To accept their journey through time as Cerridwen and Cianán meant to accept everything forward required the same trust and symbiosis.
Time away had helped him see this. With luck, it had done the same for her.
They arrived at Ophélie after dinner. Brigitte welcomed her son as if he had been gone years but shot a scathing look at Jacob and said, “Your wife has been in your room all day. I can’t say I’ve bothered to check on her,” before returning to fawning over Jean.
Jacob mustered a gracious response and started up the stairs. He stopped when he saw the de Blanchefort men near the parlor doors, engaged in discussion.
Making his way toward them, he tried to expel the bitterness and approach with what he hoped was the simplicity of fact.
“Monsieur,” he said. They both turned. “Victor,” Jacob clarified.
“Excuse me, Papa,” Victor said with a gentle nod to his father. Marius disappeared into the parlor. “How can I be of service, Lord Donnelly?”
Jacob drew a deep breath. “I know you’ve been spending time with my wife. I’m not angry.” Liar. “But I need you to be clear on something.”
Victor raised a brow. Nodded for him to go on.
“If you’re helping her through something… something I have had less success assisting with, then I say thank you.” Jacob swallowed the ill feeling the words brought on. “But she is my wife. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her from someone who may seem as if he has good intentions but is actually a goddamn bird of prey waiting for the right moment to swoop in. Do you understand?”
Victor watched him in silence for several seconds. “I do understand. More than you may know.”
“I’m not interested in what you know,” Jacob replied. “There’s a limit to my patience and graciousness. I don’t doubt her loyalty, but she’s vulnerable right now and needs people who don’t have ulterior motives.”
Victor bowed. “I assure you, my purposes will not interfere with yours, Lord Donnelly. Of that, you can be certain.”
I’ll be assured when we’re gone, and you’re nothing but a memory. “Good evening,” Jacob said and went to find his wife.
Amelia was exactly where Brigitte alleged, but she wasn’t asleep.
Her back was to the door. Jacob tentatively stepped around to her side. She was curled into a ball with the blankets pulled tight. When he approached, her red, tear-stained face peeked out.
“Blanca,” he whispered, his heart dropping to the floor.
Amelia didn’t reply, except with several shallow breaths, but she moved to his side of the bed and opened the covers.
Jacob climbed beside her and pulled her close. At the moment of contact, Amelia dissolved into fresh tears. He wanted badly to say something, anything, to console her but he knew, not only with the knowledge of Jacob but the combined iterative experience of Cianán, that what she needed at that moment was safety, not words.
XVII
The baby’s cries pierced her sleep.
Amelia’s first instinct was to check Jacob for a reaction. His sleep continued uninterrupted, but it would only be a matter of time.
She shouldn’t pursue it. Brigitte had been poised to strike for days, and this would definitely push her over the precipice. The woman had a keenness about her as if her eyes were stretched across the property at all times. No doubt existed in Amelia’s mind that Brigitte would find her at the bottom of the ladder leading to the attic.
Yet… after Victor… after the flood of revelations… Amelia no longer believed anything presented to her attention was incidental. Yes, learning who Victor was had been illuminating, but there was more. She knew it. Their time here was a continuous tempting of fate. She couldn’t leave until she understood the reason they were sent here, but she also feared she might not have a choice if events did not hurry along. If they didn’t leave soon on their own, Brigitte would find a way to dispose of them.
Her gaze lingered upon Jacob, waiting to be sure he wasn’t stirring. Satisfied he was still lost in his dreams, she rested a kiss on his lips and tiptoed off into the hall.
And what if this is just me going mad from the loss of my own baby? What if I’ve invented this in my own grief?
Jacob heard it as well, another voice reminded her. The voice of her own reason.
And if we’re wrong?
We won’t know until we get there.
When her bare feet hit the thin carpet, the cries ceased. Another sound replaced it: footsteps.
Amelia nearly ate her heart before she saw the wispy figure of Ophélie emerge from the shadows. The young girl glided on air in her too-long muslin nightgown, and as she moved toward the shocked Amelia, her expression turned sadder. Darker.
“It was never meant to be,” the young girl said, shaking her head with a glance up the stairs. In the direction of the crying.
“Ophélie, what’s wrong?” Amelia stepped closer to get a better glimpse of her new friend. Red-rimmed eyes and streaks of tears only told half the story.
“They did what they had to do,” she replied, distantly. Her eyes drifted off to the left. It seemed she was there only in physical form. The rest of her was elsewhere, or still asleep. “They were left with no choice.”
“Ophélie!” Amelia hissed, careful of her volume. She shivered at the thought of Brigitte walking in on the two of them in midnight conspiracy. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
“Jean and Maman, I cannot blame them. My heart is so heavy, but I cannot…” Ophélie swayed on her feet, and Amelia caught her, pulling her to a bench at the end of the hall.
“You can trust me,” Amelia soothed, her attentions divided between the dazed girl in her lap and the fear of an intruder. “I want to help you. Why are you out here?”
