The Golden Hour. Beatriz Williams
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biggest strikes ever made, and now he lived here in the Bahamas, because of taxes. I guess he figured he had already paid his dues, like that Swedish fellow.
The car roared off. I slowed my steps to hang back, conscious that I had no companion, no escort, no friend of any kind. I was alone, as usual, and when you’re alone you must time your entrance carefully, you must carry yourself a certain way, you must manage every detail so nobody suspects your weakness. A fellow in a uniform stood just outside the door, exchanging words with Oakes, who continued to pat his pockets in that absentminded way, while I crossed the drive at a measured pace, presenting my hips just so. As I reached the portico, I heard an oath. It was delivered, needless to say, in a plain, rough, American kind of voice, and I froze, a few yards away. I’d heard he was a flinty fellow, Sir Harry Oakes, that he had a hot temper and small patience—no wonder he’d married late in life, when he was already rich—and here’s what I’d learned about men of temperament: stay the hell away, if you can help it.
But Oakes spun around and spotted me. In the course of patting his pockets, he’d discovered the same card I carried in my hand. He brandished it now. “In the gardens!” he bellowed. “The goddamn west entrance!”
“The west entrance?”
“Follow me.”
He stumped off—there’s no other way to describe it, as if he wore an invisible pair of iron boots—and I scrambled after him, because when the richest man in the British Empire tells you to follow him, you take your chances and follow, temperament be damned.
“Leonora Randolph,” I ventured, when I reached his shoulder.
He stopped and spun again. He couldn’t seem to turn like an ordinary man, but then he wasn’t ordinary, was he? He stuck out his hand. “Oakes,” he said, because of course there needed no further introduction.
I took the hand and shook it briskly. “I figured.”
Well, he laughed at that. We resumed walking, at a more amicable pace, and Oakes said, “Where do you come from, Miss Randolph?”
“Mrs. Randolph. I’m from New York City, mostly. I came down to Nassau a few weeks ago for a change of pace.”
“Change of pace, eh? I guess you’ve got your money’s worth.”
“I’ll say.”
“Your husband come with you?”
“My husband’s dead, Sir Harry.”
“I see.”—stomp, stomp—“Awfully sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was a louse.”
“A louse, eh? The lazy kind, or the drinking kind?”
“Take your pick.”
“Did he beat you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say beat.”
Oakes grunted. “Good riddance to the bastard, then. Why Nassau?”
“Why not Nassau?”
“The heat, for one thing. It’s goddamn July. My wife and kids left for Bar Harbor two months ago.”
“I don’t mind the heat at all, Sir Harry. Heaven knows it’s better than the cold.”
We had turned the corner of the mansion by now, and proceeded down a path that led, presumably, to the gardens at the rear. The music and chatter grew louder through the quicksand of warmth, the scent of blossom, the splay of palm fronds. Oakes raised his voice to bark, “Cold? Cold? A New York City winter’s nothing to the goddamn Yukon, believe me!”
“Well, I’ll take the tropics over either of them, any day. Even in July.”
“And I say you’re nuts. Nobody’s here! Just the locals and the riffraff. Like me!” He rapped his thigh with his invitation card and laughed.
“And Their Royal Highnesses.”
“They wouldn’t be here either, if they could help it. Here we are.”
We had reached an iron gate, where a sturdy, immaculate fellow wore his white uniform and white gloves bravely. He greeted Oakes by name. Oakes snatched my invitation card right from my fingers and thrust both of them, his and mine, toward this gatekeeper. “There you go, Marshall. This is Mrs. Randolph, just off the boat from New York.”
“The airliner, actually,” I said.
“The airliner. That new Pan American service from Miami, I’ll bet.”
“That’s the one.”
“Not afraid of flying, either. Good girl. Mrs. Randolph, this gentleman is George Marshall, butler at Government House. He’s the fellow who runs just about everything. Isn’t that right, Marshall?”
Marshall glanced down at my invitation card, glanced back up at me. I felt a cool inspection pass across my skin and my dress of blueberry organza, not unpleasant. “Good evening, Mrs. Randolph,” he said. “Welcome to Government House.”
“Good evening, Mr. Marshall. Delighted, I’m sure.”
“How’s the rum punch in there?” said Oakes.
“I mixed it myself an hour ago, sir.”
“Good, good. The duke?”
“Their Royal Highnesses are still receiving by the goldfish pond, I believe.”
Oakes took my elbow. “Come along, Mrs. Randolph. Might as well go in with reinforcements, I always say.”
Together we walked through the gate, toward the crackle of human noise. By the sound of things, the party was already in full swing. Against the twilight, the flares of perhaps a dozen or more lanterns flickered opulently, illuminating the garden in patches of gold, illuminating spiky palmettos and white jasmine and pink bougainvillea, illuminating people and more people, drinking and smoking and laughing. I turned my head to Oakes. “I thought you said nobody was here, except locals and riffraff.”
“Those are the locals, Mrs. Randolph. Conchie Joes, we call ’em. Merchants on Bay Street and their plump little wives. You’ll get to know their faces, believe me. The pond’s this way.”
I allowed him to lead me down the path, toward a cluster of lanterns that had attracted—like mosquitoes, I thought—several people dressed in bright colors, next to a rock-lined pool. Oakes was grumbling to himself. I asked him if something was wrong.
“Receiving lines,” he said. “Can’t stand ’em.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t notice if you just slipped past.”
“Their Royal Highnesses,” he muttered. “Nothing royal about her. You know that, don’t you?”
I turned my head toward the man before me, the richest man in the British Empire. A dazzling fact, if you paused to consider it, but of course you couldn’t pause in the middle of a cocktail party and consider the pounds, shillings, and pence that belonged to the fellow walking at your elbow. You just gazed in pity at his thinning hair, his frown in profile, and said gently, “I do. I also know it’s wiser just to go along with things.”
He didn’t reply. I liked his face, his kind eyes and his even, sturdy, jowly features. Possibly I only imagined the ruggedness that clung to his skin, the hint of rock and earth, because I knew this about him. Or perhaps, when you spend half your life prospecting in the wilderness, no amount of Bahamas sunshine can burn away the scent of frontier.
As we drew closer, the cluster of people moved away, revealing a pair of familiar, ravishing figures, exactly the same height, one dark-haired and one fair. A half-dozen lanterns hung from the nearby palms. The light created a nimbus around them. What a show, I thought. What a goddamned brilliant show they put on. You almost wanted to applaud.
Oakes turned to me and said, “You know, you oughta