Vera Carol Edgarian (great novels of all time txt) 📖

his suite at the Palace. But Rose’s pride prevented her from entering a hotel on a man’s arm—on this night, a fateful error, to be sure. Likewise, she made it a point never to spend the night at The Rose. A restorative nap now and then, all right, but only while seated in the red chair, or on the divan where they’d been frolicking—then fully clothed, heels peeking over the edge, hands folded across her tummy.

She sent the duke on his way. The champagne and rich food and pleasure had made her delightfully sleepy. She thought she’d take just a short nap. Hank was nearby, and with The Rose wired with a series of buzzers and bells, all she had to do was press a button and he would bring the motor around to ferry her home. The last thing she remembered was closing her eyes.

At some point, I fell asleep in the chair beside her. When I woke, she was looking at me with her one good eye. “I heard you, with the doc,” she said. She touched the bandage that covered her eye. “Did he do this to me?”

“No, that was Dr. Sugarman.”

“Sugarman? The Hungarian philosopher next door? Good Christ.”

“He’s a doctor, a psychiatrist. Trained in Vienna. He damn well saved your life.”

“Crikey, bet he butchered me. Fetch a mirror, will you?”

“Uh-uh.”

“No? What’s this no?”

The wound beneath the bandage looked hideous; I’d seen it that morning when Sugarman came by to check. Bruised and seeping and ugly. Lifang’s Chinese dumplings were more finely sewn than Rose’s eye.

“I insist. Go on, fetch me.”

“Fetch it yourself,” I said dryly.

“Who do you suppose you are, lady of the manor?” she sniped.

“That’s right. Catheter changer and lady of the manor.” I stood to show I could just as soon leave.

Rose sighed. “And you’re living here now?”

“Upstairs.”

“Ah, the front room?”

“No, up top. The sewing room.”

“With the maids? Dear God.”

“The maids are gone,” I said. And once again I told her of the quake and the fire, though she resisted believing me. I told her again about Morie.

“Ah, too bad, the ol’ girl,” Rose said. “How is Pie taking it?”

I paused. “Not very well, I’m afraid. James, you remember James?”

She hesitated and I had the sense she was ranging across the fields of her past, my life with the Swedes being a small patch in the corner.

“James,” I repeated.

She grunted. “Buttons and bobs.”

“That’s right.” I could tell by the way her good eye twitched that she was in some pain. I gave her more morphine, and when the folds of her face relaxed, I told her what had happened with James.

“Coward,” she mumbled. “We… we had a bad feeling about him, didn’t we?”

I thought my heart would burst, hearing her say we.

“Good riddance,” she added.

“Yes, but Pie, she isn’t all right—” I paused, for I didn’t know what else to say.

“Losing two loves in one blow is hard,” Rose filled in. “Have you taken care of her?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’ve been full up with you.”

Nodding, she looked at her hands. “Where are my pearls? My pretty rings? How… did you know it was me?”

“I knew you.” I pointed to her nails.

She grabbed hold of my hand as if she didn’t want to let go. “Here,” she said, her body relaxing as the drug took her for a ride. Her hand twitched in mine and I held on tight. I wasn’t scared, and I wasn’t in awe of her anymore, though I didn’t yet know what I was.

She woke with a start. “Hank?” she called. “Hank?”

I told her that we guessed Hank was the one to dig her out of the wreckage before the fire started. Then, we supposed, he went back in to save the other girls. They couldn’t identify his body; they never would. Hank’s name would never appear on the Call’s list.

The official estimate was several hundred dead, but everyone in the square agreed there were thousands more, burned beyond identification or never found at all.

Rose’s one good eye tick-tocked. I sensed she was siding with the notion that things weren’t half as bad as I was putting on.

I let her think so. I had lived the catastrophe, was living it now, but Rose, she was only a tourist. I didn’t care to explain too much, not to a disbeliever, not if it made those days small. I have felt that way all these years. There’s a privilege of having witnessed the wrath of the gods.

“Tan’s here,” I said. “He’s all right.” I left off the part about Tan and me becoming partners.

“You… still worried about him stealing?”

“I’m worried about everything,” I admitted, “but not so much that. He’s a thief, all right,” I said with a smile.

She studied me with her good eye. “You’re older,” she declared.

I nodded. I was older at the very least.

Rose leaned back into the pillows and I sensed she was getting tired. Or maybe she just didn’t want to hear any more. As I stood to leave, she moaned.

I gave her another spoonful of morphine.

“Where are—” she murmured, her voice high-pitched and breathy inside the drug dream, her voice almost girlish. “Where are my… babies? Valentine? Mercy?” She was counting her darlings like beads on her missing strands of pearls, and if I hoped that at last I’d be one of them, my hopes were quickly dashed. “Where,” she asked, “where is… my… Lifang?”

Rogue, sweet Rogue, greeted me as if I’d just returned from a long trip. All those days, he’d been waiting, guarding Rose’s door. I fell to my knees, wrapped my arms around his thick neck, and buried my nose in his fur. He smelled of the fire.

“What are we going to do, eh, boy?” I whispered.

Did I expect that she would thank me? That she would hug me close, her long-lost daughter? Swallow as I might, I couldn’t dislodge the stone of heartache in my throat.

Rogue nudged me with his nose.

We went downstairs. In my absence, a quiet rhythm had settled