by Sara Donati
He didn’t look away, though Sophie wished he would. It would have been the polite thing to do.
“You are a widow,” he said, “a physician, and a beautiful woman. Intelligent and sensible, kindhearted. I am proposing an arrangement that will benefit us both.”
He went on talking about the apartment he kept for this purpose, what he could offer and what he could not. When he paused to ask if she had questions, Sophie was ready.
“I think it best if you leave.”
He inclined his head and stood. “Will you think about my proposal?”
She had the insupportable urge to laugh in his face, an impulse born of something close to hysteria. Once he had said the words aloud and laid out his plan, so carefully constructed down to the smallest detail, she had no choice: Sophie knew herself to be doomed to think of little else.
* * *
• • •
WHEN LAMBERT WAS gone she began to pace the garden with Pip trotting at her side. He whined his concern and she stooped to him, realizing just then that Noah Hunter was standing at the gate in the hedge. He touched his brow in greeting and Pip barked once, in a way that struck Sophie as anxious. Tinker darted forward and touched his nose to Pip’s, two friends attuned to each other’s mood. They ran off together and disappeared into the shrubbery.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Savard.”
“Mr. Hunter.” Her voice came a little rough. “How are you getting on?”
“Very well, thank you.” His gaze was steady, even piercing. No trace of a smile. “Are you well?”
It came to her then that he had heard something of the conversation with Nicholas Lambert. The more shocking realization was that he wanted her to know that he had heard. He didn’t fear her anger, but was offering her—what? His services as a witness? As a protector?
“I am well,” she said shortly. “I’m just waiting for my cousin to stop by.”
“Will you need the carriage?”
“No,” Sophie said. “I think we’ll stay here. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
He inclined his head and shoulders, held that pose for just a fraction too long, and went back to work.
Pip came racing back to Sophie, gave one short bark of welcome, and diverted toward the terrace, where Anna had appeared. Sophie had never been so glad to see anyone.
* * *
• • •
ANNA SAID, “WAIT. Wait. Start again from the beginning, because I’m sure I misheard you.”
They were in Sophie’s study, Anna pacing the room while Sophie sorted absently through the papers on her desk. Her cousin was uncharacteristically ill at ease, but then the story she had just told was unsettling. Anna wasn’t sure how she would have reacted in Sophie’s place.
Sophie said, “You know you didn’t mishear me. Lambert is looking for a mistress and wants to know if I’m interested. Someone who will meet with him every other Thursday evening for a few hours, in an apartment he keeps just for that purpose.”
“How romantic,” Anna said, dryly.
“Romance doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Sophie told her. “No dinner beforehand, no walks in the park or carriage rides into the countryside or trips to the theater, nothing that could be construed as courting. Outside of these Thursday meetings we are to remain colleagues and neighbors in good standing.”
“He said it like that?”
“No. He was more diplomatic, but still plain spoken.”
“What if he had asked you to marry him, would you be as insulted? Are you insulted, or intrigued? It’s not quite clear to me how you feel about this.”
In her shock Sophie almost stuttered. “I have no interest in him. None. I don’t want to marry him and I certainly don’t want—that.”
“So you are insulted.”
Sophie barked a laugh. “Should I not be? He’s had relationships like this for all his adult life, I’m just the next in line. Why would I agree? Why would any woman agree?”
Anna dropped her gaze to the tabletop and traced a shape with one gloved finger. “A woman who has had a good relationship with a husband might well miss his attentions. I can imagine that.”
* * *
• • •
THEY WERE SUCH different people, Sophie reminded herself. They always had been, but their strengths and weaknesses had dovetailed. All through medical school Anna had been the one to ask the hardest questions, the ones Sophie simply could not put into words. Questions that most young women would choke on, but Anna’s voice never wavered. She asked during an autopsy about the condition of a cadaver’s testicles, and whether prostate or venereal disease was the underlying cause; she asked a prostitute to explain what she meant by French tickler; in anatomy class she asked if the dorsal nerve of the clitoris was analogous to the dorsal nerve of the penis and whether both stemmed from the pudendal nerve.
But this was not a discussion of anatomy or disease; it was not a clinical discussion of sexuality but a personal one. Anna was married now almost a year; Sophie wondered if she talked about these things with Jack, but could not bring herself to ask the question directly.
“Anna,” she said, almost sharply. “What do you know about this getting of mistresses?”
Her cousin’s head jerked toward her. “I know nothing of Nicholas Lambert’s personal affairs.”
“But this kind of arrangement. Is it all that common?”
Anna’s left dimple made a short appearance, which meant she was ill at ease. She said, “One of the things about being married to Jack is that I can ask him anything. And I did ask him about this type of arrangement, as you put it. Yes, it happens quite often, apparently. If a man is healthy, has the necessary resources, and is also sensible enough to stay away from prostitutes, what’s left?”
