Page 155 of The Black Trilogy

I FOUND A fresh notepad and curled up on the sofa. Where should I start? The blank page and stationary pen taunted me, and I threw them down on the coffee table.

Why could I never think of the right words?

Eyes closed, I leaned back into the cushions. My mind was a blank canvas, and as images of my husband played across it, the words I wanted to say to him rushed into my head. Hundreds of them, pages of hurt and sorrow.

I picked up the pad and pen and began to write….

February 22nd

Of all the ways I’d considered letting you know how I felt about you, this one never came to mind. The trouble is that you’re not here anymore, so I’m a bit limited on options. I suppose I could try a séance, but you’re probably too busy flirting with the angels and playing poker with the saints to worry about pushing a glass around the alphabet. So it looks as if this is my only choice.

When we met, I felt many things towards you, but I can honestly say love wasn’t one of them. In fact, I thought you were an arrogant git. I hardly kept this a secret—you’ll recall I let you know at every possible opportunity.

Over the next few months and then years, though, my feelings went from fear, anger, frustration, and animosity to a grudging respect and finally to trust. I trusted you with my secrets, I trusted you to look after me, to make the best decisions for both of us, to keep us safe. I trusted you with my life, and you never abused that.

You forgave me a lot. One broken nose, a night-time knife attack, a crumpled Porsche, and a burned-out kitchen are just several of the incidents that spring to mind. Not to mention a few irritated clients before I learned not to blurt out everything in my head. But never once did you get angry with me. You had more patience than any saint, and heaven knows I tested it.

You were well aware of my disastrous forays into the dating world over the years. Indeed, what could have been more embarrassing than you having to drag me off Nick in the middle of the night when I tried to kill him in my sleep? But you never judged me for that, you just carried me back to bed and told me everything would be all right. And I knew it would be.

I knew, because you said it.

You.

It took me six years and one kiss to realise what was missing from all the men I’d ever tried on for size.

You.

None of them were you.

That night you kissed me, I was stupid, and I was a coward. Two things I’d always tried so hard not to be, but I failed miserably on both counts when it mattered most. You kissed me and I ran. I ran because I was scared that if I spent the night with you, it would ruin everything else between us.

I didn’t stop to think that it could actually make things better. That was the stupid part. I just didn’t think. My brain eventually caught up with my emotions, and I spent the whole of the night working out what I needed to say to you. It was that night I realised I loved you with every atom in me.

The next morning you broke my heart for the first time when you told me that kissing me had been a mistake. But I smiled and agreed because I didn’t want you to decide that the rest of your life with me was a mistake too. I don’t think you ever knew how I felt inside. I was brilliant at pretending to be anything but myself by that point. Why? Because you’d made me that way.

Anyhow, I got through that. Because I still had you, in whatever way you were willing to give yourself to me, and I coped perfectly well until you went and died. That made all the other heartache fade into insignificance, a tiny ripple on a pond compared to the tsunami I felt when you left this earth.

I know I’ll never be the same again. I’ll exist, but I won’t ever truly live. I love you with all my heart, and I always will.

You were it for me.

Your MB.

Well, there it was. I’d written the letter, and yes, in a strange way, I did find it cathartic. Nick had said I needed to leave it somewhere that I associated with my husband for the greatest effect, and I thought through the possibilities.

Not his grave. I hadn’t been there since the funeral, and I struggled to match the charred remains in that hole in the ground with the person I’d known. His office desk was no good either, even if he had spent a lot of his time there—it was too impersonal. In the end, I decided to bite the bullet and go to his house. That was where the letter needed to be left—he’d lived at Riverley Hall his whole life.

“Lucy, do you want a walk?”

Of course she did, and I wanted her company. Not her protection, because I also took enough firepower to stop a small army. Old habits died hard, and it was almost midnight, after all.

On my way out, I stopped at the gatehouse to make sure the next guard shift had received the message about Miriam—affirmative—before continuing up the driveway. The night was cold and deathly quiet, a grim reminder of a soul departed. On the horizon, a yellowed full moon hung low in the sky, a constant in this world of uncertainty.

My husband’s house was only a short walk away, and I arrived before I got the chance to chicken out of what I was doing. As I looked up at the imposing facade of Riverley Hall, the grotesque faces of the gargoyles along the roofline grinned down at me, their evil smiles mocking me for returning.

Could this place ever feel like home again?

I let myself in and flipped on a couple of lights. High above me, torches flickered to life in their iron sconces. As I walked across the overly grand entrance hall, my footsteps echoed off the stonework, carved by craftsmen so many decades ago.

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