This house shouldn’t be sold; it should be burned.
A murmur of voices came from one of the rooms down the hall, and reluctantly I walked toward the sound. I found Dottie and Robert in the small parlor where I had seen the girl yesterday, sitting in the chairs in an awkward arrangement. A tray of tea sat on a spindle-legged table, the steam no longer rising from the pot. Dottie’s color was high, her posture straight, a teacup all but forgotten in her lap. Robert sat uncomfortably, looking pained. So Dottie had won some part of their argument after all, then.
A third person rose from his chair to greet me.
He was, unmistakably, the boy from the photograph Dottie carried in her book. I could see Dottie in the narrow, clean shape of his jaw, the shoulders that were not wide yet firm of line. I could see Robert in the set of his dark eyes, his long lashes, and the charming ease of his smile, which he flashed me on sight. But there the resemblance to either of his parents, and the photograph of years ago, ended. The man who stood before me had the painful thinness of the long-term patient: his cheeks hollowed, his tidy shirt and jacket hanging as if from a clothes hanger in a shop. He was in his early twenties, but the creases on his forehead and the lines bracketing his mouth aged him past thirty, and the soft shadows under his eyes hinted that the travel he’d just undergone had taken more out of him than he cared to let on.
“Manders.” Dottie’s voice was tight with excitement, her gaze trained on the man as he turned to me. “This is my son, Martin.”
“Cousin!” Martin said, smiling at me. Despite the gauntness of his features, there was something compelling about the forced brightness in his eyes. “Cousin Jo! What a delight to finally meet you. Alex told me everything about you.”
I blinked at him, surprised. I glanced briefly at Dottie, remembering her injunction not to talk of Alex with her frail son. “Oh,” I said stupidly.
“Martin,” Dottie said, changing the subject on cue. “You must eat something. I imagine you are famished.”
“Don’t harass the boy, Dottie,” Robert said.
Martin ignored them both and took one of my gloved hands in his. I still held my packages in the other. Dottie’s comment hung in the air; Martin looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His gaze was fixed on me, and I returned the look, trying to read his expression. I had interrupted a family conversation on some serious topic—I inferred it from the color in Dottie’s cheeks and the way Robert’s gaze roved around the room, as if he was waiting for the first chance to escape.
“You are lovely,” Martin said to me. His voice was not seductive, or even particularly inviting; the words were spoken more as a message, as if he were telling me something in code. He squeezed my hand once, briefly, reinforcing the feeling. “Just as I heard. I am so glad I came home.”
I stared back at him. I should know what he meant; I should know. And yet I racked my brain and came up with nothing. “Thank you,” I managed.
Dottie spoke again, something about Martin seeing the artworks she’d bought on the Continent. Robert countered that no young man would want to see such a dull thing, and instead they should go riding at the first opportunity. Martin agreed with both his parents without committing to anything. He seemed adept at navigating the treacherous territory between them, skipping past the many land mines with the agility of an adored son.
But I was only barely paying attention. I had figured out the subtle tension in the room with the sudden understanding of a thunderclap. My son is coming home to get married. Her dismissive wave of the hand when I had asked about his fiancée. I’ll take care of it.
Mr. Wilde’s assessment of me, the exchange of notes between them.
Our chance for children, someone to leave our legacy to.
You are lovely. I am so glad I came home.
Martin must have seen understanding on my face. I stood transfixed as he stepped closer, dropped my hand, and pulled me to him in an embrace. My packages bumped between us awkwardly, but still Martin patted my back, his thin hands touching me coldly through my coat at my shoulder blades.
“Cousin Jo,” Martin said, his breath in my ear, his voice dark with understanding. “We are going to have so much fun.”
CHAPTER EIGHT