Roen sat back so Fedora, who’d followed on Ellie’s heels, could pour his coffee. He noticed her hand trembled slightly and doubted it was the weight of the pot that was responsible. She remained at his side until Ellie put down the plates and the teapot and wished them well, then she led the way back to the kitchen.

  “Do you think she touched this?” Victorine stared at her plate. “The China girl, I mean. Do you think this is safe?”

  “I can introduce you to the cook, if you like. Her name is Mrs. Vandergrift. She’s a harridan of a similar mind as yours.”

  “Oh. You could have simply said the food was safe.”

  Roen applied himself to his meal, not at all surprised that he had no real taste for the scrambled eggs or the grits. The crispy bacon was like gravel in his mouth.

  “You look well, Roen,” said Victorine. “I confess I was hoping I’d find proof in your appearance that you missed me.”

  “Dark circles under my eyes?” he asked. “Sunken cheeks? My heart on my sleeve?”

  “All of that, I suppose. You must think me the worst sort of person to wish that on you.”

  “I think you are the worst sort of person no matter what your wishes are.”

  “Roen! Really, you are impossible. Your appearance may not have changed, but you have hardened your heart. If you were truly wearing it on your sleeve, it would be a lump of coal the size of your fist.”

  Roen shrugged, unperturbed. Everything she said was true so there was no point to argue.

  “This,” she said. “This is why I broke it off with you. Your little cruelties. The manner in which you close yourself off. It’s unconscionable the way you treat me.”

  Roen was in the process of lifting a forkful of eggs to his mouth. He stopped, lowered the fork to his plate, and regarded Victorine as though she were a point on one of his maps, something to be studied but, in the end, of no particular interest or importance.

  “To clarify,” he said, “I ended our relationship, such as it was, when I learned that your interests had wandered. You didn’t deny your involvement with other men, and out of respect for where we are, I am using the word ‘involvement’ most euphemistically. If it seems to you that I am closed, look to yourself for the reason, and if you believe I have treated you unconscionably, you have but to recall that you tried to kill me.”

  He chose coffee over his eggs and picked up his cup. He narrowly observed Victorine over the rim. “Are we done?”

  “I don’t see how we can be,” she said airily, taking a dainty bite of bacon. “You haven’t said what you intend to do about our child.”

  “Did you not hear me mention your involvement with other men? That should be a clear indication of my intentions. To be perfectly forthright, I have none.”

  “None? But this child is yours. I swear it. You have obligations.”

  Roen lowered his voice. “You can’t possibly know that the baby you conceived is mine, and your admission that you slept with other men, while honest, is also damning.”

  “But I wasn’t honest. I said it because your accusation stung and I wanted to get a little of my own back. I was never unfaithful to you.”

  “I have always admired how quickly you think on your feet, but I don’t believe you, Victorine. I didn’t question you without cause. I was told what you were doing.”

  “Gossipmongers,” she said. “There are always people who want to make trouble.”

  “Yes.” His stare was pointed. “I know.”

  “You don’t know,” she protested. “You don’t.”

  Roen set his cup down. “I assume I am not the first man you’ve applied to for help, so the others must have turned you down as well. Your father will support you and your child.”

  “He will insist I give our baby to a home. You know what those places are like. I won’t be able to do it when the time comes, and he will put me out and cut me off.”

  Roen frowned. “Am I hearing you correctly? Your father doesn’t yet know about the baby?”

  “No. I haven’t told him. On the few occasions I’ve spent time with him, I’ve been able to hide my condition. He would never look too closely, Roen. He wouldn’t want to know. There is only one way he will accept our child.”

  Roen knew what was coming, had suspected this end all along. He removed his napkin from his lap and set it beside his plate. “Then we are done, Victorine. I am already married.” It gave him a rather shameful satisfaction to stand while her mouth was still agape. “I’ll take care of the bill,” he said. He walked away without looking back.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lizzie pointed Roen in the direction of the backyard when he finally arrived home. It was hours after he’d spoken to Victorine, and for most of that time he’d been wandering aimlessly. It was out of character. He never ambled. His stride had direction and purpose and, most often, a sense of urgency. It was when he found himself standing in the cemetery on the outskirts of town that he made the deliberate decision to return home.

  Lily looked up anxiously when she heard the back door close. Lizzie knew better than to come out, so it had to be Roen. It was. He was standing on the lip of the porch, his shoulders hunched inside his heavy coat. She refastened the stiff shirt she had been taking down from the clothesline and started toward him. He shook his head and ignored the steps in favor of jumping to the snow-covered ground. With no encouragement from her, Roen began to unpin clothes and toss them in the wicker basket. He was wearing gloves, but Lily wasn’t, and her hands were red and chafed. Her fingers were nearly as stiff as the clothes.

  Once they were inside, he dropped the basket on the kitchen table and removed his gloves. He took Lily’s hands in his and warmed them. She would have tucked them under her arms, but this was better. So much better.

