Page 48 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Colin’s hand stills on his cuff, and Georgina freezes. He looks at her, his eyes as cold as ice. “I told you I handled it.”
“Sorry,” she says, wringing her hands nervously.
“And stop fidgeting like that. You’re like a damn child.”
Georgina forces her hands to her sides, and as she does, her diamond bracelet catches on the fabric of her dress. She feels the compulsion to fix it, so strong that it’s a physical itch that won’t be satisfied until she can correct the flaw, but she doesn’t. She makes herself stand there and ignore the imperfection.
“So how was your day?” Colin asks, his voice suddenly honey-sweet.
The unexpected change of direction is dizzying, and Georgina finds herself at a loss to remember what exactly she’d done all day. “G-good,” she stutters.
“G-good?” he parrots. “Any specifics?”
“Well, I did some gardening, I picked up your dry cleaning…” She counts the tasks off on her fingers as she goes back through her day, wondering why he’s suddenly so interested in how she spent her time. Colin rarely asks about the banality of Georgina’s day-to-day activities. There must be a right answer here, something specific he’s fishing for, but she can’t imagine what it is. “Oh, I also finalized some of the details for the fall festival. I checked in with all the vendors, and the permit for the fireworks show came in, so—”
“Did you have any company at the house?”
“Company?”
“Yes. You know what that means, don’t you? Was anyone here at the house? Someone who doesn’t live here?”
“No…” She didn’t have any company today, so she’s not surewhat Colin is getting at, but she knows her husband, and she knows there must be a reason he’s asking.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he says, his finger tapping on his chin performatively. “Because Sebastian told me that you did.” Something changes in him then, as if a cold front has swept across his handsome face, turning it to something ugly and hard.
“I don’t know what—”
Colin raises his palm, halting her words. “Before you dig any deeper into your lie, I want you to think.” He draws closer so that he’s towering over her and taps her on the temple with one long outstretched finger. “Think really hard with that little brain of yours. Did anyone come by today, anyone at all, who had no business being here?”
Suddenly it dawns on her.Hannah.He’s talking about Hannah. “Oh, right!” she says, a forced lightness to her tone. “Hannah Wilson dropped by while I was gardening this afternoon. It must have slipped my mind.”
“Slipped your mind, huh? And what exactly didHannahwant?” Her name falls heavily from his tongue like curdled milk.
“She came to collect her mail. Doug mixed up our addresses again, and we just chatted outside in front of the house for a moment. That was all.” Georgina offers her husband a weak smile.
Colin grabs her chin, presses his thumb into the soft spot beneath Georgina’s jaw, and angles her face upward. He examines her the way one might a horse at auction, searching her face for traces of the lie, or maybe he’s looking to see how well she managed to hide her bruised cheekbone from gossiping neighbors.
His eyes narrow. “And what did you tell her?”
“Nothing,” Georgina assures him.
Colin’s gaze lingers on the swelling beneath Georgina’s right eye.
He’s usually smarter than that. Colin generally retains enough self-control not to leave a mark on his wife—not where anyone might see it, at least. But he’d been so angry on the night of the auction, especially after Hannah had made a surprise appearance in the courtyard at a rather inopportune moment. He’d had quite a bit to drink after that, surely thinking about the toll this might take on hisreputation, and he’d lost his usual measure of restraint once they’d gotten home.
Georgina swallows hard, praying that he believes her. The last thing she needs is for Hannah to be caught in the crosshairs of her marriage. It’s bad enough that Georgina got herself here, never mind someone else.
Colin hadn’t always been like this. At first, he’d seemed like a dream come true. This handsome, successful man who whisked her away from a home she couldn’t wait to escape. They were happy for a time, or at least Georgina thought they were. Until the abuse started. It happened so gradually—a harsh word here, an insult there—that Georgina hadn’t seen what was coming. She was like the frog in the pot, the one who didn’t notice the temperature slowly rising until it was too late to jump.
Colin lets go of Georgina’s face, and his lips curl in disgust. “Seems to me like Hannah needs to learn to mind her own fucking business.”
“I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it,” Georgina stammers, eager to divert the focus away from Hannah and back to herself. Colin isherproblem, her cross to bear.
Colin’s hand reaches out for her so quickly that Georgina can’t react before he grabs a fistful of her hair. Colin loves her long, distinctive red hair. He says it was the first thing he’d noticed about her when they met, the thing that drew him to her across the crowded bar where she’d been out celebrating with some friends from culinary school. Since then, she’s thought about cutting it off so many times. She knows he’d be furious, but she imagines herself sitting in the chair at the salon watching it fall away in chunks, collecting in a coppery puddle around her feet.
Colin yanks her head backward so that Georgina’s throat is bared to him. She marvels at how her life has come to this, how she finds herself wishing he’d just hit her already. Get it over with. One quick slap, and Georgina could watch the anger drain right out of him. It’s like a compulsion, his need to be cruel to her. An addict who just needs his next fix.
Georgina presses her arms to her sides, willing herself to be still.As she does, she feels her diamond bracelet pressing into her wrist. She’s always conscious of it, a shackle made of gold and precious stones. It was one of Colin’s gifts, the kind he always gives her after a particularly brutal fight when he’s taken things too far. Colin likes to see her wear the jewelry he buys her. Exquisite, expensive things. At first she thought they were signs of his remorse, but now she knows he’s not capable of such feelings. Now she can’t be sure whether he forces her to wear them because he thinks she should be grateful for his generosity or because he likes to see the reminder of her humiliation.
