Page 26 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
Of course, it had all been a lie.
Their money had been swindled, taken out from under them. Their husbands had been termed “idiots,” despite Conner’s conniving personality. All of Bess’s fortune had been gifted to these women, as well as the other families Conner had affected. She had been living in relative destitution until Irene had taken her in. She might have wound up on the street, without a friend.
Even though these women, they were meant to be her friend. They’d called themselves her very best friends, at one time. And now, many years after those fateful times, it felt rather shocking to see them in this manner. Their children were surely three or four years old; their bodies were a bit thicker, their faces a bit more scrunched and uppity.
Not a one of them were still girls.
Only Bess had been left out to dry.
“Aren’t you going to say something for yourself?” Anna said nonchalantly. “We haven’t seen you since, what, the trial?”
“No, the execution,” Olivia said, her voice scornful. “It must have been that. Don’t you remember? She cried out the minute it happened. Couldn’t keep her tears to herself.”
Bess veered to the right, trying to find a path alongside of them and out of the chaos, back to her home with Irene. Overhead, clouds filled the black sky, becoming like a thick blanket over their heads.
“Ladies,” Bess finally offered, swishing her fingers along her dress. “It really is remarkable to see you. You’re all looking quite well.”
Bess felt as though she was about to swallow her tongue. The women before her exchanged glances before falling forward in laughter. They were like a tribe of birds, so angry, so volatile—ready to attack with their beaks out.
“Listen to her. She’s clearly an imbecile.” Olivia sighed. “I always knew she was a bit thicker than most, but this is really ridiculous. What on earth are you doing these days, my sweet? I suppose you’ll never marry. I’m sure you’ve already lost that thought.”
“She has,” Anna said, stomping forward.
Bess remembered that Anna’s husband had been the one Conner and her father had wronged the most. They’d lost the majority of their fortune and had even had to move to a smaller estate—somewhere outside of London. This was news Bess had learned far after Conner’s burial.
Previously, Anna had been Bess’s best of friends, the girl who’d held her hand through her anxiety when she’d learned that Conner had asked her to dance. “You can do this,” she had murmured, her eyes alight. “This is why we’re here. We’re ladies. We’re debutantes. We’re future wives.”
All Bess wished was that she could translate this friendship to Conner in a better way. “You could have stolen from all of them, Conner. Any of them, but not her,” she’d thought many times. Just preserve this friendship with Anna. Allow it to breathe.
Of course, such was her luck that Conner would destroy the strongest emotional bond she had with any of these women. It was almost as if he’d done it on purpose.
And, since Bess had learned, more and more, that her true knowledge of Conner was lacklustre, at best, she wasn’t entirely sure if he hadn’t.
“Anna,” Bess said. She forced herself to make heavy eye contact; forced herself to give Anna a sombre, heart-filled smile. “Listen, Anna. I never got a chance to say …”
“Don’t,” Anna said, almost spitting the word. “It’s ridiculous to offer any sort of apology, and you know that. Our lives have been affected by what you did. And we’ll never be the same.”
Bess baulked. She so wanted to implore to them for their understanding. To say that she’d never meant any of it, that she hadn’t put Conner in their midst to destroy them. In essence, she’d been destroyed far more than any other person involved.
“I lost everything,” she murmured. But she knew that the words were lost in the whooshing wind.
“Let’s go,” Olivia snapped, clearly unhearing. “I don’t have time for this.”
The girls—no, the women—marched past, tossing their faces away from Bess. Anna appeared last in line, making heavy eye contact with Bess. Bess wanted to reach out and grip her hand, to tell her what she’d been thinking since Conner’s death: that she would have given anything to never meet him in the first place. That she wished she could have met some other man, some man who would have been good to her. A man who’d wanted children, safety, love.
But she also wanted to explain that, beyond anything, she was the keeper of his memory. She’d loved him, and perhaps, in some respects, she still did. It was the nature of love. You couldn’t just force yourself from it. And you had to carry on the stories of whomever you loved.
Not that anyone was carrying on the stories of her, Bess knew.
Seconds later, Bess found her footing once more and walked the rest of the way home. Her new shoes dug into the backs of her ankles, producing dots of blood on her stockings. But she didn’t stall. When she reached the door of her and Irene’s home, she fell against it, creating a single, horrific sigh. But by the time she lodged the key into the door and flung herself through it, she had wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Irene was seated in the dark, at the kitchen table, with a single, flickering candle before her. The house swarmed with the smell of baked apple pie, of cinnamon. Bess hovered in the foyer of the teensy house, her eyes filling with the image.
This woman, Irene. This persnickety, brilliant, wild woman—who’d never married, perhaps only because nobody had ever suited her brain—was all hers. Her best friend. She didn’t need Anna. Didn’t need the imaginary men she’d never been allowed to meet, back when she’d been a debutante.
“How could I ever need anything else?” Bess asked, smashing her flat palm against her skirts.
Irene rolled her eyes. She tipped a fork into the platter of pie, sneaking a bit of it into her mouth. As she chewed, she chuckled. “Come on. Sit. It’s cold out there.”
