When she heard the sound of car wheels against gravel, she smiled involuntarily at the notion that Charlie was nearby, and she looked over her shoulder toward the hall, her fluffy blond hair brushing against her jawbone in expectation. The naked skin of her shoulders became alert. She wiped her hands on a damp cloth that was hanging from a nail on the wall and stepped away from the stove.
“I’ll be right back,” she announced, and passed out of the kitchen without looking back. Her eyes were focused on the front door and her sense that she was about to see Charlie was so strong that she did not at first notice how unhurried and light, how unlike Charlie’s, were the footsteps outside.
“Oh, Charlie, there you are!” she said happily as the door opened. But it wasn’t Charlie. It was the new man, the one with the long, dark lashes, and his features were not as relaxed as usual. His name was Victor—she had not wanted to know it, but he had rudely insisted on telling her that day he drove her back to Marsh Hall.
“Something’s happened.” He looked away from her and shook his head as though he were disappointed.
“But where’s Charlie? I’m making him dinner,” she said indignantly. Her lips trembled and her brow knitted up, but she went on with conviction: “A roast!”
“Something’s happened,” he repeated.
“What?” she shrieked. “What’s happened?!”
“I’m sorry.” He gave her a smile that was wavering but warm. “He told me not to leave your side tonight. I’ll have dinner with you.”
She took a few small steps toward the door as though she might see Charlie out there and be able to harangue him into staying with her. When she thought of what she had planned to give him, the humiliation began to build inside her. All of her fear and anticipation fizzled with the realization that her gift wasn’t even going to be acknowledged, much less appreciated. “What about my roast?” she wanted to demand of him again, but she knew that would sound childish.
Victor lingered on the threshold another moment as the last car left the property at breakneck speed and the tall iron gates were sealed shut. “Damn,” he muttered.
“Well, I don’t much like it either!” Astrid crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together in a pout. The dress was silky against her bare arms, which only reminded her what a special evening it was to have been, and of which she was now deprived.
He turned slowly, lingering in the doorway, his blue work shirt tucked into denim pants, and assessed her with his shrouded eyes. The face he wore seemed to indicate that something had been taken from him, rather than from her, and for a moment she forgot to be mad at Charlie and was mad instead at the man he’d left to babysit her. She let out a small growl of frustration and twirled round and stomped back into the kitchen.
“Everything is ruined, we’ll have to—” She broke off when she realized that Len was not in the kitchen. Behind her she heard the door swing open, and knew that Victor had followed her. The muscles of her shoulders tightened in fury, and she paused, waiting for him to say something so that she could throw it back. He was silent, however—she couldn’t even hear him breathing. After a few seconds she began to doubt that he was there at all. But her pride would not allow her to turn and look, so instead she strode forward, across the well-worn planks of the kitchen, and into the formal dining room that was to have been the setting for her last evening as a virgin.
“Len!” she gasped in surprise when she saw the one-legged man in the dining room, grinning over the table setting. Two china plates piled with handsome cuts of roast and beautifully browned potatoes sat with a bowl of green salad and a silver gravy boat between them. The candles she had earlier placed in silver candelabras had been lit, and the flowers that she’d sent Danny out for that morning were still in the white ceramic vases, just as she’d arranged them. It was a gorgeous table—just as pretty as her hopes—and this made her sense of abandonment that much more acute.
“It’s all ruined.” Her tone had transformed from anger to defeat.
Len’s grin faded and his voice got grave when he said, “Something’s happened?”
“Oh!” she screamed in frustration. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Victor came in behind her, and this time she knew for sure because he collided with her—gently, but nonetheless knocking her off kilter when he met her shoulder. This only worsened her humiliation.
“What’s happened?” Len asked him.
“What’s happened is that the young lady has lost her dinner date.” Victor’s manner had changed since that low curse on the threshold of Dogwood a few minutes before—he sounded ingratiating now, almost ready to laugh.
Len, sensing Victor’s intentions, smiled again, and said: “Well, there is a fine meal here, and two young people to enjoy it. Should I get you kids some champagne?”
