by BETH KERY
“Are you kidding? It’s incredible. Tsang is one of my favorite artists.”
“I know. You mentioned it once, so I looked him up. You were right. As usual, you have impeccable taste.”
“Thank you.”
I stared up at him in rising awe. I was surrounded by treasures at every turn: a vast mansion, an idyllic landscape, museum-quality art pieces casually displayed for my pleasure.
But he was the biggest wonder of all.
“You’re my husband,” I murmured, hearing the edge of possession and the tinge of wonder in my own voice.
A strange look settled on his face. He sat on the edge of the bed, peering at me from beneath a lowered brow.
“You say that like you’re amazed.”
I reached out and touched the gold ring I’d put on his finger yesterday.
“I say it because I am amazed,” I told him frankly.
“No, Anna. I’m the one who is stunned.”
He leaned down, nuzzling my chin until I lifted my face for him. His mouth covered mine. A moment later, he turned out the lamp and joined me beneath the covers.
Our dinner was forgotten.
When I woke in the morning, brilliant sunlight poured around the curtains. I was alone. I felt like a kid who had fallen asleep on the last leg of a vacation trip, and woken up in Disneyland.
“Evan?” I called out as I sprung out of bed. It only took a split second of silence for me to recognize he wasn’t there. I flung open first one window’s drapes, then another. The room was transformed into a golden cube. I held my breath, staring out at the brilliant water and the smoky-blue mountains on the far side of the lake.
I hurried to get dressed.
A few minutes later, I reached the bottom of the grand staircase, panting from haste and excitement.
“Evan?”
Thick silence was my only reply. Bright sunlight poured in through the giant windows facing the lake, but a good portion of the great room resisted the shining streamers of gold. Stubborn shadows hung on the forest side of the room like heavy drapery. I had the strange impression that my voice hadn’t been substantial enough to penetrate there, like Evan might be sitting in one of those wingback leather chairs and blending with the darkness.
But he wasn’t, of course, I told myself firmly as I crept into the center of a giant, exquisite Oriental carpet. The forest side of the room wasn’t actually as dark as I’d first imagined. My eyes had adjusted. I absorbed the room, scanning the carved mahogany shelves brimming with books. It took me a moment to realize I searched for photos, for any remnant of the past.
To my relief, I saw none.
Evan had never gotten around to showing me much of the house last night. I explored now to my heart’s content. At first, I was a little cautious about throwing open doors and wandering down unfamiliar hallways. But when I was delighted again and again with one amazing space after another, I grew bolder.
I found another set of stairs leading downward, not as fancy as the main staircase, but still fashioned from lovely, carved mahogany.
At the bottom of the stairs was a kitchen. Not just any kitchen, a lavish, cozy, enormous affair. It still held the charm of an old school service kitchen, although it’d been given a modern renovation that included two quartz-covered islands, a double oven with warm red brick lining the wall above it, a pressed tin roof, a seating area with deep leather chairs situated in front of a fireplace, and a casual dining table placed next to another bank of windows.
Here was the lake again, in all its glory. Although I’d come downstairs, the house was built into the mountainside. On this level, I was still a floor above the beach. A stone terrace ran outside patio doors and windows, a built-in outdoor cooking space, table and seating area awaiting some golden midmorning brunch or romantic magenta sunset.
I discovered a half full coffee pot on the counter—welcome evidence of Evan’s presence here before me.
“Evan?” I called out, but again, the vast spaces of the house swallowed up my voice.
The kitchen cabinet doors were made of paned glass. I hesitated as I looked for a coffee cup, wondering who might have drunk from it before me. Would my cup be chipped from some previous user?
Maybe smudged with old lipstick?
I found myself counting stacked plates of various sizes, teacups and coffee mugs, knowing all along I was being ridiculous. Obsessive, even. But I couldn’t stop myself. There were sixteen of each. Only one coffee cup was missing, which surely had been taken by Evan. I took down a mug, loving the heavy, creamy feeling of the everyday china in my hand. The dish looked brand new.
