The Moon by Night (52 page)

Shiloh nodded. “Now that I'm hearing you say it, I know it's true. I did everything I could for her. But all the time, I knew she was slipping away. It was just her time, and I think you knew that about Melbourne too.”

“I did,” Cheney said soberly. “But Shiloh, what is really important here, what I want to talk to you about…again, though I don't want to upset you…or—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “There's something I want to talk to you about first. First and second, 'cause there's actually a couple of things.” He cleared his throat, his blue eyes began to dance, and he intoned, “It's all their fault. Sean's and Shannon's.”

The dogs lifted their heads, and their silly long thin whips of tails started thumping
ploomp, ploomp
. “Forget it, no more cake for you. I was just sayin' it was all your fault for bein' Frog dogs.” He looked back at Cheney and said only half jokingly, “You knew I was trying to—uh—what's that word I can never remember and then can't say it when I do?”

“Dissimulate?” Cheney suggested, mystified.

“Yeah. Dissemble-ate. You knew it, didn't you? 'Bout the dogs bein' Frogs?”

“I surely did,” Cheney said with mock sternness. “But I was so busy dissemble-ating myself about Neil Melbourne that I thought I was imagining things about you, telling dark lies about the dogs.”

“Nope, they're Irish-Frog dogs,” Shiloh said cheerfully. “What I was lyin' about was that I can speak Frog.”

Cheney stared at him for long moments, then finally managed to stammer, “Huh? You speak—”

“Frog. French,” he grunted. “I didn't want to tell you because I have a surprise for you. It was s'posed to be for Christmas, but—anyway, here it is.” He pulled a long parchment envelope from under his pillow and handed it to her.

The front of it read, in Shiloh's handwriting,
Pour Cheney, ma belle femme
. Slowly Cheney took out the fine parchment paper and began to read.

It was a love letter, written in French. Shiloh told her eloquently, simply, and from his heart what she meant to him, and how she had enriched his life, and that he promised to love her forever.

She cried, and Shiloh handed her one of his big clean linen handkerchiefs. It smelled like his Royal Lyme cologne, and Cheney cried some more and buried her face in it. Shiloh waited patiently, watching the dogs with secret amusement. They were watching Cheney with such concern that Shiloh thought they might start crying themselves. Ladies and dogs, he thought, were very emotional creatures.

Finally Cheney stopped crying and said, “Oh, Shiloh, no wonder I love you so! How could I not love such a man? You mean you learned French just so you could write me a love letter?”

“Not exactly,” he said gravely. “I learned French because you're such an important part of my life, Doc, that I try to figure out ways to be close to you so we can share. And that's why—” he watched her closely, his brow furrowing—“that's why I've also started learning Latin.” He waited.

Her heart bounded. “Latin? Latin, as in the language of…of…physicians?”

“Yeah. I'm gonna need it when I start the College of Physicians and Surgeons next year,” he finally said, watching her cautiously.

She stared at him openmouthed.

He cocked his head, waiting…

She gave a whoop, hopped up, and started jumping on the bed. The dogs bounded up and ran to cower in the corner of the bed. Cheney jumped and yelled, “Col-lege-of-Phy-si-cians-and-Sur-geons! You're—real-ly—going—to—be-a-doc-tor! Yay, yay, yay!”

“This means you're glad, right?”

Cheney jumped and whooped. The fat down comforter bounced so hard it slid right off onto the floor. Except the corner where the dogs were pinning it down.

“It's okay,” Shiloh told the dogs, bouncing slightly as Cheney hopped. “Just remember, when she does this, it's a
good
thing.”

Mr. and Mrs. Shiloh Irons-Winslow

request the pleasure of your presence

at their New Year's Eve Fête

Monday evening, December thirty-first

at seven o'clock

Number 10 Gramercy Square East

Gramercy Park

Dinner 7:30

Band Concert in the Park 9:30

Fireworks 10:00

Dancing & Buffet until midnight

R.S.V.P.

At 5:00 the knocker sounded, and it was an unconscionably long time before the door was opened. Jauncy, quickly straightening his collar and smoothing his hair, managed to bow elegantly and stand aside to invite Victoria Elizabeth Steen de Lancie Buchanan and her entourage in.

