Chapter Ten
Several hours later, Gigi was once again tucked safely in the warmth of the town house on Riverside Drive. Standing beside Sophie in the young woman’s enormous closet, she studied the contents with the critical eye of someone who’d once prided herself in her own wardrobe.
Esmeralda had spared no expense on her daughter’s attire. Despite her negative remarks about New York society, the mother wanted her only daughter to achieve success in her father’s exclusive, privileged world.
Beauty was not enough to win approval. Sophie must learn to put on airs without seeming as though she were doing so. It all started with choosing the right gown. As the young woman hesitated in indecision, Gigi fought the reflex to choose Sophie’s gown for tonight’s dinner party at her half sister’s home.
Sophie skimmed her fingertips down the skirt of a pale-pink silk dress with intricate embroidery on the bodice. It was a good choice, but not the best one. Gigi resisted the urge to say as much. She couldn’t continue picking out the young woman’s clothing. At some point, Sophie had to learn to dress appropriately for all occasions without Gigi’s help.
“Well?” Gigi asked patiently. “Which one is it to be?”
“I don’t know.”
Gigi turned her head to look at the young woman. There was enough light in the spacious closet to illuminate Sophie’s apprehensive expression. Clearly, Gigi’s work with her was not yet complete. “Would you like me to pick?”
“Yes, please.”
She reached for a gown the color of the midnight sky under a full moon.
“You think I should wear that one?” Sophie’s voice held unmistakable skepticism. “It’s not too . . . understated?”
“Tonight, understated is exactly the right approach. You want to present the picture of innocence.”
Dress in hand, Gigi indicated that the young woman should follow her back into the bedchamber.
Once Sophie had stepped into the gown and moved to the full-length mirror, Gigi took her place behind her and began the laborious process of securing the long row of buttons at her back.
Sophie was silent as Gigi worked her way from top to bottom. With each button she secured, Sophie’s confidence returned.
“Tell me, Gigi”—she faltered only briefly—“I can call you Gigi when we’re alone, can’t I?”
Gigi nodded. In truth, it was somewhat of a relief to hear her name on someone else’s lips, or rather someone other than Fitz. It made her connection with the disturbing man seem less intimate.
“What sent you into hiding?”
Gigi’s hands stilled.
“Or should I ask who?”
Gigi was too busy searching for a response—and too confused by the events of the past two days—to notice that Sophie had moved away from the mirror and was leading Gigi to a chair.
“I can’t count the times you have listened to me. Let me do the same for you.” She pressed on Gigi’s shoulders until she sat, then Sophie kneeled before her. “Tell me what happened to make you go into service.”
Gigi felt a prick of unease. She ignored it and, with a strangled laugh, glanced about the room. “I needed the job.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Even if Gigi trusted herself to speak, there were too many sordid details to unpack in a single conversation. Would Sophie judge her? She judged her mother for her affair with Warren Griffin.
It’s not the same. Nathanial hadn’t been married, as far as Gigi knew, and her time with him hadn’t produced a child. It could have ended that way.
Nathanial had pushed for intimacy. Gigi’s desire to give him everything he wanted had overruled her good sense. She’d let her emotions guide her actions. Love, or what she’d thought was love, had made her uninhibited. No, it had made her reckless.
Perhaps that was why she’d been sympathetic to young Jessica’s plight this afternoon. Gigi could have found herself abandoned with a child.
She glanced over Sophie’s shoulder and connected her gaze with her own reflection. What Gigi saw wasn’t good, or wholesome, or forgivable. What she saw was a woman who’d paid the ultimate price for love, only to have her trust destroyed and her character spoiled.
Sophie, on the other hand, may have been brought into the world by disreputable, unconventional means, but that didn’t make her any less upright. She was a faithful Christian woman who lived a blameless life.
“I asked you a question, Gigi,” Sophie said as gently as if speaking to an injured child.
Gigi didn’t want her pity. She knew the young woman meant well, but Gigi was fearful of relaxing her guard.
Her past was not something she wanted to revisit. The gullible belief that she was the most important thing in a man’s eyes had been her disgrace. How foolish she’d been, falling for Nathanial’s false promises. He’d only wanted her money. Once he’d come to understand that her father had disowned her, he’d fled.
“My story is nothing you haven’t heard before, certainly nothing original. It’s a tale as old and clichéd as one of your mother’s operas.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. “I just had a terrible thought. Are you alone in the world? Are you without family?”
