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  “But this time—”

  Donner or Newson nodded. “I have taken care of my people. They know I abhor both violence and any double-cross. Leslie plunged me into murder, then dared to refuse me the evidence which I must destroy to cover us.” He nodded to the manuscript pages. “With those out of the way—” He shrugged. “Then—there was other evidence—which I was able to handle better. But she had visions of blackmail.” His smile now was only a baring of teeth. “You may have that.” He gestured to the wallet. “But I assure you that is nothing beside what I took care to see go up in flames last night!”

  “Shall we go?” Daniels moved towards Donner. The man, with a second shrug, arose and started to the door.

  Mark made no move to follow. I wanted to go to him, assure myself that he had taken no worse hurt than the one he showed. Theodosia now left—and I, suddenly unsure as to why, followed her.

  “Where's the phone?” she asked.

  I took her down the hall.

  “Do you know who to call?”

  “John Billings, I suppose. He doesn't take—criminal cases. But he ought to be able to advise me.” She went to dial. As I started away, she called over her shoulder:

  “Please wait—”

  “Mr. Billings? Not there? Have him call—” She gave the number of the carriage-house phone. “It is urgent.”

  Then she asked me a question I was not prepared to answer.

  “What is there between you and Colonel Rohmer, Erica?”

  “Nothing.” I made my answer as firm as I could. “We knew each other some years ago. But I have not seen him until now—”

  “He has influence, I would judge. Oh, I know Gordon is worthless. I've known for years that he played around.” She had shaded her eyes with her hand, but there was no betraying note in her voice. “It's because he's weak that I can't just walk out on him now. If I did that I'd put myself on his level.”

  “But—”

  “But I can't go on with him? Is that what you are too polite to ask, Erica? Well, maybe that's true. I'll have to make sure. Only what I do now and what I shall decide to do later, those are two different things. Gordon is innocent of murder. Daniels will probably arrest him—but there's other ties in this. Donner—Newson—he seems to be more important. Maybe Mark Rohmer can do something, if Gordon turns state's evidence. Will you speak to him and find out, Erica?”

  I did not want to. But I did not know myself very well anymore. Last night I seemed to have passed some barrier and come out into a new existence. I was frightened—more than a little. This was too intense—this feeling inside me now.

  “Theodosia.” I selected my words with care, to make what I was saying convincing not only to her but to myself: “To tell you the truth, we are not on friendly terms. I had ample proof years ago that I meant nothing to him. And maybe if I tried to speak for Gordon, the very fact that I was the one to do it might prejudice him.”

  Theodosia was staring at me.

  “You are either a stupid liar or a blind fool!” Her voice was hot with anger, and she pushed past me as if I had ceased to exist.

  Her response shook me. I wanted now to assure her that I would do what I could for Gordon—not that it would help. But she was already gone—out the back way towards the door which gave on the garden walk.

  I heard steps behind me. Mark, and over his arm a coat. Not mine, but he held it for me to slip on. I gathered up a scarf trailing over the table where the tin of ginger had once stood. The experiences of the past twenty-four hours had done nothing to enhance my claim to any looks. But I knew that I must go with Mark and face squarely what lay between us, since he had chosen this way.

  As he climbed in the waiting car, I caught a glimpse of Anne Frimsbee at the door. Then we were on our way, and I could not suppress a sigh of relief.

  “What were you doing on Saturday, the twenty-fourth of August—need I say the year?”

  I had expected anything but such a forthright and instant attack. But I had an answer which arose as if I had framed it ahead to be used on just this occasion:

  “I might ask you the same thing!”

  Emboldened at my ability to meet his first sortie, I turned my head a little to catch a glimpse of his dark face. But I only saw the bandage.

  “Mark—that burn—how bad is it?”

  “Nothing to shed tears over.”

  As if I were, I had, I told myself furiously. No, I would not give him advantage by again showing any concern. We drove in silence along the snowy street Then I guessed Mark's chosen destination and I was bitterly angry.

  He pulled in at the inn. I hoped it would be closed because of the weather. But his perverse luck held and we were ushered into the dining room where we were, at this hour, the only guests. It was just the same. Only then it had been summer—now it was winter.

  “You have no right to do this!” I was goaded into speech as the waiter left us.

  “Perhaps not.” His ready agreement, when I expected the opposite, was disconcerting. “There is never any harm in trying, though. What did happen on that Saturday, Erica?”

  I forced myself to meet his eyes as stonily as I could.

  “You already know.”

  “I thought I might have—your dear Aunt Otilda's influence, I suppose. Did she succeed in making you believe that you shouldn't marry out of your own race—that to take up with me was a shame and disgrace?”

  “Mark!” I was shocked out of my defense. If he believed that—which had never occurred to me! But no, that must have been his form of defense—if he needed any. We both knew the real truth.

  “I know,” he continued dispassionately, “that your aunt made you afraid of every honest emotion a woman might experience, but I didn't think she could keep you prisoner in her web forever, not if you were the person you could be. Was it that I am an Indian, Erica? Or just that I am a man, and so the enemy as far as the Aunt Otildas of the world are concerned.”

