The Broken (Echoes from the Past Book 8)

by Shapiro, Irina

  “Oh,” Emma replied, her disappointment palpable. “But you said there are good reasons for me to have one.”

  “There are, and we will get you one once you’re a little bit older,” Gabe replied patiently.

  “Like when I’m six?”

  “Maybe once you’re closer to ten,” Gabe clarified.

  “Eight?” Emma haggled. “That’s older than six and closer to ten.”

  Gabe laughed. “We’ll see.”

  “When you say, ‘We’ll see,’ you usually mean no, but don’t want to say so straight out,” Emma said with a theatrical pout. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know.”

  “No one is lying to you,” Quinn said. “We are simply not ready to commit to an answer. That’s not the same as saying no.”

  “Whatever,” Emma muttered, still in a huff. “Where’s Aunt Jo? I thought she was staying for lunch.”

  “She left.”

  “Good,” Emma said.

  “Why is that good?” Quinn asked, surprised by Emma’s statement.

  Emma shrugged. “She’s like a wicked stepsister.”

  “In what way?” Quinn asked, pausing in the act of slicing a loaf of bread. Gabe had stopped too, his hand suspended in midair, holding a spoonful of baby food.

  “Like, she’s nice to the prince, but mean to her kind, loving sister, so you know that’s her true nature,” Emma explained patiently.

  “Is she nicer to the prince?” Quinn asked, clearly surprised by Emma’s observation. She appeared to be paying close attention to what Emma said.

  “Obviously. She’s always smiling and doing that thing with her eyes,” Emma replied.

  “What thing?” Gabe asked.

  Emma looked down for a moment, then tilted her head sideways and looked at Gabe from beneath her lashes, smiling like the bloody Mona Lisa. “This thing,” she said, lifting her head and looking from Quinn to Gabe to see if they understood what she meant.

  Quinn laughed, but the sound came out brittle and forced. “What an imagination you have, Em. Life is not a fairy tale.”

  “No, but in real life not everyone is nice either,” Emma said as she reached for a piece of bread.

  “No, they certainly aren’t,” Quinn agreed.

  After lunch, Gabe went upstairs to work, but his mind wasn’t on the convoluted politics of the fifteenth century. Instead, his thoughts kept returning to the conversation with Jo. She’d been more forward this time, and considerably more suggestive. She’d practically asked him to go away with her, since most of the famous battle sites were not within close driving distance and such an undertaking would require them to spend the night somewhere, possible even two or three. Gabe felt angry and uncomfortable, but also guilty. He was only human, and the images Jo was so carefully planting in his brain were taking root. She was a beautiful woman, and she knew it. She was also comfortable with her sexuality and had no issue with using it as a tool. Unlike Quinn, who needed an emotional connection in order to pursue a sexual relationship, Jo seemed to be the type of woman for whom sex was the endgame.

  Gabe wasn’t privy to the details of her personal life, but he’d met plenty of women like her during his career. They cast off centuries of double standard and simply took what they wanted when they wanted it. Jo likely had an active sex life, despite not having a steady partner. She oozed sexuality the way some men oozed aggression. Perhaps Rhys had been right to steer clear of her. Jo Turing was not a woman who’d put anyone else’s needs first. She came first and foremost in her own hierarchy of life, which was why Gabe was under no illusions about her motives. Jo couldn’t care less about him. He was a prize to be won in a contest she’d initiated with her sister. Whether it was jealousy, competitiveness, or just some uncontrollable need to destroy every relationship so profoundly that there was no going back, Jo had set her sights on him, and she wouldn’t back off on her own. She was aware of his reaction to her, and was enjoying his discomfort, secure in the knowledge that she’d got into his head. She would maintain her residence there until he either succumbed to her advances or involved Quinn.