“Any time you find yourself doubting, remember me saying this: I’m only thinking of you when we touch. Only you, Anna.”
The memory heartened me. I suspected that Evan had purchased the dishes recently. For me. For us.
A fresh start.
Now carrying a steaming cup of coffee and feeling very happy, I opened door after door on this level, breathless with excitement. I felt like the winner of the best lottery in existence, going through her treasures for the first time.
Here was a well-stocked pantry that was twice the size of my rented room in San Francisco, and here a mahogany wine cellar with a tasting table in the center of it. Down a jog of stone steps, I located a changing room for the beach and exercise room, a wet and dry sauna, and a large laundry room.
I spied another closed door down the passage and headed toward it, positive of another treasure about to be discovered. I opened it and stood on the edge of utter blackness.
Disorientation struck me. I realized later it was because the room was on the beach side, and so I’d expected bright sunlight. Instead, there was an open space in front of me, but it was a black hole. I reached and immediately found a porcelain light switch. Ever so briefly, I thought of the story of Bluebeard’s wife opening the forbidden door. Ignoring the stupid, intrusive thought, I flipped on the light.
Color assaulted me. Forget the blue of the beard. This was red. Everywhere. There were rows and rows of velvet lounging chairs and couches, smooth monochromatic scarlet intermixed with complex tapestries. Red velvet fabric covered the walls, sometimes in a wallpaper, sometimes swooping in lush U-shaped drapery.
I’d lit a crystal chandelier that hung in the center of the room. The cut glass teardrops absorbed the pervasive scarlet, turning them into bloodshot diamonds. There was an elaborate bar and storage unit to the side of the room, the amber, brown, and green liquor bottles providing the only variance of color.
Dust lay heavily on everything—the crystal decanters, the overhead chandelier, the oceans of velvet.
This was beyond luxury. It was decadence. There was some odor, something I didn’t like. Moisture and mold. Sweat? The heavy fabrics held on fast to a stew of cloying scents: the lingering stench of old cigars and women’s perfume. Exhaled liquor.
A rich musk.
I didn’t want to breathe it in. This room was unlike any other I’d seen in the house so far. It was a sealed-off chamber, no windows, and seemingly no decent ventilation.
I backed out quickly into the hall without thinking, and then paused as I remembered the light. I reached around the doorframe, hesitant this time. My fingers skittered reluctantly along the velvet. It felt slightly moist and rough, warmer than I’d thought it would, like I’d thrust my hand into a living thing, as if my fingers ran along the inner lining of a mouth or something even more illicit…
“Anna?”
My forefinger encountered the switch at the same moment I heard Evan’s voice behind me. I flicked it and hurriedly shut the door.
It wasn’t until I turned to face his approaching figure that I realized I was behaving guiltily, like I’d been caught doing something bad. Evan slowed as he reached me, his brow creasing as he studied my face. My cheeks felt hot.
“Ex
ploring?” he asked me. His voice sounded level—calm even—but his eyes were searching.
“Yes. I was just—” I pointed lamely at the closed door and laughed.
“Looking at the viewing room?” he finished for me.
“Viewing room?” For viewing what, exactly?
He nodded, his gaze narrowing on me. He took my hand.
“For viewing movies?” he explained slowly.
“Oh,” I gasped, understanding hitting. I gave a bark of relieved laughter. The movie screen must have been hidden behind those dusty, heavy velvet drapes.
“What did you think it was for?” Evan asked, pulling my hand and leading me along the hallway. He looked over his shoulder as he walked, his gaze on me sharp.
“I didn’t know what it was for,” I admitted, trying to hold back a jag of hysterical laughter. “Caligula’s party room, maybe?”
I thought he’d laugh. Instead, he paused. I saw him mouth my answer silently, a strange expression overcoming his face.
