“Did she tell you I was there when the first baby miscarried? I tried to comfort your mother, but she shut me out. She wouldn’t see anyone but Nancy for weeks. The second miscarriage was the same, so when we lost the third baby while I was on an expedition, I didn’t come home just so she could refuse to see me. With baby Lawrence, she didn’t even tell me she was expecting. I suppose she thought she would miscarry again, and so she didn’t bother. I didn’t learn until weeks after his death that I’d ever had a son.”
An elevator dinged, sending a jolt through Lauren. A maid stepped aside as residents exited, then polished the doors to a shine after they closed. Across the lobby, the doorman greeted early risers and opened the door to the cold day ahead. How surreal it was tosit on the edge of such ordinary routines while holding the pieces of her parents’ broken hearts.
“How do you suppose that felt?” Dad went on. “Don’t you think I would have moved heaven and earth to be there for the delivery of our first full-term child? I wasn’t given the chance, Lauren. Your mother mourned without me, but she had her sister and Nancy. If anyone grieved him alone, it was me.”
Tears glazed Lauren’s eyes. She had no idea what to say but tried anyway. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I can’t imagine how hard that was for either of you. Thank you for telling me your side of it, even though it hurt.”
His chin trembled, and then he cleared his throat of whatever emotion gathered there. Dad passed her a handkerchief that smelled like the licorice he kept in his pocket. “There now. This is why I didn’t want to tell you about all this. It does you no good.” He sighed again. “This was a very long time ago. Your mother and I loved each other intensely, she loved you with her whole being, and I love you, too. That’s more important than anything else I’ve said today. You have to know that.”
She passed the linen square back to him, completely wrung out. “I do.”
CHAPTER
17
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1925
Money couldn’t buy happiness. But the display of it guaranteed status, and for people like Victoria and Miles Vandermeer, Joe figured that was even more important.
Luckily for Joe, Lauren had been invited to a Christmas party at their Long Island mansion, and she’d brought him as her guest. Victoria must have known the Morettis were holding their own party the same evening, on the same island. Only a social rival could bring out this level of extravagance.
Of course, the house itself had been built to impress long before the arrival of any new-money neighbors. The carved crown molding signaled hours of back-breaking work to dust it. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the sparkling lights inside. In this hall was a marble fireplace Lauren had said was modeled after the Vanderbilts’.
“How’s my bow tie?” Joe asked Lauren.
She smiled up at him. Soft amber light from the chandeliers turned her skin to gold and burnished the finger waves in her hair. “Almost right.”
Joe didn’t want to be almost anything. He tugged at the ends, trying to straighten it. “Better?”
“Worse.” Pivoting so her back was toward the wall, and he a shield before her, she deftly reached up and did something—hecouldn’t see what—that ended with a pat to his chest and a sparkling smile. “There you go.”
She was in a better mood tonight than she’d been Wednesday evening when they’d visited another Met patron’s house to look for forgeries. To the patron’s great relief, Lauren didn’t find any. To Joe’s relief, she shared with him afterward why she hadn’t seemed herself. What she’d learned from her aunt and father would be enough to sober anyone. But Joe was proud of her for asking Lawrence directly about it, and he’d told her so. Confrontation was not her style, but sometimes it was the only way to get at the truth. By the time they’d arrived here tonight, the weight she’d carried on Wednesday seemed to be lifting. He would take it all on himself if he could.
Lauren smiled at a passing guest, exchanging the polite greetings expected at these sorts of events. Not many of them stopped to actually have a conversation with her, even though she was easily the most interesting and smartest person in the room. And the most beautiful, without question.
“Something wrong, Joe?” she asked him. “You look like something’s on your mind.”
He wondered how she was warm enough, the way her dress bared her shoulders like that, and with her hair piled on top of her head, exposing the slender column of her neck.
“When do you think we’ll see the Vandermeers?” he asked.
“Not for a little while yet, I expect. Typically, the hosts will make their grand entrance on that curving staircase after all the guests have had time to arrive. Trust me, we won’t miss it.”
In that case, he led her closer to the popping fire to warm her, and noticed her shoulders relax in its glow. “Do you see any colleagues here?”
“Mr. Robinson, the director of the Met, received an invitation, I’m sure, but he’s out of town this weekend.”
“No one else?”
“Not that I’m aware of. The Egyptian department really is Victoria’s favorite, so I doubt other curators would be on the guest list.”
“What about the Egyptian department’s underground? Elliot Henry, Peter Braun? The other conservators?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “They deserve to be invited, but I don’t think the Vandermeers would have done that. They don’t care about people who remain behind the scenes, and for the most part, the restoration and carpentry staff don’t care about being visible.”
“Based on my interview with Peter Braun, he cares a great deal. It bothers him that he doesn’t receive credit, or enough of it, for the restoration work he does.”
Shadows passed over her face. “Ah, Peter. He’s a prickly one, isn’t he?”
