“Fifteen minutes!” Maggie said, running out of the room like her dress was still on fire. Sam collapsed back onto the couch and shook his head.

“You’ll have to carry me downstairs,” he said. “I’ll be too weak by then.”

She didn’t know why she’d gone, Alva thought as she swung through the grand front doors of Gilsey House. Her parents had made it more than clear they weren’t interested in seeing her, and if one thing was absolutely true about Edna and Thomas Rensselaer, it was that they didn’t change their minds.

Perhaps Alva had thought that if they knew she was standing only a few feet away they’d experience some sort of parental compulsion to see her. Which was really quite stupid, given that she’d lived a few floors away from them for a large part of her life and they’d never felt the need to see her then. Still, she’d gone, and she’d waited on the stoop in the snow for fifteen agonizing minutes while the poor red-faced maid who’d answered the door had gone to discover whether Alva was to be admitted.

She hadn’t even been allowed to wait in one of the receiving rooms. Apparently her mother had foreseen that an impromptu visit was a possibility and had instructed the maids not to admit her without express permission.

Of course, waiting on the stoop had been far more pleasant than what had come next: the young maid, visibly distressed, returning to inform her that her mistress had already communicated her wishes regarding Mrs. Webster’s visit and wished to inform her that a repeat attempt would be ill-advised and would, indeed, merely embarrass both parties. The girl had stumbled a bit on the word “embarrass,” and momentarily Alva hadn’t been sure if she’d manage to complete the message. She had, though, which Alva thought showed quite a bit of courage.

The hotel lobby was crowded with guests already changed into evening wear and preparing for a night out in the big city. One particularly rowdy group stood outside the entrance to the restaurant, and Alva let her eyes rest on them. A family, roughhousing and arguing and enjoying one another. The familiar envy cut through her: a quick pain, replaced almost immediately by weary acceptance. She steered a path well clear of them and headed for the stairs.

She was almost to the foot of them when someone called her name. A very particular someone whom she’d thought about more than she cared to admit in the last three weeks. It was because of the damned letters. The man didn’t know how to give up.