“Evan? I was just kidding. It was all the velvet. It seemed a little tacky, that’s all, very different from the rest of the house.”
He nodded once and resumed walking.
“It needs to be demolished completely and renovated. I asked the cleaning crew to make sure it was locked, but apparently, they forgot. All that fabric is rotting. There’s mold. It’s not safe to breathe in there.”
“It didn’t smell very good.”
“It’s past time it was renovated,” he said.
Who had ever thought designing a room like that was a good idea? Was it Evan’s first wife who had that bordello-taste, or some former owner? Hadn’t Evan said Les Jumeaux had been in the Madaster family for over a hundred years? But obviously, a movie viewing room was a more modern addition. Whatever the case, that room certainly hadn’t matched the tasteful, warm elegance of everything else I’d seen at the North Twin.
And what kind of movies had been viewed in there, exactly? Had Elizabeth and Evan entertained in the viewing room? I wondered, thinking of that well stocked bar. I winced. I even hated the name: viewing room. It struck me as dirty and furtive somehow, like a peeping Tom.
Was any of that repulsive scent a remnant of Elizabeth and her husband?
My husband?
Stop it. Stop thinking about her. About them.
“Best to stay away from that room,” Evan was saying briskly as he led me into the magnificent kitchen. He turned toward me and grasped my shoulders, waiting for me to look up at him.
“Best for you to stay in the light, Anna.”
So I did.
For the next week or so, I spent a good portion of my mornings and my afternoons painting on the overlook. The pure, saturated light and crystalline atmosphere put me into a kind of creative trance. I lost track of hours at a time. Despite the spell of the place, my focus had never been clearer, my strokes on the canvas never more sure.
I swam in the afternoons when it grew too hot on the overlook. I promised Evan I would swim alone only in the idyllic, manmade sandy enclosure. It’d been designed and engineered for safe, casual swimming, with a maximum depth of only about five feet.
Sometimes, I explored the grounds after I swam, hiking around the many mountain trails or rocky beaches, walking on Les Jumeaux’s hewn stone pathways and charming little bridges that led to dozens of small gardens and secret sitting benches, just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.
One day, the back of my neck prickled as I painted. I had the thought I was being watched. But when I turned around, I saw nothing unusual. The tops of the enormous pines swayed peacefully in the breeze. I searched the tall branches. A bird of prey might have watched me while I painted. Maybe some primal instinct in me had sensed it. My gaze was drawn to the South Twin’s turret where it poked through the tree line. The way the light struck the windows made them appear shiny and opaque, like a dark mirror.
I turned back to my work, but that uncomfortable sensation of being watched persisted.
After I’d stored my canvas and painting supplies that day, I headed down the entrance road for my daily walk.
When I reached the fork in the road, I took the left path, toward the South Twin. Perhaps I was influenced by that feeling of being watched while I worked earlier. I could see the South Twin well enough from the front of the property and the beach, and the great south turret loomed to my left when I painted on the overlook every day. But I was curious to see the back entrance to the South Twin.
When I reached the clearing and saw the house, it was like looking at a mirror image of our home. It had the same stone carvings on the house’s exterior, the delicate, decorative ironwork on the chimneys and lanterns. I couldn’t find one difference.
A mechanical hum resounded into the still summer evening, making me jump. I realized that a door was electronically rising on the South Twin’s garage. Much to my amazement, someone was about to drive out of what I’d supposed was an uninhabited home.
Embarrassed at my intrusion on private property, I hurried out of the road into the cover of the pines. A moment later, I watched a silver Toyota sedan go past me. I saw the driver well from my position: a woman of about forty with dark hair pulled back into a thick, tight bun. She was much too young to be Elizabeth Madaster’s mother. Who was she?
Evan and I ate dinner on the terrace that night after sunset, our only source of light the candle I’d lit and the midnight dome of stars above us. I described what I’d seen that afternoon to Evan, asking him if Elizabeth had siblings who could have been visiting the South Twin.
