White Ivy(114)

“Here—chug it. Try not to pass out on me. I don’t know CPR.”

Ivy drank and drank. It wasn’t champagne but some kind of sweet brandy, rough and fiery, shooting straight through to her pelvis. “Did you find him all his past girlfriends, too?” she said hoarsely, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

Sylvia watched her with a vague air of disgust, the kind usually reserved for hysterical women like Andrea.

“Why me?” said Ivy.

“You and Gideon are perfect for each other,” Sylvia said after a while. “He needs a woman like you to feel useful. He wants that kind of hero worship. And you want a hero.” Ivy flinched. “And here’s the thing,” Sylvia pressed on perceptively, “he’ll never let you down. What other man out there has that kind of consistency? Sure, they can be perfect for a month. A year. But a lifetime? You’ve been around the block. There’s a reason you get bored with other men, yet Gideon keeps you infatuated. It’s because you sense his ironclad resolve. You want to break him, but you can’t.”

Despite her pulsing anger, Ivy felt a twinge of admiration. She’d never thought selfish Sylvia was capable of putting up such a fight on behalf of another person. Had she ever done anything half as heroic for Austin?

“Did he really have other girlfriends?” she repeated. This seemed to be the most important point in the whole world.

“Of course. He wasn’t a monk before he met you, no matter what Poppy thinks.”

“And they were happy?”

“How should I know?”

“Should I leave him?”

Sylvia’s gaze sprayed over her like a cold sea breeze. “Why? What is it you think he’s done? Let’s go find him right now and talk it over.”

The horror was immediate and overwhelming. Ivy felt she could do anything, kill anyone, to avoid that conversation. This was Sylvia’s final trump card, she realized. Gideon’s sister knew Ivy couldn’t do it. Couldn’t say it. Sylvia understood the power of social conduct. That unimpeachable code of silence that had brushed generations of scandals under a linen-draped dinner table.

Also… Ivy hadn’t really seen anything out of the ordinary… Sylvia was right, what was she accusing Gideon of? He’d only called out Tom’s name. It’d led to her moment of blind terror out on the lawn, but her mind was under enormous stress from her meds, the drinking, the paranoia that Gideon would leave her… perhaps her mind had concocted a reason to leave Gideon. People sabotaged themselves all the time. And in the virginal afternoon light of the music room, with Sylvia idly applying lipstick in front of the mirror as if the situation were so inconsequential she couldn’t be bothered to give it her full attention, Ivy felt her doubt grow like thorns, crushing the buds of her previous certainty.

Sylvia blotted her lips with the pad of her ring finger. “So you’re planning to leave Giddy at the altar?”

“No!”

The response flew out of Ivy so vehemently it surprised both of them.

“There you have it then,” said Sylvia, watching her from the mirror. The hard, amber eyes gleamed with triumph.

“I don’t care about Gideon’s past,” Ivy said, picking Austin’s daisy up off the table and rolling it between her fingers. “We all have our secrets. What’s important is that we both love each other.” It was true. She loved Gideon. He loved her. And there was the white billowing dress hanging on the mirror, the shimmering qipao that had brought Meifeng to tears, two hundred guests about to arrive in a few hours for a night of revelry, the tiara Poppy had bequeathed her, and years and years of vacations in Cattahasset waiting for her, the house Shen would buy for them when they were ready… Remember you can always come home… that’s right, even if the world imploded, she could always return home…

A wonderful tranquillity washed into Ivy’s heart. She finally understood the thing that no one could take away from you—it was family. That burdensome, unbreakable, everlasting, unsentimental backing of one’s family. She would draw upon the new strength and power of the Lins to face her in-laws for the first time as an equal. She’d even glimpsed the real Gideon—what else was there to fear? And perhaps… perhaps he had always seen the real her… Either way, she’d never know, because he would never slip up again, so it needn’t matter. There would be no strings attached to their marriage, only mutual acceptance and admiration, unmarred by petty things like expectations. She would never again lower herself under anyone else’s thumb.

She placed one hand over her heart, as if to affirm her decision, her existence. How strong the heart beat on.

She walked over and circled her arm around Sylvia’s waist. “I’m so pleased we had this chat,” she murmured. “I admire you, too. You take what you want without asking for permission… did you know that Roux always said you were a crafty fraud”—their eyes met in the mirror; she tucked the limp daisy behind Sylvia’s ear—“but I never believed him because you are just so beautiful. I hope we can keep this talk between us girls—I don’t want Gideon to think I wavered… dear Sibbie… we’ll be sisters now.” She felt the startled tremble of Sylvia’s rib cage under her damp palms.



* * *




AT LONG LAST, her future was here, unfurling before her like a sunlit path lined with flowers and green things. Ivy was unaware of the guests, the music, the lights, the flowers, all the things she’d so foolishly assumed made up the magic of a wedding. The magic came from inside her. She only saw Gideon… Gideon standing upright in front of the altar, Gideon smiling, Gideon with an expression she’d waited for all her life, the expression she knew was reflected on her own face…what was it… oh!