"Well, that's good news." She sipped her coffee, then put the cup down in its saucer. "Has my husband shown you the note we received, Mr. O'Neil?"
"I was just about to, when you joined us." Winthrop slipped his hand into his inside breast pocket, took out a small white envelope and handed it to Conor. "We received it yesterday morning."
Conor turned the envelope over. Eva Winthrop's name was printed in block letters on the front. There was no postmark or return address.
"Someone slipped it under the door," she said, when he looked at her.
The young man from the government nodded politely. Eva watched as he slid the note from the envelope. Had she managed to sound unconcerned? Did she look the same way? Dios, she hoped so. She'd practiced saying those simple words in front of her dressing room mirror for the past half hour.
If only Hoyt's friend, Harry Thurston, hadn't insisted on having the note picked up. If only they could have sent it to Washington by messenger.
If only it had never arrived.
But it had, and now she watched as a stranger named Conor O'Neil read the thing. It was taking him forever, although she couldn't imagine why. The note was only one line long. She knew it by heart.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
That was it, nothing more. And yet, if those words meant what she could only hope and pray they did not mean, the note could signal the end of everything, of the life she'd worked so hard to build.
The horror of the thought made her shudder. Hoyt turned and looked at her.
"Are you all right, darling?"
Eva smiled reassuringly. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine."
She wasn't fine. She was close to hysteria, but what else could she say? She'd said as much as she'd dared yesterday morning, when Hoyt had walked in on her just as she'd opened the note.
Of all days for him to have forgotten his briefcase. Of all days for him to have decided to come back and fetch it himself! If only he'd sent his chauffeur, or a boy from the office.
"But, what does it mean?" he'd asked, after he'd read the note.
"I've no idea," Eva had said brightly.
She'd crumpled the slip of paper as if she'd truly meant it and tossed it aside but Hoyt had reacted with all the fervor of his Puritan ancestors, retrieving the damnable thing, smoothing it out, then tucking it back into its envelope.
"I'd best report it."
"Hoyt, whatever for? It's nothing."
"I'm sure you're right, my dear, but considering the importance of this appointment, one can't be too careful. I'll phone Harry Thurston. We went to Choate together, you know."
Oh yes. Eva knew. The great brotherhood of old money and older bloodlines, that small, select fraternity that had been closed to her until she'd made her first million at Papillon, the oh-so-private club that, despite her growing wealth, would not have admitted her to its ranks had she not bedazzled and married Hoyt.
"Do you have any idea who could have sent this note, Mrs. Winthrop?"
Eva looked at Conor O'Neil. She'd expected the question and she had an answer ready.
"None," she said, putting her cup and saucer on the table.
"Mr. Winthrop?"
Hoyt shook his head, too, his handsome face puzzled. "I'm afraid not, Mr. O'Neil."
"Any thoughts about what it might mean?"
Hoyt shrugged his shoulders. "Not a one."
"Mrs. Winthrop?"