Chapter 9 - The Terrace on the Sound
Three months later.
The early autumn sun rose over the rocky promontory of Sands Point, Long Island, in a breathtaking, cinematic explosion of burning violet, deep copper, and brilliant, honey-colored gold that turned the waters of Long Island Sound into fields of liquid fire.
The air on the high stone terrace of the Moretti ancestral estate was crisp, vast, and smelling of sweet cedar woodsmoke, clean ocean salt, and the rich, invigorating chill of the approaching winter.
The historic granite manor had undergone a total, magnificent resurrection.
The high wrought-iron security gates had been permanently removed, replaced by low fieldstone walls and open fields of wild sweet clover; the seventy rooms were filled with natural morning light, classical photography displays, and the crackle of dry birch logs in four massive limestone fireplaces; and down on the deep-water pier below the bluffs sat the Isabella M.—an eighty-foot wooden schooner that Lorenzo had commissioned from the historic shipyards of Maine.
Sitting on a wide teak bench on the terrace, reading the morning edition of the New York Times, was David Sloan.
He wore an unbuttoned wool chore coat over an open-collared flannel shirt, his posture completely relaxed, his face transformed by a deep, untouchable serenity that had never existed during his forty years in the corporate courtrooms of Manhattan.
"The European container consortium signed the thirty-year terminal lease extensions twenty minutes ago, Lorenzo," Sloan said, looking up from his paper with a proud, brilliant smile. "Our zero-emission port model has officially been certified by the United Nations Maritime Organization. We cleared sixty million dollars in net operating revenue for the third quarter."
Clara stood at the granite balustrade of the terrace, holding a steaming ceramic mug of dark roast coffee with both hands, leaning her elbows against the warm limestone.
She wore an oversized cream cable-knit fisherman’s sweater over dark denim trousers, her dark hair falling softly around her shoulders, her thirty-year-old frame feeling lighter, stronger, and more whole than it had in her entire life.
Beside her boots, resting his massive golden head against her knee, was Barnaby—an eight-month-old golden retriever puppy that Frank Varga had delivered from his brother's farm in Pennsylvania three weeks ago, whose tail thumped a steady, rhythmic cadence against the flagstones as he watched the gulls soaring above the cliffs.
"And the medical research endowment, David?" Clara asked, turning her head to look down at him.
"The endowment broke ground on the Brooklyn campus yesterday afternoon, Clara," Sloan smiled, folding his newspaper. "Two hundred pediatric neurology fellows from Columbia and Cornell are already enrolled in the autumn research registry. Full tuition grants. Your foundation funded the entire clinical diagnostic pavilion."
A soft, clean tear broke over Clara’s lower lash, hot and bright, tracing down her cheek into the morning wind.
She remembered the hard plastic chair on the fourth floor of the Providence hospital eleven months ago; she remembered the sixty-one dollars in her brother’s pocket; she remembered the three lines on the form that had told her mother she was too poor to live.
Now, her mother was sitting in the sunlit parlor of her restored brownstone in Boston, drinking tea, watching her grandchildren play in the garden with an unclouded, healthy heart.
A soft, familiar step sounded on the flagstones behind her.
Lorenzo walked up the terrace steps, wearing an unbuttoned black wool coat over a gray cashmere sweater, carrying two fresh-baked blueberry scones on a silver plate that Mrs. Gable had prepared on the woodstove.
He set the plate on the stone table, walked over to the balustrade, and wrapped his broad arms around Clara’s waist from behind, resting his chin comfortably on her shoulder, pulling her back against his chest.
"Morning, Chief Executive," Lorenzo murmured, his deep baritone carrying over the sound of the ocean swells.
Clara smiled—a wide, unreserved, magnificent expression that illuminated her entire face—and reached up, her warm fingers sliding over his wrists, feeling the familiar, powerful thrum of his heartbeat beneath the heavy wool.
"Morning, Lorenzo," she whispered softly against his jawline.
They stood together in silence for a long moment, watching the white sails of a pilot boat cut across the outer whitecaps, the crisp salt wind carrying the clean scent of the open sea.
The medical suite was a distant, dead memory.
The broken watch was dust in the wind.
The wolves who had tried to steal her dignity were rotting in the dark cages they had forged with their own greed.
And as the bells of the distant coastal lighthouse chimed their nine-o'clock chorus across the bay, Clara Bennett Moretti took a deep, uninhibited breath of the cold Atlantic air and smiled.
She was not a maid waiting for an eviction.
She was the master of her own life, the owner of her own mind, and the sovereign lady of an unbroken empire that belonged, wholly and forever, to the light.
Lorenzo leaned down, pressing his lips against her temple, his arms tightening around her waist with gentle, unyielding permanence.
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"Look at that water, Clara," he whispered into the sweet autumn wind, pointing toward the vast, sparkling blue horizon stretching toward Europe under an unclouded American sky.
"That's our harbor. And it runs clean forever."
