‘Liam,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’
‘Liam,’ Rebecca repeated softly, trying not to enjoy the sound and taste of it. ‘Will you tell me what really happened here?’
She heard his heartbeat quicken and thought, as the silence thickened, that he would refuse. Ask her to leave.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.’
‘No,’ he said with a heavy sigh, stroking her hair gently. ‘I have thought many times I should tell you. How I would like you to know. Now, perhaps, it is too late to shy away from bearing secrets.’
Rebecca’s hand came to rest on his belly, steadying him for the painful tale. The secret to his soul, to who he’d become.
‘My sister, Halcyon, Hal, she was... God, how I loved her. She was the most beautiful, the kindest creature to ever walk the earth. Not even our father could break her generous spirit. She was younger than me by ten years, and I think he resented her, blamed her for our mother’s descent into madness and death. It was easier than to admit it was he who caused her demise.’
‘Mrs Ffoulkes... She said he was a hard man.’
‘An understatement of infinite proportions,’ Liam said bitterly. ‘He was cruel, and cold. I didn’t know my grandfather, so I do not know if I may lay blame at his door for what my father was. Oh, my father never raised a hand to any of us,’ Liam told her, spotting the question in her eyes. ‘He didn’t need to. His words, his cutting reproach, his disgust and disapproval—they were enough. He hated for anyone in this house to feel pleasure. To feel...anything but fear. Hal, her horses, that tower... Despite all the resentment he felt towards her, somehow he allowed her those things. Perhaps because no matter what he said or did, it did not seem to change her. Hal was...so full of life nothing could touch her. I would have fetched her the moon had she asked. But then...’
Liam stopped, the words caught in his throat. The memories of that time resurfaced with a vengeance, the pain visibly as raw as ever. He took Rebecca’s hand, entwining their fingers, anchoring himself to her.
‘I went away. Only for a couple months, to get some respite fromhim. I spent it drinking and gallivanting about town with the few friends I had, but I came back for the New Year, and...everything had changed. Hal, she was broken. Withering away... I didn’t understand, I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t talk to me. I woke up one morning, and I swear, I heard her calling on the wind.’
Liam’s breath was shallow now, and hot tears slid from his eyes.
‘I found her in the river. Caught between a branch, and the ice... I...I knew. What she’d done. I lifted her out, carried her home. I always wondered if I could’ve done more... If she had confided in me...’
‘You did what you could, Liam,’ Rebecca breathed. ‘I’m sure she knew you loved her.’
‘Then why did she not trust me to help her?’ he pleaded, voicing the question he had clearly spent so many years asking himself.
‘I don’t know. No one can. But I do know that she would’ve wanted you to remember her as she was before. That she would have wanted you to carry her memory with you, not fear it.’ Rebecca kissed his chest, knowing it was easier said than done, but hoping the words brought him some comfort. ‘That’s why you kept her rooms untouched. You thought...’
‘That I might understand,’ he breathed, the confession tearing at her heart. It all made sense now.
‘That I might find clues, an answer to why she’d done it. There was nothing.’
‘There was everything she created.’
Liam kissed her knuckles tenderly and nodded.
‘Why—?’ Rebecca asked after a moment.
‘Why do they say I murdered her?’ he finished with a wry smile. ‘Because I said as much. When I laid her down before my father, at the bottom of the stairs, God... I was so angry, so distraught. I felt Ihadkilled her, with my negligence. I said things... Some of the servants heard, and, well... I refused to deny it publicly, as otherwise, soon enough the town would’ve known how she really died, and...’
‘She would’ve been denied a proper burial.’
‘Yes... The magistrate... He declared it an accident.’
‘And your father?’
‘A year after Hal died, he had an attack of the heart. I was admittedly surprised to learn he did possess one,’ Liam spat bitterly. ‘He fell down the stairs, and his head was injured. The servants who found him were convinced it was murder, either myself or Hal’s ghost, whom they swore roamed the corridors. I was long gone—I’d left the day we buried Hal—but once people have convinced themselves of something...’
‘I understand.’
‘You always knew, didn’t you?’ he asked, looking down at the figure in his arms. ‘That there was more sorrow than malevolence in this house. That I was not the monster so many make me out to be.’
‘I have known monsters,’ she said, her eyes rising to meet his. ‘And I knew from the first that you were no such thing.’
‘I never...spoke of her, before. I never...shed tears for her,’ Liam admitted. ‘Not until...’
