Or was it all her imagination? How could a girl tell? When it was her life hanging in the balance?

“You all right, there, Liss?” said her brother.

Not wanting him to see the tears pooling in her eyes, Elissa hurried out into the hall and ran toward the back of the house, where a heavy door divided the family’s quarters from the servants’. She had rarely set foot back there, but she wanted to be alone. She opened the door, slipped in, and shut the door behind her.

Her grandparents had not had live-in servants since almost before Elissa was born; the cold hallway smelled stale. Elissa flung open the first door on the left, and entered a shadowy room. Along one wall was a narrow wrought-iron bed, still made up with a wool blanket; a narrow chest of drawers stood against the other, next to an old wash-stand and basin. She crossed to the window and stood looking out. Rain had begun to fall, and the wind spattered cold drops against the window, combining with her tears to blur the vision of her father’s car parked in front of her grandparents’ garage, the avenue swooping down to First Street, and Mrs. Fryt’s house across the avenue, forlorn-looking in the rain.

But then she saw a khaki figure with a duffel slung over his shoulder crossing the avenue, heading for downtown. He was small in the distance. She pressed her palm against the window. “Nick!” she whispered, watching as he kicked at a puddle, jogged a few steps to get out of the way of an approaching car, hopped up onto the curb below Mrs. Fryt’s house, and kept walking, holding his head high as he disappeared behind the hill. “Nick,” she whispered again, then she turned from the window, and ran.

“So, Dad,” Harry said nonchalantly, lighting a cigarette. The hostility between his brother, Jack, and his father, John, was as thick as the smoke that hung in the office’s air. Harry could tell he had come in in the middle of something, but he had something to settle with his father, too, and he knew the nervous feeling in his stomach wouldn’t go away until he did. “Guess you didn’t like Nick much, Dad.”

John exhaled loudly from where he sat in the large wingback chair in the corner. “Like I keep telling your brother, he’s not a good match for Lissa.”

Harry leaned against his father’s desk next to Jack, tapped his cigarette in the ashtray. “How come, Dad?” Harry said. “Out of curiosity.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” John said. “Chances are, he’s just after our money. Ty’s a much better match for her. A nice Pine Rapids boy.” He nodded, confirming his own opinion.

“Still, though, Dad,” Harry pressed. “Lying to Liss about it? Giving Nick that whole story about that Granton fellow? Seems a bit officious, even for you.”