No, something had happened that morning to make him walk out. Was he afraid he would be caught up in this All My Tomorrows drug scandal? Does he think I am a terrible person for letting this happen? Does he…does he think I slept with Rich?
She couldn’t think about any of that right now. She had a show to rewrite. She stuffed her traitorous cell phone in her pocket and strolled out of her office to where the others were sitting Shiva for the show.
“I don’t suppose anyone has heard anything.” The glum faces rendered her statement redundant. “OK, enough moping. Let’s get busy! I think this murder mystery is a great idea! We haven’t had a good murder on the show in a couple of years.”
“What are the other characters going to say about Sienna?”
“That will be part of the mystery! Everyone will ask if anyone has seen Sienna, dramatic music, viewers are hooked!” She exaggerated her enthusiasm and optimism in hopes of energizing the crew, but their expressions reflected her true feelings. If something didn’t happen soon, they were going to start jumping ship, saving themselves before they were drowned like rats in a sea of unemployment.
“What if Giselle never comes back?”
“Then during sweeps, they will find a decomposed body. Everyone will be glued to their TVs while waiting for the dental records.”
“And if she does come back?”
“Sienna’s been through a lot – she needed time to think. She went on a religious retreat. She was going to be a nun, after all.” They remained unconvinced. “Come on. This is not over! It’s not over until we say it’s over! Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor?” No response. “Really? None of you has seen Animal House?” They looked at her as if she were covered in purple spots. “I give up.”
Alice marched on toward the writers’ room when she spotted Mrs. Jellyby in her path. She almost turned around to avoid her but then thought better of it.
“Hi, Mrs. Jellyby. How’s everything going?”
Mrs. Jellyby shook her head and quivered, and her eyes threatened an onslaught of tears. “Oh, Alice. I just don’t know. I don’t know. I was just talking to the writers. Do you really think this serial killer will work?”
“Well, if I didn’t think it would work, I wouldn’t have thought of it. Would I?” Before Mrs. Jellyby could consider the logic of that statement, Alice asked, “Have you heard anything more about Peter Walsingham’s lawsuit?”
“No, dear. Not since the last continuance.”
“So you haven’t heard anything about it being withdrawn?”
“Withdrawn? No. Why would…oh, you poor dear. Yes, I saw the videos and The Intruder. I’m afraid you are going to have to let that go. He’s not coming back. In time, you’ll be able to move on.”
Mrs. Jellyby squeezed Alice’s arm with a sympathetic frown before walking away. A week before, Alice would have corrected Mrs. Jellyby’s assumption about the pictures and laughed at the notion she hoped Peter would come back to the show for her. Only now, it was true.
*****
The Edge of Darkness
Chapter 21
When Tony’s eyes met mine, neither of us could control our tears or resist pulling each other into a tight hug as Robert stood back, blending into the background.
“God, I’ve missed you, Lexie,” Tony said against my ear.
“Why wouldn’t you answer my letters?”
“I couldn’t. Annette said…oh, forget what Annette said.”
“Whatever she said, it wasn’t true.”
“I know. I know now.”
“But now it’s too late.” I pulled away from him and stepped back for Robert to join us. “Robert, this is my brother Tony. Tony, this is Robert. My husband.”
“Senator.”
“Your grace.” They shook hands. “I hope you’re good to her. She is the most important thing in the world to me.”
Knowing we had not spoken in eight years, Robert was clearly confused by this. “You needn’t worry. She is to me as well.”
After he and his two assistants were shown to their rooms, they were to join us in the parlor in the east wing. Tony arrived early and found me alone, and I began to think our warm reunion had been an act on his part for the benefit of the others.
“You have done well for yourself,” he said tersely as I handed him a glass of cognac. “Duchess. I suppose not everything Annette told me was a lie.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“This marriage! To a Duke! He’s old enough to be your father.”
“Age is not important.”
“Especially with enough funds to offset it.” I could not believe his harsh words and was too shocked to reply. He grabbed my wrist tightly and pulled me closer and snarled in my face. “Is that why you did it? Was it for his money? Or was it to rub my face in it?”
I gathered all my reserves not to burst into tears. “I didn’t think you cared.”
Then we heard footsteps, and he released my wrist just as his assistants joined us. I turned around and took a large sip of my cognac in hopes of making my hands stop shaking.
Tony’s assistants chose not to dine with us, although I was certain that Tony had helped them in that decision. I felt strange at dinner, being married to one man when I was in love with the one a few feet away from him. The feeling was pain, and I reacted to it by inflicting pain on the origin of mine.
“Why haven’t you gotten married, brother dear?”
He looked at his plate but paused in his eating. “I have only been in love once, but I lost her.”
“Oh, really?” I asked in the most innocent voice I could. “Please tell us what happened to her,” then added with my teeth clenched, “brother dear.”
He looked at me with cold eyes. “I think she died.”
