“I meant to come sooner. I tried to leave yesterday morning but my flight was delayed.”

“Why are you here?” Nora asked and Grace met her eyes.

“Zachary leaves for California tomorrow. I could hardly stand it when he was in New York. California seems like the other side of the world. His mornings would be my nights.” Grace breathed in and exhaled slowly. Nora stayed silent and let her talk. “I should have come weeks ago. I called him…I told him there was a blackout, and I couldn’t find the torch. There I was with every light on in the house lying to him just to hear his voice.”

“Sounds like something I would do.” It was easy to see why Zach had loved this woman so fiercely. She had a poetic beauty to her, a gentleness that belied her undeniable fortitude.

“There was something in his voice when we spoke, something that frightened me. He sounded farther away than just an ocean. I talked myself in and out of coming. Now I have to wonder—am I too late? No, don’t answer that. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll answer any question you ask, Grace.”

“I shouldn’t ask. I forfeited my right to ask the first night I spent with Ian. I say the first night as if there were dozens of them instead of just three rather humiliating awkward affairs. It only took a week to realize what a foolish mistake I’d made. But I was so young when Zachary and I married, and it was under such horrid circumstances.”

“I know. Zach told me. I’m very sorry.”

Grace gave Nora a quivering but determined smile.

“He must care about you very much to have told you about us. Even his best mates, he never told them.”

Nora shrugged. “I beat it out of him.”

“I think he’s always been embarrassed by it, by me.”

“No, I promise you he wasn’t. I think he was only ashamed of himself. You were young and he was your teacher—”

“My teacher, yes.” Grace laughed. “Every girl I knew was half in love with Zachary. He talked to us like we were equals.” She smiled at a memory. “He wore the most dignified, scholarly ties every day.”

Nora conjured the image last night of Zach blindfolded with her black tie.

“Zach in a tie is quite a sight to behold,” Nora agreed.

“A suit and tie every day.” Grace grinned. “He was so bloody proper and so handsome strolling the grounds with the ancient old profs hoary with beards quoting Shakespeare and Marlowe from memory…we’d all nearly faint when he strolled past, suit jacket over his shoulder and carrying that staid leather briefcase. We girls had our own ideas about what to do with those ties of his.”

“You’re a woman after my own heart.”

“The first night with him—” Grace stopped. Her voice drifted far away. “I thought I was on a suicide mission. I went to tell him I was in love with him. I thought for certain he’d throw me out. Instead, he made love to me. I know I should have stopped it, should have warned him I wasn’t on birth control, but I didn’t want him to stop. The moment he kissed me I felt like I’d won the world. And even after all that happened, I still felt the same. But it isn’t easy to be married to someone when you have this terrible banshee voice in your head screeching that he only married you out of guilt.”