Twin of Ice (Montgomery/Taggert 6)

“That would be my fondest wish. And, Houston, that man you married is a good one.”

“Yes, he is, but what makes you say so?”

“I have to go, and thanks for the advice on the housekeeper. Blair’s even worse than I am at these things. I’ll probably see you in church on Sunday. ’Bye.”

She frowned at the telephone in puzzlement, then shrugged and went back to the library.

It was three weeks after they were married that Houston told Kane that she was now ready to decorate his office. She had thought perhaps he might object, but she wasn’t prepared for the violence of his objections. In expressing his opinion of her tampering with his private space he used words she’d never heard before—but it didn’t take much intelligence to understand them.

Edan and Ian stood in the background and watched with interest to see who was going to win this battle.

Houston had no idea how to handle this, but she was determined. “I am going to clean and put proper furniture in this room. Either you let me do it now, when you can supervise and voice your approval, or I’ll do it when you’re asleep.”

Kane leaned over her in a threatening manner and Houston bent backward, but she didn’t relent.

Kane slammed from the room so hard the door nearly came loose from its hinges. “Damned women!” he shouted. “Can’t let any man alone, always changing everything, can’t stand for a man to be happy.”

As Houston turned to look at Edan and Ian, they both gave her weak smiles and left the room.

Houston’d, had an idea that the room was dirty and messy, but when she got into it, she found it to be a pigsty. It took six people an hour and a half to clean all of it, including the marble lions’ heads on the fireplace. When it was clean, Houston had the footmen remove Kane’s cheap oak desk and replace it with a partners’ desk, William Kent style, built in 1740. There were three chair openings in the big, dark desk, two for the partners, one for a visitor. She placed two comfortable leather chairs at the desk and, for Kane, an enormous chair upholstered in red leather. When she’d first seen this chair in the attic, she had known where it was meant to go, and who was to sit in it.

When the desk was in place, Houston sent all the servants away except Susan, and they started sorting out the contents of the cabinets. She knew it would be useless to try to file the documents that were jammed in every available place, so she had Susan bring hot irons and they ironed the wadded papers and placed them neatly in the desk drawers.

Flanking the fireplace were two glass-doored wall cabinets, both filled with papers and, in one of them, four whiskey bottles and six glasses that hadn’t been washed within the last four years.

“Boil these,” Houston said, holding them out as far as she could. “And see that Mr. Taggert has fresh glasses in here every morning.”

In the glass cabinets she placed a collection of small brass statues of Venus.

“Mr. Kane will like those,” Susan giggled, looking at the exquisite, plump, nude women.

“I think they were bought with him in mind.”

On the north wall were two cabinets concealed in the panelling, and Houston gasped when she opened the first one. Mixed in with the papers were stacks of money, some tied together, some wadded into balls, some loose that floated to the floor when the door was opened.

With a sigh, Houston began to sort it out. “Tell Albert to call the hardware store and have them send me a cashbox immediately, and get another couple of hot irons and we’ll see if we can get this to lie flat.”

With her eyes wide in astonishment, Susan went to do as she was bid.

When Kane saw his office, he looked at it for a long time, noting the draperies of deep blue brocade, the collection of statues of pretty women, and the red chair. He sat in the chair. “At least you didn’t paint the room pink,” he said. “Now, will you let me get back to work?”

Houston smiled as she passed him and kissed him on the forehead. “I knew you’d be pleased. Whether you admit it or not, you like pretty things.”

He caught her hand. “I guess I do,” he said as he looked up at her.

Houston left the room feeling as if she were floating, and grinned all through her fitting at her dressmaker’s.

Two days later, they gave their first dinner party and it was a major success. Houston invited only some of her friends whom Kane had already met so he’d feel comfortable, and Kane turned out to be a charming host. He poured champagne for the ladies and escorted everyone on a grand tour of his house.

It was only later, during the entertainment, that Houston wanted to disappear. She’d hired a travelling clairvoyant to come after dinner and perform. Kane fidgeted in his chair for the first ten minutes, then started talking to Edan, who sat next to him, about a piece of land he wanted to buy. Houston nudged him once and he turned to her and said, much too loudly, that he thought the man was a fraud and he refused to sit there another minute.

In front of everyone, he got up and left the room. Houston, her back rigid, signalled, to the psychic to continue.

Later, after their guests had departed, Houston found her husband at the bottom of the garden. She followed winding dirt paths downward to the flat, grassy bottom. The steep hill, the house on top of it, was at her back, while before her stretched a secret, magic place of shadowy trees and plants, with only the sound of birds around them.

“I didn’t like that man, Houston,” Kane said, not turning from where he stood leaning against a tree, smoking a cigar. “There’s no such thing as magic, and I couldn’t sit there and pretend there is.”

She put her fingers to his lips to stop his words, then slipped her arms around his neck. He bent to kis