by Thea Devine
But here, in the cool, clinical bedroom of a dying man, he would not accuse or judge him.
It was an impossible barrier. He wouldn't breach it, and if she wanted to preserve what she had, she could not cross it.
There had to be some other way . . .
. .. if she found the album, or the cache of diamonds .. . ?
Not realistic. She'd been singularly unsuccessful before. She wouldn't even know where to look. Every possibility would be closed to her anyway, with those mysterious unseen eyes— Bingham's eyes?—watching her every movement, everywhere.
And on top of all that, Kyger threatening to leave .. . She felt as if she had unleashed a monster.
She ought to just get out and go to her father.
Instead, she girded herself and went up to Hugo's room.
There, it was cold and quiet as a tomb. The local woman, whose name was Charlotte, was sitting in a corner, quiet as a mouse. As Jancie entered, she tiptoed to the door and whispered, "He's asleep, ma'am. Mr. Lujan just left."
"Thank you." Jancie moved to the bedside. Hugo looked pale as death, his skin like marble, unmoving as a stone.
She straightened his blanket because she didn't know what else to do.
It was time to give over, she thought. She couldn't bear the burden of her father's desire for retribution any longer, not with Hugo like this, and her marriage a function of her need to serve Edmund rather than her own needs.
It was over. There was nothing more that she could do for Edmund. Or that she wanted to do, in these circumstances.
A weight rolled off her shoulders that she hadn't known she was carrying.
That easy. Just make the decision and shrug off years of purpose in the service of maintaining some peace while a man was dying.
Just let it go.
The room felt like a crypt. It wouldn't be long now.
She would write to her father. Let him know that after all this time, he would have to let go of it, too.
Father—
Things have come to an unexpected head. Hugo
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has been grievously injured and is possibly near death. There is nothing more I can do for you here. It wouldn't be right, nor would I feel right pursuing any other course hut to wait until nature and God decree his recovery or his death. The latter seems most likely.
I am so sorry. I feel as if I have failed you when I truthfully believe I've done everything I could to this date, everything you would have wanted and more.
Tell me what you think I should do now, and I will follow your express wishes to the letter . . .
Now she had lied. She hadn't failed Edmund to that extent, really. And while she had something tangible with which to confront Hugo, it just wasn't enough, and it was years too late.
And if Lujan hadn't identified what it was, she would never have known that funny little stone was a diamond anyway. So it was the same as if she had found nothing, and therefore, not a flagrant misrepresentation of the facts, and just enough to excuse the fact that she didn't tell Edmund about it at all.
How tangled was the web they were all weaving—someone was certain to get caught in all the lies . . .
But at the moment, it didn't seem important.
She didn't care.
And she didn't know what else to do.
******************
She came downstairs to hear Lujan's raised voice coming from the dining room.
"Someone wants to destroy this family. Someone tried to kill me—and then went after Hugo in my stead, and I swear to you—'
There was a low, conciliating voice in answer to that statement—and then Lujan again: "No. No. It's not possible, I don't believe it. X won't believe it."
Another comment.
Lujan: "Shit."
She edged closer to hear with whom he was arguing.
"Well—" it was Kyger—damn it—"you just parse it out, big brother. See what's on either side of the ledger. Make a count-" who is your enemy, really? Some woman you knocked up in
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Town? Or the man who has always felt cheated by your family? Who has more reason to come after you? And who has he sent as his agent? And who does he really want dead?"
Lujan was silent for a moment.
He couldn't refute a thing Kyger said. Jancie knew it, he knew it, and he knew the truth because she had told him. How much was he willing to share with Kyger?
"Jancie found something in Mother's room."
"And what was she doing in Mother's room?"
"Well, that's the thing, although maybe it's beside the point to what she found."
"Which was?"
"A diamond, rough, uncut."
"No . .. impossible ..."
"And she claims there were many more under Olivia's bed."
Kyger laughed—a short, derisive bark. "Did she? How cunning of her."
"She said she had a handful of them, she touched them . . ."
"And where are they now?"
Lujan was silent again.
Jancie couldn't blame him. Listening to Kyger's skeptical response would have made anyone doubtful. It sounded false, desperate—everything she was and felt. A cold feeling washed over her as she comprehended what next he would say.
"Gone."
"Umm-hmm—except just the very one Jancie happened to have ..."
Another silence.
"That she probably had all along, you idiot. That she probably planted under Mother's bed, though God knows why she would even be in Mother's room. Well, brother mine, you've been gulled by the mistress of misdirection. She finds a stone, you identify it as the one thing that will prove that your own father is guilty of everything she says he is, and—oh, by the way, he's on the edge of death suddenly. How coincidental. Just like all your accidents. All of a sudden. And who is in the middle of each and every incident? Who benefits if you die? What happens if Hugo dies? What's left?"
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A long, hard silence.
"You and Jancie, as it happens," Lujan said finally, coldly. "So maybe the story is that you are in collusion with her."