  “It was your wife. You can't deny I saw you both together—you looked straight at me—” I was lost to all pride at last.

  His eagle face did not change. Instead he said very softly:

  “So that was it. Without allowing me a chance at any explanation, you jumped to the worst conclusion. I think you wanted it that way from the first—a good excuse to run. Yes, I met Mrs. Rohmer that day. She'd been Mrs. Rohmer for about eight years, during about five of which she used that name as a courtesy title only. You saw her on the eve of becoming Mrs. Mason Gates. Gates was so good a match that at long last she was willing to loosen the financial clutches she still had on me. She had ordered me to Washington at her convenience to discuss the matter.

  “Now I believe she is Mrs. Rohmer-Gates-Hardwick or something of the sort.” Under the edge of the bandages, his mouth looked thin and cruel.

  “The mistakes a man commits in his impressionable youth, Erica, can be painful—painful sometimes to the point that thereafter he avoids other emotional ties. But you were so different—” His voice changed then as he delivered a lightning attack.

  “Why, Erica, are you so afraid of becoming a woman?”

  He gave me no time to man my defenses. The truth burst painfully out of me—

  "I am afraid of—of letting go.” “

  Yes, you have always been afraid of that. So was I back then—a little—maybe that's what attracted me to you—no demands upon me while I was still licking my wounds and pulling my failure around me the way my ancestors clung to their blankets. When I saw Georgia in Washington—well, it made me suspicious of any tie again. She did have some reservations about my race. I saw you, yes, and at that moment I didn't want anything to do with any woman—she had thrown some of what she had thought to be home truths at me. So—later when I discovered you gone, and no message—I didn't try any further. Just after that I was posted overseas—the first time I was nosing along Newson's trail, really. So we ran—in opposite directions. But we can't run this time, Erica—we've both got to face fears a
nd facts.”

  “All right.” I fought to keep my outward control. “I'll admit that I ran—want to run now—is that what you want me to confess? I don't want to be involved again.” But was that the truth? He was rushing me along. I could not be sure of anything—certainly not of myself.

  “Don't you?”

  I could no longer meet his eyes as I confessed what I never thought I would ever say aloud:

  “I let myself—care for you. I never even told Aunt Otilda about you. When I saw you with—your wife—I knew I could not compete. She was everything I was not. I never could understand why you singled me out—I was nothing to interest a man like you.”

  “You little fool!” Mark's voice was near savage. “You saw nothing about yourself except what self-pity and cowardice let you see.”

  “Maybe,” I replied. His contempt, or so I read it, was bracing to me. “To have someone—to believe that someone is interested in you when he is not—it gives one a black morning after.”

  Somehow I felt released, calm. As if I could stand up, walk away, forget I had made a fool of myself for the second time.

  “Feel better?” he asked. “Haven't you heard anything I've been saying, Erica? You've been so busy scuttling away from shadowy lurkers in your life, you are blind. We're alike, I think, too apt to be self-critical when it comes to emotions. Now that's decided, let's have dinner—”

  “What's decided?”

  Again a sharp look, which I began to realize, held both impatience and embarrassment.

  He reached in his pocket and brought out a small box. Snapping it open he took out a plain band ring, studied it critically for a moment. Then, before I could evade his reach, he caught my hand, spread it out palm up and dropped the ring into the hollow.

  “I've been carrying that—perhaps as what you palefaces call a talisman. Look at it, pakahi!"

  I obeyed his order. A band of gold, and around it a series of letters very deeply etched, meant to last a long time—a lifetime.

  “O-t-s-e-e-t-s-o-h-k-é-m-a-n,” I spelled. “What does it mean?”

  Mark smiled slowly, with such warmth I had not seen for a long time.

  “Something of my people, pakahi. In the good old days when we were the only so-called Americans, warriors of standing took more than one wife. But there was always the ’otseet-sohkéman.’” He gave the strange words a rich rolling sound as if he relished speaking them. “Direct translation is ‘sits-beside-him-wife,’ she who did that on all formal occasions. I am enough of a traditionalist to have a fancy for an otseet-sohkéman of my own, pakahi, even if she reigns alone in my lodge.”

  “And what is a ’pahaki'?” I stumbled over the word, wary of his challenge.

  “ ‘Little woman'—prosaically enough. Of course, we use it with a warmer meaning than it sounds.” His smile grew broader. “I'm flying to England on business the first of February. But there is no reason why my wife cannot accompany me. Will your research be done by then?”

  At last I understood. There would never be very many words between us. Words for us both were defenses to hide behind. I did not have an articulate lover—but what I wanted—yes, what I wanted!

  I tried to match his tone, though I fear I wavered a little.

  “I see no reason why it should not.”

  Mark arose abruptly and came around the table. It was good there were no other early diners—though I do not believe he would have noticed had a banquet been in progress—nor would have I.

  One certainly did not need words, I speedily discovered—as the lurker in my shadows came at last into the open, and, I discovered, need not be feared at all.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1979 by Andre Norton

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5672-7

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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