The Gilded Hour (39 page)

She washed her face and considered herself in the mirror. Her family history was there to read, in her bones and skin and hair, in the blue-green eyes that identified her as redbone in the south, a term some thought as offensive as anything Undine Belmont could come up with. But Cap didn’t care about any of that, and Cap was the only thing that mattered.

Sophie took her time, and still managed to cross paths with Undine as she came into the hall, righting the veil over her face. She stopped and turned.

“Miss Savard,” she said.

Sophie inclined her head, acknowledging both the greeting and the denial of her medical degree. “Miss Belmont.”

“Very cleverly done,” Undine said.

Sophie smiled at her, her best manners on display. “Yes,” she said solemnly. “Cap has done very well for himself.”

Then she ducked around Undine and into the parlor, where Conrad was laughing silently, his whole long thin shape contorted with pleasure. Cap’s smile was quieter, but he looked at her with all the love and affection he had to offer. And that would be more than enough to put all the Undines of the world out of her mind.

•   •   •

A
NNA
HAD
SET
out on this expedition determined to hold on to her sense of humor and patience both, and found it easier than she had imagined. It was the little girls who made the difference, in part because they were amazed by everything and in part because shopkeepers seemed to be drawn to them, and in equal part because their presence kept Margaret from starting conversations sure to cause a disagreement.

They picked out lace and bonnets and summer-weight stockings,
stopped by the seamstress to have pinafores and skirts pinned up for alteration, retrieved purchases Aunt Quinlan had ordered from a jeweler. At four they had come as far as the Lilliput Children’s Emporium, where the girls were allowed to look at toys and dolls as long as they did not touch. They finished up in the shoe department, where both of them were fitted with buff-colored leather half boots suitable for both summer outings and a small wedding.

Lia was beside herself with joy; Rosa, still somber, expressed her thanks and appreciation and fell back into silence. Anna fought still with the impulse to tell her about the upcoming trip to Staten Island and the hope that they would find her little brother, wanting so much to see some hope in that small serious face. But Jack and Sophie and Aunt Quinlan were united in the belief that it would be worse to raise her hopes only to dash them yet again, and so she had to content herself with small gestures instead of fragile promises.

As a last stop they went to the confectioner’s just two doors down, a place that smelled of caramelized sugar and yeast and cinnamon, French pastries filled with cream and drizzled with chocolate, layer cakes and tortes and little petit fours crowned with fruit as bright as jewels. They were shown to a table while Lia expressed her wishes in very concrete terms, waving the menu as if it were personal standard.

“Chocolate ice cream,” she said. “With wafers and cherries and whipped cream.”

“After something more substantial,” Anna said. “Sandwiches and a pot of peppermint tea, I think.”

A hint of rebellion showed itself on Lia’s face, but her sister’s sharp look was enough to nip insurrection in the bud.

“You’ll like these sandwiches,” Margaret promised the girls.

And they did. A plate of small triangles, white and brown bread trimmed of all crust and filled with delicate slices of cucumber, potted cheese, and slivers of pink ham. The little girls hesitated at first and then ate up the whole platter under Margaret’s watchful eye and constant small corrections.

Anna was just starting to long for home when she saw Rosa’s face transform itself, her worries falling away to reveal a little girl whose fondest wish had just been granted. Even as Anna turned to follow Rosa’s gaze, she knew that Jack was coming toward them, bold and dark and strong in this
pastel-colored place designed for ladies and children. She twisted around and met his gaze, and knew that she could not hide from him or anyone at all what she was feeling.

His fingers brushed her shoulder as he passed by her chair and to the other side of the table to stand behind Rosa, who was chattering at him in Italian. He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to talk to her, just a few words in Italian, but the tears that had been welling in her eyes subsided as she nodded and smiled and swallowed. Then Lia had hooked her hands around his forearm and demanded her share of his attention.

Anna watched all this and felt her own throat swell so that even when Jack came to her and leaned over to kiss her cheek, she had not a word to offer him.