“It is not my place to question God or His will,” Ophélie cried. “This was not my time. It was not your time, either, Amelia.”
Amelia stiffened. Her gaze dropped back toward the girl, who glanced up, imploring. “What are you talking about?”
Ophélie smiled. “No, not your time. But it will be. As for me…”
Amelia’s eyes snapped open. A flash of light fell across the room, followed in several seconds by the roll of thunder. It was only at the shuddering rumble did she realize everything that had just happened was a dream.
Nothing about it had given her that impression. She saw through her eyes this time, not Ophélie’s, without the telltale signs of a dream state; nothing out of place or distorted.
“What on earth is happening to me?” she whispered. I’m going completely mad, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Jacob rolled over. In her shock, she hadn’t registered his snores when she’d woken. He’d been awake, maybe this whole time. “Blanca,” he said. “We need to talk.”
XXVIII
“I’m really worried.”
As Jacob had listened to her toss and turn, he’d searched for the right words, knowing he no longer had a choice but to say them. And, as he considered all the things he could say, he finally realized this was his wife he was trying to appeal to. The one person in all the world he had never doubted or not trusted to understand him.
So he spoke with his heart.
“I know,” she said, in a low, hoarse voice.
“I’ve tried…” Jacob choked up. This was important. He had her attention now, but every word mattered. “Tried to be there, and when I realized it wasn’t me you needed, I tried to be understanding.”
Amelia’s eyes lit up. She seemed ready with her own words, but she let him talk.
“But whatever is happening here, in this house, in this century, well, it’s not helping you. It’s hurting you,” he went on. He propped himself on one elbow so he could see her better. “And us. And I know… I wish… God, more than anything in all the world that you hadn’t been through that night in the cabin, but we have no choice except moving forward. And I’m afraid, Amelia, that coming here has somehow done the opposite.”
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Amelia’s lips parted. A small sob trapped in her throat, but she closed her mouth. Watching him.
“You have to know…” Jacob grimaced, swallowing the emotion down. There were times to melt and times for strength. If he wanted to show her he could be her strength, he had to prove it. “I would do anything for you. Even turn my head about Victor.”
This finally stirred Amelia into words. “That isn’t what you think, Donnelly. I promise you. I don’t have all the answers, but that, at least—”
“Please,” Jacob said gently. “I love you, and I trust you, but if you’re getting ready to lie to me, you need to stop. I would rather wait until you’re ready to tell me the truth than hear a deception created for my sake.”
Amelia appeared ready to rebut, then sank back into the bed. His heart skipped at what was apparently a confession by silence, but he forged on.
“I know you believe there are answers we need to find here,” he said, slowing to search for the exact words he needed. This is where he could lose Amelia. The reality stung. Even with the right words, he still might. “But, Blanca, you don’t even know the questions, sweetie. If you’re looking for a reason to help explain the actions of that monster, you won’t find them in the past, the present, or the future. He wanted information from us and had no qualms about using whatever means to get it. If he’d lived, I don’t think what he did to you would even register too far into his memory. We were nothing but a means to an end for Baldur.” Jacob blew out a breath and closed his eyes. “What happened is ours. Not his. The monster took something very essential from both of us that night, but the path to getting it back isn’t through him. The healing has nothing to do with him. Nothing. And I can’t watch you waste away before my eyes. I won’t do it. I love you enough that I’ve let this go on because you believed, in your heart of hearts, that you might find something. But at this point…” Jacob sighed. He laid his palm against her forehead and smoothed her hair back. “At this point, all I can see is that we needed an escape from the circumstances in Farjhem and this was where we ended up. Not fate, just chance. And now we need to find our way home.”
Amelia ran her fingers over the quilt covering them. She hadn’t opened her mind to him since the tea party, so he couldn’t guess at her thoughts. “If I were you, I would believe that, too,” she said after a long pause. Her hand stopped fussing. “But my instincts have always meant something. Here, in this house, that’s all I have. My empathic nature is mostly squashed by Aidrik’s ward, and I can hardly even communicate telepathically. So that’s all I have, my instincts. Throughout my life, there were times when I knew something important was going to happen, and it wasn’t the empath Amelia feeling this, but me, just me. And that Amelia knows we’re here for a reason.”
“If that were true, don’t you think the answer would have been clear by now?” Jacob asked carefully. His hand brushed her white hair back off her face, repeating the motion as he used to do, before all this. It was the only intimacy she allowed. “I’m worried, not just about your state of mind, but like, legitimately worried for our safety. I think Jean and Brigitte might actually take us out if we’re here much longer.”
Amelia sprung up on one elbow. “Did Jean threaten you?”
Jacob shrugged then nodded. No point in keeping things from her if he expected transparency in return. “We had a rough night, one I’ll tell you more about later. He knows we aren’t who we say we are but doesn’t know the truth. Jean and his whacko mama are determined to figure it out.”
Amelia shook her head. “They can’t. How could they?”
“Does it matter? If they can’t, that’s probably worse. You’ve seen how those two manage frustrations.”
