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Zane hadn’t noticed. He watched the young woman slowly regain consciousness again. She jerked when she realized her front buttons were undone.
“I undid them,” he reminded her. “To loosen your corset.”
“You must be Dr. Dougherty,” she said slowly.
“That I am.”
“Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty?”
She was fully awake now. He watched those not green, not blue eyes focus on his face.
“Yes. And you are...?”
She drew in a long breath and expelled it, all the while scrabbling to close her front buttons. “Do you always undress your visitors?”
“As I said, I undid them to— Answer my question, please. Who are you? Are you ill?”
“I am not ill. At least I wasn’t when I arrived at the train station. I am Winifred Von Dannen. Celeste’s sister.”
Zane sat back on his heels and stared at her. Of course. Same pale skin and high cheekbones, the same determined chin, the same... He found he couldn’t look into those eyes.
Something ripped inside his chest. “I see.” Dammit, his voice shook. “I would welcome you to my home, Miss Von Dannen, but you are lying flat on my floor.”
“I must get up,” she said in a decisive tone. “This is most undignified.”
Sam took the vial of salts from his hand and Zane helped the woman sit fully upright. Then he clasped both her elbows and lifted her to her feet.
“Thank you,” she breathed. She gazed at him and waited.
“I—forgive me, you were not expected so soon.”
“Did you not receive my telegram from St. Louis?”
“Yes, I—” He had read it three times but he could not remember what it said.
“I left earlier than I had planned. I wanted to...” Her eyes looked shiny. “I wanted to see Celeste’s grave. And the baby. I came to see the baby.”
“Of course.” He had not been able to revisit his wife’s grave site. After watching them lower the coffin into that dark hole that day, he doubted he would ever be able to visit. The pain behind his eyes throbbed.
“This is most awkward,” she said. “If you do not mind, I need to sit down.”
He guided her to one of the straight-backed chairs in the wide hallway that served as his waiting room. “Sam, bring some tea.”
“No, please. I am quite all right now.”
He tipped up her chin and peered into her chalk-white face. “And some sandwiches,” he called. “You look half-famished, Miss Von Dannen.”
“Yes, I am, now that I think about it. I was in such a hurry to get here, you see.”
Zane nodded. He did not see. She had not come for the funeral; the wire he’d received had explained she was away on tour. Still, she must be anxious to see the baby.
Sam appeared with a tray of tea and a plate of tiny sandwiches, the kind he served when Zane skipped too many meals or spent too many long hours at the hospital.
“Come into the dining room, Miss Von Dannen.” Zane guided her to an upholstered chair at one end of the carved walnut table. She fell on the sandwiches at once and he poured the aromatic tea into the blue china cups. Sam had used the good china, he noted. It reminded him of when Celeste— His hand shook, and he clattered his own cup back onto the saucer.
She ate in silence, and he sipped his tea and watched her. Couldn’t help watching her, in fact. She was a bit older than Celeste, more settled somehow. Less excitable. Then he remembered that Winifred Von Dannen was a professor of music in St. Louis, at the same academy where Celeste had studied. Of course, someone of her stature would not be young, at least not as young as his wife had been. In fact, Winifred Von Dannen was well-known in the East. A pianist, like Celeste.
“I was more hungry than I thought,” she said. She replaced her cup on the blue-flowered saucer and looked up, straight into his eyes. The ripping inside his chest tore at him. She looked so much like Celeste.
“Now,” she said. “May I see the baby?”
Chapter Two (#ulink_3a3973a8-1719-5ede-a2c2-99bcf9d1feba)
The doctor paused outside one doorway in the spacious upstairs hall, laid one hand on the brass knob and hesitated. Winifred waited. Did he have some intimation of why she was really here?
“I think she is asleep,” he said softly. “At least for the moment.”
“Oh?” Winifred knew absolutely nothing about babies.
“She rarely sleeps through the night,” the doctor explained.
Ah. That would explain the dark circles beneath his tired gray eyes. He looked as if he had not slept in weeks. Months, perhaps. But of course there was his grief, too.
For a moment her throat grew tight. She had been in Europe when she had heard the news of her sister’s death. She had cried and cried for weeks. But a man losing his wife...she could scarcely imagine such anguish. Even for a man she detested.
The doctor quietly opened the door and preceded her into a warm, comfortable room with a large bed and a paper-strewn desk under the window. Oh! This must be his bedroom.
Next to the quilt-covered bed stood a white wicker bassinet on wheels. He gestured toward it. “She sleeps in here so I can hear her when she cries at night,” he said. “She likes to be rocked.”
Holding her breath, Winifred tiptoed forward. A tiny face peeked out from the pink flannel blanket, her eyes wide open. Blue-green, just like her own and Cissy’s. Winifred’s heart did something odd, and a clenching feeling under her breastbone left her short of breath.
“She’s so beautiful,” she murmured. Tears stung her eyes.
“Yes.” He smoothed a long, slim forefinger against the pink-and-white skin of the baby’s cheek. “Her name is Rosemarie.”
“Rosemarie,” she breathed. After their mother.
“Rosemarie... Winifred,” he added after a slight hesitation.
Winifred’s tears spilled over. “Cissy named her after me? Really?”
“Of course,” the doctor said. “I would not lie when it comes to my daughter. It was Celeste’s last wish.”
Oh, God. Oh, Cissy. Cissy. For a moment she could not speak.
“Would you like to hold your niece?” He reached into the bassinet, lifted out the pink bundle and offered the baby to her.
“Oh, no. I mean, yes, I would. But—but I really don’t know how to—I mean, I know very little about handling babies.”