  “You were gone a long time,” she said, tipping her head back to examine his face. His complexion was ruddy; wind had beaten color into his cheeks. There was a tiny crease between his eyebrows, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. The expression he cast in her direction was not merely interested. It was intense. “There was a great deal to discuss, I imagine.” Lily followed this with a quick, negating shake of her head. “No. I promised myself I wouldn’t ask. You can tell me all of it or none of it or something in between. Whatever you like.”

  Roen’s smile was faint but it touched his eyes. His features softened but not his intentions. “I’m going to kiss you, Lily.” He swooped before she could duck or mount a protest. Her lips were cool, but her mouth was warm. He touched the tip of his tongue to her upper lip, nudged it, and then he was inside. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. Her hands remained in his. He thought she might have sighed and wanted to believe that she had, that far from being offended by the liberty he had taken, she had decided it wasn’t a liberty at all.

  Her response was tentative, but it was most definitely a response. She mirrored the movement of his mouth on hers, touched his tongue with her own, teased and taunted in a carnal dance. She stepped into him, and when he released her hands to open his coat, she understood he was inviting her inside. Lily slipped her arms around him. He clasped his hands at the small of her back.

  She was as warm as she ever had been. It was usual for that warmth to be accompanied by a lovely lethargy, but this was different. She felt a rising excitement that made her anxious to stop and want more at the same time. Some part of her confusion must have asserted itself because it was Roen who lifted his head first. His dark eyes grazed her face and he brushed his lips one, twice, against the tiny crease between her eyebrows.

  “Poor Lily,” he said gently. “You have no idea of your appeal.”

  She removed her arms but not before she placed her hands against his chest and gave him a light push. “Take your coat off and sit down. Would you like something hot to drink? There is cider that I can warm.”

  “Save the cider for the children. I’ll have tea.” He removed his coat and gloves and hung them up. He placed his hat on the seat of an empty chair and pushed the clothesbasket to the end of the table closest to the stove, where the garments could thaw. “Why did you hang those clothes outside?”

  “Necessity. I usually put up a line in the workroom, but I was reluctant to take damp things in there.”

  Roen sighed heavily. “I have complicated your life, haven’t I?”

  She turned away from the stove. “I agreed to it.”

  “With considerable reservation.”

  “Don’t make our agreement be anything less than my decision, Roen. It diminishes me if you think that you being here is in some way against my will.”

  “Then I stand corrected.” He took out cups and saucers. “Should I check on Lizzie? She was reading to her doll when I came in but she’s awfully quiet now.”

  “You sit,” she told him again. “I’ll go.”

  Roen sat. He thought about the kiss and wondered if Lily knew the bundling blankets were going to be permanently unbundled. She might feel differently about that when she heard what he had to say. “What’s she doing?” he asked when Lily returned.

  “Napping. She had a busy morning helping me with the laundry. She scrubbed the socks. Apparently she likes the sound they make against the washboard.” She expected Roen would smile at that. He often did when it came to Lizzie. What he did, though, was pick up one of the empty cups and turn it around in his hands. She knew something was coming. She just didn’t know what that something was.

  “Victorine is pregnant.” His eyes lifted to Lily. To her credit, she didn’t gasp, although there was no color in her face when she finally breathed again. “She says I’m the father. I don’t believe her, and I told her that. Our conversation didn’t last all that long. I left most of my eggs and grits on the plate. I was late getting here because I went for a walk after I left the hotel, not with any destination in mind, just to turn down the slow boil to a simmer.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Do? Nothing.”

  “But there’s a child.”

  “Not mine.”

  She frowned. “But could it be?” His hesitation gave her the answer. “I see. You can’t do nothing, Roen. That’s not a choice. If you think it is, then you need to walk some more.”

  “What is it that you think she wants, Lily?”

  “I’m not sure. Money?”

  “Her father is one of the robber barons. She claims he will cut her off if she doesn’t give up the baby, but I know her grandmother settled a fortune on her that is no longer in trust. She will hardly be destitute no matter what she decides.”

  “Then?”

  “She wants marriage.”

  Now Lily gasped.

  “Right,” he said. “I told her I was married and left. I don’t know what she’ll do now.”

  “So this marriage of ours has served its purpose.”

  “I wouldn’t put that in the past tense.”

  “Serving its purpose, then.”

  “Yes. You’re saving me.”

  “Hmm.” Lily removed the kettle from the stove and poured hot water into the teapot. She put the kettle back but did not sit. “I don’t know how I feel about that. If I’d known there was a child, I wouldn’t have agreed.”

  “If I’d known about the child, I wouldn’t have asked, but child or no, I would never agree to marry Victorine.”

  Lily stared at the floor, nodded slowly. “The child will be a bastard. That won’t be easy for her.”

  “Him,” said Roen. “Victorine thinks it will be a boy.”

  “Please. Don’t say foolish things. You know that’s the least of it.”

  “I apologize. You’re right. I’m still simmering.”

  She surprised herself by saying, “Jeremiah used to simmer.”

  Roen looked up from pouring his tea to see if she would say more. It took some time for her to go on, but his patience was eventually rewarded.

  “Looking back,” she said, “it seems as if he was always that way, which isn’t true, naturally. My point is that I knew what it looked like. I don’t recognize it in you.”

