Chapter 10

To my surprise, I found I was nearly as nervous about paying a visit to Maggie as I was about dealing with curses and double-crossing intrigues. Chiefly because I wasn’t sure what sort of reception I would get, and I never really knew where I stood with her.

“Hello? And you are?” the maid asked at the door.

“Miss Stewart. Miss Hathorn knows me.”

“I’ll announce you to the mistress,” the maid said, bobbing her head. She closed the door a moment. I fiddled with the small silken pouch in my hand. At least I came bearing gifts. The maid opened the door and led me through the lavish entrance hall to the open doors of an even more elaborate parlor.

The residence was just as fine as Mrs. Northe’s home, but I didn’t like it. It was ostentatious in a way Mrs. Northe’s home was not, trying very hard to impress. While Mrs. Northe’s home was elegantly classic, the Hathorn residence was on the cutting edge of so many fashions that nothing matched, but I’m sure it was all very expensive.

Mrs. Hathorn was a bit confused as the maid led me into the parlor. “I know I know your name, Miss Stewart, but—”

“Hello, Natalie,” came a wary voice from the top of the grand staircase. Maggie was looking very lovely, her dark hair pinned up at the sides but left down in the back, as I used to wear mine as a girl, giving her a youthful look even though her day dress was sumptuous in layered satin stripes. Her eyes were dark and wide, sizing me up.

“Ah, yes, the Metropolitan, that’s it. Mr. Stewart,” Mrs. Hathorn said, finally placing me. The Stewarts didn’t rank high on her social list so it took her a moment.

“Yes, the Metropolitan,” Maggie repeated carefully.

Last I’d seen Maggie, she was standing before Jonathon’s portrait in the museum, chanting in his exhibition room at midnight and looking like a ridiculous gypsy. She had laid out a chalk pentagram on the floor, not even knowing the right way to draw it so that it wasn’t a sign of the devil.

Clearly, we were both thinking of that moment during the strained silence. Just as I had no idea why Maggie had been there, neither did she understand why I was. We had to move toward some semblance of the truth.

“Claire,” Maggie called to the maid finally.

“Yes, mum.”

“Bring us lemonade on the balcony. Come, Natalie.” Maggie was so used to ordering people around that it came effortlessly. She gestured for me to join her on the landing, so I climbed the grand staircase.

The balcony looked out over a painstakingly manicured lawn with landscaped flowers in bloom. It was admittedly impressive. There were fewer and fewer grand mansions these days along midtown avenues. Blocks were giving over to town houses and row houses and fine shops, but mansions like this still clung to Millionaires’ Mile, where a higher concentration of wealth resided than anywhere else in our country, maybe even the world.

“How lovely,” I breathed. Maggie started.

“Ah, yes, that’s right, you can speak. I’d forgotten about it amid the…madness when last I saw you. Where did you go after that night? It was awfully suspicious that you were out of town visiting a relative.”

Was that the alibi Mrs. Northe had given? I thought a moment. “I had to get out of the city. That night proved…traumatic.”

“How so?”

“Here, I brought you a present.” Distraction was always such a lovely way to change the subject.

“Ooh!” Maggie squeaked. She opened the drawstring pouch and pulled out the pin and brooch. They sparkled in the sunlight. Maggie held them up to admire the glitter. Claire brought us lemonade. I thanked her, and she smiled at me.

“These are very nice. Where did you get them?

“Stewart’s,” I replied.

“Ah. Shame you’re not—”

“Related, yes. I know.”

“I suppose Auntie took you shopping then,” she said, a bite to her tone. Of course. It wasn’t as though I had money to get them on my own, and the fact that her aunt had been out with me and not her was an additional slight. I looked into my lemonade, shamed.

“I’m sorry.” Maggie sighed. “I’m still angry at Aunt Evelyn. And you. I don’t understand why you kept things from me. Why you still keep things from me. Maybe there are things I know that you don’t. Did you ever think that?”

“Maggie, I want to be your friend,” I said earnestly. “I never wanted to keep anything from you. But things got very…complicated, and it wasn’t just my safety at stake, but the safety of others.”

“Lord Denbury. I don’t think he’s dead, Natalie,” she breathed.

“No, I’m not sure he is either. But whatever happened to him, it’s a mystery.”

“What do you know about it?” Maggie breathed. I sighed. I had to throw her a bone and debated how to do so.

“Why were you there that night?” she pressed. “I was trying a spell to bring him to life before me. Were you there to do the same?”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “I was there as bait.”

“What?”

“The painting was tied to unsavory types who’d seized the Denbury estate. One of the criminals had a particular…penchant for young ladies. So I stood as bait.”

“Have you met him? Denbury?”

“No, just a solicitor in touch with my father. Denbury, if alive at all, remains to be seen.”

“Your father risked his own daughter as bait?”

“No, I volunteered. Insisted, really, and since it was Mrs. Northe’s painting, she agreed, provided Mr. Smith stood guard.”

“Because you wanted to meet him too,” Maggie said, a hint of conspiratorial glee in her tone. I looked at her. “Admit it.” There was a mischievous sparkle in her eye. And with that, she was a girl who could be my friend.

I laughed. “All right. Yes. I wanted to meet him.”

“Finally, some truth—”

“I thought if I was bait, he’d at least want to meet a girl who risked her safety to help him. I mean, no girl is immune to that man’s looks.”

“That’s for certain,” she sighed dreamily.

Oh, if you only knew, Margaret Hathorn, if you only knew. I blushed, thinking of his kisses and caresses.

“I still dream of him,” Maggie whispered. “Scandalous dreams.”

I opened my mouth as if to agree, to giggle and blush and conspire with her further, so glad to have the icy gulf between us bridged, but I really couldn’t share the contents of my dreams with Maggie; they were too complicated by nightmares. Jonathon had indeed been in my dream the night before, but it was hardly a dream I was proud of or could share.

No, I could never really tell her the truth. She could never be the sort of confidante Mrs. Northe was, and for that I doubted Maggie could ever forgive me.

“So what happened?” Maggie prompted. “In the museum room.”

“Someone came. He tried to attack me, then got arrested.”

“The crazy man, that awful broker—” Maggie clapped her hands over her mouth.

“One of his people.”

“Oh, Natalie, that was very brave,” she said and meant it.

“Thank you.”

“And he has yet to reveal himself? After all that? After his painting is…”

I eyed her. “Is what?”

“The painting is gone, Natalie. Don’t tell Mum or Auntie, but I sneaked out to the Metropolitan the next day. I saw workers throw out the pieces.” She bit her lip, as if she was about to say something more. “If you hear anything. Anything from him, promise to tell me.”

“All right…” I replied hesitantly. “If I can.”

“Natalie, you must.” There was an odd urgency to her tone. The clock down the hall struck half past three. “Ah, I must get ready for my drawing lesson. I’m hoping to study in Paris. Wouldn’t that be heavenly?”

I nodded. I’d like to see Paris. I wondered what it would be like to live with every opportunity available. Well, every opportunity available to a woman.

As she saw me to the door, she thanked me for the baubles. “Do come again, Natalie. It was good to see you.”

I nodded and agreed. Most likely, Maggie would always say oblivious things that rubbed my middle-class status in my face, but she had her bright sides. I needed to at least try to have a normal relationship with someone not supernaturally affected. It was a shame she was so fascinated by the supernatural; she should be careful what she wished for.

She was far too preoccupied with Lord Denbury for my comfort, but at what point did I tell her he was alive? At what point would they inevitably run into one another?