“They won’t think that of Garrett Byrne if he decides to get over you by dating every girl in Boston,” Anneliese pointed out.
“Things are different for men, and you know it.” Jordan added more soap to the dishwater. “Surely it was just the same in Austria when you were growing up.”
“Yes.” Anneliese leaned against the sink, thoughtful. “Perhaps your father wouldn’t approve of you going out again so soon after ending a five-year engagement, but . . .”
“What about you? What do you think?” Please don’t disapprove, Jordan thought. She hadn’t realized just how much she valued Anneliese’s good opinion.
Anneliese smiled, looking downright impish. “I think that if the end of a five-year engagement isn’t the time for a frothy summer romance, then what is?”
Jordan laughed, relief and delight warming her cheeks. “You are wicked sometimes, Anna.”
“And you’re a grown woman of twenty-two who should enjoy her freedom. Sensibly,” Anneliese added, lifting a rinsed-off saucer out of the dishwater. “I’m enough of a mother to ask that your frothy summer romance be conducted without throwing every caution to the winds.”
Jordan sincerely hoped Anneliese wasn’t going to initiate a chat about the facts of life—there were some things you did not want to discuss with your stepmother, no matter how marvelous and faintly wicked she might be—but Anneliese just dried the saucer and asked, “So this new young man who asked you on a date. Is he handsome like a movie star?”
Jordan thought of Tony’s lean, cheerful face. “Not exactly.”
“Tall?”
“No, my height.”
“Did he save you heroically from being hit by a car or eaten by a dragon?”
“No, we met over a pie.”
Another laugh. “He must have something special. Not just pie!”
Jordan considered. “He knows how to look. Really look, when a woman is talking.”
“Ah.” Her stepmother sighed. “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.”
“Exactly.” Jordan handed her a plate to dry. “Did Dad know how to look?”
“It was the first thing I noticed about him. He could admire a lady as though he were admiring a beautiful porcelain vase, without making her feel he was affixing a price tag.”
“That’s nice.” As silent as Anneliese was about her early life, she would always talk about Jordan’s father. It eased the hurt of missing him.
“Well, I wondered if it might be our new clerk with the black eyes who was making you dreamy, but surely you didn’t meet him over pie.” Anneliese turned to put away the gravy boat, missing Jordan’s suppressed smile. “Just as well—that new clerk is Polish, isn’t he? Poles are hard workers, but they’re so emotional and untrustworthy in some ways.”
Just when she seems like a woman of the world, Jordan thought, she turns into Mr. Avery on the corner, warning everyone that Wops are slippery and Micks are lazy. Jordan had always bit her tongue when it came to such comments from Anneliese, because her father chided, It’s rude to contradict your stepmother even if you disagree with her. But he wasn’t here anymore, and Jordan said tartly, “Anna, that opinion is ridiculous.”
But Anneliese had already changed the subject, reaching for more soap and looking pensive. “I don’t suppose your mystery admirer is English, is he? Mr. Kolb telephoned me about an Englishman who had asked him some questions . . . I wondered if you’d seen someone like that hanging about.”
Jordan supposed it must have been Ian Graham dropping in to catch Tony at work—she’d offered to give him directions to the shop for Ruth’s lesson, and he’d said he’d been before. “I’m not going on a date with any Englishmen. At least not that I know of!” Making a joke of it to dispense with the subject of Mr. Graham, considering she’d just hired him behind Anneliese’s back.
“Well, perhaps Mr. Kolb was being needlessly fearful. Or,” Anneliese added dryly, “drunk again.”
“I’ve smelled his breath in the mornings,” Jordan admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything, considering it doesn’t affect his work.”
“He had a bad war. It makes some people drink, and it makes others see trouble where there isn’t any.” Anneliese dried her hands on her apron, still thoughtful. “Do let me know, though, if anyone comes about asking questions. If Mr. Kolb is in some kind of trouble, I’d like to know.”
Jordan blinked. “What kind of trouble would he be in?”
“A man who drinks can always find trouble.”
Anneliese still looked pensive, warm kitchen light bathing her dark hair and dark dress. The shot distracted Jordan. “Stay like that and let me take your picture.”
“You know I hate that!”
“Please let me snap you for my series. The essential you at work—”
“And what work would that be?”
Jordan paused. What did Anneliese do that summed up her essence? Cooking, as she whipped up her dense, delicious Linzer torte? Sewing, her quick fingers moving over a lace collar? Neither seemed quite right. In the rare photograph Anneliese allowed to be taken, she looked exactly the same: anonymous and pretty, face turned to the flash like a shield. What was the essential Anneliese? “I’ll find out,” Jordan promised.
Anneliese looked briefly amused, then the smile faded to something more somber. “Jordan, we’ve talked about you managing Ruth if I went on a buying trip for the shop . . .”
Jordan untied her apron. “I thought you wanted to hire someone to do the buying.”
“After four years with your father, I think I can tell a good bit of china from the bad. I’d like to go to New York for a few auctions.”
“I can watch Ruth. Especially now with Mrs. Weir holding down my end at the shop; she managed things for Dad years ago, so she’ll keep it running like clockwork. You should go to New York, Anna.” Jordan liked the idea of Anneliese heading off to take up the business reins. Maybe her stepmother too was eager to stretch her wings, be more than a housewife with her sewing room. I’d like to see you try, Jordan thought, not without a flash of guilt for her father. His love had been so all-encompassing, but it had also . . . confined. Jordan knew she wouldn’t ever, ever voice that thought aloud, but she couldn’t help having it.
“Then I’ll plan a week or so in New York,” Anneliese was saying, all crisp decision. “And if you don’t mind watching Ruth, I’ll take another two weeks in Concord after that.”
Jordan paused, hanging up her apron. “Why Concord?”
“Because your father and I honeymooned there.” Anneliese traced the counter with a fingertip. “I . . . want to say good-bye to that memory.”
“Oh, Anna.” Jordan touched her hand. Yes, there was guilt in Anneliese’s blue gaze too. Perhaps she had also felt caged by Dan McBride’s fond, firm hand over her life.
Anneliese gripped Jordan’s fingers, eyelids lowered. “I’ll have to be the strong one for Ruth once you’re gone. Not short-tempered with her, the way I’ve been lately. If I can . . . get a little time to put myself in order, I’ll be ready.”