Sophie cleared her throat. “Marriage, of course.”
Anna’s mouth quirked down at the corner. “Some men are more afraid of matrimony than they are of syphilis.”
“Are you saying that Jack—”
She interrupted. “I’m not saying anything about Jack, except that he explained to me that men and women sometimes enter into such arrangements.”
Sophie said, “So Lambert is not quite the libertine I thought he must be. But Anna, he said that the last two relationships he had were with women physicians. We must know them. You’re scrunching up your nose; I know what that means.”
“That my nose itches?”
“That you are reluctant to say something.”
“I don’t know anything with any certainty,” Anna said. “There have been some rumors, though it never occurred to me that Lambert might be the other party. And only about one person, not two.”
“Who are we talking about?”
“Wait, let me ask something first. Do you think that with time you might feel an attraction toward him?”
“No,” Sophie shook her head. “I am not interested in him as a husband or a lover. I doubt now that I can even think of him as a friend.”
“He made a mistake in approaching you,” Anna said. “I see that. But don’t judge him too harshly. He is lonely, I think. Can’t you imagine feeling the same way, someday?”
* * *
• • •
ANNA WATCHED THE emotions playing over her cousin’s face. She had never seen Sophie quite so unsettled, not even after Cap’s diagnosis and the falling out that had kept them apart for almost a year.
“You are asking me if I expect to miss sex,” she said finally. “What was the name of the man in Vienna that you—arranged things with? I can’t recall.”
“Karl Levine.” The turn in the conversation made sense, but Sophie had never asked any questions about this episode in Anna’s history, out of good manners or embarrassment or both.
“That was a very different situation,” Anna said. “I made a decision and I
approached him, that is true. I trust I wasn’t as crass and insensitive in the way I raised the subject.”
Sophie was looking at her doubtfully.
Anna sighed. “Somehow I managed not to horrify him. It helped that we both knew that the relationship would be short. Only for the week our appointments at the clinic overlapped. There wasn’t very much at stake.”
“Are you sorry, looking back, that you did it?”
This was the crux of the matter, and so Anna took a moment to gather her thoughts. “You mean, because I had to go to Jack as something other than a virgin? No. It was something I wanted to experience, and I had no sense of Jack—of any man—in my future.”
“Well,” Sophie said. “Then I am in the same situation now as you were then when you went to Vienna.”
Anna sat back. This was something she had always wondered about but never asked. Sophie and Cap had fallen in love long before his symptoms started, when they were young and thought themselves immortal, as do all healthy young people newly caught up in each other. At that time Anna had wondered if they had gone beyond kissing, but she had not pressed.
Sophie had never volunteered details, not until this moment. The understanding that Cap and Sophie had never shared a bed or known each other fully made Anna so sad that for a moment she feared her voice would crack if she tried to speak.
“Many women live long lives without ever experiencing sex,” Sophie said. “Some wish they never had.”
This was both true and untrue. Anna decided not to challenge the underlying assumption.
“I can’t miss what I’ve never experienced,” Sophie went on. “I think it’s wise to leave things as they stand.”
Anna said, “Yes, I see your reasoning, for the time being at least.”
Sophie spun around to face her.
“You may change your mind at some point,” Anna said. “I did. And I’m glad I did. I wasn’t quite whole, before Jack.”
It was perhaps the cruelest thing she could have said, but she didn’t realize that until the words were hanging in the air between them, a honed blade already streaked with blood.
Tears began to run down Sophie’s cheeks.
“Oh,” Anna said, holding out her arms. “Oh, I’m so—”
Sophie came to her, pressed her face against Anna’s shoulder, and wept.
* * *
• • •
IN THE EARLY evening Jack came into their bedroom where Anna sat in front of the cold hearth, took one look at her face, and knelt beside her.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
She managed a half smile, one that caused his breath to catch in his throat.
“Anna, talk to me. Is someone ill?”
“No.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “I’m just very sad. I said something to Sophie I regret.”
He picked her up and took the seat, settling her in his lap. Waiting for Anna to find the words she needed was easier when he held her like this. She thought he did it to comfort her, when mostly it was for his own peace of mind.
“Sophie is so alone,” Anna said finally. “She expects to stay that way. And she’s right, there are so few men who are equal to her who would want her.”
Jack considered for a long moment. “Is this about anybody in particular?”
She leaned back to look him in the eye. “What are you thinking?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen Lambert watching her.”
The way she tensed in his arms was answer enough. He said, “She’s beautiful, Anna. Men watch her wherever she goes. Lambert just watches her a little more closely. What happened?”
She told the story in a few sentences. “I wanted to stay with her, but she said she needed to be alone. Mr. Hunter brought me home.”
