“How can you do this?”

 “I need a son. Do you think I selected you out of affection? You’re young, healthy—or were. You were paid, and paid well for your services. You will be recompensed for this one.”

 “You won’t keep him from me. He’s mine.”

 “Nothing is yours but what I allow you. You would have rid yourself of him, had you been given the opportunity. You’ll come nowhere near him, now or ever. You will make the crossing in three weeks. A deposit of ten thousand dollars will be put in your account. Until that time your bills will continue to come to me for payment. It’s all you’ll get.”

 “I’ll kill you!” she shouted when he started out of the parlor.

 At this, for the first time since he’d arrived, he looked amused. “You’re pathetic. Whores generally are. Be assured of this, if you come near me or mine, Amelia, I will have you arrested, and put in an asylum for the criminally insane.” He gestured for the servant to bring his hat and stick. “You wouldn’t find it to your taste.”

 She screamed, tearing at her hair and her gown; she screamed until blood ran from her flesh from her own nails.

 When her mind snapped, she walked up the stairs in her tattered gown, humming a lullaby.

 ONE

Harper House

December 2004

 DAWN,THE AWAKENING promise of it, was her favorite time to run. The running itself was just something that had to be done, three days a week, like any other chore or responsibility. Rosalind Harper did what had to be done.

 She ran for her health. A woman who’d just had—she could hardly say “celebrated” at this stage of her life—her forty-seventh birthday had to mind her health. She ran to keep strong, as she desired and needed strength. And she ran for vanity. Her body would never again be what it had been at twenty, or even thirty, but, by God, it would be the best body she could manage at forty-seven.