Louisa and the Missing Heiress by Anna Maclean Read Free Book Online Page B

and Edith sat stiffly close to each other, one right-handed, the other left-handed, reflecting two images of the same person drinking tea and nibbling at cake.
    “Well,” Alfreda said after ten minutes, looking more like a Medusa than ever. “I’ll not return. Tell that to Dottie. Digby, my wrap.” And she sailed out of the room, her indignation puffing out her thin chest and making her sharp chin jut like a ship’s prow. Her steps grew dim; a door quietly shut. Alfreda Thorney did not slam doors, even when her patience was tested beyond endurance.
    Preston Wortham continued to pace and tear at his hair, and in a few moments Edith and Sarah also rose to leave. He paid no attention to them but let Digby see to their wraps and the door.
    I sat on the silk sofa across from Edgar, and waited. This was no longer a formal call, so for once I felt permitted to remove my hemisphere hat. I leaned into the sofa, prepared to stay until Dottie arrived, and then find the cause of this odd behavior. I felt a strange twinge in my chest, a sadness not yet named but already being born. The whole affair was quite alarming.
    There was no pretense of conversation. I had the eerie feeling that we were all characters out of one of my tales. The friend, waiting, terrified. The indifferent brother who stayed simply because he had no other engagements. The husband, guilty, already remorseful about words shouted in the morning over coffee or perhaps the evening before . . . or perhaps guilty of a deed worse than a raised voice.
    Perhaps Preston Wortham had struck his wife. Perhaps Dot, at this very moment, was in her mother’s parlor, weeping out the tale. A black eye would certainly keep a new bride from her own tea party. But was Mr. Wortham capable of violence? And if that were the scenario, why hadn’t Dot sent us all a note telling us not to come this afternoon?
    No. It was worse than an uncontrolled squabble. Much worse. I was not leaving the parlor till I knew what had happened to my old friend.
    An hour later the doorbell rang once more. Sylvia was reading a scurrilous newspaper she had found; I had borrowed a book from the Wortham library. And so I looked up from my preoccupied perusal of The Scarlet Letter , hoping it was Dot, and that Dot had merely forgotten her appointment, forgotten her key . . . and knowing it was not.
    Preston Wortham, now slumped in a chair and staring morosely into thin air, let Digby answer the bell.
    The manservant returned a moment later, followed by a tall, red-haired stranger wearing a loud plaid suit and a leather badge on his chest. A nightstick dangled from his right hand and in his left hand he held his quickly doffed stovepipe hat.
    “Constable Cobban of the Boston Watch and Police,” he announced, pausing in the arched doorway.
    When I saw Constable Cobban, I knew my world had shifted a little on its axis. I had a premonition that Dottie and I would never have our talk.
    “Are you Mr. Wortham?” the man asked, looking with obvious distaste at Edgar Brownly, whose tight scarlet waistcoat had popped a button and gaped over his belly.
    “No, I am Mr. Wortham.” Preston Wortham stood and did not extend his hand. A paid rather than volunteer safety patrol was new to Boston, and the social status of the new policemen was uncertain.
    “I have terrible news, I’m afraid. . . .” The constable looked nervously in our direction. “Perhaps the ladies should leave the room?”
    “Out with it! Tell us!” Preston Wortham shouted, unable to control himself.
    “Mrs. Wortham . . .” He paused.
    “She has been in an accident? A carriage . . . she doesn’t realize how quickly they go, sometimes, especially the light two-horse-drawn . . . Has she been injured?” Mr. Wortham was frantic.
    “No, sir. I mean, maybe, sir.” The man cleared his throat. He had been gently swinging the nightstick in his right hand, but now it fell motionless to his side. “Fact is, sir, she’s drowned. Found her at the