How Finn would like this home, perched on the edge of the ocean, Rose thought. Then she reconsidered. Maybe after what he’d been through, that would be the last thing he’d enjoy, to wake up to rolling waves just beyond his bedroom. There was so much she didn’t know about him. How did he take his coffee, for instance? Did he eat green vegetables? How often did he bathe? Did he prefer fish or fowl? Spring or fall?
It mattered not. All these things she already knew about William.
Hiding her anxiety, she smiled at the pleasant-faced wife of Charlotte and Reed’s chef.
“Thank you. It is always a pleasure to see you, too.” She glanced at the tray. “Are those Pierre’s fairy cakes, the same ones from my ...,” she faltered momentarily, “from my engagement party?”
“Oui, he has been trying a variation. With almonds and vanilla instead of orange zest. What do you think?” Jeanine knew Rose was attending a cooking school as she’d had a long discussion on the best flour for roux with Pierre one afternoon while visiting her brother.
Picking up one of the small bite-size cakes, Rose was distracted by the rustling as Charlotte turned over one paper after the other. She took a hasty bite. Unfortunately, with the task ahead of her stealing away everything except anxiety, the sweet concoction tasted the way she imagined sawdust would. Still, Rose beamed a false smile and proclaimed them, “Delicious!”
Satisfied, Jeanine poured them each a cup of dark roasted coffee before heading upstairs to check on the youngest children.
“Do you want to tell me about the common theme I detect in your collection?”
Rose detected no duplicity in the question. Reed had kept his word and had said nothing to Charlotte. How to begin?
“I took an interest in the sinking of theGarrarda few years ago,” she began, deciding not to reveal too much if possible.
“I remember it. A terrible accident,” Charlotte said, glancing past Rose’s head to the ocean outside their window as if some trace of theGarrardwould be there now.
“That’s exactly it,” Rose said quietly. “I can’t help wondering whether it really was an accident.”
Charlotte’s astonished face made Rose try again. “I mean, obviously, it was not intentional. No one would want those men to die. However I wonder whether the sinking could have been prevented. If it’s possible the ship’s design was not up to standards.”
“You mean whether someone, such as a shipbuilder, was negligent,” Charlotte asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
“Precisely.”
Charlotte frowned, glancing down at the papers on her lap then looked at her sister-in-law with narrowed eyes.
“Why would you think that, Rose?”
Why, indeed!“When Mama told me the ship had gone down that day, I was so shocked. I couldn’t believe it. In this modern age, for such a thing to happen.”
Charlotte nodded. “Even in this age, terrible accidents happen that are no one’s fault. That awful train crash in Revere, do you remember? I think thirty people died and scores more injured, and all they were doing was riding a train. Or what about the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence.”
They both took a moment to consider the four hundred souls who’d perished when the behemoth of a building crashed down in an undulating crest of bricks and machinery. People said the destruction was accompanied by a noise like deafening thunder on an otherwise normal day on the banks of the Merrimack River.
“There are so many others unfortunately rattling around in my head, accidents I wish I could forget, but let’s not become melancholy like the last pea at pea time,” Charlotte instructed, picking up her cup. “Tell me why the sinking of theGarrardis of such interest to you.”
Rose stared. Charlotte was pinning her with a particularly perceptive and questioning gaze. She had to either lie now directly or lay it all out in the open.
She opened her mouth, then shut it. What if she endangered Charlotte in some way and her brother’s beloved wife, mother of his children, came to harm? Rose would never — could never — forgive herself. Plus her brother would murder her.
She cleared her throat, then sipped her coffee and cleared it again.
“I,” she paused, “I cannot tell you.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “How did I know you were going to say that? That’s what every informant I’ve ever questioned has said right before he or she has spilled their innermost secrets.”
Rose’s own eyes widened. Was that true? Would Charlotte somehow get her to reveal everything? Then Charlotte laughed and reached out touching Rose’s hand to reassure her.
“I’m only fooling,” she said. “If you cannot tell me why you care about the men on this particular ship, then tell me what you are hoping I can do for you.”
Rose nodded. That was more than generous of Charlotte, to offer to help without knowing why.
“Perhaps if I explain first what I think, then you can tell me if there is a way to go about proving or disproving my theory.”