The doctor gave her a long look, then laid Rosemarie into her arms. “You can learn.”
Winifred looked down into the blue-green eyes. “Can she really see me?”
“Probably not, at least not clearly. But if you talk to her, she will hear your voice.”
“Oh.” How did one talk to a baby? All at once she felt awkward and out of place and ignorant of the most basic things of life. All she knew about was music and teaching.
“Go on,” he urged in a quiet voice. “Try it.”
Winifred inhaled and exhaled twice, working up her courage. She felt as fluttery as on the opening night of a concert, excited and terrified and thrilled at the same time.
“H-hello, Rosemarie. My, you are so beautiful. You look like Cissy, did you know that?”
“Cissy?” the doctor murmured.
“Celeste. I call—called her Cissy. She called me Freddie.”
“That I would never have guessed. She always referred to you as Winifred.”
A tiny fist waved toward Winifred’s hand. She extended her forefinger and the baby latched onto it. “Oh, just look,” she whispered.
“She likes fingers,” the doctor said, a hint of a smile in his voice. “Thumbs, especially.”
Winifred could not speak. The small hand, the knuckles wrinkled and rosy, the tiny fingernails so perfect, kept its grip on Winifred’s finger. Her senses swirled again; she must still be dizzy from the altitude.
“Shall I take her?” the doctor asked.
“No, I— Could we wait until she releases my finger?”
He laughed softly and nodded, watching her.
“Rosemarie,” she breathed. “I am your aunt Fred—your aunt Winifred. And you are my only, most precious, most beautiful niece.”
The little mouth opened and a soft cry came out.
“She’s hungry,” the doctor said. He walked to the door and opened it. “Sam?”
In three heartbeats, the houseboy appeared, a glass bottle of milk in one hand and a towel in the other. Expertly he lifted the baby out of Winifred’s arms and cradled her in his own. Then he began walking up and down in front of the curtained window, crooning something in a strange language while Rosemarie gulped milk through the rubber nipple.
“Does he—Sam—have children of his own?” Winifred asked quietly.
“Sam? Sam is not married. Not many Chinese women are admitted into this country. And an American woman would not be acceptable. The Chinese are proud that way, they wish to preserve their heritage.”
Winifred’s eyes rested on the Chinese man’s slim form. “How sad that must be.”
The doctor did not answer. Instead, he gestured her into the hallway and quietly closed the door. “The guest bedroom is next door. Sam has already brought up your travel case.”
He opened another door into an airy room with pretty yellow curtains and a crocheted yellow coverlet on the bed.
“Would you like to rest awhile? Sam will call you when supper is ready.”
“Yes, I suppose I should. I feel quite shaky after my travels.” After meeting Rosemarie, she amended. That had been the biggest shock of her life. Well, perhaps the second biggest. The biggest surprise had been when Cissy had eloped with Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty and ruined everything.
* * *
That evening, Winifred entered the dining room determined to discuss her plan with Dr. Dougherty. Instead, she found herself alone at the huge walnut table. Sam had tapped on her bedroom door twenty minutes earlier to announce supper, and she had roused herself from an exhausted sleep, rebraided her hair and donned her travel skirt and a fresh shirtwaist. As she descended the staircase she rehearsed what she had come to say.
She acknowledged a distinct nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach. She also admitted she felt torn between dislike and an unexpected attraction to the tall, square-jawed physician. She resented the man. And feared him. Would he stand in her way when she confessed her purpose?
Sam stepped into the dining room. “Missy like glass of wine?”
“Not now, thank you. I will wait for the doctor.”
“Doctor not come,” Sam replied.
“Oh? Why not?”
“Go to hospital. Wife of sheriff having twins.” He grinned at her, revealing straight white teeth and an unexpected dimple in one cheek.
Disappointment swept over her. She had worked up her courage to speak with him; now the matter would have to wait.
“You like fish, missy? Catch fresh from river and cook quick.” Sam waited, his hands folded together at the waist of his blue knee-length tunic. “Or I cook chicken, very nice fat hen.”
Winifred nodded. “Chicken, please.” She wasn’t the least bit hungry. In fact, her head still ached, but she knew she must eat to keep up her resolve. She could not argue her case on an empty stomach.
“I go cook chicken.” The houseboy bobbed his head and turned away.
“Sam, wait. When do you expect the doctor?”
“Not know. Sometimes baby take long time.”
“What about Rosemarie?”
“Sam take good care of baby. Feed, rock, change and more feed.” He grinned again. “I good mother.”
Winifred bit her lip. No one but a real mother was a good mother, she thought. She and Cissy had known that from the time her sister was barely out of diapers. That was why—never mind. Her head hurt too much to think about it now.
After her meal of succulent chicken breast and wonderfully flavored green peas and rice, she retired to her room, listening for the doctor’s step in the hallway. Sam brought up hot tea for her headache, and the last thing she remembered before falling asleep was his queer crooning from the next room as he walked up and down with the baby.
The next morning when she came down for breakfast, the doctor was already seated at the table.
“Good morning,” she offered. She slid onto her chair, then glanced at the man sitting opposite her. His face was chalk-white with fatigue. Dark stubble masked the lower part of his chin and dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his eyes. His once-white shirt was rumpled and open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He gazed at her with unfocused gray eyes as Sam bustled in with a pot of coffee. The doctor stirred three spoons of sugar into his cup while the houseboy poured Winifred’s cup full. She lifted the brew to her lips. Now. I must speak to him now.
But he looked so completely spent she hesitated. He was in no state to hear her out.
Sam tapped the doctor’s shoulder. “Boss want eggs now?”
