Lost Among the Living(61)

“I don’t have many,” Cora replied. “I’m an only child. I wish I had cousins my own age, but I don’t, just an older cousin who’s a doctor on Harley Street. He said he’d come.”

“That’s very nice,” I said, using the sponge on my face and neck.

“He is nice,” Cora said. “Mama asked him if the madness in Martin’s sister could run in the family, but he said he didn’t think it could.”

I sank down in the water, soaping my hair and rinsing it again. Oh, Frances, Frances. What do you want? But already I knew. Even through the fog of my terror, I knew. She wanted me to see. That’s why Princer didn’t harm me. She wanted me to see. “Cora,” I said, “don’t listen to any rumors about Frances. And Martin is not mad.”

“Oh, I know!” she said with an awkward laugh. “He’s a gentleman, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes, trying not to see Princer’s hideous stomach leaping over me. I prayed she wasn’t going to ask for a lesson about wedding nights. “He is.”

“He’s kind to me, and he makes me laugh. Everything is going to go swimmingly, I just know it! I just wish he could eat something and rest more. It makes him moody—have you noticed that? He’s a little frightening sometimes. Last night I found him in his room, burning his sister’s letters in the fire.”

I was wringing out my hair, but I stopped. “What do you mean, burning his sister’s letters?”

“From the war,” Cora said. “All the letters she wrote him at the Front. I don’t know what they said, because he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why did he burn them?”

“I don’t know.” The brassy confidence had left her voice, and for the first time since I’d met her, she sounded unsure. “He never talks about the war, at least not to me. He won’t talk about his health, either, and he won’t let the doctors answer my questions. He just goes quiet and tells me everything will be fine.”

I stood from the bath and pulled a towel around myself. Damn you, Martin. Just tell her about the morphine. “Men don’t talk about the war,” I said.

“I just want to help,” she said. “We’re going to be married by Christmas. Mrs. Manders, you’ve been married before. How do you get your husband to tell you everything?”

“You don’t,” I said, and I reached into the tub and pulled the plug, watching the water spiral down the drain.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX



Dottie had chosen the upstairs gallery for the engagement party. Tables had been lined along one side of the room, laid with delicacies and flutes of champagne. A string quartet played in a corner, and a raised dais had been set up at the head of the room for announcements. The floral arrangements arrived by luncheon, profusions of gardenias and roses and chrysanthemums, lilies in tall sprays. Workmen had lined the walls with small portable electric lamps that would give off elegant light when the room was dark.

I entered after the first guests had arrived. There were some two dozen people drinking and circulating beneath the canvases we had collected so assiduously on the Continent—Dottie’s art and business acquaintances, local gentry who were likely Robert’s cronies, the Staffrons, and the members of the Staffrons’ circles who had made the journey from London. Every bedroom in Wych Elm House was occupied tonight, as well as several rooms in the area’s surrounding inns.

I spotted Cora and Martin near the center of the room, nodding and greeting guests as they approached. Martin wore immaculate black tie and tails, his hair slicked back and gleaming in the soft light. His eyes were bright and his smile was genuine. I breathed a sigh of relief that tonight seemed to be a good one.

Cora was in a dress of striking blue shot with white, puffed at the sleeves and beaded on the bodice. It was almost absurd—she looked a little like Anne Boleyn crossed with a respectable modern matron—yet somehow Cora looked born to it, her hair swept up and her tilted eyes aglow with demure pleasure. She turned to me with her familiar wide smile.

“Cousin Jo!” Martin said as I approached. “You look a vision.”

“What an elegant dress!” Cora cried.

I smiled at them. My dress had arrived from London the day before; the dressmaker in Anningley had ordered it special for me. It was a simple sleeveless sheath that fell in a straight line from my shoulders to my hips, then down to a jaunty hemline at the knee. It was of deep, rich jewel blue, and peacock feathers adorned the skirt, their soft fronds waving as I moved. The final adornment was a single flower of pink satin sewn to the left hip. A maid had helped me pin my hair up with just a few curls loose over my temples, and I wore black high-heeled shoes. Since I did not own any expensive jewelry, I wore only my wedding ring.

“Thank you,” I said to Cora. “Dottie is going to think it fast, but it’s a party, is it not?”

“Mother thinks that anything other than a mannish suit is fast,” Martin commented. “She’s hardly the first word in fashion. Do get some champagne, Cousin Jo, since I believe you’re the one who had it ordered especially.”

I was. Ordering champagne had been one of my duties. I was just sipping my first glass—the stuff was divine—when a man approached my shoulder. “Mrs. Manders.”