30 

The card shook in Sarah’s trembling hand.

I’ve taken the liberty of making some provisional arrangements on the matter we discussed. I beg of you to meet me on the afternoon of Election Day at 3:30, at which time I have every expectation to be celebrating the success of Mr. McKinley. We can explore the question between us further when we are alone together.

At the bottom, below the flourish of Brad’s signature, was the address of an apartment building. Just from the address, Sarah knew it was a luxurious building.

This was Brad’s first communication since the impromptu lunch two weeks ago. It was already three in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 3. The city buzzed with election speculation. Every conversation Sarah had overheard all day touched on it. By this time, though, the question had become simply how wide McKinley’s margin would be. No one seriously projected any outcome other than his victory. Brad would be exuberant.

“What does he want?”

At the sound of Kenny’s voice, Sarah thrust the card into her lap. Uncharacteristically, Kenny had stepped away from the hotel desk and crossed the lobby to approach her.

“He asks that I meet him.” Sarah slid the card into her bag.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t he come for you?”

“He has pressing engagements because of the election, but he’s eager to see me.”

“A gentleman would call for you,” Kenny said.

Fury rose through Sarah’s chest and neck. “Don’t you have a bell to answer or something?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Kenny pressed his lips together and sauntered back to the main desk.

Sarah studied the clock on one wall of the lobby. The Bannings were hosting an election party later that evening, which meant Mrs. Fletcher would be barking orders in the kitchen earlier than usual. Sarah did not really have time to meet Brad without risking the wrath of Penard.

If she did not go, she could never be sure what he meant.

She stood up and pulled the warm cape around her shoulders. The address was just off a train line. It might not take long after all.

The building was a short two blocks from the elevated train stop. Sarah approached it slowly, soaking in the sweep of the front steps and the wrought iron fence marking the boundaries of the property in a tidy but definitive manner. She ascended the steps gracefully and pushed the handle of the polished oak door. Inside, her steps halted briefly, as if she were uncertain where to go—or whether to go. The lobby of the building was modest and functional. It was not meant to encourage anyone to linger, Sarah decided, which was probably an attractive feature for Brad. The elevator was mere steps from the door, with its ornate copperplated bronze grillwork. She entered the cage and asked the operator for the third floor.

Sarah stepped out of the elevator into a wide hall with nine-foot ceilings, crown moldings, and plush carpets. Paneled walls suggested sophisticated isolation, and she had to look twice to see that periodically the pattern of the panels included doors finished to the same mahogany shade. Apartment 3E was at the rear of the structure, she deduced, and turned right to proceed down the hall.

Outside 3E, Sarah knocked nervously, glancing in both directions down the hall as she did so. The door opened almost instantly, and Brad took her hand and pulled her into the apartment. A gold and alabaster chandelier hung from the vivid sky motif on the ceiling in the main room, and a collection of red-toned handwoven tapestries were laid at random angles around the room. Furniture was sparse, amounting to one love seat and a few side tables.

“What do you think, Serena?” Brad gestured widely. “We’ll get furniture, obviously, but I love the roominess.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sarah said, because it was. A limestone fireplace dominated one wall, and a hall led to what she presumed were the kitchen and bedrooms. Unquestionably the space had the potential to be an inviting home for intimate dinner parties. She hardly heard a whimper of street noise. Inside, the apartment was insulated, protected.

Yet she felt exposed, insecure. Just how intimate would the dinner parties be?

“Let’s sit while we soak it in.” Brad took her hand and pulled her to the gray and crimson love seat.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long.” Sarah trembled as she sat down. “I have another engagement in only a few minutes.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “I was eager for you to see the place. This can be where we truly relax with each other.” He still held one of her hands in his.

Sarah’s nerves rattled.

“You must be very pleased about the election,” she said. “It’s all anyone is talking about today.”

“It will be a relief to have it behind us. We probably did not have to engage in certain persuasive tactics with the voters, yet it is nice to be sure of the results. But I don’t want to talk about politics, Serena.” He twisted in the love seat to face her and put a hand at the back of her head, then lightly traced his fingers down the side of her neck, pausing at the collar of her tweed suit.

Sarah shivered.

“The election is over,” Brad said. “Now it’s time to focus on you and me.”

She put a hand on his wrist and stilled his roaming hand. “Is there a ‘you and me’?”

“Of course there is. We’re here, aren’t we?”

“These are not quite . . . the circumstances . . . I imagined . . .”

“We can create our own circumstances, Serena. We’ll make our own world here in this apartment.”

“And someday?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Today is all that matters.”

He leaned in and kissed her fully, his hands gripping her shoulders and his lips in no hurry. Breathless, Sarah squelched the welling confusion. Brad’s kiss had come—and she wanted only for him to stop.

She pulled back at last. “I really must go.”

“Promise me you’ll come back.” Brad reached into a suit pocket and pulled out a key. “I have to go out of town for a few days. Come back while I’m gone and decide what furnishings you would like. Meet me here again next Monday and you shall have your every wish.”

Sarah stared at the key in his open palm. Slowly her fingers rose to claim it.

Sarah jumped off the streetcar at Michigan Avenue still trembling, whether from Brad’s kiss or his daring, she was not sure. She was already late enough to warrant a tongue-lashing, so she reasoned she had nothing to lose by slowing her steps enough to get a grip on herself before arriving home at the Banning mansion.

She walked past the hat shop where it had all begun. If that crimson beaded hat had not been in the window, if she had ducked into the store thirty minutes earlier or the next afternoon, there would have been no Lillie, and without Lillie, no Brad, and without Brad, no apartment 3E.

“Sarah!”

She steeled herself not to turn in response. She knew the voice—Simon’s—and she could not face him right now, not with Brad’s kiss on her lips. Not with the key to 3E in her bag.

“Sarah Cummings!”

She picked up her pace, still refusing to turn her head, and heard the footsteps behind her quicken as well. At Eighteenth Street she turned toward Prairie Avenue, intending now to go home as quickly as she could.

“Miss Cuthbert!” the voice said now, but it was still Simon’s, so she still did not turn.

Sarah’s throat thickened. Under no circumstances could she talk to Simon now!

“Serena!”

Salty liquid oozed in her eyes, but at last the sound of steps behind her ceased. When she reached the Glessner house and turned the corner, she dared to glance over her shoulder.

He was a block away, shoulders stooped, retracing with defeat his steps in the other direction. Her chest heaved.

What had she done?