“They’re as benign as I am here,” Amelia countered.
“You still have both telepathy and some degree of your empath nature here, even with the ward,” Jacob reminded her. “What can they still do? I don’t think we want to find out the hard way.”
“They’re all bark,” she said, but her tone had changed.
“Don’t you remember those letters your mother got ahold of, from Quillan Sullivan?” Jacob pressed. “Charles outright confessed to being the one to kill Ophélie, and he did it to keep her from her mother’s grasp. If that’s not the most messed up shit I’ve ever heard, not to mention a super clear warning that we are screwing with the wrong—”
“I remember,” she sighed. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if we leave now before I have answers, I don’t think this door opens again. And, Jacob, I feel this is not only about me, but us, and who we were, about Cianán and Cerridwen.”
“Why, then, are you the only one who can find these answers?” Jacob tensed. “If this is about us, why have I experienced nothing but some serious warnings about our safety?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia cried and rolled over onto her back. “If I knew, I would have the answers, wouldn’t I?”
“I’m not trying to upset you.”
“I’m upset, but not with you.”
“I was trying to soothe you. Clearly not a strength of mine in 1861,” he said with a forced laugh. “I just want you to be okay. I need you. I will always need you. And now, you need me, and I’m failing you.”
“No, that’s not true.” She rolled her face toward his and reached out to touch his cheek. “I promise you that is not true.”
I wish you wouldn’t. Neither of us can be sure of anything as long as we’re mixed up in this world where we don’t belong. “We can’t stay here much longer. You know that.”
Amelia nodded, blinking tears from her eyes. “It feels so close… as though it’s been in front of me all this time, and I just need to see it.”
“I understand,” Jacob replied. His heart had broken a half dozen times during the exchange, but never so much as it had seeing her desperate for meaning. “You might not think I do, but I do. I know your instincts, Blanca. I know you. But my first priority is protecting you, and maybe that means from yourself as well.” Before she could reply, he pulled her into his arms, pressing her face gently to his chest. A place she always said she felt safe. “I’ll try to be patient. But I won’t lose you because of it. At some point, I’m going to take us away from here, not because I don’t believe you, but because whether I believe you or not, I will not lose you. Not for answers. Not for anything.”
Amelia sniffled against his nightshirt, without response. But as her arms wrapped around his waist, and her tension faded, Jacob could at least take comfort in knowing she’d heard his words.
Jacob’s limbs slowly relaxed as well. The grandfather clock chimed the witching hour, and he remembered their wedding night in the old castle, how she’d come alive for him at midnight.
My will is yours, Blanca, Jacob had whispered between his wife’s parted lips. Now and always.
He planted a kiss on her forehead and prayed for strength of patience.
XXIX
Victor didn’t notice her at first. While pacing the foyer near the front door, his lips moved soundlessly. His hair was a noticeable departure from the impeccable grooming she knew him for, black hairs standing up and to the right and left, a sign he’d raked his hands through them. His stress was evident in other ways, too. His nightshirt hung open, only the middle button holding it together.
“Monsieur?” Ophélie whispered, thinking with horror of what her mother would think if she’d come upon this.
Victor’s head swung up. His eyes fell upon her, and in these first moments, Ophélie felt he could see straight into her soul, to every black corner, and every light one. Then he relaxed and straightened his back. “Mademoiselle. I did not mean to wake you.”
“It wasn’t you who roused me,” she answered, slipping quietly across the cypress flooring.
“Amelia then,” he said, nodding. A startled expression crossed his face, and he corrected himself. “Lady Donnelly, that is.”
“Be cautious of how you make reference to her in front of others,” Oph
élie warned, with a glance up the stairs. “Not all will understand as I do.”
Victor’s eyes lit up, hopeful. “Do you? Understand? Can you?”
“I would like to.” Pulling her arms tight across her chest, she moved closer to him. “I do know you are here more than perhaps you should be. When you arrive, something changes, every time.”
“You don’t, then.” The spark went out of his eyes. “It did not come to me all at once, either. I can’t… no, it was too much to expect you might know…”
“Tell me, then. Why are you down here, in the dead of night?”
“I sensed her distress.” He did not need to qualify who he meant by she.
“And where is she?”
Victor nodded at the door. “Just beyond. She didn’t wander far.”
Ophélie frowned. “If you came down here from worry, what good is standing in the hall wearing holes in the carpet, when she is outside? Moreover, why is her distress your concern at all, Monsieur? She is married to another, and he sleeps just upstairs.”
“You don’t understand. You will, I have to believe that. I do believe that. Yes, yes. I believe it. I need you to. I need both of you to, before… before…”
“I believe it would be for the best,” Ophélie started, gathering her courage, “If you would leave Lady Donnelly alone. Not only tonight. I mean for the duration of your stay.”
The flame from the candle flickered across Victor’s pale face, lighting his desolate smile. “I know more than you what is best for Lady Donnelly, Mademoiselle.”
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress Page 20