The Body in the Boudoir (6 page)

Faith nodded back. She was at her shower. It would all work out. Wouldn't it? The it being what? She tried to articulate the “what”—the wedding, the move, the marriage? No, not the marriage. She was sure about that.

“This is what I thought I'd like to have on in the early hours of the morning,” Josie said as Faith removed a beautiful—and very sheer—peignoir and gown from the tissue paper. “Or off!” someone called, and the room burst into laughter. Faith darted a quick look at the Massachusetts contingent. The tight-lipped smiles they'd worn throughout remained frozen in place.

The other early morning gift givers had had much the same idea as Josie, with the exception of Poppy, who'd presented Faith with a set of Pratesi sheets so silken the thread count rivaled the national debt. Hope's 7:00
A.M.
gift was a stainless steel French-press coffeemaker from Germany that kept the liquid hot, and an order for a year's supply of freshly roasted beans from Zabar's. Emma handed her a small box from Cartier, saying, “I know I'm supposed to be noon, but I knew you'd love this after seeing the watch Tom gave you.” Faith did love Emma's gift, so Emma—a Longines vintage mantel clock similar in style to the watch.

Poppy handed Faith a card. “It's from your uncle Schuyler. He came up here earlier to deliver it himself, said he knew his wife was coming and it was all girls, but he wanted to ‘shower' you himself—the dirty old man!” Everyone laughed. He was a favorite with Poppy and she had shooed him away with reluctance. The man was such fun.

“His gift is under the table, and don't bother to unwrap it. It will be a bore to pack it up again. He said to tell you it was a Waterford punch bowl and cups so you could get your parishioners to unwind.”

Faith was delighted. At the gift, typical of him, and his notion of a roomful of tipsy parishioners. Her middle name was Schuyler in honor of him. He was her grandmother's baby brother. Uncle Sky was either a little dotty or wonderfully eccentric, depending on the speaker. In any case, he'd been in great demand on the Manhattan party circuit even when he was a mere stripling at Princeton.

And so it went, a giddy journey through the bride's day that even Betsey's extremely practical Tupperware offering, which she presumed Faith would use at 2:00
P.M.
for some reason, could not dampen. Sydney's 6:00
P.M.
oven mitts and matching dish towels decorated with the logos of Boston's beloved teams—the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, and Patriots—brought shrieks from the group. “Remember when we went to the Harvard-Yale game,” one of Faith's college roommates reminisced, “and you asked why all the men in the striped shirts kept dropping their hankies on the field!”

Having watched the proceedings with a slightly bewildered expression, Francesca handed Faith a large box.

“It's for the antipasti, made near my home. I had the dinnertime.”

Faith gave her a hug. The large ceramic platter was beautiful, and she could picture the way an assortment of antipasti—olives, prosciutto, mortadella, roasted red peppers, artichokes, eggplant caponata, Pecorino cheese—would look, mingling their colors and shapes with the pottery's traditional swirling Tuscan design.

Jane Sibley's was the last gift—midnight—and she presented her daughter with what she proclaimed essential for a long and happy marriage: an Itty Bitty book light. She also gave her a lovely royal blue velvet robe with her new initials on one quilted satin cuff.

“No backing out now, Faith,” someone said, and someone else put another brimming cup of punch in her hand.

“Not a chance—and thank you all so much. Especially Poppy!” Faith raised her cup—among a vast number of other items, Poppy collected antique sterling christening cups to use on occasions like this.

“To Poppy,” Faith said and drank deeply as the others echoed her words. She was filled with gratitude. In one afternoon, Poppy had accomplished what Faith had been trying to do for herself in vain since Tom's proposal: she had made her feel like a bride. A happy, blushing bride!

The popovers and other food had been replaced by fruit salad—Poppy had declared that she wasn't going to have her cook bother to bake a cake that the women wouldn't want their fellow guests seeing them eat more than a bite of, no matter how yummy. But she had set plates of François Payard chocolates and his mini pastries around the room, where presumably those who wished could indulge discreetly.

Faith went over and sat down next to her grandmother. She was suddenly feeling very tired. Being a bride was hard work. She'd already spent hours with her mother and grandmother drawing up lists. Lists of guests, possible menus, even gifts, which had started to arrive before the announcement had been made officially—major to-do lists. And then there was her dress. They had an appointment at Bergdorf's bridal salon for Wednesday afternoon, the only time Hope could make it, and she'd insisted she had to be there so Faith wouldn't end up wearing what looked like a slip or dressed like Little Bo Beep.

