Ten humming seconds of silence followed, until Mandy burst into tears and ran from the room. A few women hustled after her after shooting glances at Roz.
“Lord,” Roz said when Mrs. Haggerty sat down beside her, “she is young, isn’t she?”
“Young’s no excuse for being flat-out stupid. Rude, on top of it.” She looked up with a nod as Cissy moved to join them. “Surprised at you.”
“At me? Why?”
“For speaking straight for a refreshing change.”
Cissy shrugged, sat. “I like ugly scenes, and I won’t deny it. Sure does spice up a dull day. But I don’t like Bryce Clerk. And sometimes speaking straight makes things more interesting anyway. Only thing better would’ve been seeing Roz give that bobble-headed fool Mandy a good smack. Not your style, though,” she said to Roz.
Then she touched a hand to Roz, gently. “You want to leave, I’ll go with you.”
“No, but thanks. I’ll stick it out.”
SHE GOT THROUGHthe meeting. It was a matter of grit, and of duty. When she got home she changed, then slipped out the back to go in the gardens, to sit on her bench in the cool and study the little signs of coming spring.
Her bulbs were spearing up, the daffodils and hyacinths that would burst into bloom before too long. The crocus were already in flower. They came so soon, she thought, left so early.
She could see the tight buds on her azaleas, and the faint haze on the forsythia.
While she sat, the control she’d locked into place wavered, so she was allowed, finally, to shake inside. With rage, with insult, with temper, with hurt. She gave herself the gift of swimming in the sea of all those dark emotions while she sat, alone in the quiet.
While she sat, the fury peaked, then ebbed, until she could breathe clear again.
She’d done the right thing, she decided. Faced it down, though she’d hated doing so in public. Still it was always better to face a fight than it was to run from it.
Had he thought she would? she wondered. Had he thought she’d break apart in public, run off in humiliation to lick her wounds?
She imagined he did. Bryce had never understood her.
John had, she thought, studying the arbor where his roses would ramble and bloom for her from spring into the summer, and well into fall. He had understood her, and he’d loved her. Or at least he’d understood and loved the girl she’d been.
Would he love the woman she’d become?
An odd thought, she decided, tipping her head back, closing her eyes. She might not be the woman she was if he’d lived.
No, not John, she thought, squeezing her eyes tighter as that voice hissed in her head.
“How pitiful you are,” Roz whispered, “to try to smear the memory, and the honor, of a good man.”
“Roz.” The hand on her shoulder made her jump. “Sorry,” Mitch told her. “Talking in your sleep?”
“No.” Didn’t he feel the cold, or was it only inside her? Inside her along with the quivering belly. “I wasn’t sleeping. Only thinking. How did you know I was out here?”
“David said he saw you through the window, heading out this way. Over an hour ago. It’s a little chilly to sit out so long.” He took her hand, rubbed it between his as he sat beside her. “Your hands are cold.”
“They’re all right.”
“But you’re not. You look sad.”
She considered a moment, then reminded herself there were things that couldn’t be personal. He was working for her. “I am, I guess. I am a little sad. She was talking to me. In my head.”
“Now?” His hands tightened on hers.
“Mmm. You interrupted our conversation, though it was the same old, same old ‘men are deceivers’ sort of thing on her side.”
He scanned the gardens. “I doubt Shakespeare could have created a more determined ghost than your Amelia. I was hoping you’d come by the library, for several reasons. This is one.”
He turned her face toward his, pressed his mouth to hers.
“Something’s wrong,” he stated. “Something more.”
How could he see her so well? How could he see what she was able to hide from most? “No, just a mood.” But she drew her hand from his. “Some female histrionics earlier. Men are so much less inclined to drama, aren’t they?”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“It’s not worth the breath.”
He started to speak again, she could feel him check the instinct to press. Instead he tapped his shoulder. “Put your head here?”
“What?”
“Right here.” To ensure she did, he wrapped an arm around her waist, drew her close to his side. “How about it?”
She left it there, smiled a little. “It’s not bad.”
“And the world didn’t spin on its axis because you leaned on someone else for a minute.”
“No, it didn’t. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Anyway, other reasons I was hoping you’d come in while I was working. I wanted to tell you I’ve sent a letter to your cousin Clarise Harper. If I don’t hear back from her in a week, I’ll do a follow-up. And I have several detailed family trees for you, the Harpers, your mother’s family, your first husband’s. I actually found an Amelia Ashby. No, leave that head right where it is,” he said, tightening his grip when she started to sit up straight.
“She’s not connected, as far as I can see, as she lived and died in Louisiana, and is too contemporary. I spent some time tracking her back, to see if I could find a link to your Amelia—a namesake sort of thing—but it’s not happening. I have some e-mail correspondence from the great-granddaughter of the housekeeper who worked in Harper House from 1887 to 1912. She’s a lawyer in Chicago, and is finding the family history interesting enough to put out feelers of her own. She could be a good source, at least on that one branch.”
His hand stroked gently up and down her arm, relaxing her. “You’ve been busy.”
“Most of that’s just standard. But I’ve been thinking about the less ordinary portions of our project. When we made love—”
“What portion of the project does that come under?”
He laughed at her dry tone, and rubbed his cheek over her hair. “I put that in the extremely personal column and am hoping to fill a lot of pages in that file. But I’ve got a point. She manifested—that would be the word, right?”
“Can’t think of a better.”
“She blew open doors, slammed them shut, set the clocks off, and so on. Without question showed her feelings about what was going on between us, and has since we started that personal file.”
“And so?”
“I’m not the first man you’ve been personal with in that house.”
“No, you’re not.”
“But you haven’t mentioned her having similar tantrums over you and John Ashby or you and Bryce Clerk—or
