Black Rose

lived.
    He’d have left you. They all do. He’d have lied and cheated and broken you. Taken whores while you sat and waited. They all do.
    I should know.
    No, not John, she thought, squeezing her eyes tighter as that voice hissed in her head.
    You’re better off he died than if he’d lived long enough to ruin you. Like the other. Like the one you take to your bed now.
    “How pitiful you are,” Roz whispered, “to try to smear the memory, and the honor, of a good man.”
    “Roz.” The hand on her shoulder made her jump. “Sorry,” Mitch told her. “Talking in your sleep?”
    “No.” Didn’t he feel the cold, or was it only inside her? Inside her along with the quivering belly. “I wasn’t sleeping. Only thinking. How did you know I was out here?”
    “David said he saw you through the window, heading out this way. Over an hour ago. It’s a little chilly to sit out so long.” He took her hand, rubbed it between his as he sat beside her. “Your hands are cold.”
    “They’re all right.”
    “But you’re not. You look sad.”
    She considered a moment, then reminded herself there were things that couldn’t be personal. He was working for her. “I am, I guess. I am a little sad. She was talking to me. In my head.”
    “Now?” His hands tightened on hers.
    “Mmm. You interrupted our conversation, though it was the same old, same old ‘men are deceivers’ sort of thing on her side.”
    He scanned the gardens. “I doubt Shakespeare could have created a more determined ghost than your Amelia. I was hoping you’d come by the library, for several reasons. This is one.”
    He turned her face toward his, pressed his mouth to hers.
    “Something’s wrong,” he stated. “Something more.”
    How could he see her so well? How could he see what she was able to hide from most? “No, just a mood.” But she drew her hand from his. “Some female histrionics earlier. Men are so much less inclined to drama, aren’t they?”
    “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
    “It’s not worth the breath.”
    He started to speak again, she could feel him check the instinct to press. Instead he tapped his shoulder. “Put your head here?”
    “What?”
    “Right here.” To ensure she did, he wrapped an arm around her waist, drew her close to his side. “How about it?”
    She left it there, smiled a little. “It’s not bad.”
    “And the world didn’t spin on its axis because you leaned on someone else for a minute.”
    “No, it didn’t. Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome. Anyway, other reasons I was hoping you’d come in while I was working. I wanted to tell you I’ve sent a letter to your cousin Clarise Harper. If I don’t hear back from her in a week, I’ll do a follow-up. And I have several detailed family trees for you, the Harpers, your mother’s family, your first husband’s. I actually found an Amelia Ashby. No, leave that head right where it is,” he said, tightening his grip when she started to sit up straight.
    “She’s not connected, as far as I can see, as she lived and died in Louisiana, and is too contemporary. I spent some time tracking her back, to see if I could find a link to your Amelia—a namesake sort of thing—but it’s not happening. I have some e-mail correspondence from the great-granddaughter of the housekeeper who worked in Harper House from 1887 to 1912. She’s a lawyer in Chicago, and is finding the family history interesting enough to put out feelers of her own. She could be a good source, at least on that one branch.”
    His hand stroked gently up and down her arm, relaxing her. “You’ve been busy.”
    “Most of that’s just standard. But I’ve been thinking about the less ordinary portions of our project. When we made love—”
    “What portion of the project does that come under?”
    He laughed at her dry tone, and rubbed his cheek over her hair. “I put that in the extremely personal column and am hoping to fill a lot of pages in that file. But I’ve got a point. She manifested—that would be the word, right?”
    “Can’t think of a better.”
    “She blew open doors, slammed them shut, set the clocks off, and so on. Without question showed her feelings about what was going on between us, and has since we started that personal file.”
    “And so?”
    “I’m not the first man you’ve been personal with in that house.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “But you haven’t mentioned her having similar tantrums over you and John Ashby or you and Bryce