Her grandmother stroked her head. Faith hadn't realized she'd laid it on Nana's shoulder.

“You feel a bit warm, child. Are you feeling all right?”

Faith wasn't feeling all right. She was feeling extremely ill. And if she didn't make it to the adjoining powder room, she was going to be ill all over Poppy's Aubusson carpet. She clapped a hand over her mouth and stood up, swaying slightly.

The voices in the room mounted to a crescendo of sound, sentences bouncing out at her—“Too much to drink?” “You don't think she's, well, you know?” “Cold feet?” “She looks like she's got a fever—that bug that's been going around?”

As Hope steered her through the door just in time, Faith heard her great-aunt Tammy's voice above the rest.

“The bride's been poisoned.”

Chapter 3

G
reat-aunt Tammy, a voluptuous, big-hair brunette from Louisiana, had been coyly admitting to being thirty-five for the ten years she'd been married to Faith's great-uncle Schuyler Wayfort, known to all as Sky. He'd been twenty-six years her senior when they met.

Her dramatic pronouncement at the shower produced instant silence in the room until her sister-in-law said, “Don't be absurd, Tamora”—Eleanor Wayfort Lennox never employed nicknames—“my granddaughter is merely indisposed.”

Since the sounds of Faith's indisposition were penetrating the door, everyone hurriedly resumed talking again. Her mother got up to join Hope. Meanwhile, Poppy Morris had followed Faith immediately, always levelheaded in a crisis—red wine spilled on Princess Di's snowy white Versace; no Coca-Cola, only Pepsi, in the kitchen for Joan Crawford (hangers not a problem, Poppy
never
had wire ones). She returned a few seconds later to call 911 and her private physician, in that order. Poppy knew her number by heart “just in case,” as she had memorized those of certain lawyers over the years for the same reason. The next thing she did was usher everyone down to the living room.

The doctor arrived before the EMTs.

“Her pulse is more rapid than normal, but she's not running a fever. Yet it's clear that her system is experiencing a shock and I'd like to admit her if the vomiting doesn't stop soon. She'll need an IV to prevent dehydration.”

Faith shook her head violently and managed to say, “No hospital.”

“Does she have any food allergies?” Dr. Ginsburg asked.

“None that I know of, and I should know. I'm her mother,” Jane Sibley said.

At this point the EMTs stepped into the Garden Room with what seemed like enough equipment for a four-alarm fire. Poppy's powder room was the size of a master bath, but it was getting crowded. Hope and Jane moved out. Poppy stayed.

Faith was sitting on the floor, leaning against the commode she had been hugging. Her throat felt as if someone had taken sandpaper to it.

“I'm fine,” she croaked, wishing everyone would leave so she could take a nap on the floor. The tile felt cool to her touch and she closed her eyes in preparation. Maybe when she opened them the room would be empty and, just as in the movies, it would all have been a horrible dream.

One of the EMTs was conferring with the doctor while the other was asking what the victim had eaten recently. Poppy listed the menu.

“We all ate from the same buffet, though, and served ourselves. It's been cleared away, but everything was in a large bowl or basket or on a platter.”

The Payard chocolates and pastries were still in mouthwatering view.

“What about these?” He picked up a plate.

“Faith hadn't eaten any dessert yet. She was opening her presents,” Poppy said.

“And they're from
Payard,
” she added, popping a truffle in her mouth to settle the subject.

Dr. Ginsburg came out to speak to Jane Sibley. “My best guess is food poisoning of some sort, but quite puzzling as you all ingested the same substances. She wasn't on any medication, was she? The punch was alcoholic, so there could have been an interaction there.”

Hope answered the question. “My sister is as healthy as a horse. All she takes is a multivitamin in the morning.”

“Nothing for anxiety, depression?”

“She's getting married! This was a bridal shower. Of course not!” Hope exclaimed.

One of the EMTs—he was wearing a wedding band—looked slightly amused at Hope's declaration. “No jitters? It's been known to happen.”

Hope didn't answer him.

In the end, Faith was moved to one of the Morrises' guest rooms, her mother by her side and Dr. Ginsburg on call should the symptoms worsen rather than abate as they were doing now. Emma had given the guests the favors Poppy had bought—pear-shaped kitchen timers nestled in small wooden boxes with clear covers that said
THE PERFECT PAIR
on the front—and sent everyone politely away, as only she could.

