The Secrets She Carried (22 page)

Her face looms just inches from mine now, and I am once again startled to see the waste it has become. Her skin is like crepe, dry and slack against the bones, her cheeks as sharp as blades, splotched with flags of blood-hot color. Her mouth is pinched and pale, trembling with outrage, and for a moment I imagine Henry kissing those lips and wonder if he ever found any warmth there at all.

She draws back, strikes again. I feel the brand of her palm on my
cheek. It is only for the child’s sake that I do not slap her back. Instead, I meet her gaze head-on, standing straight backed against the heat of those pinpoint pupils, and I see that her anger has nothing to do with losing Henry’s affection, only with knowing she has been bested. I hate her for that most of all.

“Deceitful bitch!” she shrieks. “You have taken what was mine!”

There isn’t enough guile in me to deny it. I am what she says. Though, God help me, even now I would not change it. I thought there would be more time, though time for what, I cannot say. Not even time can unravel the knot we tied that day on the ridge, and now I must live with the consequences.

She grips my wrist again, squeezing until my fingers begin to tingle, and then something comes over her, a glittering, ominous quiet that makes me suck in my breath. Even her breathing is changed, deeper, slower, and for a moment it is as if she is watching a story unfold somewhere far away. I see the light flatten in her eyes, like a fire drawing down before it flares. When they refocus on me I feel the hairs on my neck prickle, and suddenly I am afraid. Not for myself, but of what she will do.

Susanne goes on staring, fixing me with an expression I cannot, at first, put a name to, and then I realize it is the nearest thing to a smile I have ever seen from her. There is something terrible in it, a calculation that makes me shrink back. Finally, she thrusts me away from her. I am dismissed to my room, where I am to remain until it is decided what will be done with me.

I blink at her, stunned, unable to put a name to the emotions warring in me, and then I realize it is a mix of relief and bewilderment that I have not been immediately dismissed, though surely she cannot mean to let me stay. I can only suppose she wishes me to remain until Henry returns from town, so she may confront her husband with the flesh-and-blood proof of his transgressions.

It sickens me to think what Henry will suffer at that moment. He
will not deny it—the truth is too plain—but neither will he be proud to admit it. If I must leave Peak, and surely I must, it will be easier for him if I pack my things and go before he returns. It is on the tip of my tongue to tell her I’m free to leave when I choose, that I will not wait, but my mouth will not form the words. How can I leave without good-bye, without one final crush in Henry’s arms? I go to my room to wait for Henry for the last time, but he does not come.

At dinnertime, Lottie brings me a tray. On it is a note from Susanne, curtly and unsteadily penned, a terse reminder that I am not to leave my room for any reason unless called for. When I hear Henry’s truck rattle up the gravel drive, my heart batters my ribs until I can’t breathe. For one outlandish moment I let myself imagine us slipping out of the house together, vanishing into the night. It is impossible, of course. I cannot ask it. And it would never occur to Henry. Peak is his duty, and so is Susanne. This can end only one way. I perch on the edge of my narrow bed and wait for his knock.

I fall asleep waiting.

The next day I hear his truck go back down the gravel. He stays gone all day. Meals arrive and are taken away untouched. There are no more notes, nothing to explain why I am still beneath Susanne Gavin’s roof.

On the third day I rise while it is still dark and pack some of my things into my old leather satchel, prepared to leave as soon as the sun is up. There is nothing to stay for. I am apparently not even to have a good-bye. I cannot go home to New Orleans, not the way things are. Nor will I bring shame on Mama by heading north to her folks in Chicago. I have put a little money by and still have the fifty-dollar bill Mama pinned to my slip the day she put me on the bus. I have no idea where I will go, only that I will go today.

When a knock sounds, I hide my satchel behind the door, prepared to refuse Lottie’s tray when I see a note beside the toast plate. I snatch the tray from her hands and close the door, tearing the small
envelope with my teeth before I have even set the tray on the dresser. It is not Susanne’s hand, but Henry’s. I have been summoned to his study.

I have not left my room in three days. I take a few minutes to compose myself, to check my face in the mirror. I barely recognize myself. My eyes are puffy and red rimmed, my hair loose and wild about my face. It is not how I want him to remember me, but my brush and pins are already packed and I am too weary to dig for them.

I am acutely aware, as I leave my room and descend the stairs, that I have hardly moved in these last three days, have scarcely eaten a bite. I am stiff and off balance as I stand at the head of the stairs, disoriented by the wide-open spaces after being shut up so long. When I enter the study, Henry is in his chair, the chair where he used to read to me every evening. My eyes blur. Tears are always nearby these days.

He does not rise from his chair, only gestures for me to sit. He looks worn down, smaller and thinner than I remember him just three days ago. He does not touch me, can barely manage to meet my eyes, and I know something new has gone wrong, something more terrible than discovery, more terrible even than the good-bye that stands before us.

He means to pay me off, I think miserably, to buy my silence, because his wife knows, and because there is a child coming. I have become inconvenient. I brace myself, vowing to go quietly, and without a penny of his in my pocket. What he offers is so much worse.

“You’re going to hate me for what I’m going to say, Adele.”

I cannot look at him. If I do I will break apart. Instead, I lock eyes with the portrait over the mantel, Susanne, watching us still. “Henry, whatever happens, I will never hate you. I made my choice the day we went up on that ridge, and probably well before that. I knew what could happen—what
would
happen.”

My voice is flat and strangely cool, masking the ache at the center of my chest. I blink back the sting of tears. How can I make him understand what I’m about to say, why I can’t let him say what he’s about to?

