Page 91 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Margot shook her head, scattering the ghosts. Right now wasn’t about her. This was about Babette. Nothing added up. Stories conflicted. Her brain swirled.
Merrick—She was weak. Unreliable, ultimately unforgivable.
Ruth—She was the brightest star in the sky, burned out too fast. A victim.
Eleanor—She was a sinner of the highest order. A bad mother.
Evangeline—She was a viper, a seductress. One who reaped what was sown.
The truth lay somewhere in between. Surely it must. The only way to set both herself and Merrick free from this madness was to find it.
“Why are you bringing this up again?” Merrick asked. “Why can’t you let it rest?”
Because what has died here refuses to stay dead.
She gritted her teeth against the admission.
“You told me not to wake you when you dream,” he continued. “Why? You told me we can’t go to Louisville. Why? Why won’t you let me protect you? What is she telling you? What aretheytelling you? Why do you believe them and not me?”
“It’s not a question of belief. It’s a question of what’s right. What if a wrong was committed here?” she insisted, trying to make him see. “A wrongso ghastly, it’s cast a pall on your house, on your family. What if we can lay it to rest? What if our life together can’t truly begin until we do?”
Merrick’s hands moved to her stomach, cradling it. “Our life togetherhasbegun. You’re the one clinging to the past, not me.”
Margot joined her hands over his. “I’m just asking, is it possible…” She tried again, one final time. “Is it possible you’ve villainized her to protect yourself? Because it’s easier? To hate her rather than to grieve her?”
His fingers spasmed over her stomach, but she held fast.
You must face this,she willed him.If you face this, maybe I can too.
The only sound in the room was his breath. Slow and deep.
“You were only eleven,” Margot whispered. “There are different types of leaving, Merrick. It isn’t always a choice.”
“If she didn’t do it…” he ventured, licking his lips. “That means someone else did. Who?”
There was no delicate way to say this. “It seems there are…a myriad of options. Your father—”
“My fatherlovedher.”
“Well, he wasn’t the only one. There was Alastair, and there’s an implication perhaps Xander—”
Merrick collapsed against the headboard, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “A myriad of options indeed. Her tastes were nothing if not eclectic.”
Margot reached for Merrick’s arm. “We needn’t speak more of it tonight, but I thought you deserved to know.” She squeezed gently. “You’ve carried a great deal of anger for a very long time. Perhaps there’s more than one thing we need to lay to rest in this house.”
“Perhaps,” he whispered.
She looked back at him, into the eyes of this man who had sworn he’d never be a husband. Would never be a father. Who consistently gave her more than he’d ever taken.
She smiled softly. “We’ve turned each other’s lives upside down, haven’t we?”
“Right side up, I rather think.”
Margot hadn’t felt right side up in a very long while. “Hmm, perhaps that’s why it feels strange?”
She meant the words as a joke, but he considered them seriously, for quite a long time before speaking. “You know how sometimes…you don’t even dare to dream a dream? Because it’s too big, too far out of reach, so what’s the point in dreaming at all? It’s not meant for you.”
“I do.” She had more than a few of those hopes and wishes herself.
