“Well!” Mrs. Murphy chuckled. “In that case, I’ll take them both!”
It was a genius sales strategy, even if it wasn’t Sylvie’s idea. Clothing stores, wine shops, and millineries were all doing the same thing. And it was working.
Sylvie placed Mrs. Murphy’s books in a paper bag stamped with the store’s name, then handed her the ticket for the Fair.
After the older woman left, the sisters in the bistro followed. Sylvie busied herself shelving the rest of the inventory.
When the bell chimed over the door, she emerged from the fiction section to greet a late afternoon customer.
But it was Kristof in his concert attire. Doffing his hat, he looked dashing, and concerned, and unspeakably dear. “I came home as soon as I could. Any news?”
“More than you can imagine.” But she could wait to tell him all that had happened since Lottie and Ivan’s visit. “I understand you have news of your own. You fired Gregor?” She walked toward him.
His eyebrows lifted. “Ah. You spoke to him. It was overdue. He’s on probation this week to see if I’ll let him stay in the apartment with me, too. But we can talk about all this later, Sylvie. What you have to share is more important and pressing.”
When she reached him, his gaze swept over her, catching on her swollen lip. Instantly, his face darkened. His fingers went to the bruised edge of her jaw, which she’d meant to conceal with powder. “What happened?”
She told him everything, gauging his reactions in every shifting line of his face.
“You cannot know how much I’ve wanted to keep you safe from harm,” he said when she was finished, “and here it came to you in your own apartment.”
“Not very much harm,” she reminded him, slipping away to lock the shop door and turn the sign to announce it was closed. “Gregor came almost right away.”
“I’ll thank him later,” Kristof murmured.
Sylvie pushed the switch near the door, extinguishing the lights throughout the shop. Then she stepped to the front window and stood on her toes to reach up and pull the shade.
Kristof came alongside her and brought it down with ease, surrounding them in deeper shadows. And privacy. “If anything had happened to you—anything worse than what already did—I don’t know what I would have done. I—”
“Shh, it’s all right. I’m all right,” she told him. “If God can take care of Rose without my help, He can take care of me without your presence, too.” She winced. “That didn’t come out the way I hoped.”
He laughed quietly. “No, it’s true. It serves me and my pride right that God should choose my brother to come to your aid instead of me.”
“As to that.” She slid her hand into his. “I’d choose you by my side any day.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “Sylvie. You are so dear to me.”
The way his voice cradled her name would have been enough to melt her last defenses. But the tender confession that followed unlocked an awareness in her that she was fast losing her ability to resist him. The reasons she ought to were fading.
“It’s been a long day,” she whispered. “Would you like to come up for tea?”
Sylvie turned the key in the lock and entered her apartment, Kristof following, and gasped. “Ivan!” Had she failed to lock the door this morning?
He stood in the parlor, shoulders squared, arms crossed. Dark purple crescents on either side of his nose marked their earlier encounter. Lottie didn’t appear to be with him.
Kristof moved as though to place himself in front of Sylvie.
“Wait, Kristof.” She had no idea what Ivan planned to do or say, but there was something in his expression that gave her pause. “You cannot keep coming into my apartment like this,” she told the young man. “You could have found me in the store and we could have talked, either there or here. But coming in as you have without me, this is trespassing.”
“Mimi.”
Ivan stepped aside, and there was Rose on the sofa, unfolding her legs from where she had curled against the armrest.
Sylvie’s knees buckled, and Kristof’s arm came around her waist. “Rose?”
“Thank God,” Kristof said.
Clutching her mother’s shawl around her, Rose stood in an aura of uncertainty. Years peeled away, and Sylvie saw Rozalia the child, shaken after her father’s death. “Will you keep me for always now?” she had asked then, wrapped in the same blue shawl.
“You’re home.” Sylvie flew to her, gathering her close. “I love you.” Those five small words had to carry everything else she couldn’t say while questions caught in her throat like bones.
Rose returned the fierce embrace. “I thought you didn’t want to see me.”
