The Honor that opened the door had no defenses. She looked as if she hadn’t changed or slept in over a day. Her suspenders hung down around her hips, the collar of her shirt sagging open at her throat, her feet bare. Her hair was only half up, like she’d begun removing pins but forgotten what she was doing, most of her curls spilling down her back. Her eyes were red and her cheeks pale. It was the most human Vivian had ever seen her.
“They let you go,” Honor said, staring at her.
“They did.” Vivian had to remember to breathe. “Are you going to let me in?”
Honor stepped back and opened the door further, letting Vivian walk past her into the little sitting room. There was a glass of liquor sitting on the table, but it looked like it had been poured and forgotten. There was a plate of breakfast, but that hadn’t been touched either.
Honor closed the door behind them. The only thing Vivian could read in her expression was wariness. She walked toward the table. “Do you want to—”
“I followed you last night,” Vivian interrupted. Better to say it all at once, so they both knew where they stood.
Slowly, Honor turned back toward Vivian, lips pressed together as though she were in pain. “Then you know.”
“I know,” Vivian agreed. The air between them was so tense an electric current might have been running through it. “What will happen to her?”
Honor shrugged. “A trial maybe? I don’t know. They told me sheconfessed, so maybe not. Maybe just…” She swallowed and looked away. “I’m trying not to think about it.”
“You might…” Vivian cleared her throat, remembering what Levinsky had said. “You might try talking to your father’s wife. It’ll be all over the papers if it becomes public. Some journalist will spin it as a tragic love story, revenge tale, something like that. She’d probably hate that. Mrs. Buchanan, I mean. She’ll want to keep it quiet. You might be able to cut some kind of deal with her.”
Honor shook her head. “You always were a smart girl.”
“Why did you do it?” Vivian whispered, taking a step forward, then another. She could see Honor’s chest rising and falling with her breath, the beat of her pulse in the hollow of her collarbone. “You kept quiet all week. You tried to convince her to leave town. And then, all of a sudden, you changed your mind.Why?”
“Because.” Honor’s voice cracked on the word. She was always so cool, careful and controlled and impossible to read. Now she was none of that. She cupped Vivian’s face in her hands, and they were close enough to each other that Vivian could see tears in her eyes. “For most of my life, it was her and me and Stella against the world. And then Stella died, and she was all I had left. I thought it would hurt too much to lose her. But it would hurt far, far worse if I lost you.”
Vivian took a step back, away from the gentle, hopeful touch, and smacked Honor across the face. Honor reeled backward, grabbing the back of the chair to catch her balance. When she looked up, her eyes were snapping with anger.
Vivian didn’t care. “You knew,” she ground out. “You saw what I was going through, and you knew the whole time she had done it. And you saidnothing.”
“I didn’t know for certain.”
“You knew.” Vivian stared at Honor, not giving her the chance to look away.
At last, Honor nodded. Her shoulders slumped, the fury and fight gone out of her. “I knew. And I kept my mouth shut.”
“You should havetoldme,” Vivian said, knowing Honor could hear the hurt in her voice.
“Told you what? That my mother was a killer? That I was choosing her anyway?” Honor’s cheek was red where Vivian had struck it. “I knew she didn’t deserve it. But I still did.”
“Why did you, then?”
Honor shrugged helplessly. “She’s my mother. Why did you just tell me how to help her, after everything we put you through?”
The sound that escaped Vivian might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been so bitter. “I guess mothers are tricky things for me, too,” she said. “I don’t know if they break your heart worse when they’re around or when they’re gone. But God knows I don’t want to be the reason you lose yours.”
“And would it be another betrayal if I took your advice?” Honor asked, touching her cheek gently with her fingertips, as though checking how badly she was hurt. She didn’t look away, though.
Slowly, Vivian shook her head. “I don’t think it would be, no.”
“And…” Honor hesitated, taking half a step forward. But she stopped herself, her hands tightening on the chairback once more. “Are we—”
“Don’t,” Vivian warned her. “You don’t have the right to ask me that yet.”
“That’s fair,” Honor said softly. “Do you know when I’ll see you again?”
“I’ll be around.”
“Vivian.”
