Chapter 22

twenty-two

“ A secret admirer?” Coco exclaimed as she plucked the card from the pot before Trudy could reach it. “Who, pray tell, is your secret admirer?” Then she frowned, adding disdainfully, “And who sends an amaryllis in July? It isn’t even blooming. Someone sent you a pot of dirt.”

“Do not open that note, Coco. It’s for me.” Trudy tried to grab it, but Coco twisted, tucking the paper against her bodice.

“Is it that odd little man who asked you about his gouty toe? Or perhaps it’s that tall fellow from the chess match. The bishop who kept asking you about germs.” Coco’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I know who it is. It’s Arthur Dugan, who sat with us at dinner a few evenings ago. I thought he seemed rather smitten with Pearl Mahoney. Oh, dear. Perhaps he’s sent this bleak little pot to the wrong room.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Coco,” Lucy scolded as she walked from the bedroom into the sitting area of their suite. “How is Trudy supposed to know who it’s from if she hasn’t read the note?”

“Well, then, let’s read the note,” Coco replied holding it aloft as if to open it.

“Coco Hart, if you don’t hand that note over to me right this instant I will tell everyone at this hotel you have an infectious rash and some disease that’s going to make all your hair fall out.”

Coco paused. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” Trudy retorted, glaring at her sister. She’d once successfully stared down the chief of surgery, demanding she be allowed to sit in the operating theater during a hysterectomy. She could handle Coco.

At last, her sister relented, tossing the note at her. “Very well. It’s not as if you get flowers that often. I suppose I should let you open the card.”

Trudy caught it and breathed a sigh of relief. Surely the pot was from Alex, and keeping Coco ignorant of that fact was essential. Keeping it from Breezy was equally essential. In fact, no one, inside her family, nor outside of it, needed to know that Alexander Bostwick had made her a most indecent proposal on the front porch of the Imperial Hotel at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

Dear Mother and Father,

You sent us here for proposals.

I have news… but it’s not the news you’re hoping for…

“Well, are you going to open it?” Coco demanded.

There was really no avoiding it. Hopefully the note would be something vague and anonymous. With a quick glance at Lucy for moral support, Trudy gently slid her finger under the wax seal.

Dr. Hart,

My pulse is alarmingly slow. How might I get it racing?

Trudy bit back a smile.

“Well?” Coco demanded.

“It’s a medical question,” Trudy replied.

“Let me see that,” Coco scoffed, grabbing the note. “It is a medical question. Who sends a nearly dead flower bulb with a note that says… Oh, my goodness. I think someone might be dying.”

Trudy chuckled and plucked the note back. “No one is dying, you silly goose. I just now recalled that when Mr. Tippett was showing me around the greenhouse the other day he mentioned that the amaryllis was his favorite flower but that he gets so bored waiting for them to bloom his pulse nearly stops. I said I might know of a way to speed the process. This must be from him.”

Coco frowned suspiciously, and Trudy held her breath.

“That seems very odd,” Coco replied.

“Oh, you know how Mr. Tippett and Mr. Plank pay attention to every little detail,” Lucy interjected. “This seems just like something he’d do.”

“Hm,” Coco said, turning toward the door, “It still seems odd but enjoy your dirt. I’m off to Daisy’s room. Lorna is styling my hair for the Mystic Melee with all the spiritualists. You are going, aren’t you? Everyone will be in attendance. I’m sure of it. Trudy, I’ve heard even the skeptics are welcome.”

“I am going,” Trudy replied. “In fact, I intend to have a few readings.”

Coco halted in her tracks and turned back to face her sisters. “You are?”

“I am. Someone recently suggested to me it’s important to try new things. So, that’s what I intend to do.”

A smile eased across Coco’s face. “Pip, pip for you. It’s about time you let yourself have some fun.”

Coco spun back around and flounced from the room, and Trudy chuckled, relieved that her quick thinking and sublime acting skills had prevented an unpleasant interaction. Coco was none the wiser.

Lucy, however, was not so easily duped.

Trudy turned to find her other sister staring at her, arms crossed, with a dubious expression on her face.

“Mr. Tippett told me that flowers of every sort make him sneeze and itch something fierce, so I suspect a trip to the greenhouse would have caused him a great deal of discomfort,” Lucy said.

“Did I say Mr. Tippett? I meant… John. The gardener.”

“Land sakes, Trudy. You’re worse at fibbing than Poppy. That amaryllis is from Alex, isn’t it?”

Trudy shrugged while silently acknowledging her acting skills were not so sublime after all. “How should I know. The note is unsigned.”

“Oh, why won’t you just admit it? It’s one thing to try to keep the others in the dark, but you should at least confide in me.”

Trudy was in a quandary. She wanted to bring Lucy into her confidence, but what Alex had suggested was scandalous. More scandalous still was the fact that Trudy was considering it. How could she explain to her younger, impressionable sister that she was on the precipice of something so immense? Something most would consider sinful, although Trudy herself felt fairly certain that the Good Lord was occupied with much bigger issues and not terribly concerned with what people did in the dark. Adultery wasn’t acceptable, of course, but neither she nor Alex had pledged vows to other people— Isabella’s ghost notwithstanding.

