“Surprise,” Ethan said flatly.
She looked so young, her hair a shiny curve at her cheek, baggy jodhpurs with a rip at the knee and an old tuxedo shirt of Ambrose’s, wrapped so she didn’t need studs. She’d been on the mountain, and mud was splashed up the leg of her britches—a wild thing wearing a small fortune from a maharaja around her neck while tromping through the woods. It was the sort of careless thing that attracted him to May, and he knew his brother was attracted to it, too, knew Ethan would have had no quarrel with it if the jewels had been from him.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.
“I know you weren’t, ” Ethan said evenly. “I didn’t want to waste time telephoning, so I just came on the train as quickly as I could.” But Ambrose knew this was not why Ethan had surprised them. He’d wanted to catch them unawares.
“Is everything all right?” May asked with genuine concern. Ambrose couldn’t help it. Even that small amount of gentleness from May kindled jealousy.
Ethan slumped down in his chair while May stood in front of the cold fireplace.
“As good as it can be, I guess.” He turned toward Ambrose. “It was hard for Father. Quite a strain. He seems to feel . . .”
Ambrose could imagine their pious father’s mood.
“I didn’t realize how responsible he feels,” Ethan continued. “You know how he is.” Ambrose did know how Israel could be—absolute, certain, bleak, and uncompromising.
“Once he’s made something into a moral issue—” Ethan raised his glass for a long draw. “It becomes quite black-and-white for him. Frankly, given his morose state of mind, I’m a bit worried.”
“Worried how?”
“He kept talking about man’s duty to man and the nature of sin.” He looked at his brother then. “Maybe you and your philosophers got to him. He was constantly reading his Bible. Even on the train.”
They sat one full beat, letting this sink in. Though he knew his father was religious, he couldn’t imagine him reading his Bible on a public train. Ethan continued, “In any case, I think he needs company now. You should head into town. For some reason, I feel like he shouldn’t be alone.”
It riled Ambrose, this demonstration of how easily Ethan could kick him out of the house if he wanted.
May piped in then. “But we’re going to Arabella Rensselaer’s dog-racing party.” At Ethan’s blank face, May continued. “You’ll have to come now. She’s showing off those new little Italian dogs of hers. Skinny things—whippets, they’re called. I told her you were gone, but now you’re back.”
“I’m not going to a party. Besides, I’m sure Ambrose will have a better time with his ladylove if we’re not there.” Ethan watched his brother’s face as he said this.
“I hear she’s going around with your man O’Brennan now,” Ambrose said, meeting his brother’s gaze.
“Well, I want to go; if you don’t want to . . .” May trailed off.
“You wouldn’t go without me, would you dear? Not after I’ve been gone.”
She rose then. “I’m going to rest and have a bath,” she said. “And then we’re all going to the party.”
Ethan rose to meet her. And Ambrose watched as Ethan took her in his arms. Ambrose felt only slight vindication that she looked stiff even from across the room.
“A kiss for your husband,” Ethan said, seeming to linger on the last word.
She kissed him quickly, a fast, closed-mouth peck against his lips, but he wouldn’t let her go. His right arm locked around her until she yielded and kissed him properly. Ambrose looked away. Then she headed for the stairs, her gait only slightly under a run.
THE STEAMER TRUNKS
In the morning Nell tries to slip out with no good-byes. Not that she’s running away from Louis’s place, exactly, but she’d like to stay thought-free a little longer. If she has to turn her brain on, and get out of this delicious haze, then she wants space to think. Alone. They’d discarded his proposal, along with their clothes on the floor. But she’s dressed now, and she’s almost made it to the door when she remembers the Moon on the windowsill in his bedroom and stealthily turns around.
“Such a sneaker,” Louis says, opening one eye when she reenters the scene from last night. “Are you actually tiptoeing?”
She has her phone out; it’s already vibrating with incoming emails and texts. One from her assistant, late last night on West Coast time; something from Chuck the lawyer at five o’clock this morning; more from clients; and a text from Pansy—formal and deferential with no abbreviations or emojis—giving notice that she’ll be out at the farm with Emerson today putting their names on the pieces of furniture they want. Nell walks over to the bed and holds it up for Louis to read, blue light reflecting off his calm, intelligent eyes.
“If you go out there, I’m coming with you,” he says, sitting up and scrubbing his face.
“No need.”
“My car’s still at the hunt club. You’ll drop me off, and then we’ll head over caravan style. We’ll need food first.” Despite having just woken up, he’s neatly organized her day and inserted himself in the middle of it as he heads to the kitchen to make breakfast. “You need a neutral third party with you. Not that I’m neutral,” he says, checking over his shoulder that she’s still there, that she isn’t objecting to his bossiness. “But I am a third party.”
“You’d do all that for me?” she says, mock-touched, and heads for the mirror in the bathroom to put the Moon back on.
“I think it’s pretty clear after last night that I’ll do anything you want.”
*
A contractor’s Dumpster, forty cubic yards, sits in the farm’s driveway, blocking the front door. Whoever ordered it knew the size of the job ahead.
Inside the house, little packing tags with Emerson’s or Pansy’s name on them are tied to the legs of chairs and placed on top of tables. To Nell’s eye there looks to be a lot of them, and it gives her pause. She wonders for a moment just what her ancestors would think of this, of Emerson and Pansy and Nell dividing up everything from the linens to the Limoges. Would they be pleased at the frugality, the appearance of respect for legacy? Or would they be appalled that this was all that was left of a formerly vast empire?
Louis’s calling through the house for the cousins, and Nell’s relieved she’ll have the place to herself for a moment. She’s interrupted, though, by a knock on the door.
Two of the oldest members of the farm crew come in. Both in their sixties, they’ve each worked on the place since they were young men. Combined, they know more about the ins and outs of Quincy family politics than Nell does. One has a five-gallon bucket in each hand, filled with green blocks. The other carries a cardboard box.
“Saw the car. We’ve been waiting to do this.” The buckets, Nell now realizes, are filled with blocks of rat poison.
“Is that all going in here?”