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Clearly, she thinks I’m someone else. Max’s sister. Wait—he doesn’t have a sister. His new girlfriend. His cousin. Or ...
The woman looks over at me. Raises her eyebrows expectantly. “Madame?”
“I ...” I clear my throat. Look around. She’s waiting for something.
Why isn’t she asking who I am? Or telling me to leave? Or threatening to call the police?
Her sensible sheath dress, her blocky black shoes, and her placid expression are making me squirm.
“I didn’t mean to be here,” I say, my voice scratchy and uncomfortably loud. “Please don’t mention that I was here.”
I nod at her, keeping my eyes wide. Slowly, I inch toward the bedroom door.
The woman—she’s probably in her early sixties—gives me a concerned frown. She lifts the silver pot of coffee.
“Wouldn’t you like your coffee first?” she asks. Then, before I can answer, she pours a long, steaming stream of black liquid into the delicate china cup.
I’ve almost made it to the door when she holds the cup out.
Maybe she’s involved in how I arrived here. Maybe she drugs unsuspecting women by looking like a sweet grandmother and offering them butterscotch sweets from her purse. When they take the sweet, she drags them back to the Barone Estate so that ... um ... she can serve them a delicious breakfast.
Okay. Scratch that.
“I’m going to go,” I tell her. “Thank you, though, for the breakfast. Thanks.”
I give a little half-curtsy, holding the tails of the Oxford and dipping my knees. I don’t know why. It feels right.
Apparently, it looks crazy, though, because the woman’s frown deepens.
“Thanks,” I say again. “Thank you.” I keep inching toward the door.
As soon as I hit the threshold I’m going to sprint for the front door.
Almost there.
Alllllmost there.
“Didn’t you sleep well, Mrs. Barone?”
I stop. Frozen at the threshold, my foot hanging in the air. I look back at the woman.
“What did you say?”
She’s still holding the coffee. Still looking sensible and competent and unruffled. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
I shake my head, a chill roving over my spine. “No. I mean, what did you call me?”
She frowns and sets the china cup back on the tray. It hits the saucer with a sharp clink. “Mrs. Barone, aren’t you feeling well?”
That’s what I thought she said.
But just to be sure, I ask, “Did you just call me Mrs. Barone?”
She takes three quick steps forward and then presses her hand to my forehead, checking my temperature. Her fingers are dry and cool against my flushed skin.
She tsks. “Over-warm. I knew it. I warned Mr. Barone—she’s coming down with a chill. Do not take her out to dinner and the opera. Do not keep her out all night. But he didn’t listen, did he? No, he did not. And now you don’t even want your breakfast.”
She humphs, and the amount of meaning in that humph nearly trumps my mom’s abilities.