Her previous employer had asked a similar question. At the time, Gigi had evaded in such a way as to give the impression that she was, indeed, alone in the world. It was a lie she couldn’t tell anymore. “No, I have family.”
“Then why not go home?”
You can never go home, an ugly voice in her head whispered. You have gone far past the point of forgiveness. You deserve censure not redemption.
She shoved the disturbing thought aside. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I was disowned.” The truth shamed her.
“Oh, my dear, dear friend. How completely awful.” Standing, Sophie pulled Gigi to her feet and wrapped her arms around her.
Gigi accepted the comforting embrace, resisting the urge to cling. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Her loneliness fought a hard battle with her embarrassment.
“Will you tell me what happened?” Sophie set Gigi away from her. “Will you tell me what terrible deed put you at odds with your own family?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You might be surprised.” Alert, watching, gaze filling with sympathy, Sophie softened her voice to a near whisper. “You’ll find no judgment from me, no condemnation. You can tell me anything.”
“I . . . wouldn’t know where to start.” Layer upon layer of misery and remorse rushed like a river through her blood. “It’s complicated.”
“Most tales such as these are.”
Gigi had a sudden, deep driving desire to share her story with Sophie. But honesty required a level of vulnerability that no longer came naturally.
“You’re going to be late.” Gigi knew her voice was too sharp, too defensive. She struggled to lighten it. “We’ll talk another time, when you aren’t rushing off to a dinner party.”
“The cause was a man, wasn’t it?”
Gigi took one long breath. “Yes.”
The cost of confession was so great that the burning in her eyes became excruciating. She stiffened her spine, refusing the release of a single tear.
“In whatever way he betrayed you—”
“I didn’t say he betrayed me.”
“You didn’t have to.”
As if sensing her distress, Othello rubbed against Gigi’s shin, a big, fat furry band of feline acceptance. Gigi picked him up and hugged the animal close, burying her nose in the thick, silky fur. He rewarded her with a rumbling purr.
“Whoever he was, he didn’t deserve you.”
Gigi’s hands tightened ever so slightly around the cat. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
“It’s the truth.” Sophie reached out and stroked Othello’s fur. “Whatever the dreadful man talked you into doing, I want you to remember that there is no sin too great for God’s forgiveness.”
Gigi lifted her head, felt the burn of tears in her throat, and dropped her face back to the cat’s neck. “That’s a rather liberal interpretation of Scripture.”
“Although I chose to paraphrase, the meaning behind my words is no less accurate.”
The cat squirmed for release. Gigi set him carefully on the floor. “Let’s finish getting you dressed.”
“Changing the subject, are we?”
“We are, yes, most definitely we are.” She attempted a laugh.
“Gigi, my dear, sweet friend. Pretending to be someone you’re not isn’t the answer. I should know better than most.”
Tears starred the edges of Gigi’s vision.
“Be truthful with yourself,” Sophie said. “Only then can true healing begin. This is advice I plan to apply to my own life. I suggest you join me in the endeavor. Now . . .” She turned to face the mirror. “Let’s get me dressed. I have a good feeling about tonight.”
Fingers slightly shaking, Gigi went back to work on the endless row of buttons.
“There is a man out there for each of us,” Sophie said, her eyes fervent and young, so young. “The most mundane details of our lives will matter to them, and they will stand by us, no matter what we face.”
Gigi sighed, wishing the spark of hope had not just ignited in her heart.
“My time for love has come and gone.” Gigi’s voice hitched over the words. “Please, don’t try to correct me on this. I . . .”
Give her a reason. Any will do, even the truth.
“I am too far from redemption to earn a good man’s love. But that doesn’t have to be the case for you, Sophie.” She thought of the promise she’d made Esmeralda. “I am here to help you avoid making the same mistakes I have.”
Sophie held Gigi’s gaze in the mirror, studying her face longer than was comfortable, her eyes searching, boring in as if she could read the very secrets of Gigi’s soul. “No one is so far from righteousness that God can’t redeem them.”
Gigi felt an odd sensation that was part confusion, part longing. “I’m not sure that applies to me.”
“God’s grace is available to all.”
“Even your mother?”
“Yes.” Although her voice never wavered, a trace of impatience played across Sophie’s face. “God’s grace is available even for my mother.”
