Delaney made a great play of folding the newspaper, then of slipping it into the rosewood rack of other newspapers and journals that stood beside his armchair. His parlor was wonderfully comfortable with leather chairs, a big round polished table, books on every wall, plaster busts of great Virginians and, over the mantel, a massive mirror with a gilded frame of linked cherubs and aspiring angels. Some of Delaney’s precious porcelain collection was displayed on the mantel, while other pieces stood among the leather-bound books. Delaney now made his brother wait even longer as he polished the half-moon glasses and carefully folded them into a velvet-lined case. “What on earth,” he finally asked, “do you expect me to do about the damned girl?”

“I want you to help me,” Ridley said pathetically.

“Why should I? The girl is one of your whores, not one of mine. She sought you out, not me. She’s carrying your child, not mine, and her father’s revenge threatens your life, certainly not mine, and do I really need to continue?” Delaney stood, crossed to the mantel, and took one of his yellow paper-wrapped cigarettes, which he used to import from France, but which now, he supposed, would become rarer than gold dust. He lit the cigarette with a spill ignited from the coal fire. It was astonishing that he should need a fire this late in the year, but the rains that had come thundering out of the east had brought unseasonably cold winds. “Besides, what can I do?” He went on airily. “You’ve already tried to buy her off and it didn’t work. So clearly you’ll just have to pay her more.”

“She’ll just come back,” Ridley said. “And back again.”

“So what exactly does she want?” Delaney knew he would have to help his half-brother, at least if he was to go on profiting from the Faulconer Legion purchases, but he wanted to stretch Ethan on the rack a little before he agreed to find a solution to the problem posed by Sally Truslow’s unexpected arrival in the city.

“She wants me to find her somewhere to live. She expects me to pay for that, then to give her still more money every month. Naturally I’ve got to keep her bastard too. Jesus Christ!” Ridley swore viciously as he considered Sally’s outrageous demands.

“Not just her bastard, but yours, too,” Delaney pointed out unhelpfully. “Indeed, my own nephew! Or niece. I think I’d prefer a niece, Ethan. Would she be a half-niece, do you think? Maybe I could be her half-godfather.”