Iron Cast(47)

“Yes, the backdrop,” Madeline said. “Very important business. I’ll just shut myself in my room, shall I? Leave the backdrop discussion to the men.”

James leaned his head back on the sofa. He smiled languidly and did not say a word.

It was a mild winter for Boston. There hadn’t been any snow since before Christmas, and without any real discussion, Corinne and Gabriel found themselves looping through the Common. They passed the white granite Soldiers and Sailors Monument, its victory column luminous in the moonlight. The fountain in the Frog Pond was off, and a murky layer of ice had formed across the top.

Corinne sank down on a park bench beside the pond. The heels she had worn were not the best walking shoes, and her feet were starting to protest. Without the warmth of exertion, goose bumps rose on her legs. She shivered under her coat.

Gabriel sat down beside her and lit a cigarette.

“Are Madeline and James really married?” he asked.

“Only technically,” Corinne said. “It’s a long story. Madeline’s father was pretty well off, but he stipulated in his will that she could only inherit his money—and the theater building, which was her lifelong dream—if she was married. James was her business partner, and people already assumed they were romantically involved because apparently people are blind as well as stupid, so they figured it would be a tidy arrangement.”

“Seems the opposite of tidy to me,” he said.

Corinne plucked the cigarette from his fingers and stole a pull, savoring the warmth of the smoke as she drew it into her lungs. She gave him back the cigarette and exhaled toward the pond, watching the smoke dissipate in the golden glow of the streetlight. She hated the taste of cigarettes, but she was too cold right now to care.

“She got the theater, didn’t she?” she said.

“And the money.”

“Well, she gave all the money to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in loving memory of her father.”

Gabriel smiled. “I’m surprised you’re not better friends.”

“Who says we aren’t friends?”

“Just a guess,” he said, leaning back and draping his left arm across the back of the bench. “Based on the less-than-warm welcome she gave you.”

“For your information, we grew up together. She’s a couple of years older than me, but our parents were members of the same country club.”

“Country club?” Gabriel echoed.

Something in his tone made Corinne turn to look at him. “What?” she asked.

He was quiet, examining her with an expression she hadn’t seen before. There was a rigidity in his demeanor that she didn’t like.

“What?” she demanded again.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said.

“No, but your eyebrows are doing the talking thing.”

“My eyebrows are not— Never mind. I was just surprised. That’s all.”

Corinne tried to study his face for truth, but he turned away and blew a stream of smoke. A breeze carried it into the night. She hadn’t meant to reveal anything about her background, even though the crew at the Cast Iron had all either been told or guessed for themselves. The precarious nature of the secret had never concerned Corinne overly much. No one dared to cross Johnny, and he’d made it clear that Corinne was one of them. Even Madeline and James knew better than to let on what they knew.

Corinne just didn’t like to talk about it. She didn’t like the looks it garnered. The whispers behind her back.

“You might as well say it and get it over with,” she told Gabriel.

“Say what?”

“Accuse me of slumming. Of being a rich little girl, playing in the mud before she runs home to wash up and put on a pretty dress. Trust me, I’ve heard it all before.”

He ground out his cigarette and didn’t reply. Corinne surged forward.

“Not that anyone cares, but I can’t stay at home for more than a few days before I start to go mad.”

Gabriel was staring out over the pond. A hard wind rushed through the trees and across the ice, brushing his hair back from his forehead and bringing stinging tears to Corinne’s eyes.

“You can think whatever you want,” Corinne said to his silence. She was shivering nonstop now, and it was growing difficult to maintain the steady, righteous tone. “I don’t care. You don’t know the first thing about me. My life is the Cast Iron. None of it has anything to do with my parents or their damned country club.”

She lowered her head, trying to shield her eyes from the wind. Gabriel was fidgeting beside her, and she guessed he was about to leave, but after a few seconds something warm dropped around her shoulders. His coat.

“If you’re done arguing with yourself, we can head back,” he said.

That made Corinne want to argue more, on principle, but she was suddenly very tired. She slipped her arms into his coat and stood up. She knew he must be freezing in just his jacket, but she doubted he would take his coat back, even if she insisted. She was too tired for that argument as well.

“You can pretend to be strong and silent and unaffected, but I know it bothers you that my parents are wealthy,” Corinne said after they had been walking for a few minutes. “I could see it in your face.”

“You’re very smart, but you’re also very tedious,” he told her. “And you know a lot less about me than you think you do.”