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Rousseau, but we are already facing the possibility of needing to sell some of your mother’s jewels in order to maintain appearances through the end of the season.” He paused. “I’ve heard that you hired Tommy Cooper.”
    Fannie couldn’t resist defending herself. “Apparently the burglar thought the house was unoccupied. I cannot let things go downhill any further.”
    Vandekamp amazed her by agreeing. “Quite right. As I was saying, appearances must be kept up.” He smiled. “I am only thinking of what is best for you, when I insist that you cease giving any energy at all to the topic of Edith LeClerc. You must concentrate on ensuring your own future. You cannot stay in that house indefinitely. It’s unseemly for a young woman to live alone. I believe recent events have shown that it is possibly even unsafe.” He cleared his throat. “Now, I realize you are in mourning, but I also believe we can find an acceptable way around that. If we are to maintain the impression that you are a young woman of means, you are going to need to entertain as a young woman of means. I don’t think society would object if you hosted a garden party to honor your best friend on the occasion of her engagement. Unfortunately, Hannah Pike is far too decrepit to manage that kind of thing. I realize she’s been faithful to the family for years, but she must be replaced.”
    Fannie took a step back. “Replace Hannah? You can’t be serious. I couldn’t.”
    “You don’t have to,” he said with a patronizing smile. “I’ll handle it for you.” He pulled his watch from his vest pocket. “And now, I’m afraid I have a pressing meeting with another client.” He didn’t wait for Fannie’s reply. Instead, he cupped her elbow in his hand and guided her to the door.
    It was all Fannie could do to keep from breaking down right in front of him. Hannah’s beautiful smile was one of her earliest memories. Hannah’s soothing voice, not Mother’s, had calmed her childhood fears. When Fannie broke a toy or took a tumble, it was Hannah who made things right. Mother never seemed to want to be bothered about such things.
    Replace Hannah? What on earth was the man thinking? Didn’t he know that, for Fannie, life without Hannah . . . would be no life at all.

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
    E CCLESIASTES 3:1
    It took every bit of her self-control for Fannie to make her way toward home without sobbing in public. She hadn’t realized it, but her life had begun to fall apart four years ago with the sinking of the Bertrand . In spite of Papa’s best efforts, the business had never really recovered from that loss. Then the icy disaster in St. Louis had been the final blow. And then Papa died, and still . . . Mother hadn’t changed anything. How could she have been so uninformed? So willfully blind to the truth?
    Brilliant as they were, Daniel Hennessey and Minette’s father probably weren’t going to be able to work a miracle. It was too late. Mr. Vandekamp had so much as said so, what with his return to the same old theme of marriage. Only now that theme had an even more distressing side. She was supposed to delude some poor, unsuspecting someone. Lure some man into taking her on . . . before he had a chance to know just how large a financial burden she would be.
    Minette said Daniel Hennessey filled a part of her she hadn’t even known was empty. That was what Fannie wanted. That breathless feeling she’d seen on both Minette and Daniel’s faces when they’d embraced on the lawn on Sunday evening. She wanted that—not the dry, lifeless tolerance displayed between Mother and Papa. Never that.
    As she stumbled along the brick walkway leading home, the dark cloud returned. The future looked so very bleak. What was she going to do? In the midst of those gathering storm clouds, the mystery surrounding Edith LeClerc called to her, a persistent glimmer, an unspoken hope-laden