“I’ve been searching for you since the day we parted. Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t?” Releasing her, Sylvie stepped back.
Confusion wrinkled Rose’s brow. “I wrote to you. Many times. You never replied.”
“I only received one note, the one in which you said not to look for you. Which I didn’t obey, by the way.”
“There were others. You didn’t get any of them?” Rose’s complexion clouded. “Not one?”
Sylvie could only shake her head and stare.
Paling, Rose pinned Ivan with her gaze. Her silence was more condemning than a scream.
Ivan’s face was blank as he stood his ground.
“Did you have anything to do with Rose’s letters not reaching me?” Sylvie hissed. The anger blasting through her was immediate and complete. “Did Jozefa?”
“I had my reasons,” Ivan said. “Rose, we needed more time together. I can explain—”
Rose walked away from him, cradling her elbows in her palms. “I trusted you.”
“I brought you back, didn’t I? Isn’t that what you wanted? If I made other mistakes, this has to make up for it. In the end, I did what you asked.”
The end, indeed. “You’re right about that, Ivan. Whatever you’ve done, whatever nightmare Rose has endured these last three weeks,” Sylvie said, “it’s over now.”
“Not a nightmare,” he muttered, shoving his fists into his trouser pockets. “A dream.”
“Either way, I woke up, didn’t I?” Rose swiped a handkerchief beneath her nose. She leaned against the wall beside the mantel.
“Are you hurt? Injured? Ill?” Kristof asked her.
Rose denied any of that.
Ivan watched her with regret and something that looked suspiciously possessive. Sylvie didn’t trust him, didn’t want him in their home. He had deceived her the evening she and Beth offered Lottie a job. He’d asked about Rose, implying he knew nothing.
“Ivan,” she said, “thank you for bringing her back. Now it’s time for you to go.”
At the first hint of defiance, Kristof stepped in, escorting him away.
“Rose, dear.” Sylvie spoke quietly while the men exchanged words at the door. “Rozalia. I love you, and I’ve missed you so much. I need to understand what happened, but no matter what, you’re where you belong now.”
“Oh, Mimi.” Rose’s voice was so heavy, each syllable a soft mallet upon a drum, each drumbeat a tocsin. “I don’t know where I belong.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kristof had been right when he’d guessed that Ivan wouldn’t refuse a free meal. He watched the young man finish his sandwich at the coffee shop next to Sylvie’s building, then offered dessert. Anything to keep him here and answering questions.
Ivan ordered a slice of chocolate cake.
“So you were working with Jozefa the entire time,” Kristof said. They spoke in Polish for extra privacy. “But I take it you don’t agree with her on all accounts. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought Rose home.”
“True.” Ivan took a drink of coffee. Outside, fat drops of rain darkened the sidewalk. Umbrellas popped open, and women’s skirts blew in the wind. “Jozefa won’t be happy about me letting Rose out, but what can she do? If she crosses me, she knows she’d lose. She’s l
ost already.”
“Start over. From the beginning.”
A twisted story began to emerge from Ivan’s faltering, nonlinear narrative. Jozefa had hired Ivan as a guardian for Rose and paid him handsomely. He was to stay in the hotel with her during the day while Jozefa enjoyed the Fair. Once Jozefa came home, he was free to go.
“How did she choose you for the job?” Kristof asked.
“Jozefa came to the coffeehouse where the Hull House Players practice. I was there, watching for Rose. She asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in work as a bodyguard at the Palmer for good pay. I took it, supposing the person I would be guarding would be her. I didn’t know when she hired me it had anything to do with Rose.”
“But when you saw her,” Kristof said, “didn’t you ask what was going on?” On the other side of the window, the coffee shop’s shingle whined as it swayed on its rusty hinge.
Ivan downed the rest of his coffee, thumping the mug back on the table. “I’m not stupid. It seemed too good to be true, spending that much time with Rose every day, so I kept my mouth shut about knowing her already. I didn’t know if Jozefa would like that we had a connection. Rose was smart enough to keep it quiet, too.”
