“Bloody footprints,” Magnus said. “You left a trail of them. We knew you were in the shop. It was a matter of waiting for you to come out. I was worried about you.”
He made it sound so normal, to wait for someone and snatch them off the street. I could imagine him telling the police the same thing and imagine them believing he was a concerned parent. A good man.
Your father is not the saint people think he is.
Magnus said, “Can I take you somewhere so we can talk? We could get lunch. My club is near here.”
I looked at the backs of the man and woman in the front of the car. How much of what they were hearing did they know already? Were they paid enough to see nothing and hear nothing, whatever went on around them?
“We can talk here. You have five minutes, then you let me out.”
He said, “Diana betrayed us both this morning. Please believe me when I say I genuinely believed that you wanted to reconcile with me, and the idea of it had brought me so much joy. Since the day you were born, your absence has been a gaping hole in my life. A chasm.”
I bit my lip. I could hardly bear to look at him. Why hadn’t he approached me since I’d been an adult, then? Mum hadn’t been able to gatekeep me for years.
He’s a liar.
But the child in me had always wanted to hear words like these, to know that I’d meantsomethingto him, to believe that in his heart of hearts he’d wanted me then and wanted me now.
“I treated your mother very badly and hurt her deeply. I’m not surprised Rose turned away from me the way she did. I don’t blame her.”
“You don’t get to talk about blame,” I shot back. “You lost that right when you told her we weren’t good enough for you.”
“I know.” He put his hands up. “Sorry! I’m so very sorry that I did that. I feel terrible about it, and I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt you. All I can say is that I did it because I was immature enough to believe my family knew best. They put enormous pressure on me, which was monstrous of them, but I was very young at the time. Your mother and I, we were both just babies, really. I’m not trying to excuse myself for what I did, because it was heinous, but it might help you understand the situation. If you care to.”
I did care to understand, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting through to me. Not yet. He hadn’t convinced me that his intentions were good. But his words were getting through my emotional armor. I’d spent my life trying to rewrite the stories about him that Mum had told, always hoping for a plausible reason for what he did, one that wasn’t to do with me. Always dreaming of a happier ending. What child abandoned or mistreated by a parent doesn’t wish the same?
“I see myself in you, Anya,” he said. “I think you’re incredibly smart, so let me say this plainly. If we can put our emotions aside for a moment, consider this: I need someone gifted, whom I can trust absolutely, to work on my manuscripts. Working on my manuscripts could help your career immeasurably. If you can’t forgive me, then I’ll make sure I keep out of your way entirely. But if you’re even a little bit interested in seeing if we can build a relationship, we can do that however you want. I don’t put myself in other people’s hands very often, but I’ll make an exception for you, Anya. You are terribly important to me.”
“How do you know you can trust me?” I asked. I wanted to turn the tables back on him a little.
He tries to disempower everyone around him.
“You’re my flesh and blood. I know you.”
Boom. I had to hand it to him. He knew all the right things to say. I just had to decide whether I believed him. But it was very tempting to.
“This is your birthright,” he added.
“What about your other children?” He had three. They were still school age. I’d stalked them on social media. “Do they know about me?”
“They do, and they’d like to meet you.”
It changed the game, knowing that I might gain half siblings, that it wouldn’t just be him. Because he was damaged goods, a page full of corrections, inkblots. Imperfect. But getting to know my half siblings might give me a chance to turn a pristine new page.
“If I study the manuscripts, the ones that everyone believes were burned, can I publish my work?”
“Good question. The idea is to reveal that the manuscripts survived the fire at the same time as publishing your work on them. We intend to make a big noise about both. Everybody will be talking about it.”
He’s never selfless. He always has an agenda.
The penny dropped. “This is about your library, isn’t it? You’ll do this to coincide with the opening of the library.”
“That is the plan,” he conceded.
It was clever. He would be able to open the library with a core of exceptional manuscripts and scholarship already attached to them that would enhance the family name. It would be a terrific PR stunt. I would have bet he was also considering whether he could get a good emotional story out of it, too: Magnus Beaufort, contrite and reconciled with his estranged daughter and her mother.
“You want me to enhance your vanity project. Your library.”
