The Heiress(49)

But no one ever did.

The worst thing, the thing I can’t even bear to think about all these years later, is that, in the end, I stopped.

No more ant killer, no more tea or oatmeal. Andrew had proven to me that he was loyal, that even if he didn’t love me anymore, he couldn’t bring himself to hate me despite all I’d done to him.

But it was too late. His kidneys, his liver, they’d endured too much damage over that long year.

The longest year of my life.

Andrew died on another wintery night, late December of 1980, snow falling outside, as soft as his final breath.

No rattle this time. Just a gentle sigh, then nothing more.

How unfair I’d been to all those novelists and their quiet deaths.

There was no autopsy because I said I didn’t want one, and by that point, what I wanted, I got, at least where Tavistock County was concerned.

Harlan Jackson Sr. took my check and patted my hand, telling me he’d handle everything.

Judge Claybourne was so appreciative of my donation to his reelection campaign.

The town was grateful for its new arts center the following year, Andrew’s name emblazoned above the doors in metal letters.

My home and my name closed around me, protecting me, shielding me, their queen in her castle who was secretly the dragon.

Well. Not a secret any longer, is it, my darling?

Not to you.

-R





CHAPTER TWELVE

Camden

There are plenty of rooms in Ashby House that are comfortable. Cozy, even. The den is fairly modern with its earth-toned furniture and cream-colored rugs. There’s a sitting room in the east wing that actually has a flat-screen TV and a couple of gaming systems from when Ben and I were kids. And the kitchen was totally renovated to Cecilia’s specifications right before Ruby died.

But Ashby’s formal dining room hasn’t changed since 1904, and as I take my seat next to Jules at the teakwood table Ruby’s grandfather had shipped over from what was then Siam, I find my eyes landing on all the other bits of McTavish family history in this room.

There’s a black lacquered sideboard holding crystal bottles of expensive liquor that even Howell had never dared to touch without Nelle’s or Ruby’s blessing. The walls are covered in silk, deep green with a swirling gold pattern, and the chandelier overhead glimmers, despite the cobweb I can see clinging between several of the crystals.

At one end of the room is a huge bay window, but it’s too dark to see the view outside, so I find my eyes drifting to the painting that hangs on the opposite wall. It’s a hunting scene, featuring gently rolling fields and men in jaunty red jackets. It would be positively serene if it weren’t for the deer in the foreground, getting its throat ripped out by hounds.

I hated that painting as a kid, always wondered why anyone would hang it in a room where people eat, but it feels appropriate tonight.

I’m that deer, and as the other McTavishes settle around the table, I have no doubt they’re the hounds.

Jules reaches over and takes my hand where it rests on the table, giving it a little shake. I make myself give her a quick smile, squeezing her fingers in return but, in truth, I can hardly look at her.

Libby had done as Nelle asked, and sent up a dress in a heavy black garment bag. I’d assumed it would be typical Libby—bright, probably sexy, maybe a little too sexy for a family dinner—and had braced myself for the weirdness of seeing my wife dressed like my cousin.

And then Jules had come out of the en suite.

“What do you think?” she’d asked, standing in the doorway to the bedroom, her arms held out to her sides. “Fancy enough for family dinner?”

She looked beautiful––she was beautiful––but the words had frozen in my mouth, and Jules had laughed.

“Wait, so good you’re literally stunned speechless?”

“Clearly,” I’d said, shaking my head ruefully and taking her hands, kissing her forehead, and thinking, Libby, you sick bitch.

Jules would’ve fit into one of Libby’s dresses easily, but that’s not what Libby brought her. No, Libby gave her one of Ruby’s old dresses. Not just any dress, either, but one of her favorites, the one she most often wore when we did these dinners when I was growing up. She’d had it made in the late sixties and was always so proud that it still fit so well.

Same figure at twenty-eight and sixty-eight, she’d preen, throwing a look to Nelle, who always glowered back, her own body thinner, more wizened as she aged.

It’s a gorgeous dress. Even now, from the corner of my eye, I can see the way the chandelier sparkles off the crystal beading along the neckline, how the color of the fabric—not white, not beige, something Ruby called “candlelight”—makes Jules’s skin glow.

But it just adds another layer of unreality to the scene. I’m back in Ashby House, back at this table, back with these people, and my wife is wearing my dead mother’s dress.

Christ, I hate this family.

They’re all seated now, Nelle at the head of the table where Ruby used to sit, Ben at her right hand, where Howell always sat, Libby on the left.

Ben is cheerful, his tie loose and shoulders relaxed. Nelle is almost smiling, which, in her case, means she’s not actively scowling. Only Libby seems a little unsettled, her eyes darting again and again to the sideboard, her nails drumming the edge of the table.