“Really? And how do you think she died?”
“I killed her.”
Robert choked a little on his dinner and drank down the rest of his wine.
“I use the term figuratively, of course,” Tony told him. “Actually, I killed the part of her I loved, and she went on to marry someone else. But it’s just as well.” He looked at me. “I am not sure she ever loved me. She never told me she did.”
He was right. I never had told him, but I had felt it. My eyes were stinging, but I held back the tears. “I’m sure she loved you,” I said, my voice no longer tinged by anger. “Do you still love her?”
“I will always love her.”
“If she weren’t married, would you let her go again?”
“It’s complicated. We were too much alike, had too much in common. We could never be together.”
Perhaps Robert felt left out. After a moment of Tony and me returning our attention to our plates, Robert said, “When I first fell in love with your sister, she made me leave for a year to be sure I really loved her because someone had abandoned her and broken her heart.”
“Oh, really?” Tony sounded almost happy, pleased with himself for causing my pain.
I spoke up. “But it was a good idea, because now we are very happy and we are both very much in love.” It wasn’t really a lie. I just wasn’t in love with my husband.
The rest of the dinner and a nightcap passed politely and awkwardly, and I think we were all glad to end the evening early.
Later in our room as we got ready for bed, Robert said, “Darling, I thought you were rather cruel to your brother the way you talked to him about his former lover.”
I was sitting at the vanity brushing out my hair. “They never became lovers.” Then I added quickly, “Tony told me all about it a long time ago.”
I looked into the mirror and reflected on my past. “At first, they did not get along well at all. But then both of them lost someone very close to them. That was the summer that our brother and his father died. They held onto each other at first to relieve their grief and sorrow, but then their feelings grew into something so much more. They were so in love, and he had even proposed to her. Then a lie came be
tween them. Tony believed the lie and abandoned her.”
“How sad.”
After a long moment of silently staring at my reflection, I stood up and put on my robe. “You’re right. I should go apologize to him.” I left the room before he could say anything.
I walked through the long corridors to the guest wing and knocked on Tony’s door, but before he answered, I walked in and closed it behind me. He dropped the book he had been reading and got out of bed. I took a step closer, but he put up his hand.
“Please stop.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I…I had to see you again. When I found out you were getting married it was a stab in the heart. I have never stopped loving you, Lexie. I even deluded myself that we could be together anyway. I didn’t know if you’d be willing to move to Sweden, but I couldn’t do that to you. I thought maybe now that you are married, I could move on, accept that you and I could only be brother and sister. It hasn’t worked. I need you to go.”
I gasped. “Oh, God. You still don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I cannot believe she still hasn’t told you. I was adopted by the Haywards.”
The significance seemed lost on him. “Oh, really. I didn’t know that.”
I said it again. “Tony, I was adopted.”
He started to shake his head, but then, as understanding dawned, his face changed, displaying a rapid sequence of emotions. “You mean you and I aren’t…Oh, dear God. Jesus fucking shit. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
I turned away to conceal my tears, but I couldn’t stop them from coming out in my voice. “I did, hundreds of times. Why wouldn’t you read my letters?”
“Jesus Christ.” He started walking towards me.
“No, stop. I can’t. I’m married now. I can’t betray him.”
But he hadn’t stopped and now grasped my arms and pulled me to force me to face him. “You came to me. You left your husband’s bed in the middle of the night to come to my room. Why are you here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. We were both so angry at dinner, I didn’t want to go to sleep with that between us.”
“Is that the truth, Lexie? Then let me kiss you one time. Just once and I’ll let you go back to your husband.”
He brushed my hair from my face and held the back of my head. And then we kissed. His breath within me made me tingle all over and sent a surge of excitement through my body, and I knew I couldn’t stop with one kiss.
But that first kiss took us all the way to the bed, where we kissed and discovered each other’s bodies as we never had before. He kissed and touched all over my body, and then, at last, he and I became one. One solitary being merged by love. Making love had never felt like this with Robert. I guess for it to be like this, you have to love your lover. I wanted him to stay inside me forever, to sleep inside me. I had to be content to sleep with his body wrapped around me.
The next morning, I told Robert we had stayed up all night talking, working out our problems.
As Tony was leaving, we were left alone to say goodbye, but he did not want to leave it at that. “Lexie, come with me. I’ll go now, but you can meet me in London and we’ll go back to the States together.”
“What are you saying?”
“Come be with me. You cannot tell me, after last night, that you love him. We belong together.”
“You want me to leave my husband?”
“Divorce him and marry me.”
“It’s not that simple. I…I am a duchess now, and this could destroy your political career.”
He pulled me close to him. “I don’t give a damn about being reelected. I just want you.” Then he kissed me until I was breathless. “I’ll be in London all week. I fly out on Friday. Be on that plane with me.”
