“It was hardly your fault, Albia.”

“That doesn’t lessen my being sorry that it happened during my birthday dinner.”

“Thank you.”

Albia straightened, walked to the window, and looked out toward Lake Michigan. “This is a very nice room. John didn’t even have to insist. You were brought here right after they released you from the emergency room.” She looked at Nicola, then away again. Albia was a very tactile person, and now she was running her hand over the drapes, less institutional than in most of the rooms that had drapes, but still.

“I’ve had food poisoning before, Albia. This wasn’t like that other time.”

A sleek eyebrow went up a good inch. “Oh? How very odd. I suppose this sort of thing can affect a person in different ways.”

“I’m just having trouble understanding what I ate that could have caused it.”

“I see. Do you wish to pursue it any further then?”

Nicola wanted to pursue it all the way to the moon, if necessary, but she knew when something simply wasn’t possible. She shook her head.

Albia pulled a chair close to Nicola’s bed and sat down. She crossed her legs, quite lovely legs, sheathed in stockings and three-inch black Chanel heels.

“John tells me that he wants to marry you as soon as possible. He reminded me about that car that almost hit you, and now this. He wants you safe and sound, and to a man—to John—that means you’re in his house, in his bed, and he’s looking after you. When he’s there, that is.”

And Nicola said, without hesitation, “I don’t know, Albia. I don’t think I’m ready to rush things.”

“What is this? John is an excellent catch. He has more women chasing him—both here and in Washington—and he is charming to all of them, but it’s you he wants. And that is a miracle, to my mind.”

“A miracle? Why?”

“He loved Cleo so very much, loved her nearly to the point of obsession. When she ran away, I thought he would simply shut down he was so devastated. I was very worried about him, for months on end.”

“I remember. I felt so very sorry for him, all of the staff did as well as the volunteers.” Nicola remembered how stoic he appeared whenever anyone mentioned his wife’s name, how stiff and remote he became.

Albia said, shaking her head, her voice incredulous, “To think that Cleo actually ran off with Tod Gambol. Sure, he was something of a hunk, a lot younger than John, but for her to want him more than John, well, it still doesn’t seem possible to me.”

“I wonder where they are,” Nicola said. “It’s been three years and still no word?”

“No, not a thing. I’ll never forget how he met her. He was taking one of his very rare vacations, a long weekend really, and she was there at the hotel, some sort of manager, and there was the fire in his room and she came to apologize. And, well, they were married one week later. I was very surprised, as was the rest of the world. They kept it all very private.”

“They were together for five years,” Nicola said, remembering Cleo Rothman’s voice, her incredible talent for organization and management. The staff had loved her.

She said, “I remember wondering why John hadn’t married until he was, what? Nearly forty?”

“That’s right. He and Cleo were married when he had just turned thirty-nine. Didn’t he tell you? Well, he fell in love with a girl in college—this was at Columbia. Her name was Melissa and they were going to get married when they graduated. Our father was against it, of course, because John’s life was planned out for him, and that included three years of law school, and a nice long wait until our father could find him the right sort of wife, you know what I mean, but John didn’t care. He wanted Melissa and he wasn’t going to wait.”

“What happened?”

“She died in an auto accident at the end of her senior year. John was distraught, didn’t recover for quite a number of years. Actually, I don’t think he recovered until he met Cleo. But look, Nicola, it’s only been three years, and he wants to marry you. That is a miracle. He is very much in love with you, don’t you think?”

“So much tragedy,” Nicola said, aware that she wanted to cry, that her throat hurt so badly she didn’t think she could speak another word. She was so hungry she wanted to gnaw her own elbow. She wanted to get out of there, she wanted to go home and curl up in her own bed. And she didn’t want anyone at all to come into her condo and see her naked in the bathroom.