The waiter brought another chair and there was a good five minutes of adjusting and moving and ordering of more sandwiches and ice cream, during all of which Anna had nothing to say. Finally Jack turned to her, pressing her shoulder with his own. Under the table he caught her hand and put it on the long hard plane of his thigh to trace her ring. Her fingers twitched, and he folded his hand around hers.

He said, “I’ve robbed you of speech.”

Anna nodded, and the little girls giggled, so delighted that they bounced on the red leather cushions of their chairs. Even Margaret was flushed with excitement. She wanted to know how Jack had found them.

“I stopped by Waverly Place,” he said. “Mrs. Lee told me where I might find you. And here you are. Though Anna still won’t talk to me.” Jack, who remembered the shape of her hands, and the texture of her skin, and the smell of her hair at the nape of her neck. Under the table he squeezed her hand. “Maybe she’s changed her mind about marrying me. Have you, Anna? Changed your mind?”

Lia chirped, “
Allora io ti sposerò.
”

“Ah,” Jack said, leaning across the table to stroke the little girl’s cheek. “That’s a relief. Lia will marry me if you’ve changed your mind, Anna.”

“Lia,” Anna said. “It’s a very kind offer, but you will have to find someone else to marry. Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte is spoken for.”

•   •   •

J
ACK
TRACED
A
pattern over Anna’s palm, just to feel her tremble. This wasn’t exactly the way he had hoped to find her but there were some
advantages; he had never seen her so reticent or flustered. She vibrated with the need to be kissed, and he wanted nothing so much as to oblige her.

Then the food and ice cream arrived, and there was a moment’s quiet while they turned their attention to their plates and bowls, all except Margaret, who wanted to know about the prisoners he had brought back from Chicago and where they had ended up.

“I don’t know,” Jack said, which was not exactly the truth, but close enough. “A couple patrolmen took charge of them in the station. You don’t need to worry, you know. Even if they were out on the street, you wouldn’t need to worry. They are very polite, gentlemen of the first order unless you’re getting on a train, in which case they’ll take your money, give you a worthless piece of paper in return, and bend over backward thanking you for your patronage.”

“Forgers.” Margaret sounded almost disappointed. “Not even money, but train tickets.”

“Oh, a train ticket,” Lia announced. “I love a train ticket. I got one of those at home.”

“You wouldn’t know a train ticket if it bit you on the nose,” said her sister.

Lia was unconcerned by this accusation, her mouth too full of ice cream.

“Lia,” Jack said. “Your English is almost as good as your sister’s. Did you swallow a dictionary?”

She waved her spoon like a queen with a scepter. “Oh, a dictionary,” she said agreeably. “I love a dictionary.”

“She’s got one of those at home,” Rosa finished for her, and Jack couldn’t help himself, he laughed out loud. For this moment he was content to sit with Anna beside him and talk to the little girls and even to Margaret, who had the makings of a police officer, if such things were possible, or a nun, if she were Roman Catholic. She spoke up as if she had read his mind.

“These girls need to get home, Anna. Shall I go on with them?” She managed to offer both help and disapproval in those few words, a skill that Jack had observed before in mature women who were worn to the bone by loneliness and loss.

“We’ll all go,” he said. “I’d like to say hello to your aunt Quinlan, and then Anna and I have an appointment to keep.”

In an awkward scramble they managed to get two cabs, only to be held
up by the girls, who both wanted to ride with Jack. The long afternoon had begun to wear on them, and tears and tempers were ready to erupt. In the end Jack took the girls in one cab, and left Anna and Margaret to the other.

Anna was damp with perspiration and her heart was thundering in her ears, but she worked hard to maintain a placid expression that would give Margaret nothing to grab onto.

Margaret said, “It’s good to see you happy.”

Surprised, Anna had to gather her thoughts before she could reply. “But I haven’t been unhappy.” She heard the defensive tone in her own voice and wondered what she was protecting: her understanding of herself, or Margaret’s? The truth was, her life before Jack was a good life. She had fulfilling work and a family she loved. There were new things for her to discover every day. And that was the key, Anna realized. Margaret thought of her own life as a thing of the past, and anticipated nothing beyond more of the same.

