Gareth drank to the good news and set down the glass. “The two plan to honeymoon on safari. At war’s end, of course. Miss Gabler is quite a shot.”
Though I’d never met her, a picture of Anna Gabler floated up in front of me, of her grinning, with one booted foot atop a dazed water buffalo. Was that a stab of jealousy, due to someone else planning a trip? We would all be free to travel once the war ended. No, it was more a vague sadness, for tears pricked at my eyes. Though I had no romantic interest in Merrill, perhaps I’d hoped he would pine for me indefinitely?
I held up my glass. “Here’s to Merrill and Anna,” I said with the brightest smile I could drum up, head high, careful not to let one tear breech those walls.
* * *
—
WE ALL RETIRED EARLY and I breathed a sigh upon closing the door to my room. Had Henry’s death made me an old crab, unable to appreciate the kindness of a new acquaintance?
I left my dress and shawl on the chaise longue and slipped into my nightgown, which Julia’s maid had laid out. The wind howled and rattled the windows so I slid the desk chair to the French doors and buttressed them closed. I turned down the kerosene lamp and slid between the duvet-topped cool sheets, the feather bed pillowing up, all fifty pounds of goose down surrounding me with warmth.
I listened to my neighbor making the usual bedtime noises, knocking about. It was Merrill, for I’d seen him enter his room when we all retired, no doubt fixing another drink. How irritating his behavior had been, bringing personal issues to the table.
Rain pelted the French doors as I fell off to sleep and reexamined the evening. While Gareth had displayed every kindness, Merrill remained aloof and focused on keeping his and E.H.’s brandy snifters filled. We could never be on friendly terms. He clearly harbored old grudges and how could I ever forgive him for running Henry to death? The more I considered the pair, he was a perfect match for a rich social climber like—
All at once a great crash came from the direction of the porch and I sat up in my bed, heart thumping. A cold gust had slammed the French doors open against the chair I had propped there, smashing out a windowpane. Rain flew into the room, soaking the rug.
I threw back the covers, ran to the doors, and forced one closed. I started to shut the other, but my old thumb injury barred me from applying enough pressure, and the wind pushed me back, my bare feet picking up shards of glass.
“My God, get back. What’s wrong with you?” It was Merrill, arrived via our shared porch.
“I’m fine,” I said, struggling with the door.
Merrill pushed me aside and closed the second door and stood, wet through, his back to the doors. He wore his white shirt from dinner with his tie undone and loose. The rain had drenched his hair, matting it down across his forehead.
I felt his eyes on me and remembered I was dressed only in my nightgown.
“Bring the fire screen,” he said. “We’ll push it up against the doors.”
I stepped to the fire, picking up more glass shards in my feet as I walked. I grasped the screen in a hurry, knowing my nightgown showed my figure silhouetted against the fire’s glow.
I handed Merrill the screen and he slid it under the door’s knobs and then stepped to the chaise longue, grabbed my Orenburg shawl, and pushed it at me.
“Put that on.”
“I could have handled this myself.”
Merrill ran his fingers through his hair. “I should go. I’ll use the hall door.”
As he headed out I hobbled toward the love seat near the fire, the glass shards stabbing my feet.
Merrill stopped and turned. “You’ve stepped in glass, for God’s sake. It’s in your hair.”
“I’m fine.”
He hurried to the lavatory and returned with a towel and a basin. “Sit down.” He stepped to the desk and threw open the drawers.
I sat and pulled my wrap tighter around me. “No need to be surly.”
He returned, holding a sewing needle between thumb and forefinger. “In this country people say thank you.”
“Thank you, but you could have left me to my own devices.”
Merrill sat next to me on the love seat, wearing a rather worn look and a day’s growth of beard on his face, both, of course, becoming on him. He lifted