And when Tempie spoke next, the cool was gone entirely.
In fact, her voice was vibrating with anger.
“He can love his sisters, and find a woman to love,” she stated. “There are one hundred and two rooms in this house. We vowed, all four of us, this was it. Family. The Downs. Forever. Whoever joins that has to work. And since that woman is Mum, but younger, Battle took what he wanted, didn’t like it, and threw the rest back. She never had a chance. It has nothing to do with you. Don’t think a second on it.”
Prue nor Chassie seemed to let these words soak in.
Especially Chassie.
Of course, Tempie didn’t miss it.
“Chastity, did you hear me?” Tempie called.
Chassie’s eyes moved meaningfully through me before she whisper-said to her eldest sister. “I want Battie to be happy.”
“What makes you think he’s not?” Tempie asked.
She flicked a glance at me and mumbled, “That was just…awful. Poor Battie.”
“I have a feeling on some level he enjoyed that,” Tempie declared. “I know I did. She needed to hear it, and he very much needed to say it. Her lashing out even more in the end is all about her shallowness of character. We just witnessed a thirty-something throwing a toddler’s tantrum. More fool her, she has no idea this is precisely why no man alive will keep her. She’ll just continue doing this until she has to accept some bottom-of-the-barrel weakling who lets her walk all over him. But I’ll lay odds she’ll be supporting them, because a man like that won’t be making the kind of living she thinks she deserves. She will end up miserable and wondering what went wrong, when Battie, and probably many others, already told her. People like that don’t deserve our time. So let’s put her out of mind, shall we?”
She stood and walked to the built-in at the wall that held a variety of manly beverages in heavy, fancy, cut crystal decanters, all of the liquid brown.
And she muttered, “I’m having a fucking whiskey.”
“Me too!” Prue cried.
“I hate whiskey, but I’m drinking one,” Chassie loud-whisper-said.
Tempie peered over her shoulder at me. “Vivienne?”
“I think maybe I should let you Talyns?—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, the cats sleep with you at night,” Tempie drawled. “I can assure you, they don’t visit her, nor I suspect, even looked in on Rally and Court, who are good people.”
I wasn’t certain about this cat thing.
Though Tempie sure did seem committed to whatever it meant.
“Pour one for Vivi too,” Prue called.
“Come over here,” Chassie loud-whisper-invited. “It’s warm and we don’t have to shout at each other to be heard.”
“I’ll just help Tempie first,” I told them, got up and went to Tempie.
“You okay?” I asked under my breath.
“Respectfully,” she turned to me and peeled her lips back in a terrifying smile, “that woman is a cunt.”
I almost burst out laughing.
“Of course. Respectfully,” I replied.
She rolled her eyes.
Then she poured four neat whiskies.
CHAPTER 12