In fact, Astrid would have liked a glass of champagne at that particular moment, but she was no dumbbell, and she could tell when she was being pandered to. They were both eager to keep Charlie’s girl happy, to keep her in line so that the boss could go on doing whatever it was he did, and this knowledge infuriated her even more. She would rather not have made a scene, but more than anything she wanted not to shed tears in front of Charlie’s toughs—particularly not in front of the grizzled old cook—and the vision of all her labors and the knowledge that they would go to waste were conspiring to choke up her throat.
“Champagne!” she cried in outrage. “Who can think of drinking champagne when something has happened?” she went on with a desperate irony, stalking toward the windows, fixing her arms over her chest with her back to the men. “I wanted to spend the evening with my fiancé, not with either of you bastards, so leave me be.”
“Miss Donal,” Victor went on in that cloying tone, as though he hadn’t even heard her insult.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked. Her cheeks were hot, and she knew shameful tears were on their way if either man persisted even once more. But something in her tone must have been enough, because she heard the floorboards creak as they drew away, and then the door close behind them. A silence followed in which she imagined she could hear the wicks of the candles burning down and the wax melting away. She blinked hard and forced her face to hold its expression. There would be no crying—that was for children, and she was now the fiancée of a man who did dangerous and exciting things late at night. She could not act a child. But oh, how it stabbed at her, to be left like this. To have been prepared to give herself completely and to be rejected.
When she couldn’t stand the silence anymore, she dragged one of the lugubrious old formal dining chairs across the floor so that the floorboards groaned beneath it and sat down by the bay window, propping her elbow up against the dramatic curve of the chair’s back. No doubt the Grey siblings were out there somewhere, going about their important business. It was almost half a day since Cordelia had left in pursuit of Max Darby, and though it was Astrid who had first suggested this course of action, now she felt jealous, and wished that she could go off chasing something shiny and new. But of course she couldn’t—what but a boy was there to pursue?
In fact Cordelia had just left Max by the gate of the Hudson Laurels’ place. He had not needed to say, and she had not needed to be told, that it would have been an awkward scene if she had gone with him as far as the front door. They had shaken hands by the side of the road as night fell, and then he had closed the driver’s door behind her. Had she hoped there would be a kiss? Even without one she was smiling to herself when she started up the engine, and went on smiling until she came around a bend and realized that she was being followed by a Ford with its headlights off.
The skin at the nape of her neck went cold. She had noticed a brown Ford several times on the drive back from the city, but she hadn’t thought anything of it when Max was driving. Now that she was alone and the darkness was near complete, the car’s presence seemed ominous. Of course it was possible that the driver had simply forgotten to turn his headl
ights on, and there were lots of brown Fords. Perhaps the car had nothing to do with her. But she accelerated as she came around the next bend anyway.
She was going almost forty miles an hour—the Marmon was smaller and faster than the Ford, she felt sure—and for a while she thought that she had lost the other car. But then the road straightened out and she saw, in her rearview mirror, that the Ford was still behind her. The driver flashed his lights twice before turning them off again.
Cordelia swallowed and pressed her foot on the accelerator. The line of her shoulders had gone rigid, and she gripped the wheel as she sped down the country road. But the Ford matched her pace. She could almost make out the faces of the two men in the front seat now. She had kept the Marmon’s speed up, and she was driving faster than anyone usually did on this stretch of road, but the car behind her went on steadily gaining. She stepped hard on the gas, and threw her gaze over her shoulder, looking back in the vain hope that the other car’s proximity was some trick of the mirror.
That was when she heard the blare of horn, sudden and loud, from up ahead. Her head swiveled in time to see headlights coming from the opposite direction, fast, and she felt a presentiment of impact. Her foot softened on the pedal but she was too terrified of what was behind her to brake. The car coming from the other direction was a green roadster, and it missed her by so narrow a margin that both cars rocked violently and she was able to meet the other driver’s eyes.
