I trail my hand down the front of his perfectly pressed shirt and run my palm over the bulge in the front of his trousers.
“Hello,” I whisper, stroking him through the fine fabric.
He groans when I drop my hand back to my side.
“Let’s finish the tour,” I say.
He’s disappointed, but also completely under my spell now.
“Is there a room with a view of the back? I want to see thetent and the party from above.” I know this will be Stella’s room, the one with the safe.
We move on to the master bedroom of the house. I almost expect it to be filled with Matthew’s father’s things, but Stella told me she didn’t think Louis would take it over until he had a chance to fully renovate. “He’ll be afraid my ghost will come for him in the middle of the night.”
I give no indication that I know it was Stella’s room as I walk through, but I can feel her in here. She said that she loved the view. From here, she told me, you can gaze out on the rolling lavender hills and winding river beyond. I place my hands on the cold windowsill and press my forehead to the frosty glass. The backyard below me is a winter fairyland with tiny gold orbs twinkling in every tree and the lightest dusting of sugar snow on the ground. There’s an exposed walkway between the house and the massive white tent past the patio. Waiters in their velvet coats ensure no one is empty-handed as they make the walk with white woolen shawls, all provided just for the one-minute excursion, draped around their necks like capes.
“Want to see the most interesting part of this room?” he asks me.
“Of course.”
Matthew presses on a spot on the wall next to the bed and a door springs open. It had been hidden behind the ornate paneling. “To the secret library,” he whispers.
It’s exactly as Stella described it.
The concealed room is inside an actual turret. It’s circular and lined with shelves that soar three stories high. Books perch on every surface, their spines a tapestry of faded golds, deep burgundies, and rich browns. A massive brass telescope stands sentinel by a curved window, its lens pointed down at the party, as if waiting for us to spy on the guests.
“My grandfather had it built for Stella. She’s read every book in here. Many of them are first editions.”
“She must have missed it so much.” I breathe in the dusty air. “When your father kept her from here.” I don’t say more than that, afraid I’ll reveal something that Matthew hasn’t told me himself.
My footsteps echo on the shiny parquet floor as I approach the nearest shelf. My fingers trip over a leather spine embossed with gold French text, so old the letters have nearly worn away. A first edition Voltaire, it looks like.
I feel Matthew approaching behind me. Now that I’ve seen the room, I’ll need to deflect his affections for now. The plan is to bring him back later. The safe isn’t obvious at all, but I know it’s behind a very particular row of books that includes Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and Flora Tristan.
“All books my stepson would never take off the shelf,” Stella had snorted when she told me. “By women, for women, about women.”
I slip seductively out of Matthew’s reach and search the shelves for the names, knowing that if I take the books from the shelf, I’ll see yet another secret panel that will open to reveal the safe.
I’ve never seen a safe, much less opened one. Stella’s given me the code. I won’t be breaking into anything and yet it still feels illicit.
Here it is, a much-loved copy of de Beauvoir’sThe Woman Destroyed. I’ve never read it, but Stella quoted from it by memory during our last night together at the cottage on the island: “My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband.” It has become clear to me that despite loving Maxwell intensely and adoring the lifestyle he afforded her, Stella has regrets about not being more proactive in telling him what she wanted from him and the company. I’ve started to think that’s what she meant when she told me that being rich is a terrible thing. It may have blinded her to many things over the years,kept her from many ambitions. She’s making up for lost time now that time is running out.
Next to it I find Tristan’sPeregrinations of a Pariahand Wollstonecraft’sA Vindication of the Rights of Men.
I replaceThe Woman Destroyedas Matthew clutches my waist.
“Find something you like?” he whispers in my ear.
I wrap my arms around his neck and gently kiss the edge of his jaw. “I found something I want,” I purr. “I was thinking we could come back here, a little later, maybe. When everyone is more distracted down there.”
“During dinner?” His breath is coming heavy. I know he doesn’t want to wait, but he will.
“Yes.”
“We might be missed if we both slip out, but when dessert comes, before dancing?”
“Even better,” I agree.
“But we could also stay up here a little longer now.”