  Gabe closed the document he’d been working on and stared out the window, seeing little of the garden beyond. He could hardly tell Quinn her sister was making advances to him, not when Quinn was already worried about her fragile relationship with Jo, nor could he tell Jo to back off. He didn’t know Jo well enough to predict her reaction to such a confrontation, but thought it could go one of two ways—she would either go on the offensive and goad him until he snapped, or she’d laugh in his face and tell him he’d imagined the whole thing and she was simply being sisterly. Either way it went, it would be about as prudent as opening Pandora’s box.

  Gabe sighed with frustration. All he wanted was to get the bloody woman out of his life and off his mind. She had initiated a tactical assault on his defenses, and ashamed as he was to admit it, even to himself, losing individual battles didn’t guarantee she wouldn’t win the war, not if she proved successful at getting him to think of her in a sexual context. Neither the short dress nor the way she’d folded her leg beneath her to give him a glimpse of her inner thighs were lost on him. Had she moved her leg a little to the right, he’d have been able to answer with complete certainty whether she’d been wearing knickers. She’d wanted him to look, invited him to wonder, and dared him to resist. She’d silently challenged him to compare her and Quinn, to wonder what she’d be like in bed, and to grow curious enough to want to find out for himself.

  “Damn you, woman,” Gabe muttered under his breath. “How I wish you’d just go away for good and stop interfering with our lives.”

  Chapter 41

  July 1961

  London, England

  Helen lifted Annie from the pram and hurried inside, kicking the door closed with her foot. She leaned against it and shut her eyes as bitter tears of unbearable pain slid down her cheeks. The neighborhood women didn’t mean anything by their questions; they were just curious and wanted to chat about a subject that was close to their hearts—children. Helen tried to act nonchalant, but she simply couldn’t keep up the charade. The weather had turned warm and poor Annie was hot beneath the blanket Helen used to cover her whenever she went outside.

  “God, Helen, she must be sweltering, the poor mite. You were never this fearful with Davy,” her next-door neighbor Marge had said not five minutes ago. “Oh, look, she’s awake. Can I hold her?”

  “No,” Helen had snapped. “Not now. I have to go.” She’d nearly run Marge down with the pram, she’d been so desperate to get away.

  Her neighbors had given her a few weeks to recover from the birth and settle into a routine, but now that Annie was a month old, the other mums were beginning to call on her. Lynn had come twice, and both times Helen had told her that Annie was asleep, and Sarah had sent a lovely gift, with a note that inquired when they might see each other. She’d said she’d be happy to bring her girls for a visit whenever it was convenient. Helen wished she could crawl into some hole and die. It was preferable to seeing the shock on the faces of the women she knew and hearing the platitudes that would eventually come, once they recovered enough to speak. Nothing they said could make a difference. No words of comfort or sympathy could soothe her battered soul. This wasn’t a minor defect that wouldn’t prevent Annie from living a normal life; this would be her life, every hour, every day, every year.

  “Mum, are you all right?” Davy asked as soon as they were inside.

  Helen had tried valiantly to hide her despair from him, but he’d heard her crying, had seen her anguish. He wasn’t old enough to comprehend the long-term effects of Annie’s deformity, but he could see Helen’s pain and recognize it for what it was, and it troubled him.

  “I’m just fine. Something in my eye, that’s all,” she explained as she kicked off her shoes and walked into the parlor, where she sat down heavily on the settee and settled Annie next to her.

  Davy came over and patter her shoulder, his eyes full of understandi
ng. “It’s all right, Mum,” he said. “People will get used to her.” Wise words for a five-year-old.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Can I go out and play?”

  “You can play in the garden.”

  Davy made a face but complied and went out back. Helen sighed and leaned against the back of the settee. What was she hoping to accomplish? Sooner or later, everyone would know anyway. She couldn’t keep Annie under wraps forever. Davy was right, people would get used to her, but Helen wasn’t sure she could ever get used to her. She loved the child with her whole being, but every time she unwrapped the blanket, her heart broke all over again at the sight of Annie’s deformed body. Her life would be difficult at best, hellish at worst. No surgery could correct her condition and no prosthetics could replace the missing limbs. There was nothing to attach them to.