Faith woke up at eight o'clock, startled to find herself in an unfamiliar bed with her mother at her side reading the latest issue of
Architectural Digest.
It was dark out. The events of the afternoon came flooding back and she sat up abruptly. Too abruptly. She sank back onto Poppy's eiderdown European squares.

“How are you feeling?” Jane took her daughter's hand. Tom's engagement ring, a simple diamond solitaire from Tiffany they'd picked out along with their wedding bands on another of his flying visits, sparkled even in the dim light from the bedside lamp.

“Better. What on earth do you suppose was wrong with me? I've never been sick like that before.”

Her mother shook her head. “Poppy had the cook write down everything that went into the food and punch, no matter how small the amount, and showed it to Dr. Ginsburg. No exotic ingredients of any kind. The doctor said she'd come by to check on you when you woke up.”

“I don't think she needs to do that. I just want to go home.”

“You can, if you're sure you feel up to leaving here, but you're staying at your home on this side of the city.”

Faith felt like a child again, and it felt lovely.

Later that night, tucked into her own bed in her childhood room, which had been transformed from Laura Ashley posies growing up to a more sophisticated Brunschwig & Fils stripe in her teens, Faith could once more scarcely keep her eyes open. All her childhood favorites were still in the bookcase and she'd selected Louisa May Alcott's
Rose in Bloom,
recalling that through her title character Alcott had a lot to say about love and marriage. She gave up after rereading the first page three times and let herself fall asleep. Her mother had been in several times to “make sure you don't need anything, dear,” but Faith wasn't fooled by the excuse and felt very safe indeed.

Which was a good thing, because the words she couldn't get out of her mind were the ones her great-aunt had uttered, “The bride's been poisoned!”

T
ammy Wayfort was sitting in her boudoir at her dressing table, gazing at herself in a large ornate mirror. Her “boudoir”—she loved the way the word sounded, stretching out the first syllable and inflecting it with more than a hint of her Southern upbringing in the Delta.

With the abrupt end to darlin' Faith's shower—and really, didn't her sister-in-law know she didn't mean “poisoned” like from arsenic, but from some food that went down wrong!—Tammy had decided to come back to the house on Long Island rather than stay at the Carlyle as she often did when she was in the city. This house, The Cliff, located on the North Shore's Gold Coast, had been built by Sky's grandfather on a bluff overlooking the sea. The mansion had its own private beach, tennis courts, pool, stables, croquet green, and acres of landscaped gardens. The house was one of the reasons she'd married Sky, and as soon as they returned from their honeymoon in France, she'd claimed this bedroom as her own retreat and started dialing decorators. The result was a place where Madame de Pompadour would have been at home, especially as much of the furniture was authentic Louis XV, or so the antiques dealers had sworn. Swathed in ruby-hued Scalamandré silks, the boudoir could easily have found a home as a period room in any museum. Tammy's closets were another matter—twentieth century, from the fitted rows for her designer shoes to the custom racks for her couture clothes.

Her bath was a sybaritic mix of old, as in the Baths of Caracalla, and new, as in a shower with built-in tanning panels. A door opened at the other end into Sky's equally opulent suite, Prussian blue dominating the walls and draperies, baroque rather than rococo. Tammy smiled to herself thinking of the chilled bottle of Möet in her marble sunken tub's Swarovski crystal champagne holder, which awaited her husband's arrival along with the Rigaud Cypres votive candles—the same kind Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy had taken with her to the White House. Tammy loved all these manufacturers' names, although calling them manufacturers sounded like they were churning out tires or something. When she looked at her possessions, she liked to say to herself, “There's one of my Judith Lieber minaudières,” although she limited it to “one of my Judith Liebers” when she said it out loud, not altogether sure of her French or whatever language “minaudière” was.

It was quite dark out now. Time to put on her face.

She pulled her dressing gown's marabou trim down, exposing the cleavage that had irresistibly drawn Sky's eye years ago at a formal dinner each was attending in Louisville during the derby. It still drew his eye, but she gave the neckline an extra tug. It never hurt to direct a man's attention to what you wanted him to see—and away from what you didn't.

