by Aitana Moore
NINETEEN
As he chatted with Caitlin on the phone, James mouthed an apology. His sister was full of ideas for her birthday party and he had to take notes. Lee went downstairs after Mrs. Taylor, who had procured the Wellingtons and found her a pair of riding boots as well.
"I'll just send them to the stables," Mrs. Taylor said. "In case you feel like riding.”
There was going to be a lot of riding, Lee supposed. James loved horses and wouldn’t rest until she was comfortable on a saddle. Lee thanked Mrs. Taylor and wandered to the right of the staircase. She passed a red drawing room with a lavish carpet. Another room was a library, with books from floor to ceiling and carved wooden ladders. The last room was turquoise. It was larger than the peacock room and there was a grand piano in it — nothing less than a Steinway.
The sofas were comfortable and worn. There was a side table with photographs showing generations of the St. Bryce family, starting in the mid-1800s. Lee stopped before the portrait of a couple sitting with a baby swaddled in expensive lace and a dark-haired boy behind them. The boy was James. The insolence in his gaze and the slightly mocking set of his mouth were there, although Lee knew how quickly they could turn to real laughter. It was surprising to see what a mixture he was of his parents: tall and dark like the father, but with the mother’s almond-shaped blue eyes and high cheekbones. She had expected James to be different from them in appearance as well as personality.
At the end of the row of frames, there was Mia again. This time she and James were coming out of the church where they had just become husband and wife. Mia looked like a fairy-tale princess in a cloud of white veil, with James’ arm around her waist. They laughed at the shower of rice falling on them. It was a spontaneous moment, very different than the posed wedding photos of previous St. Bryces.
The happiness in the image hurt Lee, but she reminded herself that she was the intruder, not Mia. The poor dead woman had been there before her.
Lee studied the lustrous oil paintings in the room. What did she have to do with people who had been rich for a thousand years? Her own father’s fortune and family history, which had been the stuff of fantasy when she was little, were almost a joke in comparison to James’.
The last portrait on the wall was of Mia again, and it wasn't a painting but another photograph. She was half naked, her breasts precariously covered by her long hair. Mia had had the same natural style as Lee, when Lee wasn’t pretending to be someone else.
Moving to the piano, she tried a few keys. What this English house needed was some good Southern music. Her fingers started playing St. James' Infirmary as she sang softly, “Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be ...”
When she looked up, James was at the door.
"Don't stop," he asked.
She closed the piano. "I want to see the grounds before it gets dark."
"It won’t get dark before ten. But we can go.”
Outside in the sun, Lee reflected that she couldn't hate Mia, a girl she had never met and who had died tragically young. She couldn't blame James for grieving over her. She took his hand in a fit of regret for having been jealous. There must have been a lot of suffering for him.
The gardens displayed a mixture of classical landscaping with wild modern touches. Lee loved flowers and here they were lush, watered by plentiful rains and cajoled into perfection by the gardeners. She stopped to caress fat white roses.
When they arrived at the stables, her riding boots were waiting, and she was offered Caitlin's filly, Marquise, to ride. It was a beautiful animal with a golden coat and creamy mane.
"She can tell you're scared," James said when Lee backed away at Marquise’s nod. "You must act tough."
Lee hid behind him. "That doesn't help.”
“Ride with me, then.”
His stallion was so black that its coat had a blue sheen, but it had a white face. It had been named Hero in what could only be another irony. James pulled him outside by the reins and mounted. Stretching his hand to Lee, he placed her in front of him on the saddle, and they were off at a light gallop.
"You can’t be scared of riding. Lessons start tomorrow morning."
Lee sighed. "All right."
“Don’t you like horses at all?”
“I think they’re beautiful. I once saw Spanish mustangs running wild on a beach. I’ll never forget how free and strong they looked.”
They rode through rolling lawns and past weeping willows to a lake. As they crossed a stone bridge toward a Chinese pagoda, Lee squinted at the swans swimming in the distance.