“How long have you cared for her?”
Ivan’s mouth hooked up at the corner and then down again. “Years.”
“Did you ever tell her how you felt?”
“I must have tried a hundred times.” The normally quiet young man was obviously uncomfortable answering so many questions. “But yes, finally, at the Palmer, I did. We had a lot of time together when I was keeping her safe. She said she cared for me, too.”
“But she couldn’t have been happy with the confinement,” Kristof broke in.
“No. When Jozefa announced her plan to take Rose back to Poland with her, neither Rose nor I was happy. Fate brought us together, Mr. Bartok. I wasn’t about to let us be torn apart by Jozefa.”
“Or by Miss Townsend,” Kristof said. “Rose asked you to mail letters for her, to let Miss Townsend know where she was, and you didn’t. Explain.”
The waitress arrived with a plate of chocolate cake topped with an unnaturally red cherry in a cloud of whipped cream. She refilled Kristof’s coffee and whisked away.
A strange smile crimped Ivan’s mouth. He took a bite of his dessert and washed it down with water. “When you love someone, you do whatever it takes to be with her. I was getting paid—good money, too—to be the only person Rose ever saw, aside from Jozefa. I brought her anything she asked for. I gave her companionship when she was lonely. She needed me. I didn’t want anyone to interrupt that, but I’d never let her go to Poland. I would have gotten her away from Jozefa before they got on the train. The only reason I decided to do it today was that Miss Townsend and the man who broke my nose were on to me. The last thing I need is to get mixed up with the police.”
There was so much wrong about what Ivan had said that Kristof hardly knew where to begin. The rain had strengthened into a steady slurring just beneath the din of the other diners. He cupped his hands around the mug of coffee from which steam rose and divided and curled without any kind of pattern. Chaos.
“Ivan, did you read A Tale of Two Cities for the Hull House Readers Club? Or did you only attend to see Rose?”
He said he’d read it.
“Then you know who the real hero in the story is. It’s Sydney Carton, the man who loved Lucie so much that he let her go. He sacrificed his own life so she could be happy in hers, even though her happiness wasn’t tied to his.” Kristof waited for his point to sink in. When Ivan made no sign of understanding, he drove it further. “I would hope that you helped Rose escape for her own sake, not just for yours.”
“I liked Sydney. I felt for him. But that’s not our story. I couldn’t give Rose up like that.”
Kristof stifled a sigh. “The police, then,” he said. “Fear of getting caught was the only reason you brought Rose home?” If Ivan was so enamored with her, he could have run off with her, away from Chicago, cutting her off from anyone who wanted to find her. He could have kept her completely to himself if he’d had a mind to. “That’s not very romantic.”
Ivan forked another piece of cake into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. After three more bites, he spoke. “If I get arrested, I can’t earn wages for Matka and Lottie. If I run off with Rose, I also abandon them. I can’t do that. I want Rose, but I want her right here in Chicago. I want her to want me, even when she isn’t locked in the same room with me.”
“That makes sense. But it’s quite a test, isn’t it?” Secretly, Kristof wondered just how honest Rose had been about her feelings for Ivan. What choice had she had? He’d been her jailer. It was in her interest to appease him, lest he take what he wanted by force.
Oh no.
Ivan and Rose had spent nearly every day together for three weeks, alone in a hotel room. Ivan wanted nothing more than to possess her. Would do anything to keep her with him. It was too early to tell what the results had been, but the possibility was enough to make Kristof sick.
“Ivan.” Kristof leaned over the table toward him. “Did you take advantage of the situation? Of Rose?”
“What do you think?”
“Can we talk?” Sylvie hugged Rose’s diary to her chest, then handed it to its owner.
Rose accepted it from her seat on the parlor sofa, Tiny Tim sleeping beside her. Darkness had fallen, and rain purred against the window. “I was wondering where this was. I told Ivan to get it for me the night he came for everything else. He couldn’t find it.” She looked up. “You read it?”
