Tiny Little Thing: Secrets, scandal and forbidden love. Beatriz Williams

smelling of laundry starch. And of him. Caspian. I breathe through my mouth, to inhibit the flow of scent to my brain: scent, after all, is the sense most directly linked to the brain’s emotional centers. Or is it memory? Well, either one, emotion or memory, they’re the last things I need stimulated just now.

      But I can’t quite shut it all off entirely.

      I lift up my chin. “Are you sorry for anything else?”

      There is a pause, a sort of expressionless instant that might mean anything, and then he shakes his head. “Everything seems to have turned out all right, after all.”

      “Oh, yes. Turned out perfectly.”

      “I was just thinking that, actually. At the exact second you knocked on the door. How well things turned out for you. How perfect you looked tonight. And Frank. The two of you headed for big things, exciting times, just as you always wanted.”

      “All’s well that ends well, as they say.” I hold out my hand. “No more hard feelings. You’re forgiven.”

      He gives my hand a single shake. His palm is dry and warm. “Forgiven. Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

      I withdraw my hand behind my back. “Of course. Just …”

      He’s already turned back to the door, already placed his hand on the knob. “Just?”

      I haul in a deep breath and smash my hands together, in the small of my back. I say, in a rush: “The photographs. The ones you took. What did you do with them?”

      There is a small half-crescent window above the door, and the entry light spills through and falls on his brow, illuminating his forehead and nothing else. An eyebrow lifts, out of the shadow and into the glow. “The photographs? Why do you ask?”

      I shrug. “Just curious.”

      I watch his face carefully, but when did Caspian Harrison ever leave anything lying about unguarded? When could I ever have trusted the expression on the outside of him?

      He shifts his weight and turns his head to the beach. The sight of his profile hurts my ribs. His hand still rests on the knob. “I packed them up. Haven’t looked at them since.”

      “Really?”

      He looks back at me. “Really.”

      I want to probe further. Well, what did you do with the boxes? Are they sitting in a Hardcastle attic somewhere? Could anyone have found them? Broken in and stolen them? Sent one to me enclosed in a manila envelope, with a friendly note included free of charge?

      Or was that you, Caspian? The man I trusted once.

      Surely not. Surely Caspian would never do that.

      I press my damp palms against my dress and try one more time. “So you never looked at them? Never showed them to anyone?”

      “Jesus. Of course not.”

      “All right, all right.”

      The floorboards creak under his shifting feet. “Something going on, Tiny? Does Frank know something?”

      “No! No. I just … I was thinking. When I heard you were coming. Obviously it’s not something I’d care to have spread around.”

      “And you really think I’d do that? You think I’d goddamned tell about us? Breathe a single word?” He slams a fist against the doorjamb. Not too hard, but enough to rattle the frame a bit.

      I look downward, to the tips of his shoes. Slippers, actually. He’s changed from his shiny black dress shoes into worn gray slippers, scuffed in all the usual places.

      “No. I guess not.”

      “Okay, then. Anything else?”

      “No,” I say. “That’s all. Good night.”

      He hesitates, as if he’s about to say something more. My veins, my stupid blood lightens again, the way it did as I looked out the window this afternoon, the way it did just now on the beach, the way it did when Caspian held out his hand and introduced himself in the humid air of the coffee shop, eight million lifetimes ago.

      And then: “Good night, Tiny.”

      He slips back inside the house, as noiselessly as a six-foot mouse, and I am left alone on the porch, in the darkness, drenched in disappointment.

       I return home through the terrace doors, patting my windy hair as I step over the threshold. The rooms are still, except for the distant crashes in the kitchen. Granny has probably gone upstairs to her cold cream and her Gothic paperbacks.

      As I pass the library entrance, however, I catch the rumble of a man’s voice, the faint smell of fresh cigarettes. I can’t hear the words. It’s a hushed sound, a compression of urgent words: the sound of someone who doesn’t want to be overheard. Frank’s voice. I push the door open.

      Frank stands next to the window, staring at the darkened beach, talking quietly into the telephone receiver. The box dangles from the opposite hand, hooked by his first two fingers, which also contain a nimble white cigarette.

      He glances at me, and I can’t decide how to read his expression. Startled? Guilty? Annoyed?

      “Sorry. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later. Yes. Me, too.” He settles the receiver back in the cradle and returns the telephone to the round table next to the armchair. A faint brrring echoes back from the startled bell. Frank smiles. “Campaign staffer.”

      “They must be hard workers, taking phone calls at this hour.”

      “Campaigning’s a twenty-four-hour job, these days.” He takes a swift drag on his cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray next to the telephone. “Drink?”

      “No, thank you.”

      He heads for the drinks tray anyway and pours himself a neat Scotch in a lowball glass. The ice bucket is empty. He takes a sip and turns in my direction, and it seems to me that his face is stiffer than it should be. That his brow is hard with tension. “You’re quiet,” he says. “Something wrong?”

      I fold my arms and laugh. “Other than your cousin starting a fight at his own celebration dinner?”

      “That Tom. Jesus.” Frank shakes his head and laughs, too, a dry laugh. “I don’t know what Connie was thinking when she married him.”

      “She was in love, I guess. We can’t always choose whom we fall in love with.”

      He finishes off the whiskey and clinks the glass down on the tray. He stares at it for a second or two, bracing his fingers on the rim, like he’s expecting it to do something, to sprout legs and jump off the tray and run down the hall to the kitchen for Mrs. Crane to clean. He says softly, “No. That’s true. I’m just lucky I fell in love with you, I guess. All those years ago.”

      “We’re both lucky. Lucky to have each other.”

      “Sweetheart.” Frank approaches me and puts his hand behind my head. He kisses me on the mouth. His lips are soft and smoky. “Going upstairs?”

      “Yes.”

      He follows me to our bedroom, footsteps heavy and quiet on the stairs behind me. When we reach the door, his arm stretches out before my ribs to turn the knob. The room is dark and warm, a little stale with the dregs of the afternoon.

      “Could you crack open a window?” I ask.

      Frank heads for the window. I reach for my earlobes and turn to the mirror above the dresser. Frank’s reflection appears behind me. He unfastens my necklace; I take off my earrings. When the jewelry is safely stowed in the inlaid mother-of-pearl box in the center of the dresser, Frank puts his hands around my shoulders. The warmth of his skin shocks me.

      “I was so proud of you tonight,” he says. “You looked so beautiful. So composed. You handled everything perfectly.”

      “Oh,