The worst times were those spent quietly together—lingering over breakfast, or sitting in the Chinese room, or strolling in the summer garden. Sometimes they talked, but often they were each involved in reading or even thought.
It was too much like husband and wife, and she liked it very much. She told herself that he was on best behavior for the six weeks, and she knew it was true, but she still thought that they rubbed together surprisingly well.
Vandeimen could listen as well as talk. Maurice’s breakfast table conversations had mostly been monologues on whatever issue of the day interested him. She had been his attentive audience.
He could endure a silence. Maurice had seemed to feel obliged to throw words at any lingering silence as if it were a rabid dog.
He liked to read. They did not have a great deal of time for reading, but he appeared to enjoy it. He picked seemingly at random from her excellent library—again chosen by Maurice for effect.
Oh yes, he had become a pleasant part of her life.
Thank heavens Harriette was their buffer. She went nearly everywhere with them, treating Vandeimen like another son, and gave off relaxing warmth like a good fire. The healing was all Harriette’s work.
But then, one day, Maria realized that her aunt’s healing powers were not working.
They were chatting before dinner when Harriette said something about Vandeimen’s home. He snapped at her and left the room.
As the door clicked shut, Harriette pulled a face. “I shouldn’t have pressed him for his plans, but—”
“But why not?” Maria asked. “We have spent four of our six weeks. It’s time he made plans to restore Steynings.”
“My dear, have you not noticed that he never speaks of the future?”
Maria sat there, hands in lap, searching back over four weeks. “Never of the future, and rarely of the past. He talks easily of the present.”
“Because the present offers no threat.”
“Threat? I thought it was going well.”
“Oh, he seems whole,” said Harriette with a sigh. “He is healthy, polite, even charming. But it’s like a lovely shell around... around nothing.”
Nothing? Maria suddenly felt as if she were trying to inhale nothing, as if there was no air. “But I can’t hold him beyond the six weeks.”
“No, you probably can’t. So you must find a way to get beneath that shell.”
“If there’s nothing there?” It was a protest of sorts. She’d fought so hard to keep apart.
“Something must beputthere. What about those friends of his?”
“Con and Hawk? He seems willing to talk of their boyhood pranks.”
“Precisely. Where are they? He needs old friends, friends who will make him face the difficult past and plan the difficult future.”
“You think he’s avoiding them? Oh, heavens. He never goes to manly places such as Tattersall’s, or Cribb’s, does he? Or to clubs or coffeehouses. I’ve been pleased, thinking it safer. But it keeps him from his friends.”
“Or his friends are avoiding him,” said Harriette. “Find out. Find them.”
A footman announced dinner and Maria rose, flinching under those instructions. She didn’t want to get involved like that. She feared getting too close.
As she left the drawing room she wondered what to do about the theater party she had planned for the evening. She had invited guests to her box at Drury Lane to see Mrs. Blanche Hardcastle play Titania. There was no reason not to go, except that she and Vandeimen had never been apart in an evening, and she worried what he might do.
What did he do when alone in his room?
He wasn’t drowning his sorrows. Though she hated to, she’d questioned the butler, and the decanters in his room were being used sparingly. She knew, however, that he wouldn’t need to be drunk to kill himself, and he probably still had his pistol.
She’d have to stay home tonight, though if he lurked in his room and shot himself, she couldn’t see how to stop him.
He appeared however as they crossed the hall, ready to escort both of them into dinner. Of course, she thought as she placed her hand upon his arm. He would always punctiliously give the service for which he had been paid.
