CHAPTER TWENTY
O n Christmas Day, the afternoon growing darker as bad weather moved in, the tension at the dinner table knotted up her stomach, but Leona made herself eat.
She kept up a decent conversation with her grandfather, which her husband only partially paid attention to.
Darkness churned behind his eyes; he appeared both wary and exhausted.
Leona knew she had contributed to the bleakness there.
Leona watched Gil across the table as he ate forkfuls of turkey and drank slow, thoughtful sips of the last of the best red wine from their modest cellar. Grandfather had complimented him on the vintage, and this made him smile, at least.
“A party,” Leona blurted, relieved to have finally found a topic of conversation. The invitation had come in the post the day before while she spoke with Helen’s neighbor.
“Leona?” Gil glanced at her and back to the lack of wine in his glass. “What are you talking about?”
“We received an invitation for a party for the New Year. Held at Oran and Charlotte Montgomery’s home on Pineapple Street.”
“Well, something to look forward to. I will do my best to attend this one.” Gil poured out more wine all around and held up his glass. “To the New Year and to putting the old one behind us.”
“Here, here!”
They clinked glasses, and the air rang with the sweet belling of crystal.
“And to the little visitor,” Grandfather added to Leona’s horror. Had he had too much to drink? This was not a conversation she was prepared to have.
“What?” The wine in Gil’s hand spilled over his fingers as he set it down. “Leona?”
She mopped at the damp red stains on the snow-white tablecloth with her napkin. Relieved and irritated Grandfather spoke out of turn she narrowed her eyes at him. Had he done it on purpose? But it was Christmas, and what better gift to give than this?
“It’s only a possibility,” she managed to say.
Gil said nothing, turning away from her.
Grandfather’s face suffused with anger, likely at her husband’s lack of response. “Gilbert, you—”
Gil put up a hand. “I’m surprised, that’s all. You told your grandfather before your husband. Does Mrs. McCarthy know, too?”
“Mrs. McCarthy—” Grandfather bit off what he was about to say.
Leona looked at him, confounded by his anger, by Gil’s unhappiness.
“You complain I am not here enough,” Gil said. “That I am not husband enough, though I labor night and day seeking restitution and aid for the trouble Henry left us in.”
“I don’t—!”
“Yet you won’t let me see the accounting books, Gilbert,” Grandfather interrupted, perhaps an attempt at drawing Gil’s fire away from Leona.
It didn’t work. Her husband’s glare never left her face; her eyes were caught in the turmoil of his.
“I didn’t know what you were getting up to during the day and behind my back, and your grandfather blames me.
Ah. Well. Fair enough, I made a poor choice in business partners.
Now everyone talks about your antics around town.
” He stared hard into Leona’s face with hot, unkind eyes.
“You have been taking laudanum again. I smelled it on your breath.” His disgust filled the room.
“Do you expect me to be happy that you will be responsible for our child’s welfare? ”
“Gil!” she cried out in anguish. “It might not be true—it’s too early to tell—”
Gil sneered and pointed a shaking finger at her grandfather. “I’ll get you those accounting books you want to see. I’ll fetch them right now.” He pushed his chair back so violently it fell over.
“Gil, no, it’s our first Christmas, for heaven’s sake!
” Leona stood and tried to stop him with a hand to his arm, but he shook her off.
Earlier in the day, when he’d been sweet to her, she’d imagined them cuddling by the fire once her grandfather had gone to bed, exchanging kisses and comfort, but this dream burned to ashes in the fire of his anger.
He leaned over and righted the chair with an air of regret. “Leona, I’ll return soon. I just need a walk to clear my head.”
“I’ll go with you—”
He turned his back, but after a moment, he faced her again. To her surprise, he bent and placed a tender kiss on her forehead. “Joyful news, my dear. Let’s hope for the best, shall we?”
“But where are you going? Don’t leave without telling me where you’re going....”
“I’m going to the office first, then I might stop at my friend Dr. Larouche’s house. I must think. Let me go, Leona.”
By the time he’d dressed for the weather and slammed the door, Leona could barely see from the tears in her eyes. Grandfather handed her his handkerchief.
