Wife Number Seven (The Compound, #1)(90)

Rebecca’s posture hunched and she played with the trinkets on Brinley’s dresser. “I didn’t get to be with Burt. I didn’t get to be with the man I adored, the man I spent twelve years loving. And she was going to be with Porter. She was going to be happy, I could feel it. And it killed me. I was so jealous I could barely breathe.”

“You’re telling me that this was all about envy? All of it?”

“I can’t speak for Leandra, or Lehi, for that matter. I don’t know why they beat her like they did.”

“I do,” Aspen replied, eyeing the trinkets on the dresser. She moved to stand next to Rebecca and touched one by one the small gifts that were handmade by her children. They adored Brinley almost as much as she did. They would miss her.

Rebecca glanced at her. “Tell me, please. I’m begging you.”

“Pride,” Aspen said matter-of-factly. “Brinley shattered their pride. They tried to control her, but they couldn’t. Clearly, she was too smart for them.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Rebecca said. “Leandra was so focused on impressing the prophet. She wanted to maintain the Cluff name.”

“Desperately,” Aspen agreed.

Aspen knelt down to retrieve one of the trinkets that had fallen on the floor, a tiny butterfly made out of paper. She remembered the day Ruthie had given it to Brinley. It was the day she’d entered the Cluff family. Aspen had been suspicious and hesitant with Brinley when she first met her. Brinley was a sweet young thing, but she seemed terribly naive and Aspen wasn’t known for her patience. Nevertheless, Lehi had assigned her to mentor Brinley and she had done so. For three years, she’d done her best to guide and care for Brinley as if she were one of her own.

And she’d miss that role. Looking back, it had truly been an honor. One she would cherish in the years to come.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Rebecca reading aloud.

“I can’t go on without you. I’m a pathetic man . . .”

Aspen knew those words; she’d read them several times already. But they shouldn’t have come from Rebecca’s mouth.

“I don’t . . . I don’t understand,” Rebecca said.

Aspen looked to Rebecca and gasped when she saw her holding one of the papers.

Rebecca looked up. “This isn’t . . . it can’t be. No. No, no, no, no, no, no!”

“How did you get that?” Aspen demanded, stalking toward her sister wife in a panic.

“It fell on the floor. You were hanging the picture and it fell out,” Rebecca cried. “This is all my fault. All of it. He’s gone and it’s all my fault. They took him . . .”

“I’m sorry,” Aspen said. What else could she say? It was the truth.

Rebecca’s face turned ghostly white and she sank to her knees, clutching the note to her chest, wailing at the top of her lungs. “I should’ve met him that night. Under our tree. He must have waited and waited for me,” she cried. “None of this would’ve happened. I could have saved him, I could . . . I could . . .”

Aspen wanted to be furious with Rebecca, she wanted to hold on to her anger for dear life. But as she watched her sister wife crumple on the floor, wailing in agony, she couldn’t keep sweet. She couldn’t ignore Rebecca. She had to comfort her.

“How could they do this?” Rebecca peered into Aspen’s eyes, looking for an answer. “How could they be so evil?”

“I don’t have all the answers. But there were over a dozen of these in her wastebasket. There’s no mistaking what they did or how they covered it up.”

“The note they showed me wasn’t real, and I should’ve known. I knew Burt’s handwriting better than anyone.”

“You were grieving. You’d just lost him,” Aspen said, attempting to make sense of the unimaginable.

“No, I lost him months ago, the day Brinley gave me that letter.”

“Letter? There was another letter?”

“Yes. He wanted me to run away with him. He asked me to be his one and only.”

“I had no idea,” Aspen replied, trying to process the new information on Burt and Rebecca’s love story.

“I turned my back on him, Aspen. I turned my back on the one man who loved me. The only one.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?” Aspen asked, curious. She hadn’t gotten to know Rebecca in the way that Brinley had. In fact, she knew very little about Lehi’s eighth wife, but she seemed to be learning more with each passing moment.

“I thought Heavenly Father was testing me.” Rebecca wiped her nose as tears tracked down her cheeks. “I thought my faith, my love for him was being tested. And I wanted to prove it. That I could serve our Lord without question.”

“I see,” Aspen replied, and an ache stirred within her.

She understood Rebecca’s desire to please Heavenly Father, to rise above her own wants and desires to serve the prophet and the community at large. And for the first time, she felt real sympathy for Rebecca. For just a moment she mourned Burt Jameson, the man who was the ultimate victim in Leandra and Lehi’s sick games. The ultimate victim in their quest to be beloved by the prophet, to maintain their standing in the community and to avoid any dissension in their home.

To Lehi and Leandra, appearances were everything. Burt Jameson had muddied the waters of the Cluff family’s pristine reputation and he had to be dealt with.