“It doesn’t seem like you,” Lee said when they climbed a grassy knoll with a good view of the house.
“What doesn’t?”
“This place. I mean, it’s gorgeous baggage, but I think you like your freedom. You probably can’t even get rid of a chair because some king sat on it.”
“Can’t say I care about where kings put their arses.” He cocked his head as he looked at the house. “I tell myself that I’m doing this for Caitlin — that I can’t let it go because it’s her heritage as well. But I do have a love for this place.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
James smiled. “It’s a tremendously vulgar display of wealth.”
Lee turned around, shading her eyes with her hand. "Where’s the sea?”
He waved past the house. "Way back there. We'll see it another time.”
“I’d like to.”
When he helped her dismount at the door of the house, he said, "Dinner in about an hour. I'll take Hero back to the stables and let you get dressed in the meantime."
Get dressed. Lee almost laughed out loud, wondering whether she was expected to wear a long gown. Although Lee’s grandmother had indoctrinated her in the ways of the gentry, hers had been the American gentry. Mrs. Frances Bergeron would probably be greeted with repressed sneers by the English aristocracy — much as she greeted everyone at her colonial home. Lee would have loved to see a snob snubbed, but she would have to forgo that pleasure.
After showering, she put on wide-legged white linen trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. She pulled her medal over the shirt; although she wasn’t used to wearing jewelry, she would have felt its absence. Stroking the chain, she wondered what she was risking by staying around James.
I deserve a little happiness.
Not true. Happiness was either natural to people or hard-earned through good deeds and wise decisions. She certainly didn’t deserve it. She had to content herself with a lucky streak here and there or pleasures that always made her feel guilty. James was both.
Dinner would be in ninety minutes and she ought to call Cora. Instead, she inspected James’ room. It had a wide bed with massive wood posters but no awning. The silk wallpaper depicted an ivory and black forest. The carpet and curtains were pale gray, almost silver, and the bedside tables and lamps were of sleek contemporary design. The room managed to be glamorous and masculine at the same time.
It was the corner suite, and a large window looked out onto the lawn and the lake beyond it. She sat at the heavy oak desk and read some notes written in James’ uncompromising handwriting. They were about Caitlin's party. A frame held a photograph of him at perhaps seventeen or eighteen, with little Caitlin on his shoulders. There was another image where he was a few years older, wearing a red cloth around his waist, a bead necklace and holding a baby cheetah. The dirt of Africa was dry and yellow behind him.
A few tribal objects lay on the desk: amulets, small idols and arrow heads. They were the first trace she had found of his life in the wilderness. She opened the notebook that lay on top of a stack, looking at sketches he had made of people, animals and primitive tribal constructions. There were notes as well: Changing night sky = seasonal changes in animals and plants. This was accompanied by the drawing of stars in a pattern.
There was dirt or sand trapped between the pages, and some held pressed leaves or dried flowers.
The second notebook on the stack said, on th
e very first page:
Sometimes I want to throw myself against something and not even know how I got there. It would be like jumping into a roaring waterfall, a big one, thinking I might not make it out at all.
I find it hard to forgive, and then I wonder why I give myself so much importance. Why should I be forgiving anything, when we are all more sinned against than sinning? We should have the enormous generosity of not expecting anything from anyone.
But without shame and guilt, wouldn’t we all be terrible?
It was dated eleven years ago.
They knew very little about each other. But he had brought her to his house, to show her his past; he had allowed her into his family; he usually answered her questions. She, on the other hand, kept coasting along as if she might never have to tell him a single truth.
The more time passed, the more serious her lies became.
I find it hard to forgive, he had written.
I am vindictive, he had said at rehab.
Men were made to kill, he had said.
Lee tried to open the drawer on the desk. It was locked. Finding anything locked made her immediately long to open it. She didn’t like secrets that weren’t hers — she preferred to know things, even when they were bad.
Now that they were at Deerholt, it was better to know, for example, what had happened to Mia.
