2aThe Mafia boss accidentally saw his maid changing and noticed the bruises she desperately tried to hide—

The first snow came on the twentieth of November.

It did not come with wind or thunder; it drifted down from Canada in huge, lazy flakes that covered the gravel lane, capped the stone gate pillars, and erased the tire tracks of the trucks that had hauled the last of the autumn timber down to the docks.

The east wing was warm.

Angela stood by the tall sash windows of the south gallery, wearing a cashmere sweater the color of oatmeal and a pleated wool skirt. She did not hold a pail. She did not hold an apron. In her hand was a cup of tea with two slices of lemon, the steam curling against the cold glass.

Behind her, Rosalie set a stack of fresh linens on the console table.

"He's down at the boathouse with Dante," the old woman said, not looking up, though her eyes were crinkled at the corners with a satisfaction she would never admit aloud. "They’re putting the launch up for the winter."

"The wind is coming off the river," Angela said softly. "He should have taken his heavy coat."

"He has a coat," Rosalie snorted. "He just likes to think he's tougher than the ice. His father was the same way. Took pneumonia twice before he was forty because he wouldn't wear a scarf between the car and the porch."

Angela smiled. It was a real smile—wide, easy, showing a tiny crook in her left canine that made her look nineteen instead of twenty-eight. It was a smile that had not existed in Dutchess County three months ago.

The heavy double doors of the gallery opened.

Silvano walked in, shaking the white powder from his dark wool overcoat. His cheeks were red from the river chill, his hair damp from the snow. He stopped when he saw her standing by the window.

Rosalie picked up her account book from the side table with the practiced, invisible efficiency of a woman who had spent fifty years knowing when an east wing room had become too small for three people.

"I need to check the inventory on the pantry butter," Rosalie muttered, heading for the service door. "Don't track that slush past the runner, Silvano. I just had it brushed."

The service door clicked shut.

Silvano walked across the gallery. He didn't take off his gloves until he reached her. He pulled them off with his teeth, dropped them onto a window bench, and reached out to tuck a loose curl of chestnut hair behind her ear.

His fingers were cold as river stone, but she didn't flinch. She leaned into the touch, her cheek resting against his palm.

"Dante is back from Oswego," Silvano said.

"Is he?"

"The freighter cleared the locks at Welland yesterday afternoon. It’s heading into Lake Huron. He said the snow is four feet deep on the deck."

Angela took a slow sip of her tea. She looked out across the white lawn toward the gate. The silver Civic was gone; the rusted rocker panels were gone; the ball cap and the small, dead eyes were six hundred miles away behind four hundred feet of steel hull and three thousand tons of iron ore.

"I didn't think about him once today," she said.

Silvano looked down at her face, tracing the smooth, unblemished line of her jawline where the last yellow shadow had vanished three weeks ago.

"Good," he said.

"I thought about the south garden," she said, looking up at him with those gold-flecked hazel eyes. "The stone wall along the apple orchard is falling down. Rosalie says if we don't rebuild the dry masonry before the frost gets into the clay, it'll tumble by March."

Silvano’s mouth twitched—the faint, rare ghost of a smile that only ever appeared in this room, by this window.

"We?" he asked.

"You have four men down at the terminal who spend half their time smoking Camels behind the salt shed," she said, her voice carrying a light, teasing rhythm that made the heavy house feel twenty years younger. "Dante says two of them used to be stone masons in Calabria before they started running numbers."

"Dante talks too much," Silvano murmured.

"Dante is terrified of me," she whispered, stepping closer until her sweater pressed against the cold wool of his coat. "He knows if the soup is cold, I tell Rosalie not to put the bay leaves in his pot."

Silvano laughed—a low, genuine sound that rose from his ribs and echoed off the high plaster ceiling of the gallery. It was the first time in nine years the south gallery had heard that sound.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest, burying his face in the warm, clean scent of her hair—lemon oil, rain, and the sweet almond soap she liked from the pharmacy in town.

"The stone masons will be here on Monday," he said against her ear.

"Good," she whispered, her arms sliding around his neck, her fingers tangling in the thick hair at the collar of his coat. "I want the wall high, Silvano. High enough that we can't see the road at all."