Page 3 of The Beautiful Ones

I wanted to tell him.

I wanted to speak of the great house beside the James River and the beautiful, ruined families who had gathered there for one final summer. I wanted to tell him about the missing commander, the glasshouse, and the thousands of blue butterflies that rose from the earth when the truth was uncovered.

Most of all, I wanted to tell him about the man whose eyes glittered like river ice beneath a winter moon.

But where would I begin such a story? Even true stories were difficult to deliver at times.

With the contract I could barely read? How my parents betrayed me with servanthood? Poverty makes one do horrible things.

How would I begin? With Cécile seated at the pianoforte while the gardenias bloomed beneath the windows? With three strangers arriving in immaculate white clothing, untouched by the Virginia dust?

Or did the story begin much earlier, when three respectable men discovered how easily murder could be hidden beneath wealth and polished manners?

“Elin?”

I realized that Lars had been waiting for an answer.

“It is something that happened in Virginia.”

He glanced at the open trunk. “Something you have never told me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in danger?”

The question surprised me. I looked again toward the window.

“No,” I said, but the gardenias filled my throat and made the word taste false.

Lars reached down and touched my cheek. His palm was warm and rough. Nothing in his eyes glittered. Nothing about his touch made me wonder whether I would survive it.

“Come back to bed,” he said. “You can tell me in the morning if you wish.”

He kissed my forehead and lay down again. The man I loved knew the path to my heart. My true heart. Within minutes, his breathing deepened, and I knew he had returned to sleep.

I remained beside the trunk.

The room grew quiet. The wind continued to worry the roof, but the gardenia perfume slowly faded. I began returning the contents to their places, setting the gloves beneath the contract and laying Cécile’s music book on top.

When I lifted the coral ribbon, I found a blue butterfly beneath it.

I had wrapped it carefully in a handkerchief after finding it caught in the lace at my shoulder. Its wings had once been brilliant, but time had dulled them to the color of an old summer sky.

One wing moved.

I froze.

The wing lifted again, slowly and delicately.

“No,” I whispered.

The butterfly righted itself in my palm. Its fragile legs touched my skin, light as eyelashes, before the wings opened to reveal a blue so vivid that no passing of years could have diminished it.

Then it flew.

I stumbled backward as it circled the room. Once, twice, three times it passed above the sleeping form of my husband. It settled upon the frozen window, directly over the largest gardenia etched into the glass.

Blue wings opened against the white frost.