The Unknown Beloved(26)

“The radio towers are getting battered just like we are,” Lenka explained, as if Zuzana wasn’t well aware of the reason the radio wasn’t working. Then the lights flickered and didn’t come back on, and Lenka’s moans and Zuzana’s grumbling rose in volume. Dani heard Malone climbing back up the stairs.

He set about making a fire in the sitting room and even remained with them, keeping it stoked and hot, listening to them chatter over hems and darts and seams. Maybe the cold darkness of his room was the reason he stayed, but his presence was a welcome addition.

Lenka needed more light than the lanterns provided. She struggled in full light and glasses, so her ability to work in the current circumstances was limited. Zuzana wasn’t nearly as visually impaired as Lenka and sat adjusting a pattern for their spring line.

Dani had a stack of piecework she needed to get through, mending mostly. Buttons and tears and holes to be patched. They didn’t turn work away, even though it paid little and took precious time. Eventually, Dani would be doing it all alone. Her aunts would not live forever. When that day came, she would have to decide where to put her time and attention, and maybe then she wouldn’t take on the patching and stitching of clothes that were hardly worth saving.

Malone sat near the fire, occasionally poking at the logs. He seemed content enough to listen to them chat as they worked, but Dani guessed he was simply reluctant to make another fire—or be cold—in his room.

“Stop slouching, Daniela,” Zuzana said. “You have a spectacular figure, but no one would know, the way you hunch over.”

Dani straightened her back and rolled her shoulders but didn’t raise her eyes from her task. Zuzana said the same thing about once a day.

“Not one bit of you is not perfectly lovely. You look so much like Aneta. And Vera too when she was young,” Lenka interjected, trying to soften Zuzana’s criticism.

Dani darted a glance at Zuzana. Her blue eyes had begun to water, and she lifted a shaking hand, dabbing at them with the handkerchief she kept tucked in her blouse.

Daniela didn’t argue with the claims of her loveliness or take offense at the nagging. It would only upset her aunt. Zuzana had not recovered from Vera’s death. Daniela feared she never would. She would simply miss her terribly until they were reunited again.

“Tell us one of your stories, Daniela,” Lenka said, yawning like she needed the story to stay upright. She was slouching too.

“Not tonight, Lenka,” Dani said.

“I thought you said Mr. Malone knew all about you, Daniela,” Zuzana commented dryly.

“All about Daniela?” he asked.

“Yes. That she has a feel for the cloth. It speaks to her. She said you know all about it,” Zuzana replied.

Dani winced but didn’t raise her eyes from her work. She wouldn’t give Zuzana the satisfaction. The old woman was a bit of a troublemaker. She forgot nothing, she forgave nothing, and she missed nothing.

“Our father, Daniel Kos, had the same sense,” Lenka said, shooting a warning look at Zuzana. “But Papa wasn’t as good at the stories as Daniela. And our sister, Vera, knew what the cloth could be, how to use it to its full potential. A suit or a sail, she had an eye.”

“You must demonstrate for our boarder, Daniela,” Zuzana said. “He’ll think we’re telling tales.”

“I cannot demonstrate the intangible,” Dani mumbled. “And often it isn’t remotely interesting.”

In the flickering light, the shadows beneath Malone’s eyes and the hollows of his cheeks were even more pronounced, and he regarded Dani in silence, his shoulder propped against the mantel, the poker gripped in his right hand.

“There are no stories in me tonight,” she said. It was a lie. The skirt she was holding was ripe with a tantalizing tale. It belonged to a woman who was pregnant, and she wasn’t sure the child was her husband’s.

Zuzana harrumphed, not buying Daniela’s protestations. Unless the fabric was new—and often not even then—there was something hiding in the weave. Family drama, secrets, guilt, love, and loss. There was always something, and though Dani was careful with confidences, she was liberal with her storytelling. Not tonight. Zuzana could sulk all she liked; Dani would not be the carnival barker with Malone watching.

“Tell me about your family,” Malone said softly, making the request to no one in particular. “What is your story? The story of the Kos family? That I would like to hear.”

Lenka, with no work in her lap and none of Dani’s reticence or Zuzana’s mistrust, responded eagerly to Malone’s request. She regaled him with the exodus of the Kos family from Bohemia—Daniel, Eliska, and his three daughters. Pavel was born in America, and she glossed over his story, as was often the case with poor Pavel.

“Our grandfather, Daniel’s father, was a clothier too. His name was Kristof Kos. He made clothes for Franz Joseph the First.”

“Ahh. Yes. The emperor. I remember that part,” Malone said.

Dani raised startled eyes from the hole she was mending. Malone regarded her with a small smile.

“He was the emperor of Austria and the king of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia,” Zuzana retorted. “We have always moved among royalty. And what of your family, Mr. Malone?”

“They were farmers. No emperors in Ireland. Just Catholics and Protestants and the occasional English lord, though there are far fewer of those now, I’m guessing.”