“Isn’t that how it always works?” asked Arabella.
“They lived in bliss, unlocking doors by night and sleeping in each other’s arms by day. But gradually she began to complain that the metal binds around her heart were tight and constricting. She asked him to unlock them. He agreed, as the steel cage around her chest had begun to scrape him, too, cold and unyielding. When the man put the key in the lock he heard a loud crack, like the snap of something breaking. ‘Don’t mind it,’ she said. ‘It’s only the old tumblers in the lock, unused to being opened.’ But with the first turn of the key, the definite sound of steel snapping unnerved him. ‘Go ahead,’ she now begged. When finally he unlocked all three bands, the woman’s face turned pale, but she smiled. She began to gasp for breath, yet joy lit her eyes. The man scrambled to reattach the steel bands, thinking she was dying, but it was no use. His love morphed before his eyes into a bird with scarlet plumage and a gold-feathered crest and flew away into the night without a look back. Bereft and heartbroken, he put the steel bands on himself, locked his heart tight, and threw the key into the river, where it lies even to this day.”
“Oh bravo, most Gothic,” Loulou said.
“That’s it?” Ethan blurted. “I prefer happy endings.”
“It was a happy ending,” May said quietly.
To his embarrassment, Ambrose blushed. “Believe it or not, my story wasn’t the worst one.”
“Maybe we should do that next time I have a party,” Arabella said. “Tell stories for prizes.”
“His story wasn’t that good,” Ethan said.
“Kinda artsy,” O’Brennan said, as if his review mattered.
“I’d have loved to have been there,” May said. “To travel.”
It was what Ambrose wished she’d said before he left, wished she’d agreed to when he’d asked. “You will,” Ambrose said, trying to be expansive, but even he felt the weakness in this promise. He nodded toward his brother; including Ethan in the exchange seemed the best course. “You should take her.”
“He doesn’t take me places,” May said. “I’ll just have to go off. If I wait for him, it’ll never happen.”
Ethan seemed to come alive then. “I’m not sending my wife to India. The trip over there would have you in fits. I can just hear it now.” He adopted a whiny, nasty imitation of a female voice. “Ethan, I’ve lost my tickets. Ethan, the maid has lost my dress. Ethan, they expect me to eat potted meat.”
Ambrose craned his head around May to look at his brother full in the face. He thought the comments unwise.
It was then that the last horse was called to be auctioned, a heavyweight warmblood with a rampant lion brand named the Ragman.
The crowd, worn out from the bidding and with empty pockets, was bored and ready to move on to the afternoon dancing; plus, the horse looked powerful, a handful. In deference to her hostess, Arabella threw in a low-ball bid when the audience began to fidget. An uncomfortable shuffling and averting of eyes ruffled around the terrace as everyone wished the situation finished.
“Don’t you dare,” Ethan said under his breath to May, who was reaching for a paddle, but he was looking at Ambrose when he said it.
Ambrose thought he might dare. Ethan had been grating on him all afternoon. Ambrose might end the auction decently, he thought. He might please May by buying the horse and thereby donating to her cause. She seemed to be having a difficult time this afternoon. He might not want to borrow a horse from his brother ever again. He might not want to be in his brother’s debt, even in the smallest way. Yes, he might dare.
When Ambrose raised his number, Arabella threw her napkin at his chest from across the table in mock outrage. He was glad for this comic relief, as he’d entered the bidding directly against her. But her joke let him know she didn’t mind being outbid, and she didn’t raise her number again, either.
When the auctioneer called him as the winner, May smiled at him with warmth, a look of true fondness that took him back to other days. She understood his gesture. He’d understood what it would mean to make it. The crowd was on their feet after the gavel hit, intent on mixing after having sat for so long. May rose, and as Ethan took her arm, quickly and proprietarily Ambrose thought, she turned and mouthed the words “Thank you” at him over her shoulder.
THE INVITATION
After Baldwin and Pansy leave, Nell gnaws on a cold drumstick and drinks warm whiskey while listlessly poking through cupboards in the butler’s pantry—lavish sets of china, complete with finger bowls, and stockpiled table linens with thick monograms she can’t decipher. Someone’s going to have to clean this place out, and like a sinking balloon she realizes it’s going to be her.
She’s done now with this trip back in time. And she’s petulantly cursing her father for leaving so quickly. Pansy has Baldwin; who’s in her corner?
She pulls herself up and reminds herself that she is a grown woman who no longer needs her daddy. During this trip, she’s constantly had to remind herself that she’s no longer a child. Her emotions keep flinging her back into the past. So much has happened since she arrived only days ago for the will meeting, and already she needs distance from it. Emerson left this morning. Lucky him.
She thinks back to shutting down Louis Morell’s invitation to dinner. She’d been taken by surprise. Work keeps her underwater, such that she can’t remember the last time she met someone interesting. The men she knows in Oregon don’t go on dinner dates. And then, with her father there, there’d been no way to backpedal and accept Louis’s offer. Or perhaps she’d misread the situation. Maybe it was just a work thing after all. He must have someone. A man like that, of course he does. She thinks maybe she’ll call him. All she has is his office number, and she leaves her name and number with the assistant.
In less than a minute her phone rings with an unknown number.
“Glad you called the office. I’ve got a bunch of voice mails from Pansy.”
She mentions that she took the necklace to the museum.
“So I’ve heard,” he says.
Is nothing secret in this town? Nell thinks.
“I was meeting with a client out your way . . .” He trails off.
There’s something forced in his voice, and she’s almost sure this story is a ginned-up excuse to see her, the thought both creepy and exciting.
“Stop by, why don’t you?” she invites.
When he agrees, she hangs up and runs through the house, throwing out the chicken and trying to decide if she has enough time to brush her teeth but refreshing her whiskey instead.