  “I walked for a very long time.”

  “Mm. Perhaps that’s it. Jeremiah drank.”

  He nodded. “So I’ve come to understand.”

  “He never had a slow boil. Only a rapid, raging one.” Lily fell quiet again then made a visible effort to shake herself off. “I don’t know why I told you that. We were talking about Victorine.” She pulled out a chair and sat at a right angle to Roen. He poured tea into her cup and she reached for the sugar. “When is the baby due?”

  “I didn’t ask and she didn’t offer.”

  “Well, then, how far along is she?”

  In response, he cupped his hands in front of him to indicate the swell of Victorine’s belly.

  Lily shook her head. “That’s the best you can do? You make your living calculating things.”

  “All right.” He flung his mind back to the last time he had been intimate with Victorine and worked from there. “My best estimate is that she’s at least six months. If it’s less, I cannot be the baby’s father.”

  “Perhaps you can insist that she have an examination. Ridley might be able to accurately determine the length of time.”

  “Lily, it doesn’t matter when she conceived or when she gives birth. I am done with her. I had to remind her that she shot me. I didn’t think I’d have to remind you as well.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten. She must be foolishly desperate if she’s turning to you.”

  “Foolishly desperate? She’s lost her mind.”

  “I know it must seem that way.”

  Roen’s low growl came from the back of his throat.

  Lily paused in stirring sugar into her tea and looked at him askance. “Oh, I recognize that simmering sound. Do you need to go outside to clear your head?”

  Roen rubbed the back of his neck, rolled his shoulders, and finally stretched his legs under the table. “No,” he said. “I’m fine. But if you feel safer in the front room with Lizzie, I’ll understand.”

  “I feel safe here.” And it was true. She was not afraid he would hurt her physically, but she was also not unaware that she was vulnerable to other kinds of hurt. She sipped her tea. “What do you suppose she will do next?”

  “I thought a lot about that while I was walking. I don’t know. If she had sense, she would leave, but I don’t imagine that will happen anytime soon. Did I tell you she hired a private investigator? That’s how she was able to find me.”

  “Were you hiding from her?”

  “No, but only because I didn’t expect this.” He laughed humorously. “I would have made a better job of it if I’d known she’d come for me.”

  “She could have surprised you and shown up unannounced. It’s curious that she sent you that telegram. Why do you suppose she did that?”

  “I don’t like pretending that I know how she thinks. It’s uncomfortable and, if I’m honest, a little frightening.”

  “Guess.”

  “All right,” he said, resigned. “She sent it to needle me. It gives her pleasure to take a poke at me. I told you at the outset I wasn’t sure she would even come. She’d derive some satisfaction knowing I was looking over my shoulder. I know it’s an exaggeration to say Victorine’s lost her mind, but you have to believe me when I say she isn’t well.”

  Lily nodded slowly. “I believe you.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Her recounting of the end of our relationship was a fantasy. She said she was the one who broke it off. She changed her story about being with other men, denying it totally, saying my accusation stung and that she admitted the affairs in retaliation.” He snapped his fingers. “That quick she was to explain it all away.”

  “Or perhaps not so quick,” said Lily. “She’s had a lot of time to practice her lines. She’s shrewd, Roen.”

  “And unwell.”

  “A woman that scheming probably is. Lady Macbeth comes to mind.” She rubbed her hands together as if washing them. “‘Out damn spot! Out, I say!’”

  That made Roen groan and laugh at the same time. “Finish your tea and then we’ll wake up Lizzie. She won’t sleep tonight otherwise, and I have plans.” He set his empty cup down and picked up the wicker laundry basket. She was still searching for words when he left with it.

  * * *

  • • •

  Martin Cabot reported to the lobby of the Butterworth ten minutes before the appointed time. It gave him an opportunity to observe the China girl going about her work. She moved with infinite grace. In the noisy dining room, she was a silent breath. It gave him pleasure to watch her. He was delighted to discover that she boarded at the same house he did. He’d nearly made a fool of himself stumbling on the stairs when he caught sight of her leaving this morning for the Butterworth. He learned in passing from diners who were not as discreet as he was that her name was Fedora Chen. A lilting name, he thought. Beautiful.

  He turned when he heard someone descending the staircase. It was two someones, in fact. Victorine’s progress was marked by her rustling skirt. The heavy tread that caught his attention belonged to Abe Butterworth.

  He wasn’t certain what she expected of him, but when she held out the fur-lined cape she was holding over her arm, he dutifully draped it around her shoulders. She thanked Mr. Butterworth for making her transition to the suite an easy one and then dismissed him as if he were one of her father’s servants and not the owner of the hotel. Martin had seen it before. She had a similar disregard for him.

  “Where are we going?” he asked. He’d thought when she sent that Frankie boy around with a message for him that they would be meeting in her room or in the dining room. His disappointment that it wasn’t the latter was keen, but there was no reason she should know that. He opened the front door for her and followed her onto the porch. He hoped to God she wasn’t going to insist they sit in one of the rocking chairs. He had many insignificant features, but he did have balls and they were already shrinking with the cold.