Mother was alive!
I wondered how such a thing was possible, but then I saw with a wild and giddy relief that it had only been my own self-delusion and overactive imagination that had ever told me any different. Seeing her seated down in the garden that first time with Richard, I had jumped to conclusions based on a single memory: the day I’d seen a similar picture, a similar tableau of Aunt Helen and Richard seated together in the park. It would never have occurred to me that it had been Mother I had seen, speaking so intimately with a man other than my father.
But wait a second.
Now I remembered other things. I remembered how after seeing the woman I assumed to be Aunt Helen that day at the park, when I questioned her about it later, she said she had seen no one. At the time, I had assumed her to be lying. But what if she had been telling the truth? Mother and Aunt Helen had shared clothes all the time, wore similar cloaks whenever they went out. One twin in a dark cloak looked much the same as the other. Or who knows? Maybe it had been Mother, and she had simply lied to me about seeing no one. It was confusing. But one thing I was not confused about any longer. The surviving twin was Mother, and it had been Mother that day in the park with Richard.
But if it had been Mother that day in the park with Richard, that day far before the murder, when, oh yes, Father had still been very much alive, what did it all mean?
I had no idea—could not fathom it, stunned as I was by this revelation—but I resolved that as soon as I swam out of this sea of confusion, I would finally uncover the truth.
I would learn everything.
My eyes yet held hers in the mirror as I forced myself to smile on as the drenching rain thundered the panes from the outside.
Tick … tock … tick … tock …
“Did I not say the words correctly?” she asked.
I forced myself to say the thing that needed to be said, so that she would not know what questions I now had about her in my mind: “Yes.”
My mind reeled with shock as the woman behind me, in many ways a stranger no matter who she was, laid a tender kiss upon my cheek.
“Now you really must get dressed,” she said brightly, “or you will be late for your own wedding.”
It was all I could do not to wipe that Judas kiss from my cheek.
. . . . .
The day I had dreamed about forever had turned into a waking nightmare.
Does not a child recognize her own mother?
I had had this thought once before: on the day, five years ago, when Aunt Helen had first come to us, when she had stood on our doorstep with her back to me and then when she turned I saw Mother’s face.
How could I have been so wrong, first in one way and then another, these last four years? How could I have not known the truth?
Does not a child recognize her own mother?
I tried to tell myself that I had been mistaken before, more than once. I had been mistaken the day I went to Father’s study and seeing Aunt Helen seated on his desk familiarly, took Aunt Helen to be Mother. I had been mistaken about Kit’s feelings for Minerva. Surely I could be mistaken again?
And yet I knew that I was not.
There was something very wrong going on in my house, perhaps something had always been wrong here, and the only thing I was sure of was that it involved Richard and it involved Mother.
I wanted to shout it to the world. I wanted to renounce her there and then … but for what exactly?
I still did not know the answer to that.
But I would know.
Dear God.
Finally, I would know.
. . . . .
I moved through my wedding day like a ghost, seeing others as through a filmy glass as I processed down the aisle, as the assembled guests with excruciating slowness turned their heads, swinging them like pendulums backward to look at me.
One woman whose eyes I would not meet, could not meet any longer, was the beautiful blond woman standing in the front row.
So I focused instead on the back of the head of the man beside her, who had yet to turn around: Richard.
Richard had never worn his hair particularly short and now it was growing unruly again. The sight of that brown hair glimpsed from behind, I hated the sight of it—to me it was somehow symbolic of all of their lies, all of their betrayal.
I had written to Kit after that long-ago day in the park.
From the way they were seated together, almost intimately, I felt certain that this was not their first time meeting each other, I had written.
The two appeared to be engaged in a rather heated discussion, judging from the expressions I could glimpse on Aunt Helen’s face, but I could not hear any of the words, for they were whispering, I had written.
I could see nothing of the man, save for his back: a coat, of poor quality both in fabric and cut; unruly brown hair peeking out from beneath the back of his hat, which was also of poor quality—the hat, not the hair, I had written.
And then later, I had told Kit, when Aunt Helen arrived home shortly after I sneaked home myself, and I asked her if she had seen anyone interesting during her walk, she had said, “I saw no one.”
Of course she hadn’t, if that had indeed been Aunt Helen I had spoken with upon her arrival home. Because it had never been Aunt Helen in the first place. It had been Mother. It had been Mother speaking heatedly and with such apparent intimacy to the strange man she was with, the man who was obviously no stranger to her.
And then Richard turned to me, that familiar sardonic grin stretching his lips, and I wanted to shoot him dead where he stood.
But I could not think about that any longer, not now. If I did, I would collapse or go mad.
So instead I focused on Kit, waiting patiently with his hands resting lightly on his cane, focused on those green eyes at the end of the tunnel, like the ocean calling me home.
