Press sat back down in one of the broad, comfortable leather chairs, pulling Michael onto his lap. Olivia had bought the chairs on a trip she’d taken out West and had them sent back to Virginia. They weren’t the kind of thing one saw in houses in Virginia, but perhaps in an elegant hunting lodge. But they suited the room, and suited the two attractive men resting in them.
Behind me, the library door opened with a murmur of voices from the hall.
“Here you all are. Why is everyone hiding in here?” Rachel waved a hand in front of her face. “Phew. Those stupid cigars. I thought I could at least get away from the smoke in here. Will somebody open a window before I die?” She held on to the couch’s arm as well as her belly as she sank onto the cushions.
By “somebody,” she obviously meant Jack, who quickly got up and opened the window beside the fireplace a few inches.
“So, are you going to tell me where he really was? I don’t buy the whole hiding under the bed story. You can sell it to the hillbillies out there, but not me.” She was looking at Press.
I also looked at Press, waiting to hear what he would say.
“I’ve already told Jack. Charlotte found him on top of the armoire in my mother’s room. God knows how the tyke got up there. Somebody’s idea of a practical joke.”
Now Rachel looked at me, appraising. It was as though we had just been introduced and she was trying to determine what sort of person I was. I was puzzled at first, then realized she thought I had done it.
“You can’t think I put my own son up there, Rachel!”
“Nobody said that.” Jack shook the ice cube in his nearly empty glass, drawing Michael’s attention. He drank down the final sip of whiskey. “No one is accusing you, Charlotte.”
I remembered how Press had squeezed my shoulders so I would stay still while Jack injected me with the sedative. There had been a strange look of pleasure in Jack’s eyes that I hadn’t remembered until just then.
Rachel spoke quickly. “Everyone knows how horrible it’s been for you, darling. Of course I don’t think you did any such thing. I would defend you to the death. I swear on the tiny fiend in my belly.” She tried a little laugh, but it fell flat in the silent room.
Press stood up.
“You were right, Charlotte. Michael does need to be in bed. You too.” He brought Michael over to me and kissed my cheek. “You’re exhausted.”
I was still stung by the way Rachel had looked at me. But Michael returned to me without protest, and having him in my arms was a comfort. I told myself that what had happened with Eva had left a question in a lot of people’s minds. Although I hoped Rachel would think better of me, I knew it was unfair of me to expect it. It would be a long time before anyone fully trusted me again.
I was asleep when Press came into the nursery. Michael had fallen asleep even as I’d changed his diaper. I’d been about to lift him into his crib, but instead I laid him on the lower mattress of the trundle bed, where he settled immediately, finding his thumb and pulling the sheet close to his face.
When the sudden light from the hall sliced through the darkness, I woke on the upper mattress of the trundle bed without any memory of falling asleep there. Turning over to rise up on my elbows, I saw Press silhouetted in the doorway.
“What is it?”
He left the door open just a few inches, letting some light in, and walked cautiously across the room to lean over the foot of the bed.
“How’s he doing?” he whispered, putting a hand on the blanket covering my leg. It wasn’t a terribly warm blanket. Had Eva ever lain here, cold in her own bed? The thought saddened me.
“Why don’t you go back to your room?”
I sat up. “I want to be here if he wakes up tonight. He was so fretful.” It would have been fruitless for me to be anywhere else. Away from him, I might not sleep at all. “What time is it?”
When Press bent toward me, he smelled of cigars and Scotch. “Just a few folks left. J.C. is still downstairs. Rachel and Jack, Hugh. They won’t stay much longer. It’s almost one.”
I wanted to lie back down, to sleep and sleep until the heaviness in my chest dissipated. I wanted to drop my hand over the edge of the mattress to the trundle below and feel Michael’s breath against my skin.
But Press leaned closer, steadying himself on one hand, and kissed me, hard, forcing his tongue into my sleep-clouded mouth. He hadn’t shaved since early that morning (how long ago that seemed!), and his beard was harsh against my face. Before Eva died, he had made his way to my bedroom four or five nights a week, but I was surprised he’d come into the nursery with guests downstairs. With J.C. in the house.