When Tony left, I stared after him. What was I going to do? I felt like the baron who was married to someone but loved another. What could I do? I had to stay with Robert. He was my husband, and I had vowed to stay with him until death. But I felt such guilt for being dishonest by pretending to love him when I loved Tony. How could I go on pretending not to love Tony? I knew we could never have a platonic relationship, but I couldn’t bear to have him out of my life again. Isn’t divorce better than adultery? What was I going to do?
*****
Giselle stepped into the writers’ room a week later as if nothing had happened.
“Hi, everyone. Mr. Peacock said I should tell you all I am back so…here I am.” She smiled, as lovely as ever.
Alice gawked at her in silence as the others welcomed her back with a startling lack of curiosity. When Giselle walked out, Alice jump up and ran after her.
“Giselle. Giselle!”
Giselle stopped and turned around. “Hi, Alice.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
She donned Sienna’s complacent smile. “It’s not important. I’m here now.”
“You’re just going to waltz in here as if nothing has happened with no explanation?”
“There’s nothing to explain. I’m sorry I caused you all so much extra work.”
“Forget that! Well, no, don’t forget that because that wasn’t good either, but I was worried sick about you!”
Although Giselle fought it, eventually her face cracked and tears welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Alice. I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you. I’ve been an idiot.”
“Well, where’s Rich?”
“I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t care. I want you to know how sorry I am that I didn’t trust you. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking.”
With beautiful, sweet Giselle crying before her, Alice couldn’t bring herself to press for more information. Instead, she pulled her into her arms and hugged her close. “If you ever do want to talk about it, I am here for you.”
“Yes, I know. You always have been. That’s what I told him. You are the most forgiving person I know.”
Giselle had already walked away when Alice realized she wasn’t exactly sure whom she meant by “him.”
CHAPTER 18
The Edge of Darkness
Chapter 24
Almost three months had passed since I had walked out on Tony in his London hotel room after making love and arguing, when I left him to break both our hearts. The next time I saw him, once again he filled my television screen.
“Eight years ago,” he said from behind the podium, “my father, Senator Molly Hollingsworth, brought this bill before Congress. It is my intention this time to see it become law.” And then two shots rang out.
Many Americans had seen it live, but I didn’t see it until I woke up the next morning. The caption at the bottom of the screen did not prepare me, and at the echoing shots, I started screaming.
It took us forever to get to Washington. No amount of wealth makes the ocean smaller. We arrived the following day, and I realized it was the twentieth anniversary of the fire. We were met at the airport by hoards of reporters taking pictures and yelling questions, but I just kept crying and walking with Robert holding on to me.
We went straight to the hospital. Tony was unconscious and looked like death in the hospital bed with tubes and monitors around him. They had operated, but the doctor told us his chances of surviving were low. “I’m surprised he’s held on this long,” he said.
As I sat next to his bed, I recalled waking up the morning after my brother’s death to find him sitting there. I remembered tasting his sweat on my lips and being jealous that he had been loving another woman. That night when we were dancing in the rain, holding hands, being glad to be alive. Now I wasn’t. As long as Tony was alive somewhere in the world, even though I couldn’t have him, it gave me a reason to live, remembering him telling me how precious life is. Now I knew if he died, that part of me would die with him.
Then I remembered our bitter parting words when I refused to go to America.
“When you are in bed with the duke, are you thinking of me
when you fuck him?”
“You should be asking if I think of Robert when I fuck you!”
They made me cry even harder. Those couldn’t be the last words I ever said to him.
Tony’s eyes fluttered and opened, and I flew to his side. “Oh, God. Tony! My Tony.”
“Lexie, don’t cry,” he said, his voice weak and just above a whisper. “Life is too short and precious to waste grieving.”
I brushed my hands over his hair. “Hold on. Don’t give up. It will only conquer us if you let it.”
“Did…did they catch him?”
I nodded. “Over that same damn bill.”
“Lexie, will you ever forgive me for leaving you that day without saying goodbye, never reading your letters?”
“I did a long time ago.”
“Lexie, that night we were together, that was the most amazing…”
“I know. I will always remember it. There is something I never told you but I always felt. I love you. I love you more than life itself, and nothing will stop me from loving you – even death.”
“I love you, Lexie. After I left you, I never loved anyone again.” Then his eyes closed, and the monitor screeched.
“Tony,” I cried, and then I screamed. “Tony!”
As the hospital staff surrounded us, I kissed his face and lips, still warm, and my tears fell on his cheeks. He looked so peaceful, and I thought, he’s only sleeping, but the doctor only shook his head as the screeching stopped.
I turned around and faced Robert standing near the corner. His face looked as devastated as I felt. I clung to him in my agony. “He’s gone, Robert. Tony is gone.” My voice was trembling, and so was I.
The Proud and the Prejudiced: A Modern Twist on Pride and Prejudice Page 19