“Please don’t tell me to go. I
will
go, because someone always pays for this kind of sin, and that someone has to be me. But please, Henry, let it be me who leaves.” My voice breaks then, and I curse the tear that scorches its way toward my chin. I wanted to be strong. I want to be but cannot. “I don’t think I could bear to hear you send me away.”

He stands and takes a step toward me, then checks himself. “You don’t…
have
to leave, Adele.”

For an instant I wonder if I’ve taken leave of my senses. And then I look closely at his face, at the mix of emotions at play there, hope mixed with something like shame, and I know that there is more he’s about to say, and that whatever it is, I’m not going to like it.

An
arrangement
, he calls it.

It is incomprehensible to me that my presence might be more desired than my absence, and by Susanne of all people. There is an heir on the way, reputations at stake. It wouldn’t do to have the lady’s maid deserting just now, not when Celia Cunningham was still running her mouth to anyone willing to listen. And so it seems I find myself at a strange and hideous advantage, but only if I agree to play along.

I am to be removed from Susanne’s sight but kept close by, at least until the gossip dies down. It will be noised around that I’ve taken ill, that as a precaution I have been moved out of the house, to safeguard Susanne’s delicate health. We will be able to carry on as before, Henry informs me.
Carry on
—he actually says those words.

For a moment I’m almost too stricken to speak. “How, Henry? How can you ask me to do this unnatural thing? To remain here while she—”

“I can’t lose you, Adele. I won’t.”

“And what happens when the baby comes?”

“Nothing happens. My wife has her heir, which is all she’s ever cared about. And we have each other. Susanne agreed to the bargain.”

I shake my head, spilling tears down my cheeks. “Your bargain, Henry, not mine. What you’re asking is a sin. Can you not see that?”

“It would be a bigger sin to throw away what we have, Adele.” His voice is thick, ragged. “If you go, I lose…everything.”

The plea in his voice, in his eyes, is more than I can bear. That afternoon, Henry moves my things out of the house and into the small cottage down by the lake while George and Lottie look on with knowing eyes. I have no pride left, nothing but the horrible reality I have created for myself. And so it is time I am practical. Susanne will have her heir, and the Gavin name will be saved from scandal. I will keep a roof over my head. And I will have Henry.

Jay

J
ay stood beside Young Buck, poring over the plans for what would eventually become the tasting barn. It was going to take a lot of work to convert the old barn into the showplace they envisioned, not to mention most of what was left in the coffers. But if they did it right, the payoff could be big. He had been counting the days until harvest. The minute the fruit was in, they could finally get busy on the barn.

He was about to suggest a change to the bar shelves when Belle let out a gleeful yip. Leslie was hovering in the doorway. She looked good, which was surprising since her left cheek was smudged with dirt and the knees of her jeans were filthy.

He poked his pencil behind his ear and looked her up and down. “I’d ask if you came to get your hands dirty, but it looks like you already have. What have you been doing?”

Her smile was tight, tentative. “Could you come with me somewhere?”

Jay felt Young Buck’s eyes slide briefly in his direction before shifting back to his plans. “That depends. Where are we going? And is there food in that bag?”

Leslie glanced down at the canvas tote she was holding. “Food? No, it’s…Can you just come with me? It’s important.”

Her smile had completely disappeared. Jay felt a moment of panic. Christ, what if she had decided to back out and hightail it to New York?

“Buck, I’ll be back in a few. Belle, you stay here and guard the fort.”

Leslie shifted the bag on her shoulder as they stepped out into the late-afternoon sunshine. “I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

Jay felt himself relax. Some of the intensity had left her face.

“No biggie. We were just talking about what to do with the tasting barn. I’m leaning toward the copper top. Pricey, but it’ll look great. The lumber should be here in a few weeks. Which reminds me, Virgil will be delivering a cord of wood next week. I’ll show you how to build a proper fire and how to work the flue. Not much to it, but there’s a right way and a wrong way.”

“What makes you think I don’t know the difference?”

“Let’s just say I prefer not to take chances. That house survived the Civil War. I’m not about to let a Yankee burn it down now.”

Leslie’s eyes shot wide. “How am I a Yankee? I was born in Gavin.”

“So you say, Big City, so you say. Now, how ’bout telling me where you’re taking me? Or am I being kidnapped? I’m not saying I have a problem with that. I’ll just need to call Buck and make sure he gives Belle her supper.”

She pointed straight ahead. “We’re going up there.”

Jay shielded his eyes and scanned the rocky jut of land looming straight ahead.
Bloody hell.
“Why?”

“So I can show you something.”

“Leslie, I’ve been out in the rows all day. Whatever it is, can’t you just tell me about it?”

“Please?” Something flickered behind her eyes, a secret she wasn’t quite ready to share. “I wasn’t kidding when I said it was important.”

Jay sighed. It seemed there was only one way he was going to find out what all this was about. “Lead on, then. I’m always up for a mystery.”

Leslie’s fingers tightened around the canvas tote. “That’s good to know.”

She said nothing more as she headed for the path. It was all Jay could do to keep up. While he had to grope for every foothold, she covered the trail like a Sherpa, scrambling over rock and root, popping into view now and then among the trees.

He was sweating and winded when the path finally spit him into a small clearing. For a moment he stood with his hands on his knees.

“Jesus, Big City, I never knew you were part mountain goat. Now, what is it you dragged me all the way—” He didn’t finish. Instead, he straightened very slowly, stunned to find himself staring at a grave.

“I found it a week ago,” Leslie told him matter-of-factly. “I take it you didn’t know it was here either?”

Jay shook his head, eyes fixed on the stone as he moved toward the gate. “I was up here a few years ago. This was definitely not here.”

“You don’t recognize it?”

Jay turned to look at her, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head too full of questions to respond.