She Will Rejoice by Becky Riker

madam.”
                  She narrowed her eyes, “It is clearly not you who needs to be sorry, Mr. Dillon.”
                  He looked beyond her as if preparing for her tongue lashing.
                  “Excuse me, please, Mr. Dillon,” she walked into the parlor that adjoined the office and closed the door.
                  With purpose, she crossed the room to a writing desk and reached behind it. She sprung the latch and walked into the cool passage. It was just a few steps to the door that led to her husband’s study.
                  Naomi took a deep breath and listened. While the doors and walls leading to other rooms were quite thick, these doors were not so reliable a barrier to the sound.
                  “Mr. Haydn,” a female voice met Naomi’s ears, “I don’t understand why you didn’t just come to me if you were looking for a wife.”
                  Finn met that statement with a laugh.
                  “After all,” she continued, “we’ve been friends for years.”
                  “I hardly think we would suit, Mrs. Shelser.”
                  Naomi’s heart clenched, and she was suddenly grateful she had not eaten breakfast.
                  The widow sighed, “Because I am so much older than you, I suppose?”
                  “Because we have nothing in common, Victoria, and I should think we would each be miserable.”
                  Naomi wished he would tell the other woman it was because he loved his wife and not her, but that, she supposed was too much to ask.
                  “But we do enjoy one another’s company.”
                  The silence that followed the woman’s statement proved too much for Naomi to bear. She opened the door that led into her husband’s study and found what she was both expecting and dreading. Her husband of just one month was kissing a raven-haired woman, his arms wrapped tightly about the widow.
                  The two were so engrossed in their embrace, they did not hear Mrs.Haydn’s entrance nor the soft click of the latch as she closed the secret door. They did hear her when she spoke.
                  “I imagine there is a good explanation for this,” Naomi worked to keep her voice calm. “But I cannot conceive of it.”
                  The couple turned to her with a start, the woman’s face bearing an expression of utter shock. Finn dropped his arms from the woman he was holding and stepped away. He did not approach his wife, however, but went to sit behind his desk.
                  “Mrs. Haydn,” the other woman began speaking, “I do not know what to say. . .”
                  Naomi lifted a corner of her mouth and sat down on the nearest chair, “I have found, in such cases, Mrs. Shelser, that is best to say nothing at all.”
                  The woman’s eyebrows rose dramatically.
                  Naomi glanced down at her hands and saw that they were shaking in her lap. She gripped them more tightly together, “To borrow some advice from my father, ‘Unless she can improve upon the silence, a lady ,” she emphasized the word, “should keep her mouth closed.’”
                  “How do you know who I am?”
                  Naomi rose and walked to the door as sedately as possible. Turning the key in the lock, she opened it, “Perhaps that is a topic for another time.”
                  Mrs. Shelser didn’t spare a glance for Finn before hastening out the door.
                  Naomi turned back to her husband as she closed the door again. His face was full of shame, and his eyes were suspiciously wet.
                  She hardened her heart to his pain lest she feel her own more acutely, “Your