Lily said, “You, too, Roen.”

  Ben and Roen exchanged glances but said nothing.

  “We saw that,” said Ridley, removing her hand from Ben’s. “I don’t pretend to know what it means, but I’m suspicious.”

  “I don’t know why,” said Ben. “Don’t I always take your advice?”

  Ridley snorted. “If your tongue were not so firmly in your cheek, I might believe you.”

  “I certainly intend to speak to her,” Ben said. “I imagine Roen will want to do the same, and if it will ease everyone’s mind, we’ll go together. Do you object, Roen?”

  “No. A witness is always valuable in any conversation with Miss Headley.”

  Lily remained dubious that anything would come out of speaking to Victorine but was relieved to know Roen and Ben would be doing it together. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? Not for her sake. I don’t care about that. I’m thinking about her child.”

  Roen said, “As careful as we can be and still get our point across. She needs to leave town, Lily. I won’t let her use her pregnancy to keep from doing what needs to be done.” He turned to Ben. “She’ll tell you that her child is mine.”

  One of Ben’s dark red eyebrows kicked up. “Is it?”

  Ridley tapped the table to get her husband’s attention. “None of our business, Ben.” Her eyes darted right to remind him of Fedora’s presence.

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  Roen plowed his hand through his hair. “Does Hitch know what happened?”

  “No. He’s at the office. I chose not to stop on our way here. I didn’t think telling him was a good idea right now.”

  No one missed that Fedora was comforted by this news.

  Roen checked his pocket watch. “He’ll be here soon to walk Fedora to Mrs. Brady’s. Except for this, we’d be finishing dinner about now.”

  “I’ll head him off if you’ll provide Fedora with an escort. Ridley, are you about done here?”

  Nodding, she opened her medical bag and withdrew a packet of four aspirin tablets. “Take two now and two more in six hours. You can get more from the drugstore in the morning.”

  “I’ll do that for her,” said Roen.

  “Good. Fedora, do you have an ice bag? Or access to one at the boardinghouse?”

  “No,” said Fedora. “I don’t want to ask Mrs. Brady. If I can avoid seeing her, I’d prefer it.”

  “She can take that one,” said Lily, handing Fedora a small glass of water. “Roen will pack it with more snow.”

  Ridley closed her bag and stood. She took Ben by the hand. “Then we’re going. There’s no permanent damage, Fedora, but healing will take time. That was a vicious slap. If I hadn’t been told differently, I’d have said it was a haymaker. Do you know what that is?”

  “Mr. Shepard explained it to me, but it was only a slap.”

  “Only,” Ridley said under her breath. “Leaving now.” Her tone was a shade too bright. She pulled Ben along before anyone asked her if she was all right.

  Lily followed them to the front door, thanked them again, and saw them out. She asked the children to be patient a little while longer before she returned to the kitchen. “The only thing preventing Ridley from choking the life out of Miss Headley is the oath she took. I believe she’s regretting it.”

  Roen chuckled. “So Ben’s not the only one pained to be sitting on his hands.”

  The truth of that made Lily smile. “I don’t think you can ever know how much it bothers her.”

  “But you do?”

  “I have experience.” She left it there and went to the stove to move the soup pot to the hot burner plate. “The children are hungry. Fedora, stay where you are. You’re eating with us and then Roen’s going to walk you back to the boardinghouse.” She held up a finger. “Not a word. Roen, would you kindly get another chair?”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The hotel’s dining room was closed when Martin Cabot returned to the Butterworth. He tapped the bell at the registration desk but no one came to attend him. The kitchen was quiet. He walked back, peeked in, and saw it was empty. Everyone was gone for the night. Apparently no late arrivals were expected. He returned to the front desk and looked at the slotted box that held room keys and mail. Martin knew that Victorine had a suite, but he wasn’t familiar with the Butterworth’s upper floors and didn’t know the location of her room. He thought it was at the front of the hotel because she had once commented about having a view of the library and the bakery and not particularly caring for it.

  All of the slots had only one key, which meant the hotel was full up and the other keys were with the occupants. He turned the registration book so he could read the names. He found Victorine’s signature beside room 212 and was prepared to go there, but then he remembered she hadn’t remained in the room she was first given. He examined the book again and found her name—not her signature—beside room 301. He removed the key from its slot and began to climb the stairs.

  Standing outside the door to Victorine’s suite, Martin considered knocking and then decided against it. Surprising her was a better strategy and precisely what she deserved. He slipped the key in the lock and turned it. The main room with its large four-poster bed and sitting area by the fireplace was empty. It had not occurred to Martin that she might not be in residence. He had always felt comfortable returning to the boardinghouse once Victorine headed to her room. What amusements were there for her in Frost Falls? It wasn’t Manhattan. He had observed that her status as pregnant and unmarried made her the subject of speculation and sometimes derision. She appeared not to notice, or if she did, she appeared not to care. To him it was further proof that the people she had dealings with were supremely unimportant to her. She craved only the attention of Roen Shepard. Martin Cabot found that unfathomable. Shepard had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her. Instead of accepting her comeuppance and leaving, she was waiting him out as though she expected him to change his mind.