“Charlie!” she shouted as he passed.
In the rearview mirror she could see that the men pursuing her had swerved right to avoid a collision. She pulled left suddenly, stopping short just long enough to throw the car into reverse. The Ford sailed by—maybe the driver was distracted by the oncoming car, and was momentarily unable to match her every move, but she knew she didn’t have long until they turned around. She drove backward as fast as she could, her arm thrown over the seat and her eyes focused frantically behind her. When she saw Charlie’s car coming back her face relaxed, but the rest of her remained rigid until she had pulled her car alongside his.
“How many of them are there?” Charlie demanded. He had three men in the car with him, and they were all leaning toward her, their breathing heavy and the whites of their eyes big.
“Two, I think,” she said, and put her hands over her face.
“Stay here,” he yelled—at her, she assumed—and then she heard car doors slamming.
“Charlie, don’t be stupid, get back here, you’ll make yourself a target,” one of the other men called in a tense whisper.
But Charlie didn’t listen. Two shots tore into the country night, and when she opened her eyes, she saw her brother standing in the middle of the road, his suspenders forming a black X on his back, his arm extended in the air, holding a six-shooter from which smoke wafted. He fired two more shots as the other three men moved more cautiously along the side of the road, in the shadows, guns drawn. Several seconds passed and quiet descended again. She could hear everything—insects, leaves, owls, the winking of stars. Then she heard the sound of an engine starting up. Her heart thudded and kept on thudding, even when the sound grew fainter, and she knew that the Ford had retreated.
Charlie stood there a few seconds longer, his broad back lit up by the headlights of the Marmon, his shoulders rising and falling almost as though he were panting. Eventually he lowered his gun and slowly turned around. It was stupid, what he had done—she could see that. If the men had come back they could have killed Charlie easily, illuminated as he was and entirely exposed. But he did not have the look of someone who had just done something stupid. He was grinning wide and there was a manic light in his eyes as he sauntered toward her.
“Yellow bastards,” he said when he reached Cordelia and opened the driver’s-side door.
She stepped out and found that her legs were unsteady from nerves. “You sure they’re not coming back?” she asked.
“They ain’t coming back,” he said and shook his head as though to say This is what I live for. “But what did I tell you about going out alone?”
There was no real reproach in his voice, however, and she managed to smile a little in reply. “I’m sorry, Charlie. How could I know I’d be followed?”
“Never mind that. I’m only glad I found you. I’ve been driving around White Cove like crazy, trying to spot a speeding Marmon. Just don’t do it again.” He threw his arm around her, and made a hooting sound. “If I may say so myself, I put those boys in their place. What do you say we go celebrate with a drink?”
Meanwhile, Astrid’s tears had dried. She was hungry, but she disliked the idea of ingesting any of the meal that she had slaved over only for it to be rejected and was almost ready to go upstairs and lay down on her bed, when she was startled by a loud popping.
“Oh!” She turned and saw Victor over her shoulder. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He smiled at the compressed air wafting over a just-opened bottle of champagne.
“I don’t want any,” she said pathetically as she turned her head away.
“Come now, yes, you do.” He stepped toward her, and when she wouldn’t return his smile, he picked up the chair with her in it and placed it at the head of the table. She felt like a doll when he did this, and might have protested again, except that her lonely time spent gazing out the window had only made her feel worse, and she was privately glad for the attention. Once she was situated, he sat down in the chair that had been intended for Charlie, and poured a glass of champagne for each of them. “There’s a fine meal here,” he said in a fatherly way, “and it won’t go to waste.”
“I don’t much feel like talking,” she warned.
“I figured you might say something like that.” There was a twinkle in his eye as he reached into his chest pocket. “That’s why I brought these,” he went on, showing her the pack of playing cards before shuffling them. She watched, not sure what to do, until he winked at her and said, “Go on, have a sip and I’ll deal. Do you know gin rummy?”
“Know it?” The wink warmed her, and when she spoke again her voice grew playful despite the degradations of the evening. “It was all Mother and I did when we lived in Europe! We were always in a train or a hotel or a boat, and there was never anything to do.”
