“Yes, he did,” Sarah said. “And thank you for arranging for me to meet him.”
Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “I thought you were angry with me for that.”
“I was merely annoyed, and not because you arranged for us to meet. You should have warned me, however, that he’s a widower. I’m not the only widow he’s ever been thrown together with, Mother. He had a right to feel he’d been deceived after Father invited him here to discuss business.”
“But you did want to see him because of a business matter, didn’t you, dear?” her mother asked without a trace of regret. “And if he suspected we were bringing him here to meet our daughter, he might not have come at all, especially with the weather being so bad.”
“So I’m in your debt,” Sarah said with a trace of amusement.
“Of course not,” her mother insisted. “We would do anything in our power for you, Sarah, without ever expecting something in return. Surely, you know that.”
“Especially if it involves meeting eligible men,” she said, not believing her mother’s protests for an instant.
“I hope someday you will thank us for that. You and Richard seemed to get on very well.”
“Once he agreed to help Nelson, we got along famously,” Sarah agreed. “Mr. Dennis is charming. How did his wife die?”
“Brain fever, they said. She fell ill, and the doctors could do nothing for her. They hadn’t been married very long. He was devastated, naturally, and he went to Europe for a while to recover.”
“And when he returned, his father put him to work at the bank,” Sarah guessed.
“Something like that,” her mother said. “I don’t know all the details.”
Her father came back into the room. “Dennis thanked me for introducing you,” he said to Sarah. “He seemed quite taken with you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised, Father,” Sarah chided. “I can be very charming when I make up my mind to it.”
“Apparently,” he replied, “but I felt certain you were trying to put him off with all that talk at supper about being a midwife.”
“Not every man would consider that off-putting,” Sarah said, wishing she didn’t sound so defensive.
“Then we’re fortunate Dennis isn’t one of them,” her father said, annoying her all over again.
“Now, dear,” her mother chided, “we mustn’t argue. Sarah has made a new friend, and she has also helped her neighbor. It has been a very successful evening.”
Her father took a seat opposite her. “So it appears. You would do well to cultivate your acquaintance with young Dennis,” he advised. “He has a promising future, and he stands to inherit a fortune.”
“What other recommendation could I need?” Sarah replied sarcastically.
“Sarah,” her mother cautioned, “there’s no reason to take offense. Your father and I only want to see you comfortably settled. Is that so wrong of us?”
“I’d prefer you wanted to see me happy,” Sarah said with a sigh.
Her mother’s smile was sad. “Why can’t they be the same thing?”
Frank decided his chances of finding Gilbert Giddings at home were better early in the day. Even the worst drunks went home eventually to sleep it off, and the storm last night had probably driven Giddings there earlier than usual. So he set off early Monday morning for the Giddings home. Strong winds had driven the storm out to sea, but they continued to endanger every man’s hat. Frank saw more than a few scudding along in the gutters before he reached Giddings’ house.
As before, he had to knock several times before Mrs. Giddings finally-and grudgingly-opened the door to him. She looked paler than she had the last time he saw her, and the strain of her circumstances had tightened the skin across her cheeks so that she looked as if she were held together with only the sheerest of willpower.
“Is your husband at home?” he asked. He felt sorry for her, but he couldn’t let sympathy stand in the way of doing his job.
“He’s here, but he’s asleep,” she said. “If you could come back later-”
“I can’t. Wake him up,” Frank said, pushing the door open wide enough to allow him to enter and making her take a step back. “I’ll wait.”
She drew a breath, not out of fear but rather to steal herself against even more unpleasantness. “He won’t be of much use to you until later in the morning,” she admitted, although Frank could see it cost her a bit of the tiny scrap of dignity she had left to do so. “The storm frightened him. He was quite… indisposed when he came home.”
“I’ve dealt with drunks before. They usually cooperate pretty easily when they’re feeling their worst. Just wake him up and tell him he can either talk to me here or I’ll drag him down to Headquarters for a little chat.”
He could see the hatred in her eyes, but he figured she didn’t hate him for what he was doing to Gilbert. She simply resented him for causing her one more indignity when she wasn’t sure she had the strength to bear even that one.
She didn’t offer him a seat. There was, after all, no furniture in their front rooms. She simply turned and walked up the stairs, her back ramrod straight, her step slow and deliberate. She knew Frank would wait for as long as it took, so she took her time. It was the one thing over which she had control.
Frank was good at waiting, though, and he got some extra practice now. The silence of the house was oppressive, and except for a loud thump from upstairs that startled him-probably Gilbert falling out of bed or his wife hitting him with the chamber pot-he heard nothing until Mrs. Giddings appeared at the head of the stairs again.
She descended slowly and gracefully, her hand resting on the railing mostly for effect since she didn’t appear to need the support. He noticed she had some color in her cheeks now, but she’d blotted every other trace of whatever emotion had caused it from her expression.
“My husband will be down shortly,” she said when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Frank gave her a moment, but she offered nothing else. “Do you mind if I wait in the back parlor? I’d like some privacy when I talk to him.”
She’d been purposely rude to him so far, but she simply couldn’t deny this request. Good manners had been too thoroughly bred into her. “Come,” she said with an air of resignation, and led him to the back parlor, where he’d spoken with her and her son before.
She was going to leave him there, but he stopped her. “Can you tell me where your husband was the night Anna Blake was killed?”
She looked at him for a long moment. She didn’t appear to be thinking or even trying to decide whether to answer or not. She simply stared, a woman who had been pushed to the very edges of her strength and wasn’t certain she had any reserves left. “He was at home that night, with me. And our son, Harold,” she added.
“Why didn’t he go out drinking as he usually does?” Frank asked, knowing he was hurting her but also knowing he needed the answer.
Again the silence before she replied. “Harold got paid that day. He brought a bottle home for his father so he’d stay with us for a change.”
That sounded very thoughtful of the boy-and also very hard to believe. Families of drunkards usually did like them to stay at home but not if they were going to be drinking. Frank made a mental note of the niggling doubt and went on. “That means all of you were here, all night. No one went out for any reason?”
“No, we did not.”
“Not even your son?”
She stared at him for another long moment, trying to read something into the question. “No, not even my son,” she replied finally.
“He didn’t even go out to buy his father another bottle?” Frank pressed, remembering what Mrs. Walcott had said about a young man coming to see Anna Blake the night she was killed.
Was that fear in her eyes? If so, she wasn’t going to let it break her. “I told you, my son was home all night.”
“And what night was this?”