******************
Jancie fled. If she could have left the house then, she would have, but calling a carriage to go back to London would have been a stupid move right now. They'd chase her to London, she thought. They'd chase her around the world for what she'd done.
All she wanted was to make herself inconspicuous, to reduce herself into a speck of dust so no one could ever find her.
There was nothing left, nothing.
Lujan believed her no longer, and thought it was possible that she had not only wanted to kill him, but also his father—all in the name of avenging her own father . ,,
She was the one caught in the web of lies, and she had murdered everything she ever wanted in the process.
She just did not know where to go, what to do that someone wouldn't see her.
"Madam?"
She jumped. Turned. Mrs. Ancrum.
"Is there anything madam wishes?"
As if she were still the mistress of anything except deceit.
She swallowed her panic. "Thank you, Mrs. Ancrum. No. Except that everything is being done for Mr. Hugo."
"Indeed, madam. Charlotte is not to leave his side, and notify myself or Mr. Lujan if anything should change. The doctor will be by once again tomorrow morning."
Make it seem like everything was normal. "We'll dine informally tonight."
"Yes, so Mr. Lujan said. Thank you, madam."
Oh God . . . She sagged against the wall as Mrs. Ancrum disappeared down the hallway. What else? Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She was shaking and icy cold, and she wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and just burrow under the covers in their bedroom.
Except it was no longer their bedroom. She was no longer mistress of the house, and there was no safe haven here. No place to hide anywhere.
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&n
bsp; If she could sink through the floor. Or run away. Or become invisible so she could bury her shame, sneak away, and never return to Waybury again .. .
She would never send that mea culpa letter to her father. Never wanted to see him ever again. Never, as long as she lived, forgive him for manipulating her all these years.
Lujan would divorce her. Quickly.
She would lose herself on another continent, a woman without a country.
She had no future, and her past was a lie. Where did a person go to escape the consequences of her actions?
No one ever used the parlor—she could slip in there and it was possible no one would find her for days. For years. Forever.
At least she could take a moment's respite from the pounding guilt she felt for all the years of betrayals, both her father's and hers.
The parlor was dark. She felt her way to one of the sofas by the fireplace and sank down in the farthest corner.
No lights here, but she still felt as if unseen eyes were watching her, judging her. She buried her head against the sofa arm.
Dear God, what was she going to do?
And then she heard it—or maybe she was dreaming it—that crickling, marbley sound rolling inexorably across the parlor floor.
******************
Son of a bitch—where was Jancie?
No one had seen her since—not since Mrs. Ancrum had seen her in the hallway earlier. Since she'd visited Hugo's room this evening for a couple of minutes after he had been there.
Since they'd come back this afternoon.
She hadn't come to dinner.
She seemed to have totally disappeared. But she hadn't left the house, that anyone noticed. Hadn't called for the carriage. Wasn't in their room. Or the library.
She had a lot to answer for, he thought. It was too much—between her story of the diamond and his father's accident, and all the grim possibilities in between.
He felt split in three different directions, three different loyalties. To his father and Kyger. To Jancie.
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Maybe not to Jancie, because this whole notion of Edmund taking his revenge through her was enough to shake what little faith he had in the veracity of her version of her story.
But there were so many different stories, so many different perspectives. Kyger had shaken him to the core with his, so of course he'd struck back. But every permutation made so much sense; any one of them could be the truth.
And every point led back to Edmund. And, if he looked clearly through the fog of his explosive orgasms, to Jancie as his proxy.
It was the worst possible scenario. He had believed her story about finding the diamond until Kyger shot it down. But that didn't mean it couldn't be true. It was as true as her conspiring with Kyger, as true as her having been insinuated at Waybury for the sole purpose of marrying him.
There was a little bit of truth in each of those accounts, and no one truth in any of them. And until he knew the truth about the diamonds, nothing could be resolved, and the master teller of these tales would go scot-free.
He had to find Jancie. She had to be somewhere in the house.
"You still want to believe her," Kyger drawled, watching him over the dinner en buffet as they picked at their vegetables.
"As much as I want to believe you."
"Listen, big brother—Jancie was a siren insinuated in our midst. I don't know how her father engineered it, but somehow he did. She's been taught since the day she was born to hate the Galliards. She came here to wreak havoc on us, and she has. Just the fact that all three of us wanted to marry her—you don't call that destructive? How did she do that?"
"I can tell you," Lujan said, "but it will kill all your theories."
'Til listen, but I won't say I'll agree with you."
Lujan shrugged. "It was as simple as this—Hugo wanted to silence Edmund. He thought that by marrying Jancie he'd keep Edmund's demands in line because Jancie would have the kind of life Edmund had always wanted for her and status as the mistress of Waybury. Hugo thought Edmund wouldn't make outrageous demands or blackmail him if his daughter were his wife. And, as a further inducement—he'd have all that fertile, young flesh . . ■
Dear heaven—even now, thinking about Hugo's hands on Jancie ... it made him prickle. Never.
