude’s coming-out ball at The Breakers, but Derrick and I had discovered the true culprit even as the police had been preparing to ship Brady off to Providence for trial. That is what had brought Derrick and me together. But that, friends, is not a story I care to revisit.