  That hadn’t happened, and Martin did not believe it would. As much as he wanted her gone, there was a part of him that admired her forbearance. It was unexpected, and the unexpected was always a good tactic. He did not know what had provoked her loss of patience or when exactly it had happened, but sometime today she had clearly lost her mind.

  Martin cocked his head, directing his hearing toward an adjoining room. He heard the trickle of water, some splashing, and then humming that sounded a lot like “The Band Played On,” only a little flatter.

  So this suite at the Butterworth had a bathing room. Martin was impressed that the amenity existed in a cattle community but not surprised that Victorine Headley had seized it for herself. The door was already open a few inches. He walked toward it and used a fingertip to push it open the rest of the way. He stood framed on the threshold for almost a minute before she realized she was not alone. Her startled mien was comical as she rose a few inches above the water and then immediately dropped again so only her head, neck, and the slope of her shoulders were visible.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  The disadvantage of her position did not soften her tone, he thought, or make her the least vulnerable. If he asked her to raise her hands, he was sure he’d see that her claws were out. “Did you hit her?” he asked. It pleased him that he was able to pose the question calmly. That was a demonstration of his control.

  “Get out, Mr. Cabot. Back out of the doorway and close the door behind you. Say or do anything else and I will bring this hotel down around your head.”

  He didn’t move. “It’s your head, too, Miss Headley. Pray, remember that.” But he knew Victorine well enough to know she did not make idle threats. When she opened her mouth to scream, he was on her, pushing her head underwater. He had a look at all of her while he held her down and had the thought Isn’t that interesting before he removed his hand. She came up spitting and gasping and, as he suspected, tried to claw him.

  Martin sat back on his haunches and easily batted her hands away. She had every reason to stay in the tub and he had every reason to keep her there. They shared the same goals. He doubted it was any more comforting to her than it was to him.

  “Are you done?” he asked calmly.

  She growled at him, choked on water, and lost what remained of her dignity in a fit of coughing.

  There were some folded towels on a nearby stool. Martin handed her one. He watched her pat her face dry. Her hair, which had been perfectly arranged to keep it dry while she bathed, was a bedraggled coil hanging limply to one side. She angrily plucked the loose pins, threw them at him one at a time, and then wrapped the towel around her head. He thought she looked vaguely regal, although he would have his tongue cut out rather than tell her. If she kept lying to him, maybe he would cut out hers. The thought excited him, but not as much as it would have excited him to do the same to Fedora Chen. Victorine Headley had robbed him of that opportunity. The China girl was damaged goods now.

  “Why did you go to the library this afternoon?” he asked. “And don’t say you had an itch to read. You were there possibly ten minutes, and you left without a book.”

  “I made arrangements with Roen to meet him there.”

  “Did you?” Martin moved the towels remaining on the stool to the floor. He sat down. The stool wasn’t high, but it lifted him enough that he was no longer at eye level with Victorine. “He left this morning with his wife and all his equipment. You were still asleep, I suspect, when he came into the hotel to collect his pack. If you’d shared your plans with me, I would have told you he was gone. What was the purpose of meeting him? And why the library?”

  “The purpose doesn’t concern you in any way. I chose the library because it wouldn’t be crowded but there would be witnesses.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So you intended to make a scene but with a small audience. I agree with you that sometimes a more intimate venue is better. It contains the drama. Were you concerned you’d overact?”

  “Get out.”

  Ignoring her, he said, “I suppose you were. You’re not working from a script any longer. That changed when you learned he was married. I don’t know what your play is about now. It occurred to me that you were going to ask me to kill the wife. I wasn’t sure what I would do if it came to that. It would have been an interesting exercise because she’s never alone. I would have had to kill the child, too. Mrs. Shepard is either with her younger daughter or with her husband. I don’t think you would want me to murder Mr. Shepard, so it would have to be the child. I admit that gave me pause.”

  Victorine stared at him. “I didn’t ask you to kill anyone.”

  “I know. I said it was only a thought that occurred to me. Why did you show so little interest in his new family?”

  “Can we not have this conversation in the sitting room? The water is getting cold.”

  “Oh? How can you tell?” He gave her a moment to let the insult sink in. Sitting there in the tub with her pale skin and the white towel on her head, she did indeed put him in mind of an iceberg. “No, here is fine for conversation, but we can quickly move it along if you answer my question.”

  “I simply had no interest in her or her brats. Is that so difficult to understand?”

  “It is actually. Do you recall the gown you purchased from Mrs. Fish? Ice blue. It’s probably hanging in your wardrobe now.”

  “What about it?”

  “She did most of the work on it. Not Mrs. Fish. Mrs. Shepard. She’s a seamstress. Highly regarded for her hand stitching. I’ve wondered whether she knew she was making it for you. Have you checked it for pins?”

  “It is long past the point where you’ve forgotten yourself, Mr. Cabot. You should leave.”

