The butterflies intensify in my stomach. I push back. “You must have done this a dozen times,” I say casually, casting my gaze away so he cannot read the test in my eyes. “Charming a woman, that is.”
He throws back his head and laughs, pulling me close and kissing my neck.
I place both palms on his chest. Something must keep the distance. “You know, I’ve never asked—haveyou been married before, AJ? There’s so much we ought to know already—”
“Which we have all the time in the world to find out. What a boon!” He dips me backward, my hat falling back into the sand, then pulls me upright again. “Perhaps we should learn the steps one day, eh?”
But then he draws me close, his hand bracing the small of my back and his vibrant face so near to mine, and I can hear Cecil’s clear voice telling me about answers that don’t say anything.
“Well?”
“Well what, luv?”
“Haveyou been married before? You’re a handsome man of nearly three and thirty.”
He lifts our joined hands and guides me in a graceful, slow spin, his lightly scruffy face so near, his gaze holding mine. “You’re lovely as a picture. I should have you painted, once we’ve funds again.”
Thom’s wizened face flashes through my mind.It is a painting done by one who truly sees…and loves you. Anyone can tell.
I cling to AJ’s arms to stop the turn, but the beach continues spinning.
Go home to your husband, dear Merryn.
I cannot breathe.
Let memory shape who he is to you—thegoodmemories.
Memories. The curse of humanity…and my only rescue. I look up at the man I’ve married. His grinning face is angled heavenward as he enjoys the breeze. I place a palm on his chest and pin him with a stare. “Have you?”
“What, married? Me?” He laughs. “Of course not. No one but you, luv.” But there’s a funny stretch to his smile. “Now. How’s about a race?”
Chapter 25
Isthishowithappens? We marry someone, believing we know them, then reality erodes that lovely sheen and there’s something unrecognizable underneath? I sit in the attic at Dunn Cottage, looking down at his retreating form as he leaves for town—I’ve forgotten to ask why.
Howdidhe kill his first wife?
Ugh, that’s quite enough! Ansel is a common name about England. Some other bloke has done his wife in, and Gould merely found the wrong Ansel Winthrop. The very idea of AJ belonging to any other woman…ofmurderingher…
The attic is cluttered with broken whalebone hoops, dusty trunks, and faded costumes spilling out of crates, all of it unfamiliar. Faint lines on the doorway mark my height by age…until my eighteenth year. There’s no mark above the seventeenth. I touch the pencil marks. Measure my current self, which is roughly the same height as the last marking on the door. I’ve not grown much.
Yet I have.
Then, a ratty old curtain beckons me closer. The tickle of memory. I sweep it aside with a sudden knowledge of the hole in the wall before I see it. The jagged gaping space between one section of the house and the tower opens onto the middle of a crumbling, winding stair that climbs into darkness above and down to the ground level. Lighting a candle, I climb through the hole, letting the curtain fall back over it. No one will ever find me if I fall, but I won’t. Of course I won’t.
Steps crumble on the edges as I ascend higher into the chilly old tower. I pause to open a window of beautiful cut glass and I can see the oddly haunting outcropping above where the burned remnants of Dunn House lay.
What occurred there? And what does it have to do with me?
I continue climbing and emerge into a sparse room with a narrow bed neatly made, a stack of worn books, and a few moth-eaten linens folded on a table. What stands out most is the jars—rows and rows of jars line the walls, most filled with something like tea herbs, and a heavy, tarnished candlestick. Brass? Ancient, at least. This should bring ten or twenty shillings, which meansfood. Perhaps another cawl from The King’s Head. Or a pasty! My stomach rumbles.
Soon.
I glance around, hardly daring to breathe in this time capsule. Scattered pages on the ancient desk are full of my handwriting. I had written poetry—not good poetry, but here it is. No…music.I can hear it. I also wrote letters, apparently, for they’re piled all over the desk.
But these are in a different hand. I hungrily read until it’s clear they’re written to me by my mother but never sent. She begs me, reasons with me, to speak with her again. She’s confused about why I’ve gone silent, refusing to see her when she visits. They’re dated years ago. Heartbreak pours out of her simple words, and my heart twists just reading them.
How could I have been so cruel?
