Tom squints at the tiny portrait. “Yes, maybe? It’s been a while.”
“Did they have children?” Sally presses.
“I think there’s a boy and two girls.”
“Are they small?”
“Yes?” He obviously has no clue.
“Who’s caring for them while he’s in Richmond?”
“A sister. Of his? Or hers? I can’t remember.”
Sally keeps pushing. “If I wanted to write to her, where would I find her?”
“You know, I’m really not sure. But someone’s got to be at Clermont, in any case.”
“Clermont is his estate?” Sally asks.
“It was his father’s. Nice piece of land, not too far from my place. The family wound up with it after his uncle was lost at sea.”
“How sad,” says Sally, and in an instant she is reminded of Robert’s brother Jamie, who drowned in the Clyde. She had always thought that drowning would be a particularly horrific end, but that was before she witnessed so many people meet a fiery one.
“Quite.”
Sally repeats the name of the estate once more, just to be sure she has it right.
“That’s correct,” Tom says. “If you send a letter there, someone can—at the very least—forward it on.”
Sally waits to see if Tom will offer to write the letter, but he makes no move to do so.
Finally, she spells it out. “I thought this might be something you could take on?”
“Oh,” says Tom, who rears back his head as if he’s dodging a punch. “I would. But I must say, I scarcely know him.”
“I thought you said he was your ‘good friend’?”
Tom looks uncomfortable. “Did I say that?”
“In the box. I’m fairly certain of it.”
“You know how it is. Everyone’s a friend, if you’re in the right mood.”
They are all the same. Archie, Tom, Elliott Price. These men don’t have a selfless bone in their bodies. “Well,” says Sally with a steady gaze, “might you convince yourself you’re in the right mood now?”
Tom nods, repeatedly, as if he’s trying to work himself up to something. Finally, he offers a weak “Of course.”
“Thank you,” she says, and stands to go before he can change his mind.
He follows her to the front door, and a servant brings her coat. As Sally slides into it, she turns to face him. “Tom, I have to ask.”
He looks terrified of whatever is coming.
“How did you get out of the building so fast?”
He blinks like an animal caught in a trap. “Sally,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“Don’t ‘Sally’ me.”
