Read Online The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman - Free Book Online

her. She wishes Tom would look away, but since he won’t, she turns to him.
    “You seem quite knowledgeable on the subject of classical gardens,” she says. “Where were you educated?”
    She knows full well that Tom Quinn was educated at a Catholic orphanage for boys in Brooklyn, New York, but she’s hoping that if he remembers how much damage she can do to whatever history he’s presented to his employer, he’ll stop staring at her.
    “I was home tutored by my mother, who was headmistress at a finishing school for young ladies in Gloversville. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? The Lyceum?” His face dimples as he mentions the name of the music hall where he and Corinth first met ten years ago. She understands Quinn’s message: he can do at least as much damage to her as she can to him.
    “I lived with the Van Dykes of Gloversville for a summer while painting their three daughters,” Campbell says. “I don’t remember a school called the Lyceum, but there was a rather disreputable theater . . .”
    “Don’t you own one of the glove factories in Gloversville, Milo?” Mrs. Ramsdale asks Milo Latham.
    “Yes, Latham Gloves.” He answers Mrs. Ramsdale’s question, but his gaze is fastened on Tom Quinn now.
    “Veramente!” Lantini exclaims. “Gloves and lumber! I didn’t know your business ventures were so . . . how do you say? . . . diverso. ”
    “Leather and lumber both come from the same source,” Latham answers, regarding the Italian with unconcealed contempt. “Our great northern woods. My land holdings in the Adirondacks afforded such a quantity of deer pelts that it made sense to go into the leather-processing business.”
    “When I think of all the poor slain deer . . .” Aurora says, fanning herself with a black lace fan of Italian design that Corinth recognizes as a type made by the nuns of a certain order in Rome.
    “And yet, my wife is one of our very best customers!” Latham says, lifting his glass to Aurora. “A dozen pairs of gloves are delivered to her each month, in all the latest colors and styles.”
    “I notice that Miss Blackwell is also a devotee,” Aurora says, nodding at Corinth’s gloved hands.
    “I apologize for wearing gloves at the table,” Corinth says. “I’m afraid that my hands are so sensitive to . . . certain sense impressions that I find it unbearable to touch anything with my bare hands. I’m not sure where these gloves were made, though . . .”
    “Why, I believe I can see the manufacturer’s label here,” Tom Quinn says, touching the hem of her glove and turning it over to reveal the label. His fingers merely graze the underside of her wrist, but Corinth feels a wave of heat course up her arm and across her chest.
    “Bravo, Mrs. Latham. You have indeed recognized your husband’s handiwork,” Tom Quinn says, taking his hand away from her wrist.
    When Corinth looks up, she sees Mrs. Ramsdale watching her and her pain is so apparent in her eyes that Corinth feels it herself—a twinge deep in her womb, just where life first quickens, but this sensation has nothing to do with life.

    As soon as she gets back to her room Corinth strips off her leather gloves and lets them fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. She leans back against the door, closing her eyes and willing her heartbeat to slow. She’d known that she might have a problem with the mistress of the house, but she hadn’t anticipated having to deal with Tom Quinn or his jealous employer. When she opens her eyes, she is calmer, but still warm. She steps toward the window, but then, noticing the delicate pale green gloves on the floor, and remembering how much they cost, she picks them up. A slip of paper, folded into quarters, falls out of one.
    Corinth unfolds it and reads the message written in the familiar handwriting. Meet me in the Grotto . . .
    She stretches the gloves over the wooden forms she’s set up on the dressing table, smoothing out their wrinkles, and then leans across the glass