“Good.” His hands moved quickly over the pliant deck, doling out red rectangles, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d picked up the hand and begun to arrange her cards. “Not so fast,” he said, winking again and lifting his glass.
“Ah, I’ve been very rude!” She was regaining her charm, and it felt good to smile now in her plush confident way, showing that she was not really such a baby, and lift her glass to his. “Cheers. You must forgive me for making a scene earlier, it’s only that I worked so hard . . .”
“You did work hard, but now we shall enjoy the fruit of your labors. To this meal.”
They clinked glasses and drank. Astrid closed her eyes, enjoying the fizzy sweetness on her tongue, and when she opened them again she was pleased to see a pair of aces and a slew of numbered clubs. From the deck, she picked up a card she could use, discarded one she couldn’t, and raised her big eyes to watch Victor put a piece of roast in his mouth. He gave no obvious signs of pleasure, only put his fist over his mouth as he swallowed. Then he sipped from his champagne glass. Without saying anything, he took his turn, and afterward put a forkful of potatoes in his mouth. Again she fixed her gaze on him, not breathing or blinking, waiting for some indication that he enjoyed the food. He chewed twice and paused, looking at the ground as though he was considering spitting the bite out. But he didn’t. He only chewed twice more and turned his eyes to meet hers as a lump went down his throat.
“Oh, dear.” Astrid’s lips parted. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
Light passed over his dark eyes, as it always does when people are considering whether or not to tell the truth. One last tear broke free and ran down the side of her nose, along the nostril, and into her mouth. She knew that he was
thinking she would break down again, and she wished that she could pull the thought right out of his brain. The tear was just a random leftover tear that she couldn’t explain. Her cooking was atrocious, she could see that clearly now, but somehow the realization that the meal she had made was terrible didn’t make her sad. It cleared the decks of all her misery; everything that had been so tragic a moment ago now seemed funny. Without breaking his gaze, she put a few potatoes in her mouth—but the saltiness stung her taste buds and made her wince, and she couldn’t turn the bite over in her mouth even once before spitting it back on the plate.
“You were brave to have gotten that down,” she laughed, once she’d managed a gulp of champagne.
“Aw, they weren’t so bad,” he said, picking up his cards.
“Don’t start lying to me now, Vincent—Victor—whatever your name is.”
“All right—they were pretty bad.” He grinned at her and refilled their glasses. “But I never had much of an appetite—champagne is dinner enough for me.”
“Don’t go easy on me, fellow,” she shot back. “And don’t think by buttering me up you’ll get me to put in a good word with your boss, either.”
“I’ve eaten some bad meals in my time.” He paused for effect, and more or less subdued the smile he’d been wearing since she’d begun to act carefree again. “This may possibly be the most inedible plate of food I have ever been served in my many long years of eating.”
“You bastard!” she hooted. “The worst? You’re in trouble now, my friend—earlier I was going to go easy on you when it came to our little game, but now I shall show you no mercy.”
“Ah, it’s on, then?” he replied with a wise smile.
“Indeed it is, mister.” She sat up straight in her chair and focused on her hand.
Victor poured more champagne, and by the time Astrid had won the first hand, another bottle had to be opened. By the third hand, she felt sure that he was letting her win, but she didn’t mind much about anything anymore. The petulant girl who had cried over Charlie’s absence was gone, and Astrid had returned to a more sensible self. It was a good thing that Charlie had missed her first culinary efforts, she had begun to see, since the meal was such a disaster, and nice of Victor to let her practice on him. And she did enjoy his company, even though he was just the newest man, lowest on the totem pole, and had none of her Charlie’s swaggering importance. She liked the card game, too—it was irreverent and not at all stuffy, and she thought maybe that once she mastered a dish worthy of her fiancé, she would try the same thing on him. That would be the night she slept in the same bed as Charlie—by then she would have everything just perfect, and be truly ready to act like a wife in every way.