“Like it’s cursed?” Nell’s thinking of Baldwin’s comment, trying to remember if it’s the Hope Diamond that’s cursed.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Patel turns back to her monitor and is clicking through pictures again. “India’s interest in it might hinge on publicity. If a potential sale became notorious, they might feel compelled to act. If the maharaja were involved, say. But you’ll also have customs issues; I’m not a lawyer, but I’m sure the legal issues would spin out into a huge web.”
This sounds like a threat, and Nell’s wondering if Patel can get the government involved if she wants to. If the necklace is the Moon, if it is stolen, does Nell have some kind of legal duty? Does Patel have some kind of reporting duty? Nell’s racking her memory of her sole law school ethics class.
She decides it’s time to leave, time to retreat, to research as all lawyers do when cornered, and to plan. She rises and scoops the necklace into the little bag and then into her purse.
“Thanks for your time,” Nell says quickly.
Patel rises. “Really, we’re equipped to keep it safe,” she says, shooting a hand forward, and for a moment Nell thinks Patel is going to wrestle her for it. But she’s only offering a handshake, a faux-friendly formality.
Nell shakes her hand quickly and is out the door. As she turns into the hallway, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Patel sit and reach for the phone.
THE REMEDY
Ambrose walked into the sunny breakfast room where May sat slumped at a stick-wicker desk facing the wall, the telephone at her ear, an overwatered violet in a cachepot suffocating slowly at her elbow. Arabella was the sole occupant of a ransacked breakfast table, sitting before an untouched dish of gray oatmeal swimming in cream, the sight of which made Ambrose want to heave. Her hair was unkempt, and she had dark rings of old makeup under her eyes. She was unabashedly dressed in her spangled dress from the night before.
“Take this,” Arabella said, sliding the dish toward Ambrose. “The smell is killing me.”
He was glad that he’d gone straight to his corner room last night and fallen into bed alone. She’d been quite drunk the night before.
May hung up the phone and turned. “Your parents are sending the car. It should be here within the hour.”
Arabella stood then in her remarkable state of dishabille. “I know I’m in the way.” She smoothed her dress as Ethan came in the room and raised his eyebrows.
“Cousin Ethan,” she said. Though no relation, Arabella had known the Quincy family all her life. Her parents had known the Quincys far longer. She waved a hand, her wrist still encircled in diamonds—gaudy now in the morning light. “Thanks for the party,” she said, sequins sparkling on her dress with a dull twinkle. And then to Ambrose, so only he could hear, “I’ll see you at the club this afternoon.” She pursed her lips and blew him a silent kiss, unseen by anyone else as she walked by.
The maid entered the room and set a silver toast rack in front of Ambrose and placed a small pot of homemade marmalade beside it. His brother’s favorite, he noted. Ambrose had the briefest flash of desire to get up and follow Arabella, to leave and never come back.
“That girl,” Ethan said, fondly shaking his head as he sat down. “A real speed.”
“I heard that,” came Arabella’s reply from halfway up the stairs.
“They’re all like that nowadays,” Ethan faux-whispered.
“And that,” she called.
Ambrose bit into a piece of cold toast with marmalade, bitter and cloyingly sweet at the same time.
Sitting up so straight in May’s ladder-back chairs and eating something unappetizing seemed appropriate penance, along with his pounding head, his roiling stomach.
“Not feeling so well?” Before Ambrose could answer, Ethan went on. “I must say I feel great today. I’d like coffee. Nothing more for me, Dorothy,” he said, addressing the maid. For the first time Ambrose noted the bluish lines around his brother’s eyes, the rigid set of his mouth. “Also an egg yolk,” he was calling. “And Worcestershire and a little cayenne for my brother here. He seems to have caught a bug last night.”
“Just tea, please,” Ambrose tried to revise the order.
But the maid had disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen.
May was scratching on paper with a little gold screw-top pencil, instructions for the gardener or perhaps revisions to the cook’s daily menu. She was as competent in these tasks as anyone would have imagined her to be, including Ambrose.
She joined them then, sitting on Ethan’s left, his bad side.
“What shall we do this morning?” May asked with too-bright cheer as the maid cracked an egg in a glass, separated it at the table, and discreetly put the shells in a bowl for disposal. She added the requisite condiments and set the concoction at Ambrose’s place. Her deft delivery of this remedy gave credence to the rumored decadence of May’s household. Giving a sly sideways glance at Ambrose, May said, “If you’re feeling up to it, doing something, that is.”
She was dressed in crisp hacking clothes, fit for walking or riding, and Ambrose was pleased to see his necklace winking from inside the neckline of the starched broadcloth shirt she wore. Her breeches cinched at the waist, and the pale moleskin eased over her hip and thigh. Her dark hair was sharp with water or pomade against her cheek, and her eyes flashed with darkness, too, when she said, “I’d like to get out and about before the gymkhana.”
Ethan laid the newspaper at his place one-handed, but the thin paper bunched as he tried to turn the page. May reached over and smoothed it for him, as if she’d done it a hundred times, and then turned the page. Watching them, Ambrose realized she likely did this every morning. “Maybe you can convince Ambrose to go with you on one of your tramps. I’ll save my energy,” he said, leaning over an article.
“Save it for the bidding,” she said.
“May, don’t start.” He touched his temple gingerly.
“Does your head hurt?” Her tone immediately softened. In a quiet voice she asked, “Do you need your pills?”
“No.” Ethan’s petulant tone, as if they’d discussed this numberless times, convinced Ambrose more than anything that his brother had been in pain for a while. “But I will if you go on about this.”
May turned to Ambrose. “I think he ought to buy all the horses this afternoon, don’t you? One grand gesture to help those poor families.”
At the gymkhana all proceeds, entry fees, and the money raised from a horse auction would go to a fund for the families of those who had died in the mine fire. May had wrangled most of her friends into donating the horses.
“There’s already been money distributed. There’s a relief fund, the community chest.”
“The community chest!”
“Yes.” Ethan’s voice was rising. “What’s wrong with the community chest?”