Ellie poured a cup for herself and returned the pot to the stove before she sat. “How’s that again?”
“Nothing important. Just finishing a conversation I was having in my head.” She raised the cup, holding it in her palms instead of by the delicate stem, and regarded Ellie over the rim. “This is nice. Thank you.”
“Itisnice,” Ellie murmured. “Not much occasion to take a moment.”
Fiona said nothing. Ellie’s observation was true for her, but Fiona had plenty of occasions to take a moment. Lots of moments. Ellie knew it, too. Her comment was meant to get under Fiona’s skin, and it did, but not so that the housekeeper would ever know. Fiona had not been the toast of the New York stage because of her face and figure, although they certainly helped. No, she had been celebrated by critics and audiences because she couldact.
Ellie sipped her coffee. “Your sister might have misseda connection somewhere. It’s possible she had to take a later train. That would explain why Ben and Mr. Frost haven’t returned. I bet they’re still waiting for her.”
It grated on Fiona’s nerves every time Ellie called Thaddeus “Mr. Frost,” just as if she had never shared his bed. Fiona had asked Thaddeus about it once, thinking they might have an honest dialogue about that relationship, but he had only said that it was Ellie’s way, and as many times as he’d told her to call him “Thad” or “Thaddeus,” she never had. There was no discussion after that, no room to maneuver the conversation in the direction she wanted to take it.
“Phoebe doesn’t miss anything,” said Fiona. “That includes trains, I expect.” She raised her cup to her lips, drank. It was not so hot that it burned her mouth, but more than warm enough to feel it sliding down her throat. Only a few drops of whiskey would have improved it. Then she would have felt it in the pit of her empty stomach.
“Do you want I should fix you something?” asked Ellie. “I can scramble some eggs. Warm the heel of bread left in the box over there.”
Fiona shook her head, chuckled humorlessly. Her eyes, the color of amethysts, slid sideways toward the drinks cabinet in the dining room. “Hair of the dog maybe.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do, but I am going to resist. I know when I’ve had too much to drink. Afterward anyway. Not when I’m drinking.”
“Mm.”
Fiona looked sharply at the housekeeper. “There’s something you want to say? Some judgment you want to pass?”
“No and no. I’m familiar, is all.”
“Who? You?”
“No. My husband. He had a taste for it.”
“Well, that’s where we’re different. I don’t have a taste for it. I don’t even like the taste of it, it’s only that sometimes...” She stopped, not because she didn’t know what she wanted to say, but because when she heard the words in her mind, she knew she did not want Ellie Madison to hear them, too. Ellie, though, was nodding faintly, as if she’dheard them anyway, and that made Fiona want to throw something, if not at the oh, so sympathetic housekeeper pretending to be her friend, then at the wall. Contrary to her instincts, she didn’t. She carefully set her cup in its saucer and folded her hands in her lap, where Ellie could not see how tightly they gripped the folds of her robe.
“I’m out of sorts,” she said. Her tone captured the nuances of both embarrassment and regret. “I worry about Phoebe. I think it was a mistake for her to accept Thad’s invitation. I miss her. Of course I miss her, but I could have gone east, was planning to, in fact, and then Thaddeus informs he’s asked her to come here. Can you imagine? Without consulting me, he just extended an invitation.”
“Mr. Frost has been making decisions on his own for a lot of years.”
“Is that an excuse?”
“No. An explanation.”
Fiona did not like having her husband’s behavior explained to her, but then she’d opened this particular can of worms.
“If I may speak plainly, Mrs. Frost?”
Fiona could not imagine what she could say that would stop Ellie, so she nodded.
“If you want to be included, then you will have to remind him how to do it. Mary was his partner as much as she was his wife. I know because she was my friend, and she would not have stood for a man who wanted to run this ranch like a renegade. Do you take my meaning?”
Fiona was not sure that she did, but she nodded anyway. “I should have gone with Thaddeus to the station. He wanted me to.”
“I know.”
In her lap, Fiona’s fingers uncurled. She smoothed her robe, lifted her hands, and raised her cup to her lips again. “I was still so... soannoyedwith him that I let him go off on his own. Oh, I know Ben’s with him, but it’s not the same. I should be with both of them, welcoming her. Thaddeus barelymade her acquaintance in New York and Ben doesn’t know her at all. They might not even recognize her.”
“I believe Mr. Frost has a photograph of Miss Apple. Or at least he did.”
“A photograph?”
