Jordan’s little sister ignored her, standing transfixed by a brooch in the display cabinet—a little wrought-silver violin to be worn on some music-loving woman’s lapel. “Can I have it?” she whispered.
“Certainly not, Ruth. It’s far too old and valuable.”
“But—”
“Don’t be greedy, it’s an unattractive quality in children.” Anneliese bore Ruth off to the back, and Jordan looked back at her father.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Just some wedding plans. Anna wanted to take you shopping for a dress.”
Jordan adjusted the diamond over her finger again. Picking a wedding dress . . . That seemed like a very large step. Very final. She blew out a breath. “I put myself entirely in her hands. We’ll even take pictures at the fitting.”
“Get a picture of her while you’re at it. You know how she’s always ducking the camera.”
“Mmm,” Jordan said. Unfortunately, the best picture she’d ever taken of Anneliese was still that first one, the shot in the kitchen with her head half turned and her eyes as sharp as razors.
“I wanted to talk to you about a wedding present.” He fished a little box out of his pocket, turning pink around the ears. “To wear on the big day—‘something old,’ you know . . .”
“Oh, Dad.” Jordan touched the earrings with a fingertip: gold-feathered art deco wings with big pearls swinging below.
“Lalique, 1932. Rose gold settings, freshwater pearls.” He shuffled a bit. “Your birthstone. A good smart girl like you, who picked yourself out a good smart man and a good smart future—a daughter like that deserves pearls.”
Jordan hugged him, throat thick as she inhaled his aftershave. “Thank you.”
He squeezed her back. “All this wedding talk, flowers and dresses—we haven’t talked about afterward, the important things. If you want to keep house for Garrett, or if you want to keep your hand in here at the shop.”
Thinking about after the wedding was almost impossible, like the crest of a hill she couldn’t see beyond. She knew Garrett’s father had spoken to Garrett about helping them with an apartment and then a house; she knew her father had probably been part of that discussion too, though no one had talked to her. But exactly how life alongside Garrett was going to continue after the honeymoon was still in many ways a question mark. “I know I want to work,” she said firmly.
“Well, take some time after the honeymoon. I’ll put up a Help Wanted sign this week, look for another clerk. Some suave fellow or pretty girl to work the counter; Mr. Kolb hasn’t got the English for that.” Jordan’s father hesitated, fingering his suit’s lapel. “Anything ever strike you about Kolb, missy?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He always looks furtive anytime I come in to check on the restoration work. And with his English so patchy, I can’t ask him anything but the simplest questions. Of course Anna translates anything tricky.” A pause, looking toward the backroom door where Anneliese and Ruth and Mr. Kolb had vanished. “I just wondered what you thought, working around him more than I do.”
The last thing Jordan was going to do was make wild speculations about anyone’s past. “I’m sure it’s just his nerves, Dad. The war, you know.”
“Does he bring people into the shop? Not customers, I mean bringing people into the back.”
“Not that I’ve noticed. Why?” The afternoon sun was coming through the window strong and golden, highlighting her father beautifully. Jordan moved for her camera, stashed behind the door. “Stay right there—”
“I came up here one day and Kolb had another German fellow in the back room. Older, a Berliner, didn’t speak a word of English. Kolb went off in a babble, I could just about get that it was a rare books expert he’d brought in to consult.”
“He has experts in sometimes.” Jordan checked her film, lifted the Leica. “Anna gave him permission.” Click.
“That’s what she said. I just wondered. You have to be careful in a business that attracts swindlers.” A shrug. “Well, Kolb does free me up, even if he makes me twitch sometimes. I want to tell him to relax before he frets himself into a heart attack.”
“You’re the one who never relaxes!” Jordan lowered her camera. “You promised you’d take an afternoon’s fishing at the lake this spring, and you haven’t been once.”
He laughed. “I’ll go soon, missy. I promise.”
The backroom door opened then, and Anneliese’s dark head reappeared. “Does she like the earrings?”
“She does.” Jordan grinned. “Did you help pick them?”
“Not a bit.” Anneliese shut the door on Mr. Kolb in the back room, Ruth peering at the broken-spined book he was repairing. “I thought next Saturday we might shop for a wedding dress? I may be able to stitch up a chic sundress, but wedding gowns are beyond me. I saw one in the window at Priscilla of Boston, empire princess silhouette, seed pearls—”
“I think I’ve picked which weekend I’m going to the lake,” Jordan’s father decided. “Suddenly I fancy tramping after some spring turkey.”
“You hunt turkey.” Anneliese gave Jordan a woman-to-woman smile. “We ladies shall hunt French Chantilly and petal-drop caps. I for one know which hunt will be the more ruthless.”
A week later, Jordan was standing in the lavish fitting room at Priscilla of Boston on Boylston Street when the news came. Swathed in ivory satin exploding into a huge bell of a skirt, turning her head to feel the Lalique pearls swinging as Anneliese waved away the salesgirl trying to suggest ruffles: “My stepdaughter is not a ruffles sort of bride.” Turning to tease Anneliese with some mother-of-the-bride joke, thinking how glad she was that the two of them could laugh and tease each other now. That was when Jordan saw Anneliese’s eyes go toward the door, where a man in a dark suit stepped forward.
“Mrs. Daniel McBride?” Waiting for Anneliese’s nod. “The clerk at your shop said you could be found here. It’s about your husband.”
Jordan stepped off the dressmaker’s dais, feeling ivory satin pool around her feet. Her eye was taking pictures in jerky little snaps. The man in the suit, looking uncomfortable—click. Anneliese frozen still, face draining of color, a Chantilly wedding veil dropping from her hands—click.
The man cleared his throat. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”
Chapter 23
Ian
May 1950
Aboard the SS Conte Biancamano
It was the first leisure Ian had known in years. Sitting in the cinema lounge of the great ocean liner, nothing to do but watch the parade of passengers in dinner jackets and sequined evening gowns, cigarette smoke and jazz swirling together in idle seduction, dark water of the Atlantic sliding past outside. Enjoy it, the ship seemed to whisper. A little lotus-eating time before the chase begins in Boston.
“I’m so bloody bored I could jump over the rail,” he said to his companion.
She grinned: a tall lanky woman in her fifties, loose trousers and boar-tusk ivory bracelets, a faint stammer, and mangled-looking hands that drew stares. “Another d-drink?”