“Are you ready to learn the truth?”
I swallowed hard, clenching my fists, awaiting whatever awful thing she had to tell me. It had started to rain, coming down hard at the windows. Thunder rumbled some distance away.
The doorbell chimed, making the three of us flinch, our heads snapping toward the front door.
“They’re early,” said Nick under his breath, with a definite sigh of relief. He threw back the hair from his forehead and adjusted his cravat, before marching toward the doorway. “You’ll stir-up nothing more, Margaret, or I’ll throw you out into the downpour myself.”
I hurried after him, pawing at his arm. Maggie followed, shouting at our backs.
“What is she talking about, sir? What does she mean?”
“We are announcing our engagement,” said Nick, monotonously, his hand reaching for the door knob. “We are continuing with the annual party and we are going to have a wonderful –”
On a bright flash of lightning, two silhouettes were illuminated, stretching long and ghastly, against the stone floor of Crowthorne House. Tom’s bitter, weather-beaten face was revealed to us, along with a small, hunched figure by his side.
“Grace,” he said, his voice making my skin prickle, my heart heave. “I learned you were having a party tonight to celebrate your engagement.”
“Away,” said Nick, stepping in front of me, protecting me from Tom. “Get away immediately.”
“But I’ve brought a guest for you, Nicholas – one you almost forgot to invite. She was very upset to hear that, when I told her, but she cooperated just fine once I promised to bring her to you,” he said, pushing his way into the foyer. The small, hunched figure was held under his arm, cowering against him, their raincoat drenched and leaking onto the floor.
“Oh god, no,” said Margaret under her breath, holding her hands to her mouth.
“You might want to question their security and safeguarding protocols at that hospital, Crowthorne. You’re wasting your money. They let me walk right in to see her. I’m yournephew, aren’t I, sweetheart?”
He waited. The hunched figure moved, as if nodding to themselves.
“She’s quite sedated. Quite settled. We wanted to be well enough to attend the party,” said Tom. “You might want to do away with your groundskeeper, by the way. Marcus talks a lot for a man who’s worked for you for so long. I only needed to spark up a conversation about the horses, and off he went, talking about the owner andhis lovely young apprentice. They’re getting married, he said! But there’s a bit of a problem with that, ain’t there, Nicholas?”
I glanced uneasily at Nick, who had gone the colour of chalk.
“You’re not going to be Mrs Crowthorne, Grace. The name’s taken.” Tom pulled away the hood of the hunched figure’s raincoat, exposing their face to us all.
A pained woman’s face was revealed; her eyes closed, lashes fluttering against the sudden light. She seemed to be floating somewhere far away from us, coasting on a drug-induced sea. Her skin was like wrinkled crepe paper on one side, and like smooth, barely crazed marble on the other. Part of her head on the left side was bald, the skin twisted, while a tangled mane of white-blonde hair tumbled down like a bunch of wet weeds from the other.
She swayed under the harsh foyer light, as if closing her eyes against the sun, half-asleep.
“Nick, he’s hurt her – ”
“No, no,” said Tom, holding up a hand as Maggie made to rush forward. “I can assure you she’s been quite safe with me. I’ve every intention of taking her back to the loony bin where you put her, once Grace has finally got the picture. Or perhaps you’d like that honour, Nicholas?”
“Give her to me,” said Nick, his teeth bared. “Give her over this instant.”
The woman groaned as she swayed, her lips dry, her fingers emerging from her coat sleeves and touching her fingertips to the empty space before her eyes.
My heart and head were pounding. A vile sickness consumed me. I knew who she was. It was unmistakablewho she was.
“She was never dead,” I whispered, as the first tears fell. They came and came as I took in her pitiful image. “She’s your wife.”
Nick was deaf to me as he took Louisa from Tom’s grasp and clutched her to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her in a protective embrace while a sob escaped me. Margaret’s hand reached for mine, squeezing it, before abruptly letting it go again. From her scolding heart, she found some pity for me.
“I am sorry that it’s come to this,” she said.
Louisa let out a low, agonised groan against Nick’s chest. He rocked her, smoothing down her hair, whispering reassurances, kind words, against her ear.
Tom’s smirk increased as he watched the horror unfold on my face.
“You not seen her wandering around the grounds, Grace? Have you not seen that she finds her way in as she pleases, wanders the halls, sometimes, at night? I found her, outside, when I came here looking for you. I thought shewasyou. She comes here, wondering why she knows her way around a home that isn’t hers any more. She wonders who that woman is, who looks like her, sleeping in her lovely pink bed.” Tom raised his voice, louder and louder, as he spoke.
