Like the guy hadn’t just dropped a bomb in the middle of the room.
As Lizzie’s heart started to pump at double speed, she said, “I’m sorry. Did you say … you never knew he was married?”
The guy looked back over at her. “No, he never brought up the woman. Not once in the two years he was sleeping on my couch. I didn’t find out until he called me a couple of days ago.”
“But you must have met her, right? When she visited him.”
“Visited him? Honey, he never had any visitors—and I would know because he never left my place. We’d play poker all night, and I’d go to work, only to come back and find him on my sofa in exactly the same position I’d left him in. He didn’t see anyone. Didn’t accept phone calls. Never came back down here. Never traveled. Just locked himself in my apartment and drank. I figured his next stop was a dialysis unit.”
“Oh.”
The guy cocked an eyebrow as if he wanted to know if she needed any more information.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for the flowers. I’ve never had a woman bring some to me before.”
And then he was back to work, frowning at that screen.
Lizzie walked out of the room in a daze and had to remind herself to kick the door shut in her wake.
After standing there for a moment, she swiveled her head and looked down the hall to Mr. Baldwine’s room.
No visitors. No phone calls. Two years up in New York on some old friend’s couch.
And Chantal was supposedly pregnant.
With Lane’s baby.
Lizzie wasn’t consciously aware of deciding to move. But before she knew it, she had put the tray of dishes down on the runner outside of the guest room and was tiptoeing over the carpet. When she got to Mr. Baldwine’s room, she put her ear to the panels.
Then she knocked quietly.
When there was no answer, she slipped inside and shut herself in.
There was something eerie about the room. Then again, she was essentially trespassing, as she had no valid reason for being in there.
Well, no valid reason tied to her job.
Glancing around to make sure she hadn’t missed someone else in the bathroom beyond, she quickened over to the large bed that was made up with military precision.
Lowering herself down to her knees, she craned under the side table, under the bed frame itself.
The wisp of silk was still there, on the floor.
Lizzie stretched out her arm—
Knock, knock, knock. “Towel service, Mr. Baldwine.”
With a frantic lunge, Lizzie threw herself under the bed skirt, just tucking her legs in as the maid opened the door and walked into the room.
A soft whistling and softer footsteps on the thick rug tracked the woman’s progress as she went into the bathroom.
Please, don’t clean, Lizzie thought as she lay still in the darkness. Just drop those towels and keep going.
Drop the towels.
Keep going.
God, her heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder the maid didn’t hear the damn thing.
Moments later, a miracle happened and those footfalls backtracked and the door was re-shut.
Lizzie sagged and closed her eyes. Right, okay, she was taking cat burglar off her list of possible next careers after she left Easterly.
Locking a hold on the lingerie, she stuffed the thing into the waistband of her khakis and covered it up by untucking her polo shirt. Then she shuffled out from under, got to her feet, and brushed herself off.
Back at the door, she heard …
Shoot, the vacuum cleaner running right outside in the hall.
Down in Miss Aurora’s quarters, Lane was struggling to get through his bacon and eggs.
“You don’t have to finish that,” she said next to him.
“Didn’t think I’d ever hear that coming from you.”
“The rules are suspended for today.”
Sitting back in the Barcalounger, he glanced over at her little galley kitchen. All the dishes were done, everything drying in the rack. The sponge was in the dish. The dish towel was folded neatly over the oven’s long handle.
“Do you think Reverend Nyce will do the service?” he asked. “At Charlemont Baptist?”
Miss Aurora looked at him sharply. “Really?”
“That’s my church. Edward’s and Gin’s and Max’s, too.” He looked at her. “You were the only one who ever took us to worship.”
“I think he would be honored.”
“Good. I’ll call him.”
As they fell silent, Lane stared straight ahead, seeing nothing, focusing on nothing. There wasn’t anything in his brain, either. He was numb from the floor up, an empty vessel reacting to the world around him rather than actually living in it.
“I’m not going to give you my blessing.”
He shook himself and glanced back across at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not going to tell you it’s okay to leave.”
Lane frowned and opened his mouth. Then shut things up.
Funny, he hadn’t been aware of speaking that out loud, but then she knew him better than anybody. “Things didn’t work with Lizzie. Again. Father’s dead. Edward’s moved out. Mother is—well, you know. Gin’s going to marry that idiot and probably take Amelia with her. This whole era, it’s over, Miss Aurora. And what’s more, I don’t know that the future holds any of us on this land anymore. Easterly …” He moved his hand around, thinking of the estate and all the people and buildings on it. “Easterly’s part of the past, and you know, I can’t live in that. It’s poisonous. This family, this house, the way of life—it’s just poisonous.”