All the Secrets in Pearl by Emily Ryan - Davis

Author:Emily Ryan - Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-10-13T12:43:14+00:00

Chapter Four

“Why has Maxwell forbidden me from speaking to you?”

James jerked his head up to find Lucy peering at him over the top of the fat candle that centered her dinner table. To Lucy’s left, Mary shifted in her chair and lifted her wineglass to her lips as if she hadn’t heard anything. The man in question offered no such pretense.

“Lucy,” he said neutrally.

She frowned at her husband. “I asked and you wouldn’t answer. I want to know why.”

“I recently received bad news,” James said. “He doesn’t want my upset to affect you.”

Lucy heaved a sigh. “Maxwell told you, didn’t he? I am sorry, James. But perhaps it’s best you know now, before you’re surrounded by things that might remind you.”

“Perhaps,” he muttered before filling his mouth with seasoned potato, hoping she would heed Simon’s directive. He had no desire to speak of his mother.

“Since you know now—”

Simon broke in. “Leave the man be, Lucy. I heard Señor Tomas earlier. How did he find the roads?”

“Señor said the city has already trampled the snow into mud. He was glad for an opportunity to leave his house. Less glad when I confessed Mary and I conversed in English all week instead of practicing our Spanish.”

Simon quizzed the women about their language studies and James closed his ears when the women began reciting the vocabulary they’d expanded during Simon’s recent travel to Chicago. If Lucy’s tutor spoke the truth and the snow hadn’t debilitated 38

All the Secrets in Pearl

Denver, he could leave soon. Preferably, he would take a room at a boarding house for a time before traveling north to Pearl. Simon wouldn’t allow that, however. The other man seemed determined to keep James in his sights and execute personal delivery of him.

As soon as polite, he excused himself and stepped outside to smoke. Snow crunched beneath his boots, not deep enough to prohibit travel. Behind him, the kitchen door opened and someone else emerged. Expecting Simon, seeing Mary’s slight silhouette surprised him.

“You should leave soon,” she said.

James nodded. “I had concluded the same.”

“I heard what you said earlier about the Morgans. I don’t want to know what you were talking about but I know Miss Lucy and her aunt couldn’t be involved in whatever you think they’re involved in.”

No, the Morgan women had never done any wrong. “I spoke out of turn.”

Mary tucked her shawl more securely around her face and hugged herself. She glanced over her shoulder at the house. Inside, someone snuffed a candle and the kitchen window darkened. “Are you going after we’re asleep?”

“I am.”

“Will you come back someday?”

“I don’t believe the invitation’s to be extended.”

She hummed noncommittally. A loose board on the porch creaked beneath her shifting weight. James finally struck the match he’d been holding and lit his cigarette.

“I belong to Lucy,” she said, “not her husband.”

James choked and coughed. Recovering quickly, he croaked, “Pardon?”

“I belong to Lucy. She’s why I’m here. She and I were children together. Our fathers were business partners. Even then, I resented the summers when she traveled with her mother to visit Miss Emma.

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