Chapter 4: Twenty Women Watching

I read the receipt twice, and then I folded it into the front of my glove.

"I won't leave you here," I said.

"You can't take me out." Nan's voice cracked on the last word. "There's a man at the door."

"There is a man at the door of a sick girl's room," I said. "He is a footman, and I am still Miss Severance to him."

I put my cloak around her shoulders and tied it under her chin.

It covered the grey coat from collar to hem.

I tucked her tin box inside it and set my own hat on her bruised head.

"You are my cousin from Toledo," I said. "You have a fever, and I am taking you to a doctor. Don't speak."

She almost smiled.

The footman stepped aside.

He had been told to guard Nan Fenner, and nobody had told him to guard Adaline Severance's cousin.

We went down the back stairs and came out in the front hall.

The drawing room opened off it, with its doors wide.

It was four o'clock on a Sunday.

Harriet Haldane gave a tea every Sunday, and twenty women in good hats were sitting around her with their cups.

They had all been in the church.

Every one of them turned her head.

"Adaline," Mrs. Haldane said, as warmly as ever. "And your cousin. How very kind. Do sit down."

"Thank you, no," I said. "We are leaving."

I felt Nan's hand grip my sleeve.

The front door was thirty feet away.

Between it and us stood a footman, then another, then Langston himself.

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