“We’re just busy,” said Cleo. She could hear Alexander:Don’t tell her! Please don’t tell her, Cleo!And then Alexander had started screaming.
“It’s nothing personal,” Cleo said, wanly.
“Oh,” said Sylvie, looking down.
Cleo knew that Sylvie knew she was lying.
7
Emma
-$45,034.81
Emma felt sad after breakfast with her sisters. She walked inside the castle, her mind troubled. Was it possible thatEmma,with all her debt and humiliation—that she was the happiest one of the Peacock girls? Cleo seemed brittle, hollowed out. Her Botoxed face was a marvel—Cleo didn’t have a line on her visage and her severe haircut was very flattering against her chiseled cheekbones—but she didn’t seem confident, just tense. It was hard not to take her radiant anger personally, but Emma tried to tell herself that was just how New Yorkerswere—strident and opinionated—and maybe that could come off as…mean.
Had Cleo always been this way?
She reminded Emma of Donna, which was horrible.
Sylvie was shining, her adoration of her fiancé obvious. Emma wished Simon weren’t a felon, or whatever Cleo had found out about him in the Private Investigator game she was play-acting with her best friend, Isaac.
Emma was lost in thought as she climbed the creepy staircase lined with nymphs and horse paintings. Upstairs, she was disoriented, wandering dim hallways for a while until she found theIndigo Suite, slipped in, and shut the door behind her, wishing there were an interior lock. Why did these doors only lock from the outside? Emma shivered. She sat on a regal chair opposite the four-poster bed.
“I’m naked under here,” whispered Rich from behind the velvet curtains.
Emma laughed. “I thought you were asleep,” she whispered back.
“Join me under the royal coverlet, wife,” said Rich.
“Is that how the Tudors spoke?” said Emma.
“Come here, you wench,” said Rich.
Emma slipped under the covers, feeling giddy. Rich reached for her and she slid out of her clothes. Rich, her love, kissing her chest, her stomach, going down farther with his warm mouth.
“Oh,” said Emma, reclining on silk sheets.
“Shhh,” said Rich.
Emma’s thoughts—her whirring tabulations, self-castigations, lists of kid-related things to do and worry about—slowly dissipated. She was a body delighted, her mind languorous as she melted toward the blissful movements of her husband’s tongue.
8
Sylvie
“I see what you mean about your sisters,” said Simon, as they walked through the castle gardens on the way to their “Honeymoon Cottage.”
“What?” said Sylvie, though she was utterly rattled—both Emma and Cleo had whispered that they needed to speak with her later: Emma saying,Syl, I have a giant favor to ask you—in private;and Cleo saying,We need to talk as soon as possible—without Simon around.
They passed the entrance to a maze of yew hedges and the knot garden, which was planted with vegetables and herbs. Simon looked at Sylvie with mild concern, then seemed to understand she couldn’t voice negative thoughts about her sisters; not yet, maybe not ever. Sylvie craved being as close to her sisters as they’d been when they were kids. She ached for that connection, yet it seemed to have vanished.
“I always wanted siblings,” said Simon, understanding her and, as always, turning the focus to himself so she could reflect until she was ready to share her thoughts. Simon paused by his mother’s rhododendrons. “I prayed every night for a long-lostsister to rise from the moors,” he said, waving his arm toward the hills beyond the flowering bushes.
“A sister? Not a brother?”
“No, I had enough male aggression in my life,” said Simon. Sylvie waited for him to elaborate, but he did not. He had mentioned that his father could be hard on him. Sylvie didn’t mind giving him space and time to tell more…or not.
“I wanted a big sister and a little sister. But now I can see that real sisters are more fraught than the ones I imagined as a kid.”