Jack had approved of Noah Hunter as Sophie’s man of all work, and it pleased him that for once Anna had been thwarted in her determination to walk everywhere, at all hours.
“You’re scowling,” she said in conclusion. “What are you scowling about?”
“Am I scowling? I have to say, I’m surprised at Lambert.”
“Surprised? That’s all?” She got up to get a fresh handkerchief from a drawer.
Jack said, “It was a stupid thing to do, and he’s not a stupid man. He’s either in love or—” He broke off.
Anna didn’t hesitate to put a name to it.
“Lust,” she supplied. “He let his lust outweigh his common sense and courtesy and decency. It makes me doubt his judgment, that he would intrude on her grief so clumsily.”
There was no arguing with her logic and no excusing Lambert’s behavior, so Jack took a different tack.
“In a year or two Sophie could well find someone worthy of her,” Jack said. “I can see it happening.”
Anna’s face seemed to melt with the heat of the tears that welled up and began to fall. “I know that you believe that. I believe it too. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t see that possibility, and it breaks my heart for her. And it’s so frustrating, that I can’t say anything or do anything to make it better.”
“That’s the hardest part for you, isn’t it,” Jack said. “When there’s nothing you can do.”
Anna nodded, balling up her handkerchief in a fist. “You, on the other hand. You could punch Nicholas Lambert in the face.”
He schooled his expression. “Tomorrow if you still feel that way I’ll see what I can arrange the next time we play handball.”
The corner of her mouth jerked once, then again. “Fine. But tell me something. Did you approach your—the person who—the lady—”
He reached out and caught her wrist to bring her back to his lap, where she landed with a thump.
“Really? You really want to know this?”
Before they were married—before they had ever come together—she had wanted to know about his experiences. Or more accurately, Jack reminded himself, she wanted to know if he frequented the disorderly houses where men handed over both hard coin and good health for a few minutes of pleasure.
It was a relief to be able to tell her, truthfully, that he had never put himself in that position. Instead he had an arrangement with the widow of an acquaintance, something much like the relationship Lambert had proposed to Sophie. These days Jack rarely thought of Josephine Albrecht, but when she came to mind he remembered her with equal parts affection and relief. Affection because she had been welcoming and sweet, and relief because she had moved to St. Louis just a few months before Anna came into his life.
It was Anna’s right to ask him about his past, but she had not. Not until today, when Nicholas Lambert reminded her that men found ways to meet their needs.
“Yes,” she said. “Really.”
“I’ll answer questions, but I have this idea that it’s Lambert you’d prefer to have on the witness stand.”
The tension went out of her like water from an overturned cup. “That’s probably true. So I’ll just ask you something simple.”
He tried to keep himself from grimacing. “Go on.”
“Do you have regrets, about her?”
The question was both easier and harder than the one he had expected. “I tried to be kind. I was honest with her. But yes, in the end I think she was disappointed that I didn’t ask her to stay. So I can say that I regret that she was unhappy, but I don’t regret letting her go.”
The house was very still around them. In the soft light her green eyes took on a golden tone, like blades of grass embedded in old honey. He ran a finger over the line of her jaw.
“I can’t even remember her face,” Jack told her. “I don’t think I could ever forget yours. Are we alone?”
She put her forehead against his temple. “For the evening. There’s a cold supper. Or we could let Mrs. Lee feed us, she’d be pleased.”
The windows that looked out over
Waverly Place were cracked open to the cool evening air that stirred the lace panels. There was traffic on the street, children calling out, a dog barked, but all of that seemed a world away. Jack wondered if he had ever felt so very comfortable as he did now, in this room with Anna resting against him. She was rounded and soft with a mind as sharp as a saber; she smelled of verbena and lilac and the harsh chemicals that followed her home from the hospital. She was a study in contrasts, and he had realized some time ago that he would never really figure her out. Nor would he ever know what it meant to be bored.
He shifted so that he could turn his head and kiss her. She kissed him back, her mouth as rich as a ripe peach.
He said, “I’m not so hungry.” And then: “What are you smiling about?”
“Mezzanotte, just come out and say what you want.”
He nipped at her earlobe. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“I thought I’d reverse roles and see how it felt.”
That made him laugh. While he carried her to their bed he laughed, and while he stripped her out of her clothing. Then she helped him out of his jacket and vest, unbuttoned his shirt, and slid his suspenders off his shoulders. When she put her hands to the placket in his trousers he stopped laughing. Because she meant him to.
“You are beautifully put together,” she told him, her hands cool and firm and knowing. “An excellent specimen. If I trace the path of the cremaster muscles the response is almost instantaneous—”
He captured her wrist. “Stop.”
“But see, Jack. The male genital organs are a marvel of engineering.” She cupped a testicle. “Do you know why your testes aren’t inside your abdomen with all the other organs?”