Early the next morning, Fitz went to meet with the first doctor on his list of specialists. Dr. Trent, the one he’d been waiting to hear from, had finally responded late the previous afternoon with a brief message requesting to meet at his office before nine. Fitz had collected the names of all four doctors from extensive research. One of them had to have the answers he was looking for.
As he made his way through the morning foot traffic, he tried to banish Gigi from his mind, but that odd moment when they’d held hands wouldn’t disappear.
Even before then, Fitz had been aware of nothing but her, so lost in the moment that he’d given in to her request about the pearls with hardly a fight. His resolve had melted as if it were raining and he were a malleable pile of mushy spring snow.
Ever since the investigator had informed him of Gigi’s location, Fitz had told himself he only wanted to retrieve the pearls she’d stolen from her family. He’d told himself he was here for Connor. Now, Fitz admitted the truth. He’d come to New York for Gigi, not only to ensure she was well, but also to see her again.
She’d changed.
His feelings for her hadn’t.
Fitz knew that now, accepted it, lamented over it. He had enough to worry about without having to fight off the memory of leaning toward Gigi, moving closer, ever closer. Her eyes had been frightened yet combative, like a wild animal uncertain whether to flee or fight. What might they have done if they’d been alone?
He shouldn’t want to know. But he did.
Frustrating him further, Fitz couldn’t stop thinking about the first, and only, time he’d kissed her those years ago. The connection had been brief, barely a meeting of lips, and yet Fitz hadn’t been able to replace the image with another. He’d kissed other women. None had left him that stirred.
None had made him yearn.
He looked to the heavens, seeking guidance or perhaps a reprieve from his troubling thoughts. He found neither.
Puffs of cottony white were in constant motion, floating against the pristine blue of the sky.
Enormously preoccupied with the memory of Gigi’s lips pressed to his, Fitz nearly missed the three-story brownstone on the East Side of Manhattan. The bottom level had been converted into an exclusive medical clinic, his destination.
Almost immediately upon giving his name, he was escorted past the reception area and left to wait in a small, unassuming office that could have belonged to an attorney, a businessman, or any number of low-level clerks.
Fitz didn’t know what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it. The dark furniture, with its bold, masculine lines, was functional and sturdy but lacking all signs of craftsmanship.
A fire snapped in the hearth, giving the room a pleasant, smoky odor. The atmosphere was too warm, too inviting. Shouldn’t a place where illness and death loomed be more somber?
The sound of approaching footsteps reverberated off the walls like hammers on nails. A second later, the door opened with a long creaking groan, and in walked a man carrying a small medical bag in one hand and some sort of intense-looking apparatus in the other. He was young, close to Fitz’s age, with dark hair and grave, aristocratic features.
He wore what Fitz thought of as the quintessential doctor’s uniform of black pants, a crisp white linen shirt, and a serious expression. Fitz had seen that same look on his father’s physician far too often in the past two years. The most memorable was on the night Calvin Fitzpatrick had nearly drowned himself in Boston Harbor after forgetting he didn’t know how to swim.
“I’m Dr. Trent.” The man set down both objects he’d carried in the room with him, then reached out. “And you must be Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
Fitz shook the offered hand.
“Please. Have a seat.” Dr. Trent waved toward a matching pair of nondescript hardbacked chairs facing a large mahogany desk.
Fitz lowered himself into the one on his right.
The doctor divested himself of the bag and instrument, then, instead of rounding the desk, took the empty chair next to Fitz.
He wasted no time getting to the point of the visit. “I’ve had a chance to review your father’s medical history. His physician in Boston has been very thorough.”
Appreciating the doctor’s direct approach, Fitz pressed his palms on his thighs. “Do you have a diagnosis?”
“Before I give you my thoughts, I’d like you to tell me about your father’s condition in your own words. When did you first notice changes in his behavior?”
“I don’t know, precisely. The shift began small, in ways we didn’t notice at first. But two years ago, he started acting in ways we couldn’t dismiss as we had before.”
“How so?”
“He misplaced items, forgot names, lost his ability to recall details of past events.”
“Go on.”
“I didn’t think the problem was serious until he began having difficulty remembering names of people that have been in his life for years, some since childhood. He’d always been better with faces, so I didn’t think there was anything to worry about initially, but then”—Fitz lifted a wool-encased shoulder—“his personality changed.”
