The Forgotten Room(85)

There was a certain irony to that, but Lucy wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

It was before I knew you, he had said, as he followed her to the El, dogging her footsteps, his broad frame casting a dark shadow against the sidewalk in front of her. You feel it, too, don’t you?

Lucy did. She couldn’t deny that she did. That was part of why she’d left him there on the El platform, his words lost in the din of the oncoming train. He’d been gentleman enough not to follow her onto the train.

Whatever you want, he had said. But she didn’t know what she wanted, not really. Not anymore.

She had thought, once, that finding Harry Pratt was all she wanted, that being reunited with her real father might fill the hole in her heart left by her father’s death. But the more Lucy learned about the Pratts, the less she wanted to know them. She had imagined Harry Pratt as the prince in a fairy tale, golden, shining, the embodiment of all the virtues, separated from her mother only by some cruel tragedy.

So much for high romance. From what she had heard of the Pratts, her father had probably died in a drunken brawl like his brother. And, even if he hadn’t, even if he were still alive somewhere, it seemed highly unlikely he would welcome her with open arms, acclaiming her the lost daughter of his heart. The Pratts didn’t seem to care for anyone but themselves.

The Pratts had brought her nothing but misery, Lucy thought bitterly. She hated the thought of going back to their house, to that cold marble monument to lost social standing. If any echoes of her parents lurked within those paneled walls, she hadn’t found them.

Maybe it was time to throw it all in, Lucy thought wildly. Resign her job at Cromwell, Polk and Moore. She couldn’t go back there anyway, not now, not when Philip Schuyler was hiding from her in Philadelphia. He was a partner. She was a secretary. If one of them had to go, it wasn’t difficult to guess which.

She couldn’t go back to Brooklyn, to the woman she had believed was her grandmother. That life was closed to her now.

And Charleston, that glittering mirage of a future that John Ravenel had held out to her—that was gone now, as swiftly as it had come.

Perhaps they needed good secretaries in California? It was as far away as she could think to go. And why not? There was nothing to hold her to New York.

“Lucy.” She was so lost in her own thoughts that she heard his voice before she saw him, Philip Schuyler, sitting on the steps of Stornaway House like a schoolboy playing hooky from school. He rose as she approached, stepping forward to meet her. “Lucy. I need to talk to you.”

Lucy’s head was spinning with heat and confusion. “How did you know where I live?”

“Your file,” said Philip, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to show up on her doorstep. “I need to speak to you.”

Lucy glanced nervously at the windows of the house. “Won’t it keep until Monday?”

“This isn’t a conversation I want to be having in the office.”

“But you can’t be here.” The idea of having a personal discussion in the boardinghouse lounge, with the other girls reading magazines and eavesdropping and Agatha drying her stockings on a rail, made Lucy cringe. “Matron—”

“I’ll square it with Matron,” said Philip Schuyler, with casual arrogance. “I was in and out of this house long before it was a boardinghouse. But, if it makes you uncomfortable, we can go somewhere else.”

“Yes. I think that would be best.” Lucy was too rattled to argue. “There’s a coffee shop on Lexington.”

“Coffee it is,” said Philip Schuyler, and offered her his arm.

Lucy hesitated only a moment before taking it, but that moment was a moment too long.

“I won’t bite, you know. Not this time,” he added wryly.

Lucy grimaced. “I hadn’t thought— I’m sorry.” She had been so wrapped up in her own worries that she hadn’t noticed how tired he looked. His usually impeccably shaved chin glinted with blond stubble.

Like gold flecks, thought Lucy, picking her way across Park Avenue. With the Schuylers, even stubble turned to gold.

Unlike the Pratts, who seemed to be able to turn gold to lead.

“I wish I could say that I was sorry.” Philip looked down at her, his eyes serious beneath the brim of his hat. “I ought to be sorry. But I find that I can’t be. You may not realize it, but you gave me a great gift.”

Something about the way he was looking at her, so serious, so unlike himself, made Lucy nervous. “A hangover?”

“That I gave to myself. And very foolish it was, too.” He held open the door for her to precede him into the coffee shop.

Lucy could tell, by the twitch of his nostrils, that he didn’t think much of it, of the cracked white pottery sugar bowls and the dingy mats on the tables, but he didn’t utter a word of protest. Instead, he ushered Lucy to a table as if they were at the Ritz and she in a long gown and jewels.

“Two coffees, one with milk, two sugars; one with just milk.” Philip ordered without waiting for her to speak.

Lucy looked up at him in surprise. “You remember how I take my coffee.”

Removing his hat, Philip ran a hand through his blond hair. “Is that so startling?”

Lucy ducked her head. “I didn’t think—it’s usually the secretary who remembers her employer’s preferences, not the other way around.”