Free The Velvet Shadow by Angela Elwell Hunt Page A

have come unless the situation were urgent.”
    The door opened a bit wider, then a birdlike hand snatched the card from his fingertips. “Wait there,” she called, before closing the door again.
    Roger moved to the edge of the porch, then thrust his hands behind his back and rocked slowly on his heels. Surely she would see him. Their time together last Friday night had been pleasant. She had listened with a distant look in her eye as he spoke of all the causes he would adopt once he was in office. Her faraway look intensified as he continued, leading him to suspect that she was mentally rehearsing her lessons instead of listening. But when he mentioned that Alden had written and inquired after her health, she brightened to a most becoming shade of pink. Roger congratulated himself; she had heard every word.
    The heavy door screeched in protest, and the landlady appeared again, staring at Roger with eyes too hard for beauty. “Miss O’Connor will see you in the parlor,” the woman announced, frowning at Roger as she stepped back. “You will sit in the wing chair, she on the sofa.”
    “Certainly,” Roger answered, following the lady into the small foyer. A single bench and a table with an oil lamp stood at his right hand; an assortment of beribboned bonnets and cloaks hung from pegs on the wall at his left.
    Still frowning, the landlady moved to stand before him. “Follow me,” she said in a voice of steel. Like an army private behind his commander, Roger followed her into a small parlor, where a faded rose-colored couch faced the fireplace and a series of mismatched chairs stood sentinel around the room.
    “My wing chair?” Roger asked, waiting for permission.
    The woman pointed a bony finger toward a brocade chair near the sofa, then lowered herself into a rocker by the fire. Humming gently, she took up a ball of wool and her knitting needles, resuming her work on what appeared to be a stocking.
    Roger perched on the edge of the wing chair and placed his top hat on his thigh, a little chagrined to discover that his hostess apparently planned to remain for the duration of his visit. The boardinghouse parlor was not the place he would have chosen to have this talk, but perhapsthe stilted atmosphere would work to his advantage. Flanna would undoubtedly keep a tight rein on her emotions with this frowning gargoyle in the room.
    A moment later he heard the soft rustling of skirts, then Flanna herself appeared in the doorway, her hair long and flowing over her shoulders, restrained only by a thin ribbon tied at the crown of her head. Her eyes were wide, and her lips parted at the sight of him. “Roger! What brings you out today? Is there some terrible news?
    Keenly aware of the housemother’s steady gaze, Roger rose, took Flanna’s hand, and bowed formally. “Miss O’Connor, it is good to see you. No, the news is not terrible, but it is serious. I simply had to come.”
    Her lovely face clouded with concern. “Is it your mother? Your brother? Is someone ill?”
    “No.” Touched by her compassion for his family, he smiled and gestured toward the sofa. “Be seated, won’t you, while I compose my thoughts?”
    After casting a troubled glance in the landlady’s direction, Flanna sat on the sofa while Roger paced before the fire. Glancing up, he saw that the housemother’s needles had fallen silent. Her hard little eyes had fastened to his face with the intensity of a searchlight.
    “Flanna.” He turned to his sweetheart. “Have you been studying very hard? I imagine that you have not had time to read a newspaper.”
    She shook her head. “Of course I haven’t, Roger. I’ve been studying anatomy.”
    “Then let me be the first to tell you.” He took a deep breath, shivering with the dark thrill of being the first to deliver the news. “I know you believe that South Carolina and the other Rebel states will agree to a compromise of some sort, but two days ago—”
    He paused, trying to frame the news in