“You could change things,” Anna said. “You really could start out on a different life for yourself. You are not nearly so old as you feel.”

Margaret smiled at her. “I was brought up to be a wife and a mother. I never wanted any other occupation and I still don’t. Really all I want—” She stopped.

“Go on,” Anna said.

“All I want is a household of my own,” Margaret said. “With my own people, who look to me first instead of last.”

Anna thought of Bambina and Celestina Mezzanotte and of all the other women she knew who considered themselves less than women because they had no households or husbands or children to care for. And she thought of Jack, the kind of man she had never even dared imagine.

She said, “If you had broken bones or a punctured lung I could help you. I wish there were more I could do.”

The two of them sat quietly side by side swaying with the movement of the cab as it dodged one way and then another through traffic around Union Square and turned toward Waverly Place.

•   •   •

S
OPHIE
WAS
STILL
at Cap’s, but everyone else was in the garden when Anna and Margaret got home, Jack and the little girls included. There was a great deal of talk and laughter and then a spirited discussion about
supper. Jack wanted to take Anna away to an appointment—she was still unclear on exactly what he meant with that word, but she had her suspicions—and promised to come back for Sunday dinner the very next day; there was a lot to discuss, after all.

Aunt Quinlan took his face in her hands when he bent down to kiss her cheek and studied his eyes for a long moment.

“Endeavor to deserve her,” she said, and let him go.

“It’s what her father said to her first husband when they married,” Anna explained as they went back through the house. “Her husband said it to all her daughters’ husbands.”

Jack caught her wrist and drew her up against him while pressing her to the wall in the cool shadows of the front hall. When he had kissed her—less kiss than she had anticipated, but sweet nonetheless—he rubbed his cheek against hers.

“Did she say the same to Cap?”

“Multiple times, I’m sure.”

He kissed her again, more seriously now and with all his attention.

“Wait.” It was the only word she could get out between one kiss and the next, and in response she got only the curve of his smile pressed to her cheek.

She pulled away to say, “You can’t smile and kiss at the same time.”

“Watch me,” Jack said.

“What about this mysterious appointment?”

He let her go, nodding. “There is that. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

•   •   •

T
HEY
CROSSED
W
ASHINGTON
Square Park at a sharp angle, Jack only slowing when he realized she was almost running to keep up. Her expression was one he couldn’t quite place, but the tone of her voice gave her irritation away.

“Where exactly are we going?”

He gestured with his chin to the southern border of the park. “Mazzini’s Hotel.”

She pulled up short and he stopped, too.

“Hotel?”

“Mazzini’s, yes.”

A line appeared between her brows. “For what purpose?”

And now he understood. He hadn’t been clear and her mind had gone
off in the wrong direction. An intriguing direction, but wrong. She stood in front of him in the late afternoon sunshine, framed all around by dogwood and crab apple trees in blossom with her own color rising in her cheeks. The most sexually open woman he had ever known, but inexperienced, too, confused and affronted and aroused, on top of all that.

He could not resist. “You’re asking about my purpose?”

She crossed her arms and scowled at him, then stepped back when he stepped toward her. Jack advanced at a leisurely pace and she retreated, step for step.

“What purpose do you imagine I have?”

The next step brought her back up against a dogwood tree, and a flurry of petals fell, catching on her hair and shoulders. She was beautiful and irritated and confused.

“Did you think I meant to seduce you in a hotel room?” He propped a forearm against the tree trunk just over her head and leaned in to smell her hair. “Is that what you imagined?”

She pushed at him, half laughing now. “Get away.”

“But I just got back.” He nuzzled her temple as she pushed and pushed at his chest, and then, relaxing, slipped her arms around his waist and turned her face up to his.

“Did you really think I was taking you to a hotel room?”

She bit the lining of her cheek. “If you had just told me—”

“You did think I was taking you to a hotel room.”

Anna ducked as if to slip away, but he caught her up again. There were people on the paths, people who could see them and at this moment, he didn’t care and more than that, he didn’t want Anna to care, either. So he kissed her until she forgot about the tree at her back and the park all around and the people in the park and everything in the world but the two of them.