The Moon by Night (37 page)

Manon Fortier, now Pettijohn, pregnant and making a new life in an exciting new city with the young man who had pursued her so passionately for so long, was blissfully ignorant of Marcus's lack of judgment and his lamentable self-deception, especially where finances were concerned. After years of being the dutiful consort of a much older, supremely unexciting man, she had finally, after a full two years of Marcus's impassioned courtship, succumbed to what she thought was an eternal, selfless love. She saw no shadows on this rosy view of the future.

But, of course, the bubble had burst. Manon had found solace and then escape in laudanum, brandy, and wormwood. Marcus had simply constructed another bubble world and had moved into it, once again leaving the others far behind and forgotten.

****

Marcus Pettijohn watched the Steen box as intently as if his life depended on it. He had arrived early so that he could take the most advantageous seat in the first gallery. It was close enough to the Steen box that he could see them clearly, and if Mrs. Buchanan looked this way, he was close enough that she would be able to recognize him.

He had hoped fervently that Victoria Buchanan would look around with her glasses and see him. If she did, he had told himself, she would certainly make some signal of recognition, and that would mean that he was invited to their box. That was his first and best plan.

But even if Victoria did not look at him and give him this unspoken invitation, Marcus had determined that he was going to drop by the Steen box anyway. After all, he knew Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan and Cheney Duvall and her big thug of a husband—he couldn't recall the man's name, for it didn't factor into any of his plans—so as an acquaintance, it would not be impertinent for him to visit the box at intermission. He thought, hoped,
planned
that Mrs. Buchanan would ask him to stay in their box if he managed to time his visit just before the lights went down to signal the end of the intermission. Certainly she would. Certainly she must. For then he could say exactly the right things in exactly the right offhand, devil-may-care sophisticated manner so that Victoria would respond exactly as she should, and then he would be invited to join them in their box, and that would be opening the door to paradise, and he would never have to huddle in the nether regions again with poor, crude, loud women like Star.

But as he watched the Steen box during the first and second acts of the opera, he realized that neither Dr. Devlin Buchanan nor Dr. Cheney Duvall were there.
They must be busy at the hospital,
he reasoned.
I heard Dr. Duvall talking with Victoria about the dress she would wear…and doesn't Victoria look absolutely luscious in that violet…. I heard Victoria say that for once her husband had definitely left tonight open
.

He ruminated. He fretted. He debated. He considered his course of action.

If I go over to their box, they'll tell me how busy it is at the hospital and I'll have to work this weekend, but Victoria will see me as the man of action, the man who moves in and takes care of the problems, the man she can lean on, trust, who won't neglect her and leave her to attend the opera alone and…to sleep alone…

Marcus lost several valuable minutes as his mind slipped off into a crimson-colored jumble of visions. When he finally settled down enough to regain his senses and resume his planning, he knew that the time for action was almost gone.

But in the clarity following the confusion, he realized that his plan was undone anyway. Now there was no chance that he could take that first step into the heady world of the rich and privileged and begin the process of getting Victoria Buchanan to see him as a man worthy of her attentions. If he went to the Steens' box now, Victoria would be glad to see him, but it would only be because he would dash off to work at that dreary hospital so that her husband, and probably her friend Dr. Duvall, could take their leisurely weekend off while he ignobly toiled. Victoria would think him valuable, yes, but for the same reason she did now: as an underling, one of many boring clerks who were connected to her only by the tenuous drab gray line of business.

It would gain me nothing,
he told himself with a furtive satisfaction. He didn't want to work that weekend. He had new clothes, he had money, he had a woman waiting for him who had no grace nor elegance but who could be incredibly exciting.

As the ushers began lowering the gaslights, signaling the end of intermission, Marcus made his decision and formulated his new plan.

I'll watch the rest of the performance,
he thought indulgently.
I've always loved
Fidelio.
Then I'll go see Star and take her out. And tomorrow we shall see what the day brings
.

