A Midnight Clear by Emma Barry & Genevieve Turner Page B

wife.
    The doorknob was cold under her palm, and gooseflesh rose under the silk. When the door swung open, there was Joe, waiting by the table in the sitting area of the stateroom. He was in a set of dark blue pajamas, covered by a black dressing gown.
    So he did wear pajamas. Somehow that made her feel so much better. He’d been watching the door, his brow furrowed and his body tight.
    He looked… he looked wonderful. He was hers and they were alone and the train wouldn’t be in Niagara Falls for hours and she wanted to launch herself at him… but her anxiety about this wasn’t nearly worked out.
    She clasped her hands before her, unsure of what to do next. Would he tell her what she ought to do? That would make this easier.
    Or maybe not, hearing those things said aloud…
    “You look very nice.” He sounded uncertain, as if he were nervous too.
    “Thank you. So do you. This was a gift from Suzanne.” She held the skirt of the peignoir out and then let it swish back around her. “She got it, I think from that shop on Duke of Gloucester Street, you know the one.” She was rambling now.
    When she trailed off, Joe looked her over again and said, “I’ll have to thank her.”  
    Then they both fell silent.
    They stood like that for a bit and Frances almost smiled, except she may have forgotten how. It seemed, however, like she ought to smile.
    Then Joe lifted something in his hand. “Would you like to play?”
    Cards? That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all. “We’re playing cards?”
    “Gin rummy. If you know it.” He rubbed his neck. “Do you not want to?”
    He was giving her a reprieve then, but an odd one. “If that’s what you want.”
    He leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “Are you as nervous as I am?”
    He was nervous? “I don’t think you could be as nervous as I am. I mean—” Her cheeks went searingly hot. “You’ve done—” Lord, she couldn’t even say it. How was she supposed to do it?
    “Have you done this before?”
    What a question! “Of course not.”
    “Neither have I.”
    That knocked her backwards. “Oh.”
    She liked that he hadn’t, that this was something that would always be between the two of them and no one else, but now, it also seemed more real and immediate and Frances could hear her pulse hammering in her ears.
    He held up a finger. “Hang on.” He poured two glasses of scotch that had been a gift for him from her father. “This will help too. Along with the cards.”
    She didn’t quite see how. “It will?”
    “That’s what Steven said.”
    She gasped. “You asked your roommate about this?”
    “Not about specifics. Just… generalities.”
    That didn’t make her feel any better.
    He crossed over to her, pressed the drink into her hand. “We should both relax. So we’ll play cards and sip scotch until we’re ready. And if we’re not…” He shrugged, although it wasn’t at all casual. “It’s only one night in the rest of our lives.”
    “Okay.” Cards. That was something she knew. She sat down at the little table, watched him deal.
    “Win a point, take a sip of whiskey,” he explained. “Lose a hand and lose an item of clothing.”
    She’d never played gin rummy like that before. She picked up her cards and considered Joe for a moment. “You have more clothes than I do.”
    He shrugged out of his dressing gown. “Okay, now we’re even.”
    “Do slippers count?”
    He smiled. “Yes. Are you going to leave those for last?”
    She didn’t answer right away. She arranged the cards in her hand and, when she was ready, she drew to start the game. “We’ll see.”
    Joe lost both of his slippers before she had to give up one of hers. The hand after that was… fraught. As she ran her fingers along the edge of her cards, she realized that if she won, Joe would have to take off his pajama top. And she’d see his bare chest.
    Her heart fluttered at the thought. She knew how his chest felt under her hands through clothing, or