Page 137 of The Dravenhearst Brides
When Margot reached the top of the stairs, she paused. Babette descended, her veil dragging two steps behind her. Richard, Ruth, and Xander all waited in the foyer, three pairs of eyes drinking in the Dravenhearst bride. Margot leaned over the ebony rail to watch.
A pair of hands gripped her from behind, startling her. She gasped, teetering. There was a perilous moment when her stomach spiraled, when her vision blurred, and she imagined the fall. How the air would rush as she plummeted…
“Babette!”
The grip on her shoulders was ironclad, pulling her back. She spun and saw the real Xander. Heavily wrinkled, hair white and spotty.
“Babette,” he cried her name again. “I’ve packed and delivered your suitcase to the rickhouse. Everything is in place. Richard need never know.”
“What?” Margot’s brow creased. A shadow shifted over Xander’s shoulder in the dark hallway. A pair of white eyes, low to the ground.
Beau. Muzzle down. Eyes sharp.
“I’ve done as you asked,” Xander said. His bulbous blue eyes rolled about in his head, half mad. “We’re even now.” He squeezed her shoulders tight, just hard enough to yield pain.
Margot was locked in his talons like a field mouse. Prey.
“It’s there,” he repeated. “Inside the rickhouse, just as you asked. I’ll not tell Richard where you’ve gone, and you’ll not say a word to Evangeline about what we’ve done.”
“Xander,” she began. He was confused, though something about his words niggled at her.
His hands moved from her shoulders to the front of her nightdress, fisting there in his twisted grip. His eyes filled with tears. “Please, I’m begging. Set me free of you, Babette.”
“I’m leaving tonight,” Margot said, leaning into his delusion. “You’ll be free of me.”
“We should never have done what we did,” he hissed, spittle flying. “I love my wife. I can’t lose my wife.”
“You won’t.” She could make the promise because she knew, twenty years later, it was true.
Yet Xander was still haunted. Still consumed by the memory of his mistake.
“Can you ever forgive me?” He closed his eyes, exhaustion seeping in. “I need…to be forgiven.”
Margot’s gaze softened. “Yes. You’re forgiven, Xander. I forgive you.”
His hands released her, and he stumbled away, mouth gaping. Fingers trembling. He raised his eyes heavenward. “Thank God. Oh, thank God.”
Margot exhaled, stepping away from the railing. Beau slunk out of the shadows and positioned himself at her skirt. His warmth brushed her leg, reassuringly solid.
“We’re even then,” Xander said, straightening. “Your secret in exchange for mine. Your bag is at the rickhouse. Make haste and depart.”
Margot froze, her brain finally catching up to her intuition. “Xander…the rickhouse? Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Therickhouse, not the stable?”
“You told me the rickhouse,” he said, holding firm. But his eyes were still crazed, eerily blue, flashing with the milky taint of cataracts. Margot didn’t know if she could trust him.
Hadn’t Ruth said the bag was delivered to the stables? And Alastair, on the telephone…he’d said he waited at the stables.
Thestables, not the rickhouse.
“Xander, are you sure—”
He lunged, his hands twisting into her nightdress again. “Therickhouse.” He shook her shoulders, enough to jar her head. “That’s what you told me. Is this another one of your games, Babette?”
“N-n-no!”
