Brazen Virtue Read Free Page A

I was counting on Italian.” When Kathleen turned from the window, the tears were just starting. “Oh, honey.” With the bottle still in her hand, Grace rushed forward.
    “Gracie, I miss him so much. Sometimes I think I could die.”
    “I know you do. Oh, baby, I know. I’m so sorry.” She stroked the hair Kathleen brushed firmly back. “Let me help, Kathleen. Tell me what I can do.”
    “There’s nothing.” The effort cost more than she would have admitted, but she stopped the tears. “I’d better make the salad.”
    “Hold on.” With one hand on her sister’s arm, Grace led her to the small kitchen table. “Sit. I mean it, Kathleen.”

    Though she was older by a year, Kathleen bowed before authority. That was something else that had become a habit. “I really don’t want to talk about it, Grace.”
    “I guess that’s too bad then. Corkscrew?”
    “Top drawer left of the sink.”
    “Glasses?”
    “Second shelf, cabinet next to the refrigerator.”
    Grace opened the bottle. Though the sky was darkening, she didn’t bother with the kitchen light. After setting a glass in front of Kathleen, she filled it to just below the rim. “Drink. It’s damn good stuff.” She found an empty Kraft mayonnaise jar, just where her mother would have kept them, and removed the lid for an ashtray. She knew how much Kathleen disapproved of smoking and had been determined to be on her best behavior. Like most of Grace’s vows to herself, this one was easily broken. She lit a cigarette, poured her own wine, and then took a seat. “Talk to me, Kathy. I’ll only badger you until you do.”
    She would, too. Kathleen had known that before she’d agreed to let her come. Perhaps that was why she had agreed. “I didn’t want the separation. And you don’t have to say I’m stupid to want to hang on to a man who doesn’t want me, because I already know.”
    “I don’t think you’re stupid.” Grace blew out smoke a bit guiltily because she had thought just that, more than once. “You love Jonathan and Kevin. They were yours and you want to keep them.”
    “I guess that sums it up.” She took a second, longer sip of wine. Grace was right again. It was good stuff. It was hard to admit, hateful to admit, but she needed to talk to someone. She wanted that someone to be Grace because, no matter what their differences, Grace would be unquestioningly on her side. “It came to a point where I had to agree to separate.” She still couldn’t form the word divorce . “Jonathan … abused me.”

    “What do you mean?” Her low, slightly husky voice had barbs in it. “Did he hit you?” She was half out of her chair, ready to hop the next flight to the coast.
    “There are other kinds of abuse,” Kathleen said wearily. “He humiliated me. There were other women, plenty of them. Oh, he was very discreet. I doubt if even his broker knew, but he made sure I did. Just to rub my nose in it.”
    “I’m sorry.” Grace sat down again. She knew Kathleen would have preferred a sock on the jaw to infidelity. When she thought it over, Grace had to admit she and her sister agreed—on that, at least.
    “You never liked him.”
    “No, and I’m not sorry.” Grace flicked an ash into the lid of the empty mayonnaise jar.
    “I guess there’s no point in it now. In any case, when I agreed to separate, Jonathan made it clear it was going to be on his terms. He would file, the terms would be no-fault. Just like a fender bender. Eight years of my life over, and no one to blame.”
    “Kath, you know you didn’t have to accept his terms. If he’d been unfaithful, you had a recourse.”

    “How could I prove it?” This time there was bitterness, hot and sharp. She’d waited a long time to set it free. “You have to understand what kind of world it is out there, Grace. Jonathan Breezewood the third is a man above reproach. He’s a lawyer, for God’s sake, a partner in the family firm that could represent the devil against God