Keeper of Enchanted Rooms(85)

She rolled her lips together. Glanced around as though she needed to be saved.

“Really, Ebba.” His toned morphed to pleading. “I only want to talk. I need to know what happened. I’m not here for you. Only for answers.”

Still, she shied away, one hand gripping the handle of her flute case, the other moving to her hair. “I-I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Not a good idea?” he repeated, heat rising from his lungs.

“This bloke bothering you?” one of the clarinetists asked, tailed by a man without an instrument.

No. Not now. “I’m an old friend,” he said in his defense.

Ebba turned toward the clarinetist. “Oh, yes, but I’m tired and ready to go home.”

“Ebba,” Merritt pressed, but the clarinetist slipped between him and Ebba, while the second man opened the carriage door. Ebba stepped inside.

Merritt’s hands formed fists so tight his nails cut into his palms. “Ebba, I deserve to know!”

She paused.

The clarinetist put a hand on Merritt’s shoulder. “You heard her. She’s done for the night. Move on.”

Merritt shrugged the man off. “I’m not going to hurt her. Stay, if you must, but—”

“It’s all right.”

All three men turned as Ebba came out of the carriage, her flute still on the seat. She pulled her cloak around her shoulders. “I . . . I do need to speak to him. Just for a moment.”

Her friends glanced at each other, uncertain. “If you insist . . . but we’ll be just over there. Won’t leave till we see you boarded.”

Ebba nodded to them, then jerked her head toward city hall. Steeling himself with a breath, Merritt followed her to the wall, far enough from the doors that they couldn’t easily be overheard.

“Thank you.” His words were clouds on the still night air.

She finicked with her cloak hem, much the way Hulda busied herself with the end of her shawl. She looked everywhere but at him, trying to get her thoughts together—she’d always done that when discussing something uncomfortable. It brought up an odd sense of nostalgia.

He waited.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she finally said.

He nodded. “I dare say you planned it that way.”

She pressed her lips together.

Merritt leaned against the stone wall, despite its frigidity. “Why did you leave? No word, no letter . . . if you left one, I never saw it—”

“No letter,” she whispered.

“Your parents said nothing except that you’d gone to school. They wouldn’t even say where.” Like they’d shared his father’s desire to be rid of him.

She swallowed. “Oberlin.” Her voice was no louder than a falling leaf. “Oberlin College.”

He could have tracked her down, if he’d known that. Perhaps it was better that he hadn’t. He scraped his brain for something to say. “That’s . . . good. You’d always wanted the education.”

Ebba lifted her chin, but she still didn’t meet his eyes. The lights from the windows highlighted tears on her lashes.

He thought to reach out to her but kept his hands in his pockets. “Ebba—”

“I left because I was ashamed.” Tears leaked into her voice. “Because I didn’t know how else to do it.”

Merritt shook his head, not understanding. “I said . . . we were going to move, remember? Where no one knew us—”

“Not because of that.” She dabbed her eyes with the hood of her cloak. “But you’re right. You deserve to know. And it can be off my conscience, after tonight.”

One of the drivers called out. Ebba waved an arm but didn’t turn.

“Your father paid for me to go to Oberlin,” she confessed.

Merritt leaned back like he’d been pushed. “My father? Why?” And why hide it?

She drew in a deep breath. Found a spot on Merritt’s shoulder and pinned her gaze to it. “It was a bribe, Merritt.”

He still didn’t understand.

Her jaw worked. “It was a bribe. Not all of it. I did . . .” She cleared her throat. “I did care for you then. But he hated you. Said you always reminded him . . . that you were a ‘symbol’ of your mother’s unfaithfulness . . .”

Merritt stepped back and brought up his hands. “Wait. Wait. What do you mean, my mother’s unfaithfulness?”

Now she met his eyes. Her lips parted. The driver called.

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“Know what?” His head was throbbing. “Know what?”

“That you’re a bastard, Merritt!”

The silence of the night seeped around him like oil after the outburst. His ears rang. His skin pimpled. Nausea curled in his bowels.

She wiped her eyes again. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t have time—”

“He disowned me because I’m not . . . his?” he murmured.

Her eyes glistened.

He couldn’t process it. “Then whose am I?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced back to the carriages. Her cheekbones became pronounced as she pressed her lips together, readying to deliver another blow. “He offered to send me to Oberlin if I . . . if I faked a pregnancy.”