Rowe could just imagine how that played out. A senior servant foolishly tells her husband the girls’ secret. This asshole sees an opportunity for himself and when he’s knocked back, he takes his revenge, at the same time currying favor with the master of the house. The same story must have played itself out time and again in those days, and it was always the woman who bore the consequences.
Becky loved Juliet, Rowe decided, maybe she was even in love with her mistress—she had tried to protect her in every way she could. With increasing sorrow, she listened as Phoebe described the way the murders went down. Juliet, weak from childbirth, had tried to drag her father off Becky. She located a carving knife and ordered him to leave the maid alone.
“Becky told the cook about the pearl, you see,” Phoebe said. “She didn’t want anyone thinking Juliet abandoned her baby with nothing.”
“Don’t tell me.” It was all falling into place, another story of men’s greed, lust and amorality. “The cook’s husband told Baker a different story.”
“Juliet said her father had a foul temper. Mrs. Baker was an invalid because he threw her down a flight of stairs one day.”
Rowe sighed. “No wonder she was terrified of him finding out she was pregnant.”
“He wrestled with her,” Phoebe said. “That was when Juliet screamed for Becky to run.”
The scream Phoebe had heard the day she ran from the kitchen and gave Rowe her black eye. It all made sense now.
“In the end he got a hold of the knife and stabbed her. Then he left her bleeding on the kitchen floor and went after Becky.” Phoebe wiped a hand across her eyes. Shoulders shaking, she said, “Juliet dragged herself into the pantry to hide, and after a while he came back. He was raving about how Becky would tell him what he wanted to know. He emptied the provisions from the pantry and nailed boards over it. By the time he was done, it was almost dawn and Becky was dead.”
“So he went out and untied her hands and feet,” Rowe said numbly. She knew the rest. “He made it look like an accident.”
“He actually had the presence of mind to dress her in one of Juliet’s gowns and tie a lace cap over her head.” Phoebe’s voice dripped bitter contempt. “When the doctor arrived he played the grieving father. He sent the servants home, supposedly for a day of mourning, and personally bricked up the pantry.”
Rowe could hardly bear to imagine. “I hope he rots in hell.”
“I’m not sure if there is a hell,” Phoebe whispered.
“Don’t go looking, okay?”
She felt Phoebe smile. “Okay.”
“Thank you for telling me what happened.”
Phoebe cuddled closer, her wet eyelashes painting Rowe’s cheek. After some time had passed, she murmured, “Juliet’s still here. I’m not sure why.”
“The banishment didn’t work?” Rowe was dismayed. After the funeral, they’d performed cleansing rituals and summoned Juliet. They invited her to let go and rest in peace, the CIA guys impassively looking on like they saw the paranormal every day.
“Don’t worry,” Phoebe said drowsily. “If she gets antsy, I’ll talk to her. I think she likes me.”
My lover has friends on the other side, Rowe thought. And she’s a top-secret CIA asset with security guards who have instructions to kill anyone who lays a hand on her. At least, that’s how it seemed from the paranoid way they behaved. Then there was Marvin Perry. They didn’t come any scarier than that guy. And he and Vernell were having some kind of pissing contest over who would get to play with Phoebe next. It was stranger than fiction.
Rowe stroked Phoebe’s hair and kissed her forehead, feeling her limbs grow heavy as she sank into sleep. “I love you, baby,” she whispered, overwhelmed with her good fortune.
Life had taken a very odd turn, but Rowe knew in her bones she was finally on the right track again. Maybe Phoebe was right. Maybe she had never left it and everything had happened for a reason. It had taken a lot of disappointment and disillusion to drive her from Manhattan to Maine. Had she stayed where she was, licking her self-inflicted wounds, she would never have met Phoebe.
She listened to the soft sounds of the house and discerned that one of them was the sound of whichever CIA man had pulled the graveyard shift. He was standing at the bedroom door, she realized, disconcerted. Muffled voices penetrated the solid wood, then a female figure entered the room.
“Cara,” Rowe whispered in surprise.
Phoebe’s twin crept over to the bed. “Is she asleep?”
“I think so. Is something wrong?”
Cara dawdled around the bed to Rowe. “I couldn’t sleep. There’s something I want to say.” She hesitated. “If you’d prefer, we can talk tomorrow.”
Rowe felt awkward, detecting an uncharacteristic vulnerability in Cara. Taking a guess at what was troubling her, she said, “Cara, I can’t ever take your place and I’m not trying to.”
Cara wrapped her robe more firmly around her, hugging herself against the cold. “Am I that obvious?”
“I know this isn’t easy for either of you. Phoebe’s terrified that you’re going to leave.”
She glanced down at her lover, concerned they might have woken her. But Phoebe was serenely unawares. It always amazed Rowe how quickly and deeply sleep claimed her. Phoebe had said it was like leaving one world and entering another and that sometimes she was afraid she wouldn’t find her way back.
“I don’t want to leave,” Cara said. “But I want to be fair to the two of you. If I’m here, I think things could get kind of crowded. Don’t you?” She reached across Rowe and stroked her sister’s hair. “It’s hard to explain. Sometimes I feel like we can never be completely ourselves. It’s like I don’t know where she begins and I end.”
“I’m not sure you can fight that,” Rowe said. “Please don’t try on my account.”
Cara tilted her head slightly to one side and stroked her bottom lip with a finger. The unconscious gesture jolted Rowe. Phoebe did exactly the same thing when she was struggling with a thought.
“You’re a rarity,” Cara said. “Most women would be jealous. Christ, I would.”
Rowe took careful measure of herself. Was she being honest with herself, suggesting Cara stay? Or was she being noble, trying to give Phoebe what she wanted without regard to her own feelings? She couldn’t afford to kid herself about this important issue, only to be filled with resentment after the fact.
“I feel incredibly lucky to have found Phoebe,” she said with increasing confidence in her own perspective. “I love her. I love who she is. And you are so profoundly a part of her that to deny it, to try and carve you away, would harm her. It would change her, and I couldn’t bear that. Do you see?”
“Yes. I see exactly.” Cara smiled gravely and padded across to the window. She drew the curtains back and gazed out into the night. Cast in silhouette by the silver radiance of the moon, she stood still as a sylph watching her own reflection in a pool.
That’s how it was for them, Rowe mused. The Temple twins were mirror images. In order to see herself, each would have to find some way to look beyond her twin. Denying their bond was not the answer.
“Cara,” she called softly. “Come sleep with your sister.”
For a few fraught seconds Cara stared at Rowe, then, without a word, she closed the curtains and crossed to Phoebe’s side of the bed, slipping beneath the covers to lie next to her. Phoebe stirred slightly and Rowe felt her move to wrap an arm around her twin’s middle.
It struck her then that love is a tree with complex roots and boughs broad enough to shelter many. Its fruits are diverse, yet each draws its nourishment from the same source. None steals from another. Phoebe’s love for Rowe did not demand the sacrifice of her love for Cara, and Rowe would never ask it.
She kissed the top of her darling’s head and smiled to herself. A few months ago she would have found this situation very weird. Even now, if she really thought about it… Yep. It was weird all right. She was in bed with twins, and was madly
in love with one of them, having occasionally lusted after the other. Since moving to Maine, most of her fondly held beliefs about life, love, and the universe had gone right out the door. If all this could happen in a matter of weeks, who knew what the future might hold? Anything seemed possible.
Rowe made herself a promise. Tomorrow, she would wake up and begin a new life and a new novel. It was time.
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