been wonderful with her. Mrs. King will find a regular nurse. I want to know where Bits is! I’m going after him!”
As if he hadn’t heard her, her father said, “You should have left Frances in England.”
Annis’s mouth fell open, and for a frozen moment she couldn’t think of what to say. Even her distress over Bits receded in the face of her father’s heartlessness. “Papa!” she breathed.
“What difference would it make? There’s no point in her having made the journey. She’s—she’s like a dead woman.”
Annis dropped her arms to her sides and gazed in horror at the father she thought she knew. His eyes, so much like hers, were the blue of winter ice on Azalea Pond. “Don’t look at me like that,” he growled. “It was her own idea to go, to get a title. Not my fault she got sick.”
“You made me go along,” she said. Her voice was flat, and she deliberately jutted her chin forward. “You wanted both of us out of your way.”
“It wasn’t like—” he began.
She interrupted. “And now you’ve sold Black Satin to spite me. Who bought him, Papa? Where is he?”
Her father put his hands on his desk and pushed himself up. She took a step back. She couldn’t help herself.
He made no move toward her. “I’m not going to tell you, Annis,” he said. “There’s no point. The stallion is sold. I’ve been paid for him.” He gave a slight shrug. “I’ll give you the money if you want.”
“Money!” she spit. “I don’t want the money! I want my horse.” She whirled in a storm of swinging skirts that spattered sawdust over the floor. At the door she cried, “I will never, ever forgive you! You are no longer my father! I am no longer your daughter!”
It was an uncomfortable walk from Riverside Drive to the Dakota in the stifling August heat. Anger propelled Annis’s first hurried steps. By the time the gray bulk of the apartment building came into view, anxiety had taken over, and she was near tears by the time she was allowed into the main courtyard and ascending the corner staircase.
She knocked too loudly at the apartment door, her muscles charged with emotion. The door opened almost at once, and a redheaded, much-freckled woman stood in the doorway. “I would guess you’re Annis Allington,” she said by way of greeting.
Annis gripped her hands together to stop them shaking. “Yes, I am. You couldn’t have—I mean, you weren’t expecting me, surely.”
“Not me.” The woman stepped to the side and gestured her into the elegant entryway and on into a high-ceilinged, spacious apartment. “I’m Grace, by the way, and very nice to make your acquaintance.” She shut the door and made a little shooing motion. “That way, if you please, Miss Annis. It’s Miss Harriet is expecting you. The Times said you and your stepmother would be on the Majestic this very day. I said surely you wouldn’t come so quick, not when you’d just arrived, but Miss Harriet was that certain, just knew you would be here. I know better than to argue, so I made some fresh scones, just in case, though I still wasn’t convinced, but here you are, and I know she’s eager to see you.”
Annis barely heard the last words of this recitation. She found herself in a charming room, sparsely furnished, with tall windows facing the park. Two comfortable-looking divans faced each other, with an inlaid table between them and two straight chairs at the sides.
It was such a relief to see Aunt Harriet turn from the windows and stride toward her, hands outstretched, that Annis burst into the tears she had been holding back for two hours.
Harriet took her in her arms, and as she held her, she gave instructions. “Grace, a pot of tea, please, and your scones. Annis, dear heart, cry it out. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll get to work.”
Still sniffling, but fortified by two cups of tea and one of Grace’s tender scones spread with fresh butter and fragrant honey, Annis followed Harriet into her herbarium.
She felt instantly soothed, and the last of her tears receded. The herbarium was scrupulously ordered, with tools and containers neatly arranged. The room was long, with the high ceilings of all the Dakota apartments. The fragrance of drying herbs and beeswax candles tingled in Annis’s nose, and she wanted to know the names and uses of everything. Harriet pulled back the drapes on the window at one end, and the last