“Don’t you waste another tear on that blackguard.” After a moment’s apparent indecision, he reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped package. Placing it on the table, he said, “This is what I wanted to talk to you about, but now it can’t wait. Open it.”
“I thought we opened all our gifts last night?” Leona pulled the paper away. She looked down at the single purple, lilac-scented glove, then back up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Look at the monogram. It belongs to Helen Caldwell-Jones,” he replied.
She glared at him, barely able to recognize her own deeply buried suspicions. “But where did you find it?”
“In your husband’s pocket. Well, Abigail McCarthy found it.” He shrugged with a grim expression. “I’m sorry, my dear.”
Shaking her head at her own blindness and naivete, she stared at the pretty glove.
She’d believed him when he said he had to work, had to meet with creditors and bankers over dinner and drinks at their various clubs and haunts.
That his late nights resulted from looking for financial help, with begging and borrowing, and she’d felt sorry for him.
The whole last half hour of her life, she’d been wilting with guilt under his withering words.
Now she was too shocked to feel anything at all.
Had Helen been avoiding her on purpose, because of a new affair with Gil?
“We can get you packed up and be gone before he comes home,” her grandfather said.
“We’ll stay at a hotel in Manhattan City and decide what to do from there.
The northern passes are closed, so we can't get to Halcyon Farm. The house in Boston is where we’ll stay.
I did want to get through the holidays first, but it can’t be helped now. ”
She was so very fond of Gil. Her heart had cracked in two at her grandfather’s accusations.
“I can’t leave. He’ll only say I abandoned him.
” She got up from the table and went to the foyer.
He followed. She yanked her coat from the hook.
“And you’re wrong. I’m sure Helen just left it behind on one of her visits. ”
Grandfather helped her into the coat, apparently knowing better than to try and stop her. “I’ll go with you.” He pulled on his navy-blue winter overcoat, wound a scarf around his neck, and took a knitted watch cap from his pocket. “I want to hear for myself.”
“I don’t want you to come. I want to confront him on my own.”
She added a scarf and the wool shawl to cover her head. She fetched the derringer from her stocking drawer and put it in the new beaded reticule Gil gave her the night before when they’d exchanged presents.
“I’ll wait in the street, but you’re not to be alone with that man.”
Something in his tone made her turn toward him as she snapped the reticule closed over the derringer’s bulk. She’d started loading it since the attempted robbery after the Van Wyn party. “He would never hurt me.”
“He’s hurt you. Are there bullets in the gun? There is a life to live after this man, I swear to you.”
“Yes, but it’s not for him, it’s for the ruffians on the street.
” She suffered a moment of doubt. Had he really gone to the office or to visit his mistress?
Was his attitude toward Helen simply a ruse, and had she been avoiding Leona while she worried about Helen’s welfare?
Leona’s cheeks burned with shame, and tears of humiliation gathered in her eyes.
Plainly, her husband hadn’t relished spending Christmas at home with his family.
Even an excellent wine couldn’t make her palatable to him.
“Be angry, Leona,” Grandfather advised, patting her shoulder. “You can have a good cry later. I liked that man for you at first, but I fear he is not who he once seemed.”
Though she was loathe to leave the warmth of the house, she had no choice considering the Pandora’s Box grandfather had opened.
On the stoop, she glanced up at the lowering gray clouds bringing down a hard cold rain she suspected would soon turn to sleet.
She went back in for an umbrella. As they hurried down the street, Leona tried to imagine what she would say to her husband.
Jealousy and betrayal rode her with sharp spurs—how dare Helen?
Damn Henry, why didn’t he take his wife with him?
The sleet arrived. The streets grew icy, too dangerous for the reckless thoughts propelling her body haphazardly down the sidewalk.
Her grandfather held onto her arm, and she pulled him along—now she slowed, focused on their path.
They had the streets to themselves, at least. The windows they passed glowed with homey good cheer—families at the table or singing around a piano, while sparkling trees watched on.
Leona pitched her voice to carry over the sleet battering the umbrella. “You should go back.”
“Damn you, I won’t,” he shouted. “You’re all I have left, Leona.”
Her hardened heart softened. “I want to know if he wants a divorce. The law won’t let me divorce him.”
“To hell with him,” Grandfather said. “What do you want?”
“I want to work it out. What if there is a child?”