CHAPTER 10 Two Men and a Staircase

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Vittorio Marchetti did not enter a room. He took possession of it.

He came into the Great Hall of Hollin Hall in a camel coat with a fur collar, his silver hair brushed back, his hands extended, as though he had been welcomed by a hundred people instead of one stunned footman. He looked at the portraits, the staircase, the roaring fireplace, and the twelve-foot tree glittering with Hale heirlooms, and he smiled with such open, radiant delight that Elodie, standing on the landing with her heart in her throat, almost believed it.

“Cara!” He took the stairs two at a time, arms wide. “My Elodie. Let me look at you. You are thinner. They don’t feed you?”

“Papa.” She let him embrace her. He smelled of vanilla and wool and the cologne he had worn since her childhood. For a moment, in spite of everything, her eyes stung.

“And this must be the man.”

Julian had come down the corridor in his dark suit. He walked with a calm, level stride that she now knew was armor, and he stopped on the third step from the bottom and inclined his head, an exact quarter inch. “Mr. Marchetti. Julian Hale. I am glad you could come.”

“Are you? I wonder.” Vittorio’s smile did not change. His handshake lasted a heartbeat too long. “You are younger than I imagined. Taller. And much quieter. My daughter, she talks. You must be a restful companion.”

“I try to be useful.”

“Do you?” A pleasant glance. “I have always thought Hales were famous for the opposite. Ships and storms. A family that is very good at leaving, I understand. And at being left.”

Elodie felt Julian’s hand, still held in her father’s, go very slightly white.

“Papa,” she said warmly, “come and have coffee. You’ve driven a long way.”

“Of course. Of course. Anders!” He raised his voice. “Come in, come in. Don’t stand in the cold like a salesman.”

And through the doorway, brushing snow from his shoulders with the casual ease of a man who had never been unwelcome anywhere, came Anders Voss.

He looked exactly as he had at the gala. Sandy hair, even teeth, a coat that had cost more than a car. He crossed the hall in four strides, took Elodie’s hand, and kissed it, a gesture that should have been absurd and was, somehow, only graceful.

“Elodie. I would say you look beautiful, but I’ve noticed you don’t believe it when people say so.” He smiled, warm and rueful. “I’ve never understood why.”

“Hello, Anders.”

“I’m sorry to arrive like this. Your father insisted. I told him it was an intrusion.” His eyes lifted past her shoulder to Julian, and there was a flash in them, quick and bright and gone. “Mr. Hale. I’ve long admired your work. The Rotterdam consolidation was clever.”

“Mr. Voss.” Julian’s voice was glass. “I’m surprised you read the trade papers.”

“I read everything about the people I’m going to be working with.”

It was a perfectly polite sentence. It landed on the stairs like a dropped knife.

By two o’clock Elodie had been steered into the sunroom, then the library, then a corner of the conservatory, by one man or the other, each time with a different excuse. Anders needed to ask about the flavor lines. Her father wanted to show her a document. Anders asked, so very gently, whether she was happy, and when she said yes, he said, “I’m glad. I only worry, because I’ve seen your face when you talk about him, and it’s the same face you make at a spreadsheet you’re trying to like.”

She almost laughed. It was precisely the sort of observation that was true, and unkind, and delivered with such sympathy that it was nearly impossible to resent.

“You don’t know him,” she said.

“No. But I know you.” He smiled. “Five years of board meetings. I know when you’re doing arithmetic.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” He touched her elbow, lightly. “Elodie. I’m not your enemy. I’m the one man in this house who isn’t after something.”

“You’re after my company.”

“I’m after you, as a partner. The company is a bonus.” His eyes held hers. “Think about it. When the story is over.”

She stepped back. And there, at the end of the long glass corridor, framed in the afternoon light with his hands at his sides, stood Julian.

He had been there a while. She saw it in the set of his shoulders. He did not move. He did not speak. He stood with the cold light on his face, and she watched him look at Anders’s hand on her elbow, and then at her, and then, with a single, shuttering motion, at nothing.

“Mr. Hale,” said Anders pleasantly. “We were only discussing…”

“I’m sure.” He turned and walked away, quite slowly, and each step struck the marble like a nail.

She caught him on the staircase. She did not run. She walked fast, and she said his name, and he did not stop until they reached the landing, where the portraits looked down and the tree glittered through the banister and no one at all could see them.

“Julian.”

“Don’t.” He did not turn. “Please. I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I am entirely fine. It’s a business arrangement. It’s section four, subsection b. You are permitted to talk to any man you like. I have no standing…”

“Julian.”

“…no claim, no right, and it would be absurd, absurd, to…” He stopped. His hand had closed on the banister so hard the knuckles stood out. “I am being ridiculous.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Yes.” It came out low, and savage, and very clear. He turned around then, and his face was bare. “Yes. All right? I am. You asked for the truth. Section Twelve. I stood in that corridor, and I wanted to put him through a window. I have never felt that in my life, and I don’t know what to do with it, and it is not in the contract.”

For a moment she could hear nothing but her own pulse.

“Anders is nothing,” she said. “He’s a very polite shark. I wouldn’t…”

“I know.” He passed a hand over his eyes. “I know. That’s the problem. I know you wouldn’t, and I still feel it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have to manage this.”

“Julian. Look at me.” She stepped forward until the toes of her shoes touched his. “I’m not managing anything. I’m standing here because I want to.”

He looked down at her. The cold, careful man was gone, and in his place was only a person, young and wary and hopeful, who had been told for nine years that wanting was a form of weakness.

“Then stand by me tonight,” he said, hoarsely. “At dinner. When your father says what he’s going to say. I can take it. I would just like to not be alone in the room.”

“You’re not alone,” said Elodie.

Below them, the great hall door opened on a rush of snow and bright voices, and the household came in from the pond. And on the landing, hidden in the soft light between the portraits, he caught her hand and pressed it once, hard, against his chest, over his heart. Then he let go.