“Good evening, Mrs. Buchanan. Please come in and go upstairs. Mrs. Irons-Winslow is expecting you. Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Solange. Good afternoon, sir. Do you need any assistance?”

Victoria and Solange were already running up the stairs, giggling. Behind them came one of Victoria's giant footmen, Will, carrying a sizable, and evidently fairly heavy, trunk. “No, thank you, sir, I've had vast experience hauling Mrs. Buchanan's trunks. If you would be so good as to show me where to put it.”

“Certainly,” Jauncy said, leading the man upstairs to the master chamber floor, secretly astounded that the man mounted all those stairs carrying what was obviously a heavy trunk without even breathing deeply. The door to the master bedroom was open, and at the door Jauncy said cautiously, “I assume, Mrs. Irons-Winslow, that you wish Mrs. Buchanan's trunk to be put in here?”

“Yes, of course,” Cheney answered, peeking around the corner of the door of her dressing room. “Oh, hello, Will. How are you doing?”

“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Irons-Winslow. Will that be all, Mrs. Buchanan?”

“Yes, Will, thank you.”

The footman bowed with a bygone grace and left.

Jauncy asked, “Is there anything that I can do? Any assistance you ladies may require?”

“Oh, Jauncy, would you please make us some tea? And bring some of the plums and mangoes, and are there any of Sketes's maple sugar cookies left?” Cheney asked eagerly.

“I believe so, madam. I shall return shortly.”

Victoria, Solange, and Fiona were bent over the trunk, pulling out dresses, petticoats, bustles, stockings, shoes, jewelry, and hair ribbons and laying them out on Cheney and Shiloh's gigantic bed. “I'll hang these right now, so they won't get mussed,” Fiona said.

Cheney looked at the finery and cried, “Oh, Victoria, what a wonderful ensemble!”

Because this was not a formal evening, and in fact the guests would be spending a good deal of the evening outdoors, the women would be wearing something more akin to visiting dresses than evening gowns. Victoria's outfit was a skirt made of a muted red, green, and yellow tartan plaid, the overskirt caught up at the sides with silver brooches made in the style of Celtic knots. Her blouse was white, with a lacy white jabot and a long fringed scarf made of the tartan plaid that was designed to be worn diagonally from shoulder to waist and pinned at the waist in the front. She had a full billowing green wool cloak with the lining of the same tartan, and a snappy tam-o'-shanter completed the outfit.

“It's the Buchanan plaid,” she said, giggling, “although Dev says he wouldn't know a Buchanan tartan from a horse blanket. Isn't it fun, though?”

“It is! As usual, you will be so beautiful that no one will see us poor plain sparrows, will they, Solange?”

“I am plain,” she said shyly, “but you are not. I think I'll be the only sparrow.”

Devlin Buchanan, as stern and unemotional a man as ever could be, had fallen in love with Solange Fortier and Lisette Pettijohn. On the night that he and Shiloh and Officer Goodin had found them, he had sent a message to Victoria and asked her to come to the hospital to see them. Before Dev could even think how to phrase the question, Victoria had said, “I love Dart as if he were my own son. But I have always hoped to have a little girl too. Two girls would be a double blessing.”

Solange was wearing a powder blue velvet dress with a pink satin bow and trimmed with yards and yards of tightly gathered pink Swiss embroidered edging. Cheney knelt by the girl. “How could you look like a sparrow in this lovely dress? And how could you be plain in such a pretty color blue, like the sky, or a robin's egg? And is this my petticoat? I do so love taffeta petticoats. They make such nice rustling sounds.”

“That's my petticoat,” Solange said with the tiniest hint of spirit. “I think it would be too small for you, Mrs. Irons-Winslow.”

“Perhaps it would,” Cheney agreed. “But with such a nice dress and a nice petticoat, you will certainly not be a sparrow, Solange, and you are not plain. You're a very pretty girl.”

Solange looked at the floor and said, “My maman told me that sometimes.”

“Your maman was right,” Cheney said.

Victoria smoothed Solange's hair with the gentlest touch. “I know you miss your maman, darling, but I'm so glad to have a little girl to play dress-up with! To me you are just like having a lovely little doll, like your Susannah doll. Only I think that you are much, much prettier than Susannah.”

Solange's thin cheeks blushed, and she stepped close to Victoria to hold her hand.

