“Well, I mean, it’s going to happen. I just want to—”
“Force me into a loveless marriage? With your sister?”
Henri took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We can do all the things you want to do too. Why are you both so hung up on the authenticity of this marriage?
“You want us to just throw what’s proper to the wind?” I scowled. “I don’t like it, Henri. It feels wrong. How could I ever give myself over to something that’s so fake and manipulative … it would seem more like I was giving up than living. I want to have an authentic life.”
“Oh, okay. Marry the love of your life then.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Just marry the love of your life. When you make a decision on who you love.”
I didn’t care for the exasperation I saw in Henri’s face. I felt like he was talking down to me. “Stop talking foolishness. You know that I can’t marry who I love, whoever that might be. Men can’t marry one another.”
“Exactly. Your authentic life can never be, Emile. I’m sorry, but it can’t.” He turned to Blanche. “And how many couples do you know who are actually happily married?”
“My parents were,” I said.
“So were ours,” Blanche said, smiling sadly. “And that’s the sort of life I want, brother. The happiness they shared.”
“Yes, well, our mother wasn’t as happy as she let on, was she? Or she wouldn’t have thrown herself from a cliff.”
Blanche paled.
“And you,” Henri pointed a finger at me. “What do you expect is going to happen? No matter what, you aren’t going to get the life you want. This is a solution that will work.”
I scowled. “You cannot believe we would truly be happy.”
“Of course we can be happy! We’ll have each other.” He grabbed my hand. “Emile, I want to be with you. I hate to be blunt, but you have to know that your dreams can never become a reality. This is the best we can hope for.”
“So, I should just grow up and ruin your sister’s life?”
Henri’s cheek twitched. “Blanche will be happy as well. I will see to it that she is happy.”
Blanche stared up at the ceiling. “Maybe I could be happy. It’s not what I wanted, but …” She sighed and turned to me. “We have some time to come up with alternate solutions, Emile. But we won’t have long. Let’s think on it. And in the meantime, maybe we … consider this. Try to reconcile with it.”
I pushed myself out of her bed and headed for the door.
“Emile!” Henri called after me.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until I reached my room and threw myself down onto my bed. Henri was manipulating the situation. He’d seen that Montoni’s proposition was advantageous to him and was now trying to convince us that it was for the best. He didn’t care if his sister would truly be happy. He didn’t care about me either. He was just being selfish.
What I didn’t want to face was the truth. Henri was right. I couldn’t marry who I loved. My life would never be the idealized version I’d conjured in my head. Society just wouldn’t permit it. Montoni’s plan could work to our advantage. It was true. I could perhaps even like the sort of life that Henri envisioned for us, even if it wasn’t a traditional happiness. We could be happy together in a scenario where we were all a part of each other’s lives, yet fulfilling certain societal obligations. We could live our real lives out of the public eye.
The only flaw in Henri’s plan was that I did not trust Montoni. How could I believe that once I signed that marriage certificate, Montoni wouldn’t immediately kill me? He’d done it before, likely on multiple occasions. If he was worried about my aunt or other witnesses, he could just as easily resort to committing me to an asylum. My estate and inheritance would be in Blanche’s hands either way, and Montoni would seize control of them.
I couldn’t allow him to have that power over me.
I pulled a pillow over my face and screamed into it. This family … this whole situation … I needed to get away from here. I needed to escape, disappear into obscurity until I could claim my inheritance, as was my original plan. It was the only way I would get out of this sane, and able to live a life asIwanted to live it.
I just didn’t know how I was going to make that happen.
“You’re late.”
I shrugged off my coat as I watched Father Schedoni toss an empty syringe into a waste basket. He glared at me. “You need to take this seriously, boy. There will be mighty consequences if you fail to perform your duties.”
I looked past Schedoni to where Henri lay on his bed, propped up against his pillows, shirtless and already sweating.