It was almost two o'clock on Sunday afternoon before Cheney could get away from a mountain of duties at the hospital to have luncheon in her office with Shiloh. As she wearily made her way up the stairs to the office, she lifted her head and sniffed—a perfectly heavenly aroma of hot bread.

“Doc? Come on, I'm getting this timed just right,” Shiloh called.

Suddenly Cheney didn't feel so tired. With a light step and a smile she ran up the stairs.

The offices of Devlin Buchanan, Cheney Duvall, and Cleve Batson were located in a small free-standing house facing Sixth Avenue. The two floors had exactly the same floor plan: two bedrooms, a parlor, a kitchen, and a large bath with modern plumbing. Though Cheney and Dev had left the kitchen intact while they were the only two physicians in the partnership, when they had brought Cleve Batson in and both Cheney and Dev had located permanently to New York, they had renovated the downstairs kitchen as an office for Cleve.

Cleve had lived upstairs in the flat for about a year and a half, until his practice had established him financially well enough to buy the house, exactly like the offices, two doors up the avenue. Now as Cheney ran up the stairs, she knew, from following her nose, that the delicious fresh bread fragrance was coming from the parlor, not the kitchen.

Shiloh was sitting on the floor in front of the generous fireplace holding a long-handled grill pan over a deep bed of glowing embers with very small intense blue flames dancing above them. It was a cheery, warming sight that contrasted sharply with the dreary icy day showing through the double windows in the small but comfortable room. Sean and Shannon were sprawled on two settees, one done in crimson velvet, the other in gold velvet. When Cheney came in, Shannon lifted her head in greeting, giving Cheney a voluminous yawn. Sean's long skinny tail thumped twice, but he was evidently too exhausted to raise his head.

“Try to contain your excitement, you two,” Cheney said dryly as she first patted Shannon's head and then Sean's. Throwing herself down on the carpet in front of the fireplace, she grabbed Shiloh and noisily planted a kiss on his hot cheek. “I can't believe it! Crumpets! They smell so delicious that if the aroma drifts out into the street, we'll have people coming here instead of to the hospital!”

“They'd better not,” Shiloh grumbled. “I'm going to eat everything that you leave.”

“How many do we have?” Cheney asked, peering into the covered basket on an enormous tea tray at Shiloh's side.

“Six,” he answered.

“Oh! You fibber! There's eight, and I'm making no promises about leaving any,” Cheney cried. “Where in the world did you get fresh crumpets?”

“PJ taught Sketes,” Shiloh said with pride. “He loves 'em too. Said his mum got so tired of making them for him all the time that she finally made him learn how to make 'em.”

The soft light bread, rather like American muffins but not sweetened, was cooked on a griddle. It took a skillful cook to learn how to griddle a leavened bread. Shiloh and Cheney had learned to love them on their honeymoon when they visited the West Indies islands that were British colonies. Most of the islands had English high teas. Generally crumpets were best when they were split and buttered and toasted, hot from the fire. Cheney poured tea while Shiloh finished toasting four of them. After saying grace, they hungrily ate crumpets and drank several cups of tea while they talked.

“I was so late last night I was too tired to even ask you about
Fidelio,
” Cheney said. “I've never seen it. Did you like it?”

“Sure did. The music was kinda grand, epic, like Beethoven's symphonies. You know what I mean?”

“I certainly do,” Cheney said, her eyes alight. “I cannot believe that you are such a music aficionado. But then, my mother taught me that as far as music goes, it's a mystical endowment. It has nothing to do with musical talent or education. Either you understand it or you don't. If you understand it you will love it. If you don't understand it, you may like it, you may enjoy it immensely, you may even play or sing, but it doesn't touch your soul.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cheney said dryly. “Or maybe she just made it up to comfort herself for my utter lack of musical talent.”

“You have other talents. You're the best doctor in the world.”

“Hardly.”

“One of the best,” Shiloh said firmly. “You're learning that, aren't you, Doc? Because you need to know that. If you don't accept that knowledge, including the responsibility it comes with, then you're not just cheating yourself, you're cheating your patients.”

