“Are you quite sure that you feel comfortable leaving the ball in my hands?”
Cecily’s voice startled Athena back to attention. “I have no doubts whatsoever. Your taste and experience are impeccable.”
“But if there are sudden changes—if alterations must be made—”
“Then I know that you will do just the right thing.” Athena glanced at the clock on the mantel, impatient to have this over and done with so that she could begin planning for the trip.
“When did you intend to depart?” Cecily asked.
“The day after tomorrow, at dawn,” she said, making a quick decision. “Will you help me, Cecily?”
“I will do all that I can.” Cecily rose and shook out her skirts. “My carriage is waiting. I must be getting home.”
“Of course.” Athena released a quiet breath. “Is there anything you need to know about the ball? I will inform the necessary parties that you have complete authority, and additional expenses can be deferred until my return, but if there is anything else…”
The older woman smiled. “I have observed your work carefully for the past few months, my dear. I believe I can act as your deputy with all due efficiency.” She paused at the door. “Take great care. I would never forgive myself if anything were to happen to you.”
“You are a true friend, Cecily.”
“And I hope one day to be much more—to you, and to Mr. Munroe. Good-night, Athena.”
“Good-night.”
Athena listened for Brinkley’s steps and the sound of the front door closing on a gust of wind. She tugged the shawl back over her shoulders and wheeled her chair to the secretary. She chewed on the tip of her pen, considering the letters to be written, and began the first of them while sleet rattled against the windowpanes.
Tomorrow she would see the letters delivered. And in a few days, she’d be at Caitlin’s bedside, among the people who had come to mean as much to her as any of her Denver friends.
Perhaps Morgan would smile at her again. She did not expect it, let alone anything more. If she could see Caitlin through her most difficult time, it was enough.
It would have to be.
Chapter 13
The necessities of business had never seemed so interminable or the conversation so dull as they had been for the past five weeks. Niall leaned his head against the seat of the Pullman Palace car on the railroad heading west from Kansas City, profoundly grateful to be going home.
Or was he? When he walked in the door of the house on Fourteenth Street, he would have to face Athena—and he knew the awkwardness that had grown between them would not have vanished so quickly.
It wasn’t that he expected Athena to defy him. In matters of importance, she had always deferred to him no matter how stubborn she might appear. That was how it ought to be. And Miss Hockensmith—Cecily—was looking after her. In fact, he had felt relieved at the prospect of getting away, allowing Athena a chance to reconsider her foolishness and return to her normal routine.
But the niggling little worry remained: Athena was infatuated with the circus—worse, with Morgan Holt—and those people were a mere thirty miles away in the mountains. God only knew what they were doing at the ranch. And the girl—
He loosened his collar and tried to relax, though he had neither slept nor eaten well since he had left Denver. That girl—Caitlin—he had thought of her far too many times in Chicago, in the loneliness of his hotel room with the empty commotion going on in the street below. He had remembered her smile, the halo of red hair, her courage in the face of a serious injury.
The doctor had said she would recover with proper rest. That was the only reason she and the others were at Long Park. Apart from his providing them winter quarters, he was not responsible for what happened to Caitlin Hughes.
Yet he thought of her. He imagined her like Athena, confined to a chair, her vibrant spirit stilled forever. And the sickness of guilt welled up in his chest, reminding him that he was as much a cripple as his sister.