Page 123 of The Dravenhearst Brides
“What’s that?” Margot asked, the bedroom air filling with the scent of herbs.
“It’s a blend of lavender and sage to keep malevolence at bay, but it won’t protect us for long.” She thumped the bed once before dragging back the blankets, forcing the dog to leap away. “Get up, sugar.”
“Up?”
Evangeline pulled her bodily from the bed and plunked her into the chair at the vanity. She lifted Margot’s hairbrush, starting to work through the snarls. “You need to get dressed and get out of this house.”
Out of the house? She shuddered at the thought.
The house—her bed—was safe.
“It’s not. It’s not safe, Margot,” Evangeline said. “It won’t be safe until the women here find rest, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that in nigh on sixty years. All the lavender in the world won’t bring them peace.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “It’s quite a long story, sugar.”
“I’ve got time.”
Evangeline bit her lip, dragging the brush through her hair. “I was born on this estate. I worked in the main house as a girl, and Eleanor was my first mistress. She was a kind but nervous woman, married to a man who liked to drink bourbon more than he enjoyed making it. That man lived his life at the bottom of the bottle, and the drink made him…unpleasant.
“I was still a child myself when Richard was born. Eleanor was different afterward. She’d always been prone to nerves, but after a baby finally came, she changed. She stopped sleeping, would stand over the crib to guard the child through the night. She wore her winter coat in the heat of summer and walked the halls in her wedding gown. She attacked a nursemaid once, claimed she was plotting to kidnap the baby. It made no sense, the things she would say and do.”
Evangeline shook her head. “Some women take to motherhood like a duck to water. Eleanor was a drowning cat, striking out and clawing anyone who came near. One evening, I came upstairs to light the fires. When I went to the nursery, Eleanor was dressed in her wedding gown, standing over Richard’s crib with a blanket over his face. She was smothering him. I knew she didn’t mean it…she would never hurt that baby boy. She’d kill anyone who tried. She quite simplywasn’t right. I saw it in her eyes when I stopped her, the horror.” Evangeline shuddered. “We found her in the rickhouse the next morning.”
“Gracious,” Margot gasped.
Evangeline helped Margot to her feet. She plucked a day dress from the closet. “Put this on.”
Margot complied, mesmerized as Evangeline continued her story.
“Xander and I were childhood sweethearts. After we married, I was late several times, but I never carried a child to term. That was when I started seeing Eleanor again, during my pregnancies. I thought she was my friend. She was the one who showed me what Babette was doing…” Evangeline trailed off. “I never told Xander I saw him with Babette. Eleanor showed me, but the way she did it was needlessly cruel.”
Evangeline looked away, blinking back tears. “I quit working in the main house the very next day. I was finished. The women in this house hurt, and so they like to hurt others. It’s a vicious cycle, a circle with no beginning and no end.”
“And now,” Margot said, chewing her lip, “I’ve been hurt.”
“You have. You are but a piece in their game, a projection for their own pain.” She offered Margot her hand, and when she took it, Evangeline squeezed. “How are you truly doing, Margot? You can tell me, sugar.”
“Not good,” she squeaked.
“No? Tell me about it. Tell me everything.”
And so she did. But Margot’s story didn’t start at Dravenhearst Distilling. It started so many years before, at Greenbrier Estates. With Elijah. She started with Elijah and ended with Merrick, bookending her losses. The story poured out of her almost like vomiting—once she began, she just kept going until it all came out. A total purge.
She spoke about shame and blame, how both rotted inside her. Festered. How it was her fault her brother died. How she couldn’t save him from Cerberus’s hooves. How it was her fault her mother faded, slipped away pining for her dead son, unable to see the living daughter right there beside her. How it was Margot’s fault, yet again, her baby died. How loss simply followed her like a storm cloud. Battered her over and over again. Made her afraid to live, afraid of what came next.
Finally, she told her about Merrick. How he wouldn’t look at her. Couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her. How, by dismissing her grief, he dismissed her as a person.
“Where is he, Evangeline?” Margot wailed, swiping at her tear-streaked cheeks. It was fruitless—more simply fell in their place. “Why isn’t he here with me?”
Evangeline produced a handkerchief and wiped away the tears. “He’s sad too, dearest. And alone.”
“He doesn’t have to be alone.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s just trying to deal with it in his own way. The way men do.”
She sniffed. “Well, his way isstupid.”
