“Why would she be upset?” Keegan asked. The way he held her now, he could feel her heartbeat in his arms. “I’d think your mother would be happy you’d found someone before she—you know. Before she was gone.”

Eve turned her damp face up to him. Whatever makeup she was wearing was streaked down her cheeks now. “You don’t know?” she said. “Your Lieutenant Moore didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

She pressed herself to him again, like she couldn’t bear to look in his eyes, didn’t want to see his reaction. “Merrill was a black man,” she said simply. “I loved him more than anyone—but it would have killed my mother. She has very strong opinions about such things.”

Eve was right: the lieutenant hadn’t mentioned that detail. Moore’s omission seemed significant in some way, but, in this moment, Keegan couldn’t fathom what it meant or what difference it could make. “How did the two of you fall in love?”

“Merrill was an appraiser,” she said. “For the insurance company. He came to the house after my grandfather died to sort through the family’s assets. Granda was an avid collector—of just about everything. Rare books. Jewelry. Old maps. But he was alone in his passions. None of us had the remotest idea what he’d left behind.”

The side of her face was pressed to his chest again. He could feel her voice while he listened to it.

“At first, my mother wanted to send Merrill away,” she said. “She said she didn’t want a colored man in the house. She wanted me to call the insurance company to have them send someone more appropriate—which would have been mortifying. I had to convince her to let him do his job. I promised her I’d stay with him every minute.” Without lifting her head, she laughed—a small, bitter sound. “And I did,” she said. “Every single minute. If she only knew.”

Keegan could imagine it: Eve following the man through the vast, echoing rooms, listening to him talk about topaz and Tamerlane, while she brought him tea and pastries on a silver tray. “And one thing led to another,” he said. “That’s the way these stories always go.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she said. She lifted her head to look at him and then rested her cheek against his chest again. “He was a lot like you, Merrill was,” she said. “He was smart and witty and confident.”

He could feel her fingers gather the fabric of his shirtfront as she spoke.

“I couldn’t help but be smitten,” she said. “I especially loved the way he didn’t let the family’s money push him around. He was no one’s sycophant.”