  Helen sighed and wiped her cheeks. Annie was looking at her, her eyes so clear and beautiful. There was a strange awareness in her gaze, almost as if she understood her mother’s worries and wished to reassure her that everything would be all right. Helen unbuttoned her dress and held the child to her breast, stroking the little head as she nursed. “Oh, Annie, what’s going to become of you?” she whispered. “How will you survive, my darling?”

  Chapter 42

  David gently pushed a lock of hair behind Helen’s ear, then used his handkerchief to wipe her tears. Helen was sitting on their bed, a pillow clutched to her middle. She’d tried to reason with herself, and when that failed, she’d turned to the familiar comfort of housework, but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing, and the dread she’d felt when she returned from their walk hadn’t abated.

  “Helen, you can’t hide Annie from the world forever. I know this is not something either one of us expected, but we must find a way forward. Is there someone you’d like to talk to? Maybe the vicar? Davy is frightened, and Annie will need your unwavering support as she gets older.”

  Helen shook her head. “David, this is all my fault,” Helen whispered. “I caused this to happen to our girl.”

  “How can this possibly be your fault?” David asked, smiling at her indulgently. “There’s no one to blame.”

  Helen shook her head stubbornly. “There is. I am to blame. I did something awful.”

  “What awful thing have you done?” David asked, still smiling at her in that pitying way.

  Helen clutched the pillow tighter, as if it could keep her heart from exploding from her chest. She had to tell David, come what may. She couldn’t carry this burden any longer. “David, I came across something when I cleared out my mother’s room. I found your birth certificate.”

  “What? I don’t understand,” David replied, his smile slipping.

  “I found a birth certificate for David Edward Edevane. Mother—Edith Brent. Father—unknown. There was also a photograph of a man who looked like you. He must have been your biological father, Edward Edevane.”

  “Show me,” David said. “Please.” His voice trembled and the desperate look in his eyes made Helen wish she hadn’t been so hasty to burn the evidence.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I burned them. I thought I could make it all go away,” she whispered, her eyes swimming with tears. “I was in shock.”

  “Are you sure you read the birth certificate correctly?” David demanded, his worried gaze pleading with her to tell him it was all a terrible mistake. “You were upset about clearing out your mother’s room. You weren’t feeling well. Could you have made a mistake?”

  “No. I read it over several times. There’s no mistake, David,” Helen insisted. She understood David’s disbelief and his desire to reason this hideous revelation away by blaming it on her distress or pregnancy hormones, but she knew what she had seen, and now that she had finally told him, she wasn’t about to backtrack and pretend it was just a misunderstanding. She needed him to believe her, and to comprehend the unbearable strain she’d been living under these past few years.

  David shook his head in dismay, still desperate to deny what she was telling him. “Helen, that’s mad. How could such a thing be possible?”

  “My mother—our mother,” Helen corrected herself, “must have had an affair while my father was off fighting the Germans. She could hardly keep the baby, so she left you at the orphanage, making sure to give them your full name, in case she decided to come back to claim you. And she might have, had my father not returned. Then, she could have simply told everyone she was a widow, and no one would have been the wiser. They’d assume you were her husband’s child.”

  David shook his head again, like a stubborn donkey. “No, I don’t believe it. It simply cannot be. You must have misunderstood.”

  “I didn’t misunderstand,” Helen cried, her agitation growing. “I told you, I read and reread that birth certificate a dozen times. And the man in the photo…” How could she make him understand without showing him the photograph that the man she’d seen looked just like him, only younger?

  David’s shoulders slumped, as if all the fight had gone out of him, and he reached for her hands, taking them gently in his own. “Helen, you should have told me. You had no right keeping this from me.” It was a reproach, but he had a right to be angry.