“How so?”
“He would get agitated when he couldn’t recall names or common words, mostly nouns. It was especially noticeable at the office, probably because I worked alongside him every day. He would review a contract, then be unable to repeat the important points he’d just read minutes before.”
“What about his sense of time? Any problems with that?”
Fitz shoved at the hair on his forehead, forcing himself to relay the facts with the same matter-of-fact tone he adopted for board meetings.
His father was important to him. Fitz had always admired the man. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t want to turn out exactly like him. It was as if Fitz was losing his father, little by little. Calvin was disappearing, still living and breathing, but not the same man. Fitz didn’t know how to put his silent anguish into words.
He had to try.
“Some days, it’s as if he’s right there, standing in front of me. The same intelligent, savvy businessman I’ve always known. But then, seemingly in the blink of an eye, he’s gone. It’s like he’s gotten lost in his own mind.” Fitz rubbed a hand over his face, the stubble scratching against his palm. “I’m not making sense, am I?”
The sharp planes of the doctor’s face softened. “You’re making perfect sense.”
Fitz feathered his fingers through his hair.
“We knew something was wrong when he lost his ability to make sound decisions. In the past two years, he’s made a string of bad investments. He hid the worst of his mistakes. I didn’t discover the magnitude of the situation until it was nearly too late to save the company.”
“Did you confront your father once you realized what he’d done?”
Fitz shut his eyes, the events of that spectacularly bad day turning his breath cold in his chest. “He became angry and accusatory. He claimed my cousin and I were trying to force him out of the company.”
The doctor nodded. “Anything else?”
“He’s become increasingly paranoid of late.” There was no other word for it. “He often accuses my mother and the household staff of stealing.”
Fitz laid out the details of a terrible argument over a timepiece that had sent his mother into hysterical tears. He then went on to explain his father’s refusal to bathe and his mercurial moods, ending with the increasing bouts of depression.
“Does he wander off and get lost?”
“Far too often.”
Now that the most concerning topic had been broached, Fitz unloaded the bulk of his worries. He told the doctor of the time his father had wandered off and ended up at the racetrack. He’d bet and lost a fortune on a horse with fifty-to-one odds.
“He calls me Declan,” Fitz said, shaking his head. “Declan is his younger brother who died twenty years ago.” He stared at the doctor. “Well? Is my father . . . is he going mad?”
“I can’t know for certain without a thorough examination of the patient. But what you’ve described could be a brain disease that’s most often found in patients of a certain age.”
Fitz’s pent-up frustration came out in a ragged sigh. “Can anything be done to reverse the effects?”
“The science is incomplete. The experts disagree on the best approach.”
Disappointment seeped into every bone of Fitz’s body. Ask the question, he told himself. “If he does have this brain disease, is it hereditary?”
A long, excruciating silence followed. “The research is inconclusive at this time. Did either of your father’s parents show similar degeneration as they aged?”
“They both died young, in a boating accident.”
“Ah.”
Fitz shifted in his chair, stretched out his legs, pulled them back in. No amount of repositioning his body brought him comfort.
“Let’s deal with what we know,” Dr. Trent suggested. “Rather than what we don’t.”
“That seems a logical approach.”
The doctor leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Eventually, patients with your father’s symptoms require full-time care. Simple daily activities such as dressing, feeding himself, even walking, will become too much for him to carry out on his own.”
The breath in Fitz’s lungs turned cold enough to freeze into icicles. He thought of his mother, of the pain she’d suffered already and what she would have to endure if her husband’s disease progressed to what the doctor had described.
Mary Fitzpatrick had aged considerably since his father had taken ill. How much more could she withstand before her own health suffered?
Fitz wanted to howl in fury. He’d come into this building with a sense of tempered hope. Dr. Trent’s calm, detached summation of the possible disease his father had contracted dashed that hope to pieces.
“Thank you for your candor.” Having nothing else to ask, Fitz stood. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Dr. Trent joined him at the door and shook Fitz’s hand. “I urge you not to despair. There may be another reason for the symptoms you described. I won’t know for certain until I’ve had a chance to examine your father.”
“I understand,” Fitz said, making no promises.
He still had three other experts to consult. Perhaps one of them would have better news. He wanted to cling to that chance. But as he exited the doctor’s office, the pang in his heart was grief, not hope.