A few moments later, I dimly heard myself being announced as “Mrs. Christopher Tyler” by the stern young vicar, Mr. Roberts, without ever having really heard any of the service.
. . . . .
The wedding breakfast that followed is no more clear to me now than the service in the church. It was as though all the faces of the guests swam around me, and it was only familiarity with convention that informed me that the gaping mouths and moving tongues and chattering teeth must surely be extending to Kit and me best wishes.
But I could not hear them. I could not see anything clearly except for the laughing faces of that woman and Richard, repeatedly standing out in bas-relief against the swirl of the others.
I wanted to smash those two faces, end all laughter.
The only thing that carried me through the ordeal without screaming was the presence of Kit at my side. It did pain me to see him looking so puzzled—why was his bride not looking bright and happy on this grand shared day?—but he was Kit to the bone, always seeing the good.
“I know.” He held tight to my hand as he leaned down to whisper in my ear. “You are nervous about the honeymoon. Well,” he added with a flash of green eyes and a wiggle of his brows that would have been comical on any other day, “so am I.”
“I do love you,” I said, placing my hand against his cheek, needing to be reminded that he was still there, that one thing was still real.
“And I do know that,” he said, tilting his head just enough to plant a kiss on the center of my palm.
A short time later, it was all I could do not to recoil when that woman kissed me on the cheek before Kit handed me up into the carriage that was to take us on our honeymoon.
• Forty-two •
We were to honeymoon in the Swiss lakes region.
It had been Richard’s recommendation, he having been so pleased with his own honeymoon there.
“Look how well it ended for your mother and me,” he had said with smug satisfaction, indicating Emma.
My mother, I thought bitterly.
I had always been good at doing what needed to be done, whatever was required of
me, in the moment. Come home from a pleasant New Year’s Day stroll in the park to discover your two closest female relatives bound to chairs and covered in blood, one with her head hanging by a stalk to her body, the other in such an advanced state of shock she can barely form words? Rather than fainting from your own shock, and with no one else to rely on for help, you ascertain whether or not the murderer is still on the premises, you do your best to discover what has happened, even if later on you prove to be wrong, you remain cool—even though you do scream—until help arrives.
I had always been good at doing what needed to be done, had learned to do it all myself when no other help was at hand.
And I had followed the prescribed behaviors of this day, my wedding day, by placing one foot determinedly in front of the other. But now the sea of shock I had been swimming in since early that morning washed away and the horror of what I had learned came rushing in, causing my mind to reel with the overwhelming force of it.
The rain battered the roof of the carriage as it swung past the church where we had been married, swung past the cemetery of that church, and I realized for the first time, really realized, that it truly was Aunt Helen buried there, poor Aunt Helen, and the baby she’d been carrying inside her when she was murdered as well.
I wanted to leap from the carriage, scrabble into the earth, hold my aunt in my arms one last time, apologize for all the wrongs the world had done her.
. . . . .
My immediate inclination was to tell Kit what had happened.
But when I opened my mouth to speak, it occurred to me that his day had been spoiled enough already, even if he was not aware of it. I could not bring myself to spoil if further. There would be time enough later. Not to mention, what could we do about it now? Back at the house, the rooms would still be filled with guests—not the most conducive setting for a confrontation. If I went back and made my accusation now, I would probably be carted away before I had the chance to learn any more.
All my life, even though there had been individual moments when I had been impatient, I had known how to keep quiet. I had known how to keep my own counsel and simply wait.
Wait for my moment, my time.
“You are not yourself,” Kit said, a look of concern clouding his eyes as he held my hand in the carriage. I felt his eyes watching me all the while, but it was hard to look at him now, with murder on my mind, lest he see there was something troubling me so severely, there were moments I forgot to draw breath. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at such a loss for words.” His laugh was nervous. “You are not already repenting marrying in such haste, are you?”
It pained me to see him so concerned on my behalf, and yet I couldn’t tell him what was on my mind, not now.
“I am fine,” I said, forcing a reassuring smile. “Or at least I will be soon.”
But as the carriage pulled into the railway station and Kit jumped down as best he could with his cane, I spoke one word:
“No.”
“No?”
“I do not want to get on that train.”
“Not get on … ? But this is our train. If we do not get on it now, then we will miss—”
“I don’t care about that. Have a driver find an inn for us.”
“An inn?”
“Yes, an inn. Are you having difficulty with your hearing today?” Then, to take the sting out of my words, I added, “What does it matter whether we consummate our marriage in Switzerland or right here in London? I do not want to wait.”
His smile was wide. “Then I will have the driver find us the finest hotel in London, if that is what you want.”
“I don’t care if it’s the finest hotel, I don’t care where it is so long as I am with you.”
And I didn’t.
The inn, as it turned out, had seen better days. The old floorboards in the front room warped at alarming angles, a hunting tapestry on the wall hung in tatters, the furniture in the room we were shown to of the poorest quality.
