Page 60

“You’re smaller than what he usually goes in for,” the woman went on. “By the cut of your dress, a little more refined as well. I’m a bit surprised, to be honest, but maybe you’re simply another experiment.” She finished her turn around Grace, who still stood stupefied.

The women came face-to-face, and Grace raised her eyes, locking them with Adelaide’s. Even if she couldn’t force words, she could wear the face she had so often presented to her mother, silent yet defiant.

“I hardly need to tell you . . .” The doctor’s sister trailed off, confusion clouding her face as she met Grace’s gaze. “Wait, what’s this? No, you’re far too intelligent. He doesn’t want a challenge.”

She was still trying to compute the intelligence she saw in Grace’s eyes with her assumptions when the bedroom door blew open, and Thornhollow—still not finished dressing—burst out. “Adelaide,” he cried, the moment he saw her. “What are you doing?”

“I was performing my usual chore of running off whatever unacceptable woman you’d attached yourself to this time, but I’ve come to an impasse. She’s not one of your chippies, is she?”

“No,” Grace said, voice suddenly found. “I’m a mental patient.”

“Melancthon!” Her confusion was swept away in outrage, her nettling attitude toward Grace morphing into protection as she bodily put herself between them. “This is a new low, little brother. She’s a pretty girl, but I never thought you would—”

“Adelaide!” Thornhollow bellowed, his temper flaring. “You have completely misread this entire situation, as usual assuming the worst of myself without bothering to—”

“Misread?” the woman fired back. “What conclusions should I come to with a pretty woman in your room, clothing flung everywhere, and you half-dressed?”

The doctor drew himself up to his full height in an attempt to regain composure. “I am merely struggling with my ascot.”

“And no wonder, I doubt you’ve had to dress properly for anything since coming to this backwoods river town, pouring your prodigious talents into the mad when you could be—”

Thornhollow tore off the offending ascot, throwing it to the ground. “I did not invite you here to have my profession belittled yet again.”

“You didn’t invite me at all! I had to tell you I was coming in order to force you to acknowledge that you have a sister in the first place.”

Grace, aware that she was not necessary to the conversation, sat down and finished reshaping the hat she’d sat on.

“Yes, and why would I want to avoid having us in the same room?” Thornhollow asked sarcastically. “Clearly we should spend much more time together; it’s so beneficial.”

Adelaide’s chin shot up, her nostrils flaring. “One does not maintain family bonds because they are beneficial but because they are family.”

“Tell that to Grace,” Thornhollow fumed. “I’ve had to scar her permanently and drag her across three states to deliver her from the clutches of her father.”

Grace shot up from the couch, hat forgotten. “How dare you?” she shouted, her voice soaring.

“Is this true?” Adelaide asked, turning to Grace with a new softness in her eyes.

“Whether it is or not, it is not your place to announce it in front of a stranger,” she said, her voice cutting. Thornhollow paled, holding up one hand in apology and dropping into a chair.

“Hardly,” his sister agreed, lacing her arm with Grace’s to form a unified front against her brother. “This is a lovely dinner party you’ve put together. I should’ve known better than to even come. But as it stands, I am here, and I am hungry.”

The doctor had his head in his hands, eyes rooted to the floor between his feet. “I can hardly go to dinner now. I’ve ruined my ascot and Grace crushed my hat.”

“Only the beginning of all sorts of punishment she could rightly bring down on you,” Adelaide said, patting Grace’s hand. “I’ll see to dinner. Surely there’s some decent place around that will feed us in your apartments.”

Thornhollow raised his head. “They’ll do that?”

“If you pay them enough, they’ll do anything,” his sister answered, gathering her wrap. “I shall return,” she said, “and try to put right all the wrongs you’ve already piled onto our evening, Melancthon.” The door slammed behind her as she left.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” Thornhollow said, the misery in his eyes bringing instant forgiveness from her. “Adelaide’s assumptions about you along with her derision of my career made me lose my temper and say things that weren’t mine to say. I apologize.”

Grace stood over him, one hand on her hip. “Melancthon?”

“Don’t start.”

THIRTY

“So then the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which personally I think is rather a mouthful,” Adelaide said as she set down her wineglass.