“It’s about my daughter,” Flo said when North was alone with her in the Great Hall.

“She’s doing a wonderful job with the children,” North said politely.

Flo narrowed her eyes, so tense that every gray curl on her head bounced. “I know what you’re up to, you bastard. You’re trying to get her back. Or at least into bed.”

Flo was crazy, North remembered, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Don’t even try it,” Flo said. “I ran the cards. You’re the Emperor.”

“No I’m not,” North said, confused. “I’m the King of Coins.”

Flo stopped, evidently equally confused. “What?”

“Andie brought me to your house and told you we’d gotten married and you ran the cards,” North said, remembering it like it was yesterday. It’d been his first clue that life with Andie was going to be seriously different.

“Oh. Yes, I did. Well, that was ten years ago.”

“You told me it was forever, and that Andie I were doomed because she was the Moon. Or something.”

“The Star,” Flo said. “And I was right, wasn’t I? It didn’t last.”

“You weren’t right if I’m an Emperor now,” North said. “Maybe you’d better run the cards again. Come back in the sitting room and I’ll get you a drink-”

“Well, if you’re not the Emperor, who is?” Flo said.

North started to say something soothing, and then thought, Why am I patronizing this woman? “Flo, I don’t believe in the tarot.”

“I know you don’t,” she said, frowning as she thought.

“Then why are you asking me about some Emperor?”

“You’re a lawyer. You don’t have to believe in something to argue about it.” She looked up at him, still frowning. “Somebody passionate and powerful. Somebody moving all the pieces in the game. Who else would that be besides you?”

“You’ve got a houseful of wingnuts here,” North said. “Plus ghosts. Pick one.”

Flo’s eyebrows went up. “The ghosts. Isolde said one of them is a man who thinks he owns the house.”

“Isolde is a font of information,” North said, not happy about that.

“But of course, that’s it.” Flo folded her arms, as if she were chilled. “That’s so much worse. You’d never hurt Andie on purpose, but some awful spirit-”

“I’ll keep Andie close and safe.”

Flo looked up at him, scowling again. “Sea goat.”

“What?”

“Sex. That’s all you think about.”

North looked down at her, exasperated.

Flo looked back, defiant. “Tell me you haven’t been thinking about it ever since you saw Andie.”

“I saw Andie for about five minutes before Alice started to scream.”

“Not tonight. Since she came to your office a month ago.”

She had him there. “This is the first I’ve seen her since then.”

“You’ve been thinking about it,” Flo said, an edge to her voice. “You’re going to break her heart again. It’s not fair, North, you have everything, can’t you just let her go?”

“No,” he said, surprising himself but not Flo, who nodded.

“It’s in your stars,” she said.

“I thought it was in the cards.”

“There, too.”

Lydia came down the stairs and into the hall. “Now what’s going on?”

“Your son’s going to try to seduce my daughter,” Flo said. “He’s a Capricorn. They do that.”

“Don’t you think their private lives should be private?” Lydia said, sounding virtuous.

Flo looked at her for a moment and then laughed.

“I’m going upstairs now,” North said to both of them. “Not to seduce my ex-wife but to get some sleep. Tomorrow a private detective will be here to find out what the hell is going on, and then we’ll establish that there are no ghosts, throw Kelly O’Keefe out into the storm, and take everybody back to Columbus where the two of you can continue your feud.”

“We’re not feuding,” Flo said, glaring at Lydia.

“It’s not like you to be dramatic,” Lydia said to him, ignoring Flo.

“Good night,” North said, and went back into the sitting room to get what he needed to seduce his ex-wife.

Andie was sitting beside Alice’s bed almost asleep when North came back upstairs, carrying an ice bucket and two glasses. He put it all down on the floor next to Andie, took off his suit coat and threw it on the rocker, loosened his tie, opened his overnight bag, took out a bottle of Glenlivet, and opened it.

“Oh, good.” Andie straightened to rub her back. “My present.”

“No, I got you something else, but I’ll share.” North poured two generous slugs into the glasses, handed one to her. “Here’s to going home to Columbus with everybody. Soon.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Andie said and did, the smooth liquor going down like silk. “God, I needed that.”

“Plenty more here.” North put the bottle down beside her and sat down beside it, his back against Alice’s bed, too. “Should we go into another room? Will we wake her up talking?”

“No, when she finally goes out, she’s out,” Andie said. “So what’s my present?”

North reached over and dug into his overnight bag again. He pulled out a CD and handed it to her.

“Clapton Unplugged,” she read with delight. “Thank you!”

“It’s been out since August. I took a chance you didn’t have it yet.”

“No, I didn’t even realize they’d recorded it. I saw it on TV…” She’d seen it on TV and thought of North all the way through. She smiled up at him. “Thank you. You give good gifts.”

“I try. I have something else, too. Not a gifts.”

He dug in the bag and pulled out a box, and she recognized her old shell box from junior high, the one she’d made from a cigar box she’d found that her mother told her had been her father’s. She was pretty sure that had been a lie, but still, it was her shell box.

“Wow,” she said, taking it from him. “Thank you for keeping it.”

“You left some other stuff behind.” He leaned back against the bed, too. “It’s all in there.”

“Anything important?”

“I don’t know,” North said. “I don’t know what’s important to you now. You’ve changed.”

“In ten years? Hell, yes, I’ve changed.” She opened the box and saw old photos and ticket stubs and, in the middle, the velvet jeweler’s box from the diamond earrings he’d given her. She opened it, looked at the classic, tasteful earrings, hated them, and snapped it shut again. Of course he’d saved the damn earrings. “You haven’t changed.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He drank again, and she felt him watching her. He was sitting close, not too close but right there on the other side of the bottle, and he looked like he always had when he’d come up to the attic after work at the beginning of their marriage, tired but alive and focused on her.

“It’s been good talking to you this past month,” he said. “Once we stopped fighting.”

She put the box on the floor and picked up her drink, trying to ditch the memories. “Southie says we haven’t been fighting, we’ve been bitching at each other.”

“He’s probably right.”

“He thinks if we have one big blowup, that would clear the air.”

North laughed. “And then we’d have makeup sex.”

Andie grinned. “How’d you know he said that?”

“It’s Southie. If it’s a plan, it has a naked woman in it.” He stopped smiling. “You want to have a fight? Clear the air?”

“No.” Andie cradled her drink. “That was a million years ago.”

“But you’re still mad.” North shook his head and drank again.

“I’m over it,” Andie lied.

“So am I,” North said.

Andie pulled back to look at him, annoyed. “What did you have to get over? I never did anything to you.”

He looked at her. “You left me.”

“You left me first.” Andie leaned back against the bed and took another drink.

“I was right there,” North said, his patience obvious.

“No you weren’t, you were down in that damn office behind that damn desk.”

“What did that desk ever do to you? Except support you well during sex.”

“It wasn’t the desk,” Andie said. “It was what it stood for.”