  Helen nodded miserably. “You are right, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was so upset, and so frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid you’d leave me,” Helen whimpered. “I’m sorry I deceived you.”

  “Could it be a coincidence?” David asked, his gaze pleading with her to consider this unlikely new possibility. He was grasping at straws, just as she had when she’d discovered the truth, and Helen felt a stab of pity for him. She had laid this squarely on his shoulders, and he could never throw the weight off, not now that it was out in the open between them. “Surely there’s more than one David Edevane out there in the world,” David said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “David, the certificate had your birthday on it. March twenty-first, 1917,” Helen explained gently. “That would be more than a coincidence. Seeing you in the flesh killed our mother. She knew who you were the moment you walked in, and then once I introduced you, I confirmed her suspicions. Before that night, I’d only referred to you as David.”

  David sighed, his expression pained. “I know God sometimes has a cruel sense of humor, but this—” He shook his head sadly. “I can’t even say the words out loud.”

  I can, Helen thought. I must. I need to speak the words in order to make them real between us. I need to confess to what I’ve knowingly done.

  “We are brother and sister, David, and Annie’s deformity is my punishment for not doing the right thing.”

  “And what do you suppose the right thing would have been?” David asked. He was white as a sheet, but his eyes held no anger or resentment, only pain.

  “I should have told you straight away. We should have had the marriage annulled.”

  “And what would have become of Davy? Can you imagine what his future would have been like had it come out that his parents were, in fact, siblings?”

  “Yes, I can, which was why I burned the photo and the birth certificate and carried on as if nothing had happened. When Davy was born healthy and strong, I thought that maybe God had forgotten about me, but it seems he hadn’t.”

  David shook his head. “Helen, fate brought us together. You could have married any other man, but you married me. We found each other for a reason, and if you believe that God oversees everything we do, then that had to be part of his divine plan.”

  “What plan?” Helen cried. “David, you’re my brother.”

  “Half-brother, which is about the same degree of relation as first cousins. First cousins have been allowed to marry throughout history. In ancient Egypt, royal brothers and sisters married to produce the next pharaoh. It was a way to keep the blood pure. Besides, we were strangers to each other when we met. We didn’t grow up together. We came together as man and woman, not as brother and sister.” David was so desperate to make s
ome sense of what he’d just learned, Helen’s heart went out to him. He was understandably in shock. The reality of their situation would take more than a few minutes to fully sink in.

  “But that doesn’t change the fact, does it?” Helen replied gently. “Our union is incestuous, and our children are a product of sin.”

  “It’s only a sin when undertaken with full awareness,” David argued. He seemed determined to reason their predicament away.

  “We are fully aware now,” Helen reminded him.

  “But we weren’t when we married. Our son was conceived in innocence.”

  “But not our daughter.”

  “You had good reason for keeping this to yourself,” David replied.

  “Are you saying I did nothing wrong?” Helen asked, staring at David as if he’d just started speaking in tongues.

  “I’m saying that you did the most sensible thing under the circumstances. Had the truth come out while we were stepping out, it would have been better for us to go our separate ways, but you were already pregnant with our son. You had no other choice but to carry on. Helen, darling, I don’t think Annie’s disability has anything to do with us.”

  Helen wiped away fresh tears. “Oh, David, I want to believe that, I do, but if I told anyone the truth, they’d see it quite differently, especially Reverend Hale.”

  “Then don’t tell him. Don’t tell anyone. No one needs to know. We are a family, and we’ll remain a family until the bitter end. You’ve been carrying this burden for so long. Let me carry it for a while. Put if from your mind and focus on our children. They need you.”

  “Why is Mum crying again?” Davy whined as he came into the room. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, son. Everything is all right. Mum’s just tired.”

  “Mum cries all the time.”

  “Come here.” David enveloped his son in a comforting embrace. “Mummy is not going to cry anymore. She is going to be much better from now on. Right, Mummy?”