“Can’t you tell him?” Emma asked.
“You’re the one got the invitation.” When Emma looked at him blankly, Syd rolled his eyes. “Emma, what’s a person gotta do to get through to you? What do you think, Nell don’t know how to keep her mouth shut? You think she tells you about that hooch hound for nothing? You ever heard of a cry for help?” Syd pursed his lips, disgusted. “Oh, I forgot. It ain’t none of your business.”
Emma flinched.
“So, this is why you been so mad at the poor guy?” Syd asked.
“I am not mad at—” Emma cleared her throat. “I’m not mad at anyone.”
“And I’m the queen of Romania.” Syd shook his head reproachfully. “What do you think, I’m stupid? You been a pain in the butt ever since that dope did his vanishing act.”
“Do you know where he is?” Emma asked, more quickly than she’d intended.
Syd examined his fingernails. “Madama says he’s been eatin’ in the kitchen at weird hours. Whatsamatta, he didn’t tell you?”
Emma swallowed once, then looked down at the ground. “No. Why should he?”
“Because that’s what people do when they care about each other,” Syd answered simply. He gave Emma a sidelong look. “Am I right?”
Emma’s glasses began to slide down her sweaty nose. She pushed them up again and sighed disconsolately. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You’re learnin’, though, huh?” Syd squeezed her arm sympathetically. “It ain’t easy, bein’ in love.”
Emma’s shoulders slumped. “Who said anything about being in love? And even if I were, that doesn’t mean that I would expect Der—whoever I might be in love with to account to me for every minute of his time.”
“You like bein’ miserable?” Syd asked.
“No, I—”
“Then you gotta lay down some ground rules. Next time you see that dope, you smack him in the kisser and tell him, he ever pulls this kinda stunt on you again, you’ll give it to him twice as bad.”
“I don’t have any right—”
“He gotta right to make you worry?”
“No, but—”
“You gotta be patient with him. But firm. Otherwise those kids’re gonna grow up seein’ you miserable and never seein’ their pop at all.”
“Syd...” Emma looked up at the sky. It was beginning to cloud over and she hoped for a good rain, to clear the heaviness from the air. “I appreciate your concern, but I must have given you the wrong impression. I have no intention of getting married, ever, much less to someone who already has two children.”
“Two kids and a bear,” Syd corrected. “You know, Emma, if you’d stop thinkin’ so much, you’d save everyone a whole lotta heartburn. Listen to your Uncle Syd. You turn off that brain of yours and give your heart a chance. It won’t steer you wrong. You got my guarantee on that.”
Emma looked down at her work-roughened hands, then reached up to brush at a tendril of hair that had escaped from Syd’s hat. “I think I’ll go in and wash up,” she said softly.
Syd reached over and tucked the loose tendril back into place. “Don’t be too hard on the guy, Emma. He’s out there struggling’, just like the rest of us.”
A mountain of thunderclouds had moved in over the sea by the time Emma emerged from her dressing room, freshly bathed and wrapped in her terry-cloth robe. Not a drop of rain was falling, but the sky was an unbroken mass of angry gray clouds, and the temperature had dropped so dramatically that Emma was glad to come in from the balcony. Although it was nearly time for supper, she stretched out on the bed, exhausted. She’d scarcely slept the night before, and she’d been hard at work all day. She was much too tired to sort through her conversation with Syd, or to battle her way through Crowley’s cleaning brigade to reach the dining room, and she wasn’t really hungry anyway. All she wanted to do was rest her eyes.
Emma awoke with a start. She reached toward the bedside table to grope for her glasses before realizing that she hadn’t taken them off. She was still wrapped in her robe. Peering at the jeweled clock on the rosewood desk, she saw that it was nearly midnight. Yawning, she looked around the room sleepily, wondering what had awakened her. Thunder, perhaps? She went to the balcony and saw that the storm had not yet broken, though the wind was blowing hard and lightning flashed far out at sea. Emma shuddered to think what the garden rooms would look like in the morning, then turned as she heard someone knocking at her door.
Wincing guiltily, Emma came in off the balcony. She shouldn’t have left her lights on. It was probably Mattie, coming to ask if she needed anything. Summoning an apologetic smile, Emma went to open the door.
The hallway was empty. Emma squinted into the darkness beyond the pool of light falling from her room, but saw no one. Perplexed, she closed the door.
Again she heard a knocking sound. It seemed to be coming from her dressing room. The hairs on her arms prickled as she picked up Crowley’s flashlight and hefted it. It was sturdy and she was fairly strong. Creeping quietly to the dressing room, she flung the door wide and leapt back, raising the flashlight above her head.
Nothing. Emma put her head inside the room, then uttered a startled yelp when a loud knock sounded right next to her. It seemed to be coming from her wardrobe. Cautiously, she opened the wardrobe door.
“Derek?” she called softly. “Is that you?”
A mufflied voice came through the wardrobe’s back panel. “Who else would it be? Glad to know I’ve got the right address, at least. Think you could let me in?”
“I don’t know,” said Emma. “You’re in back of a wardrobe that must weigh at least a ton.”
A muted groan came through the wall.
“Hang on,” said Emma. “Let me take a look.” She dumped her clothes unceremoniously out of the wardrobe and onto the floor, then flicked on Crowley’s flashlight and examined the back panel. “I don’t see any hinges, but there’s a row of pegs down the center of the panel. Maybe, if I ...” She climbed into the wardrobe and, crouching, tugged at the top peg. It came away in her hand, and the others followed suit. Stepping back out of the wardrobe, she called, “Try sliding the right side of the panel sideways.”
The panel rattled, creaked, and finally began to shift slowly, one half slipping neatly behind the other. Cool, musty air wafted out of the darkness; then Derek emerged, with a flashlight in one hand, dusty smudges on his face, and cobwebs in his hair.
Emma pulled her robe around her and schooled her face into a neutral expression. Derek took one look at her and began to apologize as though his life depended on it.
“Emma, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am that I didn’t let you know what I was up to. I should’ve come by sooner, and I meant to, but I’ve been rather on the go these past few days, and I simply lost track of the time, and I know it’s a piss-poor excuse, so all I can say is that I hope you’ll forgive me and I promise that it won’t ever happen again.” He paused to take a breath, sneezed three times in a row, wiped his nose on a dusty sleeve, sneezed once more, then peered down at her imploringly and added, “What d’you say?”
Emma was vaguely unsettled by the amount of pleasure Derek’s heartfelt apology gave her. “I guess this means that I don’t get to smack you in the kisser,” she said, half to herself. Then, smiling: “It’s okay, Derek. Now, go in the other room and wait there while I put on some clothes.”
Emma changed quickly into her gray trousers and Nanny Cole’s blue sweater, returned the rest of her clothes to the wardrobe, and joined Derek in the bedroom. He was perched on the arm of one of the overstuffed chairs, peering at a schematic drawing from the old portfolio.