Her green eyes were thoughtful as she turned to listen to him, unblinking. Finally she said, “I think I am learning it, yes. But I have to say it was so much easier to know and accept when…when—oh, never mind,” she said, taking another huge bite of crumpet. “Ithkipthikigboutith.”

“Miss Irene would have the vapors if she heard you talking with your mouth full. And so would Fiona. She's not as bossy as Dally and Rissy and Nia, but she's coming around. She practically rang my bell this morning when I started to leave with the crumpets but not with the dogs' food.”

Cheney took a sip of steaming tea. “Speaking of which, how in the world have you kept them from mobbing us? I mean, I already know they think that larger pieces of furniture are for dogs and not humans, but I can't believe they aren't over here begging piteously for crumpets.”

Carelessly Shiloh waved half a crumpet in the air. “I just told 'em that if they made a nuisance of themselves, I'd lock 'em up in the kitchen.”

Cheney frowned, then her eyebrows shot up. “Why—you're lying! I can tell! You're lying to me, Shiloh Irons-Winslow! What—oh, now I get it. Sketes made a dozen crumpets, didn't she? And there were eight left! Oh, Shiloh, don't tell me you fed those dogs each two crumpets!”

“Well, they were hungry,” he said defensively. “You've eaten four.”

“I haven't! Oh—I have. Still, Shiloh, you can't feed puppies rich things like that. It will make them sick!”

“I didn't butter them, Doc,” he argued. “Just by themselves they aren't that rich, you know. I just…heated them up a little.”

“Toasted crumpets!” Cheney declared. “What next? Midnight dinners at Delmonico's?”

“For
Irish
wolfhounds? Surely not! It'll be bangers and mash and trotters at O'Bannon's!”

Cheney giggled. “I think you forget, monsieur, that these are
French
Irish wolfhounds. They'd probably turn their noses up at anything less than haute cuisine. What's wrong?”

Shiloh looked startled, then quickly smiled. “Nothing. It's just that I'd forgotten I'd told you about the French part.”

“The French part? You mean that the berth next to
Locke's Day Dream
is owned by a French company?” Cheney asked, bewildered. “I mean, that's why I assumed that the little boy and the captain were French. You did say that the name of the ship was
Le Cheval du Mercredi
. It's so funny, the way they name their ships.”

“Oh yeah, it is.” He poured Cheney another cup of tea and added more sugar and cream.

She asked hesitantly, “Shiloh, you wouldn't ever lie to me, would you?”

“No.” The single word was curt and vehement. Then as he handed Cheney's fresh cup of tea to her, he smiled and winked at her. “But if I didn't answer truthfully…”

“You—Oh no, sir. I'm not going to fall for that old joke,” Cheney said sturdily. “I know you wouldn't lie to me, Shiloh. I'm just—sometimes I just don't know what you're thinking.”

“That's easy. I'm thinking 'bout you.”

“Mm-hm. But this reminds me. When I came in, you said you had timed this just right. How did you know? I mean, I'd been trying to get away to lunch ever since noon. How did you know when I was coming?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I just figured you were probably on your way, so I started toasting up crumpets.”

She sighed. “I hate it when you do that.”

He turned to look at her and asked somberly, “You do?”

She frowned, then answered, “No. I don't.”

He nodded, satisfied. “I knew you wouldn't lie to me either.”

Gravely she said, “No, I never will. And that's why I must tell you, my darling…”

“Mm-hm?”

“You have butter on your lips,” Cheney said softly. “Come close so I can attend to it….”

****

Cheney disliked days such as this when the sun never shone and the colorless day slipped into dreary twilight and then into darkness. It was hard to remain cheerful and comforting to patients when the day was so bleak. But as she made perhaps her twentieth round of the wards, she rebuked herself.
It's not because of the weather. It's because it's so very difficult to be on duty for such a long time. Going without rest has a debilitating effect even on healthy people.

Except Shiloh. He's so strong
.