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He went on, "Which was the first of my reasons for asking Jancie to marry me? You know I didn't want Father getting more heirs on her. And he damned well would have, with a woman like her. There could have been a half-dozen more brothers and sisters—not a pleasant prospect in the scheme of things.
"And second to that, I, too, wanted to keep Edmund at bay. The threat from him was never overt—it was always hovering in the background. After he contacted us, he made certain Father always knew that he was there, waiting to pounce. Marrying Jancie seemed like an elegant solution to both problems.
"You, of course, were merely in love with her."
Kyger leapt on him. "And you're out of your mind. She's tried to kill you three times now, and who knows how she got to Hugo, but she did. She's picking us off one by one until there's no one left but her and Edmund. Or are you too whipsawed to see it?"
"I see it—but is it the truth?" Lujan said. "I don't know."
"It fits like a puzzle," Kyger growled. "Which will never be solved because you'll be dead."
"Jesus, baby brother—you sound too damned bloodthirsty for my comfort. Let's take first things first. You check on Hugo again. I have to find Jancie."
"Oh—she fled the scene of the crime already?"
"God, for someone who was in love with her, you're sure not in love with her."
"Well, she chose you, in spite of my best efforts. But all these coincidences can't be overlooked."
"But they could be rearranged to form another picture."
"God, you're besotted. You can't see the whole picture for the fog in your brain. And by the time you do, you'll be goddamned dead."
"Hell, I hope not. We'll just have to be more careful. It's us against Jancie. If she's really the instigator, she has no chance at all."
******************
She was frozen in place. The rolling sound had stopped and she could hear their footsteps, back and forth up and down, Kyger calling to Lujan that Hugo was about the same. Lujan callinlg to Kyger to check out the stables to make sure Jancie wasn't hiding there.
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Oh? They were searching for her? She'd have thought they would never want to see her again, would be happy if she just up and disappeared.
Or she might just go insane from that ghostly sound. It held her in place for the length of time she heard it. She felt as if those ghostly eyes were watching, and knew her every move.
It was strange to be huddled in that dark netherworld of an empty, little-used room, to hear everything going on in the house around her, and to comprehend that it all centered on her, and on Hugo.
The house pulsed around her as if it were a living thing; the house had a story, too. Of Olivia, who had inherited it, and welcomed her husband home from his allegedly unsuccessful foray in South Africa.
Of a family and three sons. A child gone missing. A partner coming back from the dead. An ill and dying wife. A stranger in their midst. . . one who was there by design and desire ., .
She had gone over and over it in her mind, and there was no getting away from it: Edmund had instigated her presence at Waybury, had wanted to deliberately put her in proximity to Lujan—or Kyger—and so that nature would take its course, and he would be one step closer to taking his revenge.
Nothing about it was precise. It was all plots and dreams, manipulation and prayers. How had Edmund lived like that all those years while he schemed and hoped, and couldn't even know if anything he planned would come to fruition?
It was beyond her, and she thanked God her mother hadn't lived to witness all this happening. It was enough that Jancie had been his pawn, his willing accomplic
e. Had known, without his spelling it out, precisely what he wanted her to do.
She was haunted by the knowledge of that. Haunted by the spooky, rolling sound which she solely associated with the child who'd gone missing. It was as if Gaunt were watching her. Gaunt knew her secrets. He lived in the album, and he would, eventually, show her where.
But for the moment, she sat like a statue, listening to Lujan and Kyger racing around, gratified they were even looking for her, because right now, in the dark environs of the cold and empty parlor, she felt as if she were really lost.
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Meuuuww.. .
From where she sat hunched up on the sofa, Jancie could hear Emily. Emily was close, and looking for her.
She had almost forgotten about Emily.
Meuw. Her cat call was soft, as if she knew Jancie was hiding, and wanted only a sense of where she was, so her cat sense was guiding her.
Reuww. Suddenly she was there, landing lightly on Jancie's lap and rubbing against her elbow. Owww.
Jancie brushed her away. Emily came right back up onto her tap.
Owww.
Insistent, this time.
Jancie ignored her. Can't you see I don't want to move?
Mrrooww. Emily didn't see that at all, obviously.
And her voice was getting louder.
How did you tell a cat to lower her meow? It was such a ridiculous notion that Jancie blinked away her tears.
Emily made sense—the only thing in her life that did. Emily didn't hate her, didn't judge her, use her, or manipulate her. Emily was her only family. She had always thought so at St. Bonny's; it was no less true now.
Emily was the best part of her life. The one that kept her sane, and kept her going.
She reached out her hand and Emily fit her head right up under her palm. She stroked Emily's soft, pointy ears, and listened to her soft, deep-throated purr.
Instantly she felt better. Her tears stopped. She felt warm, she felt as if things weren't hopeless and that there was a solution somewhere.
That much Emily knew, and that much her reassuring presence told her. With Emily here, she didn't feel haunted, and the shadows simply fell away. Emily knew her, understood her . . . everything about her, warts and all.