Reborn, I Married the Man He Feared novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Three Rules

Alexander's grandmother gives Clara a month, and in his study he sets three terms with a ring that already fits. Outside, Chase's car sits under the streetlight.

Clara left her father's house with one coat and no suitcase.

Alexander Tilghman's driver held the car door for her, and Alexander followed with his cane, slowly, one step at a time.

Nobody on the lawn said a word to either of them.

The Tilghman house in Roland Park was dark brick with a copper roof and every window lit.

Clara had never been inside it, and in the other life she had never wanted to be.

An old woman stood at the foot of the front stairs, leaning on a cane of her own.

She had silver hair in a knot, pale blue eyes, and a cardigan buttoned wrong.

"Margery," Alexander said. "This is Clara Althaus."

"I know who she is. Everyone in the harbor knows by now. Three women from the club called me before you were out of the driveway."

Margery looked Clara over from her shoes to her hair.

"The fourth one," she said. "Good. I'll give you a month."

"A month for what?" Clara asked.

"To leave. The last three took two weeks, two months and eleven months. You can beat the record or break it."

"Grandmother," Alexander said.

"Take her to the study, dear. I'll have soup sent up. She hasn't eaten, she was too busy turning down that Loomis boy."

Margery patted Clara's arm and went off down the hall, humming.

Alexander's study was warm, with a fire going and a long leather couch.

He lowered himself into the chair behind the desk, and she noticed that he kept his right leg straight.

"Sit," he said.

Clara sat on the couch with her coat still on.

"You said a year," Alexander said. "I want three things in writing, and you can add your own."

"I'm listening."

"First, you live here and wear my ring. In public, you are my wife."

He opened a drawer and took out a small velvet box.

Inside was a gold ring with one square green stone.

"My mother's," he said. "Try it."

Clara put it on her left hand.

It fit perfectly.

"Second, the Althaus rail yard never goes to Loomis Shipping. Not by sale, not by loan, not by your father's signature on a bad day."

"I asked for that one myself."

"You did. I'm putting it in writing so he can't forget."

His voice was quiet and level.

It was the voice the harbor said made grown men sign things.

Clara found it steadier than anything Chase had ever said to her.

"Third," Alexander said. "Neither of us asks the other about before."

She looked up.

"Before what?"

"Before tonight. What either of us was doing last month, last year, who we used to be. I don't ask you, and you don't ask me."

"That's a strange rule."

"I don't lie to people I live with," Alexander said. "It's easier if I'm not asked."

Clara turned the green stone on her finger.

"Your three wives," she said. "Did they ask?"

"All three."

"And you told them?"

"I told them I was a poor husband, and I paid them what I owed." He said it without any self-pity at all. "None of them were wrong to leave."

A maid came in with a tray, set down two bowls of soup and two cups of tea, and left without looking at either of them.

Clara picked up her spoon with her left hand.

The sugar bowl sat by Alexander's cup, and there was nothing beside hers.

She drank her tea black, the way she always did, and she did not ask him how he knew.

"I have a rule of my own," she said.

"Go ahead."

"You don't touch me unless I say so."

"I wasn't going to."

"You don't have to be nice about it, either."

"I'm not nice," Alexander said. "I'm precise. They get mixed up."

Clara almost laughed, and it surprised her.

She had not laughed in the other life for a very long time.

"Why did you say yes?" she asked. "I walked up to a stranger in front of forty people."

"Rule three."

"That was a rule for questions about before."

"It's the same question," Alexander said, and ate a spoonful of soup.

She let it go, because the soup was good and she was tired and because he had said Friday and meant it.

Then she heard the engine outside.

It was a low engine, idling, and she knew the sound before she turned her head.

Clara went to the window and moved the heavy curtain with two fingers.

Under the streetlight at the end of the drive sat a silver sedan with its lights off.

Chase was in the driver's seat, looking up at the house.

Behind her, she heard the cane tap once on the floor.

Alexander crossed the room, took the curtain out of her hand, and drew it shut without looking at the street at all.

"He'll sit there until two," he said. "Then he'll go home and call your father."

"How do you know?"

Alexander went back to the desk and opened a drawer.

"Because men like Chase always do," he said, and shut it again before she could see what was inside.

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