The Keeper of Happy Endings(69)

I stand there a moment, holding my breath until he’s gone, then rush to the bathroom and bring up my dinner.





TWENTY-EIGHT

SOLINE

The Work is our legacy to the world, the spells we weave, the hearts we bind, and all the generations that come after. These are our gifts made manifest.

—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

29 October 1943—Newport

It’s a Friday afternoon, and the house is eerily quiet when I return from my afternoon walk on the beach. Thia is home from school again, though I haven’t seen her for several days. Belinda will only say that she’s under the weather and that her father doesn’t want her disturbed. Owen has been scarce as well, locked away in either his room or his study, leaving me to dine alone.

My mood has grown dark of late. I’m so isolated here, unmoored from my own world and a stranger in Anson’s. I have no friends here, no means of filling my time or striking out on my own. The days stretch before me with no horizon and no news from Anson on which to pin my hopes. Thia is my one happiness, and I suspect I am hers. Owen suspects it too, though he isn’t above keeping us apart to hurt me.

As I climb the stairs, I find myself wondering what kind of woman could love a man like Owen Purcell, a man who treats his children like pieces on a chessboard, to be moved only when and where it suits him. Yet, in spite of her cold and dictatorial husband, Lydia Purcell managed to raise a pair of warm and wonderful children.

I’m nearly to the end of the gallery when I hear a faint rustling and realize the door to my room is ajar. I feel my spirits lift at the thought of finding Thia sitting cross-legged on my bed with one of her sketchbooks. Instead I find Owen standing over the bed, pawing through the contents of my dress box.

“What are you doing?”

He glares at me. There’s no remorse in his expression, only annoyance that he’s been interrupted. His jaw is peppered with pale stubble, and his eyes are puffy and bloodshot. He looks as if he’s aged ten years, and grown smaller somehow, since our last conversation. And then I realize what has changed. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in something other than one of his impeccably tailored suits. Instead, he’s wearing a gray cardigan and trousers that look as though they’ve been slept in. The change is shocking.

“What does it look like? I’m going through your box of secrets.” His words are slurred, his S’s thick and wet. It’s barely three o’clock, and he’s clearly been drinking for hours.

I smother a curse when I see my dress—the one I’m meant to marry Anson in—lying at his feet, a froth of beads and white silk twisted around his ankles. I bend down and snatch it up, cradling it against me like a rescued child. “You have no right to go through my things.”

His eyes glitter coldly. “You’re living in my house, eating from my table, sleeping on my sheets. I’d say that gives me every right.”

“What is it you expect to find?”

“You think you’re so clever, landing on my doorstep like some war orphan, without two nickels to your name and everything you own in a cardboard box, claiming to have landed the most eligible young man in Newport. I’ll say this for you, when you were shopping for a meal ticket, you didn’t mess around. Not a decent pair of shoes to your name, but you managed to bring a wedding dress all the way from Paris. That’s what I call planning ahead.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

He takes a step forward, swaying a bit in his attempt to look menacing. “What was it like?”

I try to think of something to say, something that will make him believe me. But there’s nothing. Because he doesn’t want to believe me. When he looks at me, he sees what he wants to see—an opportunist who used her wiles to trick his son into a marriage proposal.

I drop my gaze, taking in the once-tied packet of letters, loose now and strewn across the spread. Several have been opened, their contents tossed aside. The sight makes me sick to my stomach. “You read my letters.”

“I would have, but they’re all in French. Lovers, I assume. Did my son know?”

There is no shame in his reply, no acknowledgment that he has trespassed where he has no business. Only icy accusation. I bend down to gather them, one at a time, hating that he’s opened them, touched them at all. “They belong to me,” I tell him sharply. “They have nothing to do with Anson.”

I’m reaching for the ribbon that once bound them together when I see Anson’s shaving kit lying facedown among the letters. Owen sees it too. I lunge for it, reaching it before he can snatch it away. I can’t bear the thought of him touching that either.

His eyes glint dully, fury blunted by drink. “Where did you get that?”

“Anson gave it to me the morning I left Paris.”

I’m surprised when his shoulders sag, as if all the air has left his chest. For a moment he seems on the verge of tears. “His mother gave it to him the Christmas before she died.”

“He told me,” I say softly.

“Give it to me.”

I’m startled by the sudden change in his voice. I stare at his outstretched hand, then take a step back. “No. Anson gave it to me. It’s mine.”

I don’t see the slap coming, but all at once there’s a dull crack in my head and a flash of bright light as his palm connects with my cheek. I taste blood as my head snaps back. Before I can get my bearings, the leather case is torn from my hands.