Twin of Ice Read Free

kissed her.
    “I have to go to town tomorrow,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “Want to come along?”
    “I’d love to. Oh! Blair wanted to stop by the newspaper office. I believe someone sent her a new medical journal from New York.”
    Houston leaned back in the carriage as Leander clucked to the horse and wondered what he’d say if he knew his “pliable” intended was, once a week, doing something that was quite illegal.
     
    Blair lounged against the end of the ornate, canopied, walnut bed, one knee bent, showing the separation of her Turkish pants. Her big blue and white room was on the third floor, with a beautiful view of Ayers Peak out the west window. She’d had a room on the second floor with the rest of the family, but after she’d left Chandler when she was twelve, Opal’d become pregnant and Mr. Gates had made her room into a bath and a nursery. Opal lost the child and the little room stood unused now, filled with dolls and toy soldiers Mr. Gates had bought.
    “I really don’t see why we have to go with Leander,” Blair said to Houston who sat quite straight on a white brocade chair. “I haven’t seen you in years and now I have to share you.”
    Houston gave her sister a little smile. “Leander asked us to accompany him, not the other way around. Sometimes I think you don’t like him. But I can’t see how that could be possible. He’s kind, considerate, he has position in the community and he—.”
    “And he completely owns you!” Blair exploded, jumping up from the bed, startling Houston with the strength of her outburst. “Don’t you realize that in school I worked with women like you, women who were so unhappy they repeatedly attempted suicide?”
    “Suicide? Blair, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no intention of killing myself.” Houston couldn’t help drawing away from her sister’s vehemence.
    “Houston,” Blair said quietly, “I wish you could see how much you’ve changed. You used to laugh, but now you’re so distant. I understand that you’ve had to adjust to Gates, but why would you choose to marry a man just like him?”
    Houston stood, putting her hand on the walnut dresser and idly touching Blair’s silver-backed hairbrush. “Leander isn’t like Mr. Gates. He’s really very different. Blair”—she looked at her sister in the big mirror—“I love Leander,” she said softly. “I have for years, and all I’ve ever wanted to do is get married, have children and raise my family. I never wanted to do anything great or noble like you seem to want to do. Can’t you see that I’m happy?”
    “I wish I could believe you,” Blair said sincerely. “But something keeps me from it. I guess I hate the way Leander treats you, as if you were already his. I see the two of you together and you’re like a couple who’ve lived together for twenty years.”
    “We have been together a long time.” Houston turned back to face her sister. “What should I look for in a husband if it isn’t compatibility?”
    “It seems to me that the best marriages are between people who find each other interesting. You and Leander are too much alike. If he were a woman, he’d be a perfect lady.”
    “Like me,” Houston whispered. “But I’m not always a lady. There are things I do—.”
    “Like Sadie?”
    “How did you know about that?” Houston asked.
    “Meredith told me. Now, what do you think your darling Leander is going to say when he finds out that you’re putting yourself in danger every Wednesday? And how will it look for a surgeon of his stature to be married to a practicing criminal?”
    “I’m not a criminal. I’m doing something that’s good for the whole town,” Houston said with fire, then quieted. She slipped another hairpin invisibly into the neat chignon at the back of her head. Carefully arranged curls framed her forehead beneath a hat decorated with a spray of iridescent blue feathers. “I don’t know what Leander will say.