Page 20

“You see? That wasn’t so very difficult,” she said.

“I have rather a lot on my mind, Sylvia. I can’t be expected to apprise you of every small matter,” he said.

“Then I take it you haven’t read my last letter?” she asked.

His eyes stayed resolutely on the page. “I’m not certain that it was delivered when I left.”

“I wrote to tell you that my mother died.”

At least that merited a glance up and a furrowed brow. “Died? But she was hardly fifty.”

“She was fifty-two. The doctor said it was a condition of the heart. He thought that the stress of the war and trying to keep the shop open during rationing might have also contributed.”

“No doubt it did,” said Hugo, his eyes drifting back to the page.

She stared at him. He’d just learned that his mother-in-law had died, and he had nothing more to say? It wasn’t as though he knew her mother particularly well, but surely he should offer her some comfort.

“I went to the funeral.”

“Oh yes?” he muttered.

“I saw my sister.”

He sighed. “Sylvia, would you please come to your point? I have very little time that is my own these days. All I wish is to read my paper and drink my—”

“My mother left me half of the business, the building, and its contents.”

That, she was satisfied to see, had shocked him. “She left you the shop?”

“Yes,” she said. “Well, half of it. Izzie has the other half.”

“What could she have been thinking?” He scoffed. “As though you would want half of a shop.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked.

“Come now, Sylvia,” said Hugo in that infuriating tone he used when he thought she was being ridiculous. “No one we know works in trade.”

She gave a little laugh. “ ‘No one we know works in trade’? Half the members of your club are in business of some sort or another. The Hargreaves are in cosmetics, and they have a string of shops. Or what about Mr. Yarley? He sells automobiles.”

His eyes narrowed. “Mr. Hargreaves is the president of his family’s company, and Mr. Yarley wouldn’t know the first thing about selling an automobile if his life depended on it. He owns factories that make automobiles. They are in business; they are not in trade.”

“That is a ridiculously thing to say, Hugo, and snobbish to boot. You sound as though you were a disapproving father in a nineteenth-century novel.”

“Disapproving fathers in nineteenth-century novels knew a thing or two. I took you out of that shop, Sylvia, and don’t pretend that you weren’t grateful for it,” he said.

He was right, and yet his words hurt all the same. The shop was the world she’d come from, and she expected her husband to have some sympathy, understanding, compassion—something.

“Well, it really doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “I’m selling my share to Izzie.”

She waited for him to ask her what she would do with the funds, but instead, he cocked his head. “That should keep you in Hartnell for some time. If it turns out to be worth anything. Right.” Hugo set his newspaper aside and rose. “I’m going to my club.”

“But you just came home,” she began to protest, her anger beginning to dissolve into desperation. “It’s half past midnight.”

He shot her a look. “I only have so long in London, Sylvia. There are people I must see.”

Are you going to see her? The question choked her, but she forced what she hoped was a smile. “Who could be more important than the wife you haven’t seen in six months?”

“Don’t be sentimental, Sylvia. It doesn’t suit you,” he said.