Just survive until the wedding, she told herself.Just until the wedding, and then he will go.
Why had he kissed her cheek? Why had he done that? She closed her eyes, feeling it again, feeling the brush of his lips, still so soft and featherlight.
The Freddy in her memory touched her waist. He nipped at her earlobe. He whispered things, hot and sweet in her ear.
“Stop!” she moaned, throwing herself off the side of the bed and scrambling for her tinderbox. “God above!”
Her hands shook, but she got the damned thing lit. She glowed into relief in the mirror that stood in the corner of the room, wild-haired and shrouded in her night rail, which floated just above her skin like the air had taken on static and embodied her own haunting to demonstrate itself to her, should she doubt it.
She fell to her knees and rolled onto her stomach, digging under the bed for the little box she kept there, away from immediate thought, but never far enough away to be forgotten. This was her dower chest, she had decided some time ago. This was her legacy, her reminder of who she was and what marriage could do to a girl.
She huffed, getting it free and falling back onto her backside as it slid out from under the bed and into her lap.
Every girl should have a box like this one, Claire thought. Boxes could hold quite a lot of things, of course, but a box like this should always hold a reminder of the truth. It should sit under their beds so when dreams came and tempted them with lies about love at first sight and fairy-tale marriage, there was a strong foundation below to fall back upon when they woke.
She flung the lid off and tossed it away, sinking her fingers into the stack of paper within, a great variety of papers of different sizes and shapes, some from a printing house, some in her own handwriting.
Millie’sWallflower Manifestowas on top. That would not do for tonight. Next was a short story Claire had written, one of many she had penned over the years. She nodded and took this one,lifting it above her head to set on the mattress. She hadn’t been looking for that story, but it was a good one for tonight.
The story of a betrayed queen who got her revenge on her wicked husband. The evil king had been found on his throne with a golden quill buried in his heart.
She had decided, after finishing it, that while the story was decent, it would not be appropriate for Oliver until he was quite a bit older. Several of her more adult fairy stories waited in this box for such a time as there was anyone who might read them. Many, Claire suspected, would only ever be re-read by Claire herself.
Still … ah! She found what she was looking for. The gossip sheets, deep in the box, almost at the very bottom.
There were two, layered with tissue paper to keep them in good condition. She drew them out and climbed back to her feet and into the bed, stacking them above the short story in her hands like the three documents followed one another into a cohesive narrative.
Actually, Claire thought with a smirk, they sort of did.
Noble in Name but Not in Deed:A Dastardly Earl and his Victims.
She smiled. The stark black ink of the headline still glowed beautifully against the white paper. She dragged her thumb underneath the letters and over the illustration below it, a caricature of Freddy as he was, in a top hat and tails, with sharp, salivating teeth, standing before a trail of hapless, collapsed women.
Her heart lurched absurdly, as though this ridiculous caricature of Freddy was somehow just as appealing as the one in her dreams, just as likely to overpower her body and her sense.
She shook her head. She blinked twice. She forced herself to read it. To really read it. All of it.
She’d written this with Dot many years ago, when Oliver still grew in her belly. Dot had told her that the truth was the keenest weapon in all the world, and then she’d handed her the means to wield it.
And absurdly, at the time, Claire had felt so horribly guilty about the whole thing. She had argued that she should not be absolved in the text, that she couldn’t be, if truth was the object of their mission.
Still, somehow, she had evaded judgement in this story, this retelling of the jilting and the flight and the gambling and the chicanery. Freddy had been the villain. Freddy alone.
She frowned.
It hadn’t really been Freddy alone. She had tried to tell Dot that at the time, but all Dot was interested in was the why of everything. Why had Claire eloped with him? Why had she fled the marriage? Why, why, why?
Annoying.
Claire had refused to answer. Maybe she had refused because she couldn’t find the words. That was certainly the excuse she’d given herself at the time.
But maybe she had refused because there was no answer. Or because the answer was private, so very private and still somewhat precious.
She had tried so very hard tohatehim. To loathe him. To blame him for everything.
Writing these sheets had made it easier to convince herself that she’d been successful. She could see the narrative spun out in coherent truth on printed paper, on circulated paper, like a real novel, like a true story. And she could tell herself she believed it.
Even if she didn’t.
