Page 21 of Nineteen Eighty

Cordelia reached for him, but he dodged her, still shaking with laughter. “Charles—”

“She’s not like you,” he hissed. “Not dead inside.”

“Charles.” Richard, this time.

“This isn’t funny!” Charles screamed through his laughter. “It’s not fucking funny, and if I find out whose idea it was to play a practical fucking joke on me, I’ll fucking murder you!”

“I don’t doubt that,” Cordelia said softly. “But this isn’t a joke. No one would ever find something like this funny. Come on, let’s go sit down. We can take a few deep breaths and then we can talk to the doctor.”

Charles stumbled away from her, from the weird and uncharacteristic behavior of the woman he’d been married to for seven years. It was like he’d never known her at all, with the soft, cloying way she looked at him now, as if he was a child in need of succor. But how, how could that be, when the woman had no maternal bone in her body?

How could that be?

Why wouldn’t she stop looking at him like that? And Richard, with his hangdog defeated glances shared between Charles and the floor. The doctor, painted with exhausted defeat.

A shard of ice wedged itself inside the bloodstream of Charles Deschanel and he launched into life, knocking the doctor sideways as he flew up the stairs and ran, ran, ran, heading for the third floor, where Lisette had shared his bed for five years.

The door was closed. He wanted to kick it open, but that wasn’t necessary, because it was unlocked.

On the bed was a lump covered in a white sheet.

It was a joke after all. It had to be. He’d know if Lisette was under there. If his sweet little French nymphet, who’d lived to please him, to love him, was lying lifeless beneath.

His anger boiled forth again. To hurt him like this… he’d have the doctor’s license revoked so he could never practice again. He’d put Cordelia and Richard out on the streets with nothing, not a dime, to their names. Maybe he’d fucking throw them in the river, for good measure, to really show them what he was capable of when pushed to the brink.

Charles ripped at the sheet, letting it fall to a pile at his feet.

He stumbled back.

Lisette lay in a pool of dried blood. Her mouth, gaping open, set against a face as pale as the white sheet someone had laid over her. As if prepared to share something important. As if ready to call out Charles’ name, one last time.

Lisette. Dead.

Charles leaped forward, spreading his body over hers as his hands reached for anything at all to beat, to destroy, as the world had destroyed his Lisette, and him. As everything he ever loved turned to dust and ash.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Cordelia sag in the doorway, face cast to the wooden floor at her feet.

Colleen arrived at Ophélie less than an hour after Cordelia called her. She didn’t like to speed, but there were circumstances that required bending of laws, and this was one of them. The longer she left Cordelia alone to deal with Charles’ dangerous grief, the more potential for disaster loomed. But it wasn’t Cordelia who she worried most for, but the five children living under the same roof as a decaying corpse and a raving madman.

Cordelia held Adrienne to her chest when she answered the door. Colleen hardly had time to register the shock of wispy red hair atop Adrienne’s baby scalp. Colleen accepted the bundle from Cordelia, marveling only for a moment at how Cordelia, when required, could step into the role of caregiver. She could’ve left the infant to sleep in her nursery, but she seemed to know that wasn’t what was needed.

“There, there,” Colleen whispered, pressing her lips to Adrienne’s forehead. “Where is he?”

“He’s locked himself in there with her,” Cordelia said, voice raspy. Weary. “In the master’s suite.”

“She’s still in there?”

“No one had time to even clean her up before we got home. She’s still in her nightgown, still covered in blood,” Cordelia replied. “And Charles… he, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem to notice. I don’t think he’s accepted reality.”

“And the other children? Where are they?”

“Richard and Condoleezza are sitting with them in the nursery, but they’re restless, Colleen. I don’t think they should be here. They know something’s wrong.”

“No,” Colleen agreed. She cast a look back over her shoulder. Maureen wasn’t moving very fast as she waddled forward from the car. She was due any day now, and it had been a risk bringing her here to help, but the only alternative was Mama, and Colleen had come home to protect her, not expose her to war times. “Augustus will be here any moment.”

“What should we do?”

“Charles can’t stay here, either,” Colleen said. “I can make the arrangements for Lisette, but not with him wrapped around her body. We need to get that whole suite cleaned up, and…” Colleen exhaled. She smiled gratefully at Maureen and passed their newborn niece to her. “Can you go to the nursery and check on the others? Maybe show them their new baby sister.”

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