  “I am deaf to that tune. Hum ‘The Band Played On’ again. I like that one.” He chuckled under his breath when she splashed water at him. He didn’t bother to pick up a towel and dry his face. “Haven’t you asked yourself if Mr. Shepard told her about you? Perhaps you are such a minor annoyance to him that you weren’t worth mentioning. Shall I tell you why I think you finally decided you wanted to meet him again?”

  In bored accents, she said, “If you must.”

  Martin smiled but it did not reach his eyes. “I think you were prepared to announce in a manner that would be overheard that Mr. Shepard is the father of your child. Perhaps it would humiliate him, although I’m not so sure, but it would have humiliated her. By all accounts, she has tender sensibilities, which you would know if you had asked me about her. I made it my responsibility to find out. Regardless of what you knew or didn’t know, her humiliation was what you wanted. You desired a state of mind that you hoped would cause a rift. He would leave her and return to you. If it worked, you could count yourself as very clever, but the odds that it would work are not in your favor. Time, for one thing, is not on your side. For another, I’ve heard it said that Mr. Shepard is persuasive. I believe it was his minister who told me he could sing the birds out of their nests. Did you know that within days of his arrival, he organized a town meeting to discuss the rail project and had everyone eating out of his hand?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought it obvious. He has the ability to explain you away. He can dismiss you. His wife, who loves him according to the wags, will forgive him. You will be out in the cold, no worse off than when you arrived except that you will know you’ve failed. I shouldn’t think that would set well with you.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, or him for that matter. The wags that you cozy up to for your information like to hear themselves talk, so you have that in common.”

  Martin went on as if she hadn’t spoken. He could see her skin was prickling with the cold. “You were angry when he didn’t appear at the library. You decided, rather impulsively I imagine, to walk to his home. I followed and was impressed that you found it. Apparently you did pay attention to some things I told you. You had to know there was a chance that he would not be there, but you had no reason to suspect that his wife would also be gone.”

  Victorine’s ice blue eyes narrowed on Martin’s unexceptional face. “Why didn’t you tell me that she was working there?”

  “You didn’t ask,” he said simply. “I gave you every opportunity.”

  “So it was a game to you.”

  “In a manner, I suppose. In a town like this, I am forced to craft my own amusements. I never opposed you or raised an obstacle. The information I gave you depended upon your interest. You are remarkably lacking in curiosity, even when it would behoove you to have a better understanding.”

  “I know enough,” she said. “I know him.”

  “Yes, well, informing you that Miss Chen left the hotel specifically to work for the Shepards had no relevance to you. I don’t know why you’re troubled by it now.”

  “I am not at all troubled by it. I was not prepared to find her there. It would have been better if I’d known.”

  “Better for whom? You or her?”

  Victorine sighed, exasperated. “Oh, do shut up.”

  He went on. “Did you strike her?” Martin gave her full marks for not flinching. She was going to brazen it out. His fingers curled into loose fists that he used to smooth his trousers over his thighs.

  “You asked me that when you came in here. What are you going on about?”

  “Did you strike her?”

  “Are you saying I did?”

  “It’s a question, Miss Headley. Not an accusation.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re asking me.”

  “You stepped into the house. Pushed your way in, I thought. I did not have the best vantage point, so I could be mistaken there.”

  Victorine offered no information that would have cleared that up. “And?”

  “And you came out minutes later. I followed you back to the hotel to make sure you arrived safely and then I went to the drugstore to buy a paper. I read it while I waited for the hotel’s dining room to open for—”

  Victorine waved a hand dismissively, although she was careful not to splash him. “I’m sure you find your comings and goings to be of significance, but I assure you, they are not.”

  Once again, Martin continued as if her words were merely noise in the background, like the ticking of a clock that no one noticed until it struck the hour. “—to open for dinner. I had a superior steak, done rare, and mashed turnips and candied carrots. I drank a beer with dinner and another after at my leisure, then I returned to Mrs. Brady’s. Sometimes I observe Miss Chen leaving the Shepard home. I like to make certain she arrives safely. There have been threats, you know, against her person.”

  “I didn’t know, but it stands to reason that people would object to her presence.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Why does it stand to reason?”

  “She’s different,” said Victorine. “And not in a way that makes her superior to others.”

  “As you are.”

  “If I must say so, then yes, as I am. You read the papers. You must know about the yellow peril. Even I know that such a thing exists. We invited them to this county and now they present a danger.”

  “That is a gross distortion, but I will not ask you to elucidate on what you think you know about it. It will make my head hurt, and frankly, it is throbbing already.”

  “Poor man,” she said without sympathy. “There are headache tablets in my reticule. It’s in the other room. You may take as many as you like, only you will have to get them.”

  Martin shook his head, but he did it carefully. He was not lying about the throbbing. He felt it all over and the worst was behind his eyes. “I did not observe Miss Chen’s walk home this evening. I surmised I was too late to do that. The second beer was a mistake, I thought, but then my path crossed with hers as I was making the turn to Mrs. Brady’s. Roen Shepard was Miss Chen’s escort this evening. That is a change. Usually she is accompanied by the deputy.”