“Elizabeth was an only child,” Evan said as he buttered a roll. I was relieved he didn’t seem irritated by my admission of walking over to the South Twin. If anything, he seemed thoughtful. Reflective. “It was probably the Madaster’s agent, or maybe just a friend checking up on the property for them? Probably better to stay away from that house, though. Madaster wasn’t exactly thrilled that Elizabeth left me this property. He threw away a lot of money on expensive lawyers, trying to find a loophole to keep me from inheriting. He might get unpleasant if he found out we were trespassing over on his property,” Evan said.
I agreed with him completely. I didn’t want to do anything that would worsen what appeared to be a bitter relationship between the two men.
“Are you going far when you take your hikes?” he asked in a neutral tone.
“No. Just along the trail above the beach and on the nearby forest paths.” He didn’t reply. He seemed distracted.
“Evan? There’s not a problem with me hiking around here, is there?”
“No, it’s just that I’d prefer you weren’t alone. Some of the trails are steep. Isolated. What if something happened to you while you were out?”
“I’d call you. I always have my cell phone,” I reminded him wryly. “I used to hike alone at Land’s End and the Presidio all the time. I’ll be fine, Evan.”
“This isn’t the Presidio. If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the wilderness here. We’re very isolated. I’ll get you a bell you can tie to your shoestring to help warn animals of your presence, and some bear spray at the very least,” he said after a pause. His gray eyes met mine. “And I’d like you to tell me which direction you’re hiking before you go out. Okay?”
I laughed. “Why are you so worried? I’m just walking.”
His hand snaked out, grasping my wrist. I started.
“Just promise me,” he said. I stared at him, my mouth hanging open in surprise. “It can be dangerous here, Anna. It’s important that you understand that.”
“At Les Jumeaux?” I asked disbelievingly.
He seemed to come to himself, releasing my wrist. He picked up his knife and cut his steak.
“Not just at Les Jumeaux. In the forest. In the water. This isn’t a place to let down your guard, that’s all I meant.” He reached and took m
y hand, this time gently. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful. Please? You’re very precious to me. I’d feel very… ”
“Evan?” I asked when he trailed off.
“Bad if something happened to you,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Because I’d brought you to this place.”
My dropped fork rattled loudly on the china. I sandwiched his hand between mine and squeezed.
“Nothing bad is going to happen to me,” I insisted. I smiled brightly, trying to coax away his dark mood. When his expression remained unchanged, I stood and went to him. I removed his steak knife from his hand, setting it on his plate. I calmly straddled his lap and opened my hands on his shoulders. He remained very still and watchful, but I felt the familiar tension leap into his flesh. I pressed my lips fleetingly to his.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his mouth twitching in amusement.
“Making love to you. It’s a beautiful night.”
“You’re trying to sidetrack me.”
“Is that a crime? For a wife to sidetrack her husband?” I looped my forearms around his neck and pulled him closer, skimming my nipples across his chest and plucking at his lips coaxingly.
He opened his mouth slightly and I slipped my tongue in the crevice. He groaned, shifting his hands to my hips and then my buttocks. He squeezed gently, but insistently, until I backed away slightly and met his stare.
“Promise me, Anna. Promise me you’ll be careful. That you’ll let me know when you go out, and in what direction you’re going at the very least.”
“The last thing I want to do is worry you, Evan. Of course I promise.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. He looked appeased, if not relieved. Tension continued to harshly etch his handsome face.
He moved one hand, his deft fingertips releasing the buttons on my shirt with unerring accuracy. I held my breath, watching as he undressed me, his actions increasingly hasty. Forceful. Finally, he jerked open the fabric of my shirt wide, his stare in the dim light scorching me. Both of his hands again on my hips, he slid me along his thighs toward him. He planted his head between my breasts, his warm breath misting my skin. I held him to me, my fingers furrowing through his thick hair.