In the parlor, Delia was seated on the sofa, reading what looked like a letter on pale blue paper. Her blond hair was carefully dressed, and she was wearing her prettiest pink gown and amethyst earrings. She looked up, startled, when Adam stood in the doorway. Her eyes widened and she drew in her breath.
“Oh, you’re home,” she said, clearly flustered. “I . . . I wasn’t expecting you.”
So it would seem, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He felt he should say something, though, so he remarked, “Looks like we’ve had a visitor.” He sniffed the pungent odor of cigar smoke. “Smells like it, too.”
She gave a nervous chuckle. “Oh, perhaps you met Mr. Simpson on his way out.” She folded the letter (Adam was sure that’s what it was) and tucked it into her sleeve. There was a guilty flush high on her cheekbones. He saw that the top button of her bodice was missing and the lace of her collar was disarranged. “I hope you were polite to him,” she added.
“I would have been, but he didn’t give me the chance,” Adam said. “Who is Mr. Simpson?”
Delia lifted her head with the coquettish tilt that Adam had once found so attractive. “A friend of my sister’s,” she said lightly. “He was passing through on his way to Austin.” She gestured toward an open box of foil-wrapped chocolate candies on the low table in front of the sofa. “He dropped in to bring me a gift and a letter . . . from her. From Clarissa.”
Adam thought that a box of chocolates was an unlikely gift from Delia’s sister, and that if Mr. Simpson were truly traveling from Galveston to Austin, Pecan Springs was considerably out of his way. Then his eye was caught by a pink button on the floor. He picked it up and handed it to his wife.
“I believe you’ve lost this,” he said quietly, dropping his eyes to the obviously empty buttonhole on her bodice.
Delia’s flush heightened. She looked uncomfortably apprehensive, and her wordless glance seemed to interrogate him: How much do you guess? How much do you know? But she only said, “Thank you, Adam,” and took the button.
“I’ve come for some papers,” Adam said quietly, “and then I’m on my way to the bank.” He left the room, his feelings a jumble of suspicion mixed with guilt and—yes—an odd relief. What was sauce for the goose, his mother had often said, was sauce for the gander. If Delia had been on intimate terms with Mr. Simpson in Galveston, he could scarcely complain. What’s more, he found that he didn’t care. He had been with Annie while his wife was gone, and he longed to be with her at this very moment. But of course he was only guessing what might have happened—either in Galveston or this afternoon in the parlor. He might speculate, but he could not be sure.
Until he encountered Greta. As he went down the hall to the small room he used as an office, he saw her standing in the kitchen door, her feet planted wide apart, arms akimbo, eyes gleaming. She lifted her head and gazed at him boldly, and her look needed no interpretation. I saw what your wife was doing with that man, it said. I know her secret. She raised a hand to the shirtwaist that strained tightly across her heavy breasts, and her fingers played with the top button. She smiled—a smile that was clearly intended to be inviting, although the scar that pulled down her mouth gave the expression a starkly menacing cast.
If she can enjoy herself, the smile said, so can we. I’m willing. Are you?
Adam might be shocked at the open, undisguised invitation in the girl’s eyes, but he was scarcely surprised. He had stood between Greta and his wife that very morning at breakfast, when the girl splashed hot coffee on the sleeve of Delia’s blue silk dressing gown. Delia had shrieked and jerked her arm away, grabbing at a napkin to sop up the brown liquid.
“You did that on purpose!” she cried.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” Greta had said. She’d glanced sideways at Adam. “I would never do that.”
Adam had put down his newspaper. “I’m sure it was an accident,” he’d said, and smiled briefly at Greta. “Get a towel and clean it up, Greta.” Simpering at him, she’d done what she was told.
Now, seeing the invitation so plain on her face, he was suddenly unnerved. She must have misinterpreted his defense as a mark of personal interest. He remembered the way she had leaned against him as she set down a plate of fresh buttered toast, her full round breast brushing his shoulder. Had he inadvertently encouraged the girl to imagine that he had romantic intentions toward her—or worse, that he wanted to make love to her? The thought made him feel very small and cold inside.
He shook his head at her, turned, and went into his office, cursing himself. He was in a fix, and it was his own damned fault. He had never meant to give Greta any reason to think he might want to— Sweet Jesus, he thought. How could he have been so stupid? He stood for a moment, turning it over in his mind, aware now of his idiocy. But what could he do? The mistake had already been made. He’d been a fool.
After a few moments, Adam found the papers he was looking for and went back out