It would be a relief to share at least some of this with Lucy.

“You mustn’t tell anyone,” Trudy said at last. “Alex has expressed a fondness for me, but he knows my opinion on marriage, and we haven’t discussed our expectations. It’s all very… new.”

“Did you express a fondness for him in return?”

“Not in so many words.”

“But you are fond of him, are you not? Honestly, you needn’t even answer that. I know you are.”

“What makes you think so?”

Lucy’s expression suggested the question was ridiculous. “He makes you blush, and nothing makes you blush. He makes you laugh at things you never would have found humorous before. Every time I see you two talking, you’re in such deep conversation I wonder if you realize there is anyone else around.” Lucy reached out and clasped Trudy’s hands and gave them a little squeeze. “I’m happy for you. I know being a doctor is important and your dedication to taking care of others is a virtuous attribute, but it won’t make you less worthy if you allow someone else to take care of you once in a while.”

Trudy smiled at her sister and nearly laughed at the irony of her words.

Ah yes. Trudy’s dedication was virtuous.

But was she?

“I feel like Daniel walking into the lion’s den,” Alex murmured to Chase as they entered the ballroom. “But you really needn’t humor me. I can do this on my own.”

“Nonsense. Jo wanted to attend as well. See? There she is over there with Daisy and… her maid? Isn’t that Daisy’s lady’s maid?”

Alex’s breath hitched, and his annoyance flared. What was Daisy thinking to bring Lorna today?

“It was the logical thing to do,” Daisy whispered to Alex sometime later. “If Lorna is being influenced by Isabella then surely one of these spiritualists will sense it. And I intend to stay by her side for every single minute of the day so I can hear what they say to her. I’ve done you a favor so stop scowling at me.”

“I wish you would’ve consulted me first but… I do believe you’re right,” he said.

“I’m sorry. Might you repeat that?” She put a hand to her ear.

“You heard me, you pest. I see your logic and it’s sound. Having Lorna among all these alleged psychics makes sense.”

“Alleged?” Now it was Daisy’s turn to scowl, but Alex was unfazed.

“I’m trying to keep a level head today and not assume anyone is telling me the truth,” Alex replied. “I’ve had two readings thus far and both were ambiguous at best.”

“What did they say?” Daisy’s eyes sparkled with interest.

“That I’m on the threshold of something new and mustn’t be ruled by old fears.”

“That sounds accurate to me.”

He scoffed. “It’s likely accurate for half the people in this room.”

“But that doesn’t make it less accurate for you. And if you go into a reading determined to disbelieve, it makes your aura murky. Miss Watson told you so.” His sister all but stomped her foot.

“I am being as open and as vulnerable as I dare to be, Daisy, but the fact remains that between the two clairvoyants I’ve seen today, and Miss Watson, none have suggested anything about a tethered spirit or in fact anything about Isabella haunting me at all.”

And wasn’t that a good thing? He didn’t really want to find out he was being haunted by his wife, after all. If nothing useful was heard today, at least he could return to the other slightly less distressing hypothesis that he was being manipulated by some living person.

Better taunted than haunted, he supposed. And he brightened at the realization that if he wasn’t truly being visited by Izzy’s ghost, then there was nothing to hinder his pursuit of a certain lady doctor he’d set his sights upon. Since their conversation on the porch, he’d thought of little else.

“But you haven’t yet seen Madame Moyen, have you?” Daisy asked, not relenting.

Alex shook his head. “Not yet. There’s a queue of people waiting and I don’t fancy standing in line. None of these others have lines.”

He gestured to the ballroom which Hugo and Tippett had transformed into a makeshift country fairground complete with booths of vendors selling rustic baked goods, colorful tents where the mystics were weaving their magic, games of skill and chance, and even a small corral full of goats for children to pet. Alex would never have imagined he’d see barnyard animals inside the Imperial Hotel ballroom, but that was Hugo. The man was a visionary, or so he said.

“I’ll stand in line for Madame Moyen with Lorna,” Daisy said, “and when we get close, you can come and join us.”

Alex looked back at his sister and wondered how to reply.

While her poor maid was surely innocent in all of this, Alex didn’t want to be anywhere near her. He’d encountered her a few times when visiting his mother’s suite, or in the hall near their rooms, and once he’d even walked past her in a servant’s corridor near some storage rooms, and each time they crossed paths, she’d smiled shyly but politely. Nothing in her expression or demeanor seemed in any way untoward. There was absolutely nothing suspicious about her behavior but when he’d remarked upon that to Daisy a few days ago, she’d reminded him that if Lorna was indeed involved in anything nefarious, she was likely unaware of her participation. The very notion of that was unnerving.

“Where is Lorna now?” he asked.

“She is over there, talking to Lucy. I’ve vowed to keep my eye on her all day. I won’t fail you.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll join you in line in a bit. Right now, I’m looking for Trudy.”

Daisy chuckled. “Of course you are.”