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again.
    “Hello, Mama,” she said once she’d recovered. “I thought you were on your way to Newport.”
    “I was delayed. It appears that you were, as well. From wherever you were.”
    “I was on a bicycle ride,” she said, thinking at least in this she could be honest.
    “So were your sisters. They arrived home thirty minutes ago. They expected to find you in your room, recovering from the effects of the sun. Imagine their surprise … and mine … when we discovered you were not here.”
    “If you were not on a bicycle ride, where were you, Caroline?”
    Caroline opted for another partial truth. “I went to the museum.”
    “Which one?”
    “The Natural History Museum, right by the park.”
    Her mother sighed. “That sounds likely. But your sisters managed to stay with the group. Why couldn’t you?”
    “Because I find museums more interesting than bicycles. You know how much I love to learn. I wish I didn’t have to sneak around you to do it.”
    “I let you take the admission examinations for both Oxford and Yale,” Mama said as though that settled the matter.
    “And I passed both. You should have let me go, even if it was just to Vassar. At least then I could have done one thing for myself before I gave up the rest of my life to some duke or viscount.”
    “It’s an honor to marry nobility,” her mother replied.
    “Let Amelia or Helen have the honor.”
    “When their time comes, they will. But this is your year, Caroline, and Bremerton will be the man. I can just feel it! And this is for you … for your future and your children’s future.” She paused and then added, “And let’s be clear about one thing. After today, there will be no more contact with other men.”
    Had someone other than those boys seen her kiss Jack?
    Despite the sickly taste of panic on her tongue, Caroline calmly asked, “What are you talking about?”
    “Jack Culhane,” Mama replied. “The twins are good girls. They told me he left soon after you.”
    This time Caroline would go with a lie. Why bring Jack into the mess?
    “He might have left after me, but he certainly wasn’t with me,” she said.
    Her mother scrutinized her, but Caroline held steady.
    “If you say so,” Mama finally said. “But tomorrow afternoon, you and the twins will be with me on the Fall River boat to Newport. I won’t risk a repeat of whatever might have happened today.”
    “Fine, Mama. I’ll have Annie pack my trunks.”
    “It’s already being done.”
    So, Newport it was. Caroline could think of worse fates. Among them would be seeing Jack Culhane before she could dim the memory of that kiss.

 
    FOUR
    Mama believed in schedules. If the steamer Plymouth was to disembark from Pier 28 of the North River at 5:00 P.M. , all Maxwell females would be ensconced in their parlor rooms no later than 3:30. Caroline would have liked to believe that Mama’s timeliness was out of consideration for their fellow passengers. She knew better, though. Mama did not believe in her daughters mixing with people whom she had not approved as socially acceptable. Thus Caroline and the twins had been whisked into solitude.
    Only serendipitous timing had stopped Caroline’s mother from using the family’s private yacht, the Conqueror, for this Newport trip. Papa was having the ship’s engines vetted to be certain he could vanquish even the Vanderbilts in a transatlantic voyage. Caroline could not have been happier. Public transport on the Plymouth, with its non-Mama-approved contingent, gave her hope for some adventure, even if it was simply seeing new faces and listening in on a conversation or two.
    Caroline walked softly across the rose-patterned carpet and put her ear to the wall that separated her room from Mama’s. Luckily, the walnut veneer did little to stop sound from traveling.
    “I must fall asleep before supper or it will be another miserable voyage for me,” Mama was saying to her maid, Berta.
    Mama didn’t get seasick so much as