“If you did not insist we stop at the very first place we came to,” Kit teased, “I am fairly certain I could have done better for you than this. You know, I did come to this marriage with a fair amount of money.”
“It does not matter,” I said.
“Would you like some dinner?” he suggested. “I somehow doubt that the food here could be anything we would want to eat, but we could go out, anywhere you like. Do you fancy meat? Fish? Perhaps you would like me to find somewhere we could eat pudding all night? I do not want to rush you in … anything.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I do not want food. I do not care if I ever eat again.”
Then I pulled the pins from my hair, felt that hair tumble down my back, held that hair out of the way as I turned my back to him, silently inviting him to undo my dress.
I wanted to shut it all away, the knowledge, forget, if only for a little while. I wanted to have this … before I had to go back and do that.
With excruciating slowness he began to undo my buttons and laces. Even though the fabric still separated us, I felt his fingers burn my skin through the dress.
It was maddening.
“You can do this part a little faster, sir,” I suggested.
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I will only get to do this for the first time once. I want to unveil you slowly.”
And that is what he did, one maddening button and lace at a time, at last peeling the garments away until my clothes fell in a great puddle of satin at my feet.
Then he turned me to face him.
His breath caught. “You are beautiful, Lucy.”
“I am not, sir,” I said.
I did not feel beautiful, did not feel worthy of him, and yet I did not mind being naked before him. I was not being modest in what I said, but rather, I had never thought myself the kind of person others think of as beautiful before.
“But,” I added, “I am the only one here without any clothes on.” I jutted my chin out at his body. “Your turn, sir.”
I did not have to ask him twice.
In a second, his jacket was off, flying across the room. Then his fingers tore at his tie.
“So now you finally remember what speed is.” I laughed.
“I will show you speed,” he said determinedly, eyes locked on mine as tie followed jacket, shirt followed tie … and then everything else.
Now at last we were equal.
The single log the stingy innkeeper had deposited in the fireplace gave off little light, and it was only after studying Kit for a moment that I saw the scar between his ribs.
“What … ?” My eyes asked the question.
“People always see the peg because it is so damned noticeable,” Kit said, “but they forget I was stabbed with a spear too.” He laughed. “And I do not remind them.”
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Not now,” he said. Kit held his hand out to me. “My wife,” he said as I took it.
Before he could kiss or even touch me, I bent my head to that scar between his ribs, traced it with my fingers, placed my lips to it and then my tongue.
Kit lowered his face to mine until there was no space between us, his lips feathering mine. His lips pressing more urgently against my lips, his tongue in my mouth. All of it was sweet torture, causing a rush of naked desire that overwhelmed me with its strength.
Then I felt the weight of him, a weight I did not mind, settle upon me. I had waited for this moment of union, forever it seemed. As for the other, what was waiting for me back home, well, the resolution of that had waited for years. It could wait just one more day. Or at least a few more hours.
I pushed tragedy away, reached for joy.
Now, at last, I did feel beautiful.
“I love you,” he said.
“You make me happy,” I said.
And, in that moment, I was happy.
. . . . .
Afterward, I told my secret to the one person in the world that
would believe anything I told him, however fantastical, the person I should have been sharing even my most secret secrets with from the very beginning. I put my lips to the entrance of Kit’s ear and whispered into the whorls of it my story.
• Forty-three •
I was glad I had waited to tell Kit.
Had I not waited, I was certain the exquisite loveliness of our wedding night would never have been possible.
. . . . .
Born in ice, ended in ice …
The rain had frozen to snow had frozen to ice by the time I sneaked back up the steps of my own home—my home—in the dead of night. Dawn was still a few hours away as I turned the knob.
I let myself into the dark house, took off my boots so I would not make a sound as I climbed the two stories to their bedroom, opened this second door slowly.
As I pushed the door open, I saw them lying there together in the bed, their bodies intertwined in peaceful slumber.
I wanted to kill them right then and there for the betrayal I believed they had committed on Father.
But I wanted answers even more, so I crept to one side of the bed, slipping my palm over the mouth of the sleeping woman before whispering her awake.
Her eyes over the palm of my hand told me she was shocked at seeing me there, as well she should be.
I pretended to be distressed—not a huge stretch to make, under the circumstances.
“Meet me downstairs,” I whispered. “Something has happened.”
Then I left, as silently as I had come.
. . . . .
Downstairs in the back parlor, I waited, my back to the fireplace, standing upon the very spot poor Aunt Helen’s chair had been that New Year’s Day when I found them here together.
Waiting for her to find me there, I had had time to light all the lamps so that the room blazed as though on fire.
It was hard to believe, looking around me now, the furniture and walls and decorations having been redone all in whites and golds, that once this room had seen red drenching the walls, the carpets.
I wondered if any more blood would be shed there tonight, and whose.
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