The deep amethyst gown was long and she had similar ones, some even more be-feathered, in every color of the rainbow, with satin mules to match. She lined her lips carefully and reached for more mascara, waterproof mascara. With plenty of bubbles and the soft candlelight, it was possible to slip into the bath without revealing the depredations of age. Not that she was old.

A soft knock and the door to the hall opened. She turned, expecting to see her husband. Her cosmetic smile turned into a single red slash. It was Mrs. Danforth, the housekeeper, who had been with Sky since Hector was a pup. The one immutable presence in her husband's life was walking purposefully into the room. Tammy had made a joke about whether the housekeeper would be coming with them on the honeymoon and another about the nuptial bed not being for three before she learned to keep her mouth shut on the topic. Sky's devotion to Mrs. Danforth, and vice versa, was not a laughing matter.

“Master Schuyler called to say he has been detained and will arrive within the hour.”

Tammy knew for a fact that the woman had been born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, but to hear Danny, as Sky called her—and only he was allowed—you'd have thought the Danforths had been in service to Queen Victoria herself. The new Mrs. Wayfort's initial attempts at friendship had been firmly rebuffed, and as she was wont to say, “You don't have to tell me twice.” The two women didn't have a truce; they didn't have anything.

Tammy had grown up with plenty of help and had even more later on as an adult. She'd never encountered anyone like Mrs. Danforth. (And whatever had happened to Mr. Danforth? Or was the “Mrs.” an assumed convention? Tammy had watched
Masterpiece Theater
. Once, or maybe twice.) There was no way the two women would ever sit over coffee or something stronger in the kitchen the way she had with housekeepers in the Delta, and laugh about the guests who'd come to dinner the night before or gossip about family members. Various Walfort kin trekked out to the house for yearly vacations. It was Sky's house. He'd inherited it from his father, but his sisters all thought of it as theirs, an attitude he encouraged. He was the youngest, and the only boy. Handsome now, and even more so as a young man, Sky had been the apple of his mother's and sisters' eyes. Tammy shook her head, watching in the mirror as her hair ever so slightly moved, one strand dropping seductively over one of her eyes. It was her turn now, had been since they'd tied the knot. Not that she didn't appreciate family. Family was what counted.

The Walforts, a corruption of the original Dutch “Walvoort,” had arrived with Hudson on the
Half Moon
and had never strayed far from Nieuw Amsterdam except to move farther and farther uptown. Thrifty and entrepreneurial, always a good combination, one generation had provided for the next and then some. Not that Tammy hadn't brought her fair share to the marriage, her third. The first—Bobby Ray Benson—didn't really count, the result of a particularly pie-eyed weekend at Ole Miss visiting a cousin who was a Tri Delt. Daddy had had the whole thing annulled before Bobby Ray, or Tammy herself, had sobered up enough to decide whether tying the knot had been as good an idea as it had seemed at the time. Bobby Ray married one of the Hayes girls and Tammy had been at the wedding, necking a little with her ex at the party the night before just to be friendly, for old times' sake.

Tammy's next husband had been a perfect choice. They'd been to dancing school together and he was her mother's sister-in-law's third cousin, close enough to know what you were getting, but not so close as to break the law. She truly loved Wade and she truly loved their life together. He ran the family business and ran it well. By the time of their tenth anniversary, they had a big house and staff in Louisiana plus a nice vacation house on the inland waterway in Florida. Wade did love his boats. The only fly in the ointment was the good Lord's decision not to bless them with children, but there were plenty of nieces and nephews to spoil. Tammy was a firm believer in the Almighty's mysterious ways, and she had not given up hope until Wade's heart gave out on the eighth hole at the country club. It had been hotter than blazes that day and Tammy had always blamed the weather, not Wade's girth. It was a wonder they didn't all die from the heat that August. After the funeral, Aunt Susie's tomato aspic melted into a pool of juice before she could get it into the house from her car.

Wade had been as good a provider in death as he had in life, maybe better, given the size of the life insurance policy, and she liked the independence it gave her. She took her time before settling down with Sky. He was a Yankee, after all, but it had worked out. He'd been married before, too. She would never have married a man who didn't have the habit.

Tammy had never been one to dwell on the past, except for the South's glory days. She and her siblings had all learned early that in case of fire, they were to grab the sword Great-great-grandfather had carried at the Battle of Baton Rouge and the drawer containing the silver flatware his wife had buried with her own sweet hands in the family cemetery to protect it from the Union troops.