Fiona was arranging all of the items in order to hang them on the padded and perfumed hangers that Victoria had had specially made. The scent of lilacs floated on the air.

Cheney said, “Solange, may I present to you Miss Fiona Kay Keane, who is the best modiste in the world. Fiona, may I present to you Miss Solange Fortier.”

The two curtsied to each other. Fiona leaned over and said, “Perhaps, if Mrs. Buchanan will allow me, I will dress your hair too for the party tonight.”

Solange raised her eyes up to Victoria, who nodded.

“Thank you, Miss Fiona, I would be very grateful if you would dress my hair for the party tonight,” Solange said. She was learning English by repeating phrases in this manner.

“I was hoping you would offer, Fiona,” Victoria said, untying her mantle and adding it to the pile of finery on the bed. “Thank you.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Fiona kneeled to untie Solange's cloak and remove it. “I think Solange's hair will do very well with some ringlets and a pink satin ribbon.”

Jauncy appeared at the door with the tea service. He set it down on the bed and asked, “Shall I serve, Mrs. Irons-Winslow?”

“Oh no, Jauncy. I'm afraid my husband will have an apoplectic attack if we keep you for more than five minutes,” Cheney said, giggling. “Thank you. That will be all.”

She turned to Victoria, took both her hands, and then leaned over to kiss her lightly on both cheeks. Victoria was extremely surprised—Cheney was not at all demonstrative—but pleased. Cheney said, “I must tell you, Victoria, that I have missed you very much these last months. I'm so happy you came today. Do you know how long it's been since I had a truly fun time dressing for a party? Since we did this, getting dressed for a party together? It's been ages, hasn't it? Oh, I'm so excited I can't believe I've been such a…such a—”

“Drudge?” Victoria suggested, her blue eyes sparkling. “A thrall? A scullion? A—”

“Enough!” Cheney cried, laughing. “I admit it! I'm a plodding laborer, bored and boring!”

“Never, Cheney,” Victoria said affectionately, giving her hands a last small squeeze. “And I'm so glad to see you so happy again.”

“Very happy. Now, let's all have tea—you too, Fiona—before we get down to business with our hair.”

They all had tea sitting on the bed, then they walked around admiring Cheney's clothes and shoes and her generous dressing room. Victoria laughed when she saw the bamboo cabinet Cheney had bought at the City of Paris department store in San Francisco.

“It is truly unique,” she said mischievously. “I have never, never seen anything else like it. Jane Anne did tell me that this piece was more trouble for her and Alan to bring back from San Francisco than the two horses.”

“It's delicate,” Cheney sniffed. “It takes special care.” It was special, all right—spiky and rickety and garish. Never in her life had Cheney liked something garish, and she still didn't know quite why she liked this cabinet, with its squeaky doors and odd mirrored insets. It was her one foray into quirkiness, she supposed.

“Now let's get down to business,” Victoria said briskly. “What are you wearing, Cheney?”

“This one,” she said, smiling and bringing a dress out from her dressing room to lay on the bed. “I only picked it up from Madame Martine yesterday.”

It was a deep moss green velvet, trimmed with gold satin embroidery and braid. The overskirt was pulled up into a graceful waterfall bustle by corded braids with gold tassels. The bodice was tight, fastened with gold braided frogs and had an open corsage. “I have a cream-colored blouse—where is it, Fiona? Oh, here, Victoria, see? It's got these fine-tailored tucks and a collar with low points, and I had this tie made from the velvet. I have some heavy gold Roman drop earrings, and Fiona's going to work the gold braid and tassels in my hair, so I don't think I'll need any more jewelry, do you?”

These intricate discussions continued as Fiona arranged their hair, which also required many trials with Cheney's jewelry and different ribbons and bows and ornaments, and as usual Victoria had brought an enormous jewelry box full of brooches and earrings and necklaces and bracelets. Her father had made the Steen fortune in jewels, and all of the Steen women had enough jewelry to stock a royal treasury.

Cheney had been a little afraid that Solange might be bored, but once she got over her shyness in front of strangers, she played with the clothes, Cheney's hats, the gloves, the ribbons. She tried on Cheney's shoes, put on Victoria's jewelry, and Victoria even let her play with her cosmetics. Solange seemed endlessly fascinated, humming to herself as she made up one outfit after another with hats, shoes, and jewelry.