Sylvie lowered herself to the other end of the sofa. “Yes. I was searching for clues as to what happened to you. What I found along the way—” She blinked back tears. “I’ve made so many mistakes, Rose. I was insensitive to your feelings. I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t trust me with them. You should never have had to worry about hurting me by missing your parents.” Fingertips biting into the cushion, she crossed her ankles, then uncrossed them. “I’m not sorry for reading the diary. I am deeply, truly sorry for not being what you needed.”
She’d had weeks to rehearse this apology, and still it came out sounding a little petty. All she could think was that she’d hurt Rose by not being enough for her. Just like she hadn’t been enough to heal her mother’s pain after the war. When Ruth wanted to clean, Sylvie cleaned with her until her knuckles were chapped red, but the next day Ruth redid the work Sylvie had done. It was never enough. The sadness never left Ruth, the nosebleeds didn’t stop. Sylvie hadn’t been enough for Meg either, not that she could blame her sister for marrying Nate. That left Sylvie to care for Stephen, and after her own traumatic experience during the Great Fire, she understood him better than ever. But even so, there were times when she hadn’t been able to chase the wildness from his eyes, or the trembling from his hands.
“I never meant for you to read these words.” Rose spread a hand atop the diary. “It must have sounded so hateful. I wish you hadn’t.”
“You were missing. Your safety was more important to me than your privacy.”
Rose tucked the diary between the armrest and her leg. “I sent word, or thought I had. I thought you were angry with me and that’s why you didn’t write back. Which made me upset with you.”
“I had no idea. I don’t understand what happened.” Something fundamental had changed between them, had changed each of them as people. How was she to navigate such unmapped territory?
Rose rested her head against the dark wood trim of the sofa, then straightened up once more, fingers twining in the shawl’s fringe. “It all started when Jozefa found me after my violin lesson at the Fair. She took me on a ride out on the lake and invited me to stay at the Palmer overnight with her. I did.”
“Without telling me?”
“Jozefa told me she’d sent word to you—”
“She didn’t! I don’t understand why she took you at all. Why you, out of a million people?”
Rose’s face pinched. “This will go better if you don’t interrupt me. Please. This isn’t easy for me either.”
Sylvie clamped her lips shut and waited.
“A few days after Ivan took the note to our apartment and collected my things and the cat, I started feeling smothered. I decided to write to you and asked Jozefa to send the letters. I must have given her five of them before I suspected she wasn’t mailing them. She grew angry every time I handed her another one, telling me I ought to give it up, that you were set on not responding. That’s when I started giving letters to Ivan instead. But as you know, he kept them for his own reasons.”
Sylvie’s next question could not wait. “Do you think Jozefa will come for you? If she thinks I’m working at the Fair or in the bookstore? Do you suppose she’ll come back?”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t think so. I wrote her a note telling her I left with Ivan of my own free will and that she should not come after me.”
That sounded all too familiar. “A note,” Sylvie repeated. “A note didn’t stop me. Just the opposite, in fact. When I got your message, I searched all the harder.”
“I thought you might.”
“So you wanted to be found.”
“Not the first or second day. And then I did. And then I didn’t.” She settled deeper into the corner of the sofa. “It’s all been so confusing, Mimi. She treated me so well, ordering new dresses made, bringing Ivan to keep me company. She let me have Tiny Tim and all my things from home. It was a grand adventure. The Palmer House! You can’t imagine the luxury there.”
“Rozalia.” Sylvie could barely contain her amazement. “You were kidnapped.” And Sylvie still didn’t know why.
“Not technically. I went with her willingly to prove to you that I would be all right even when you couldn’t personally safeguard me. Then, when I’d had enough of proving my point, Jozefa kept coming up with reasons for me to remain. She told me all about my people—the Polish people. My homeland. Every day she shared something new and precious, and I felt like I was being handed pieces to the puzzle of who I was, and that I might finally be whole again if I stayed a little longer, learned a little more.”
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