Lowering her head, she studied the lock. She had the tools to pick it open. But James’ voice made her stand and move away from the desk. He was walking over the lawn toward the house. In less than three minutes he would be in the room. She made sure the desk looked undisturbed and took a book from a shelf without looking. She would lie in bed, pretending she had been reading as she waited for him.
It was an old leather-bound book of poetry, and she opened it at random.
Ah, love, let us be true to one another…
James had already unbuttoned his shirt as he walked in.
“You have dirt inside your books,” she remarked, shaking the volume in her hands.
“What is it?” He looked at the cover. “Anthology of British Poetry? That one traveled a bit. I’m surprised some of the books made it back. They’re heavy.”
He began to undress, and his image became a little blurry as she reflected that it wasn’t possible anymore, was it?
It wasn’t possible for her to be true anymore ...
TWENTY
James never talked about Mia. In the three days since they had arrived at Deerholt, he hadn’t taken Lee anywhere near the sea.
When he left on the fourth morning to deal with business matters, Lee holed herself up in the turquoise room with her phone and looked for the report Quinn had compiled for her. She had asked him to find information on the investigation of Mia’s death. He had attached quite a few documents.
Mia St. Bryce had been found dead at 5.15 p.m. on June 5, 2017. Her absence had been noted at teatime by the housekeeper, Mrs. Alicia Taylor. A search through the house and gardens had not been fruitful, and knowing that she liked to walk by the sea, Mrs. Taylor had sent some of the staff to look for her on the beach.
A stable hand had finally spotted her body, smashed on rocks below the cliff.
It transpired that she had been seen by passers-by climbing the path toward the cliff at around 4.45 p.m. There had only been a 30-minute window of time for an accident or an attack to occur, but no one had witnessed either.
The police had found displaced soil where she might have slipped and fallen, or where she might have been pushed.
Her husband, James St. Bryce, had been in London that day. His alibi was given by a friend who had lunched with him. They had last seen each other at around 2.15 p.m. This was corroborated by the restaurant staff.
He arrived at Deerholt at 6.45 p.m., having stopped by his flat in London after lunch, a fact that could not be confirmed by anyone.
The tabloids first floated the possibility that St. Bryce had driven down to his estate in Dorset and killed his wife, because the press was whimsical. The fall of the golden boy, the explorer, the aristocrat who had thumbed his nose at tradition was too juicy a story to ignore. Newspapers and magazines listed every instance of his terrible temper and his cold defiance of his parents. They hinted at an unhealthy attachment to his sister. Mia might have done something to enrage him.
Quinn had attached the same lurid tabloid cover she had seen before, with a black and white photograph of James frowning at the camera and the title “KILLER?” in red letters across his body.
St. Bryce, said the article, might have planned Mia’s death and used the lunch with his friend as an alibi.
But there was no motive. On a photo of her twenty-fourth birthday, three weeks before her death, the couple looked tanned and happy in Santorini, and the diamond ring sparkled on her finger.
They were so in love, everyone said.
Mia’s death had been ruled an accident after due investigation. It was unlikely that St. Bryce had jumped in his car in Central London at 2.15 p.m., made it to Deerholt in three hours, found his wife at the cliff, had an argument with her and pushed her over the side. The trip itself took that long.
No one who knew them thought he had any reason to kill Mia. Even her parents considered the notion ridiculous.
They were so in love, everyone repeated.
Yet Lee had witnessed James’ anger. She had run away from him in Sicily, insulted him and slapped his face. Had they been somewhere dangerous, somewhere like a cliff, might he not have lost his head and pushed her?
Could that have happened to Mia? Had he become enraged over something trivial and killed her — and, wracked with guilt months later, smashed his car against a tree?
Sometimes I want to throw myself against something and not even know how I got there.
Lee was hiding a lot from him. What was he hiding from her? Everyone had something to hide.
Men were made to kill … Men long for violence.
She erased the email and the history of her searches and walked outside to a wind that had salt in it. No one would stop her if she decided to walk toward the sea. Wasn’t it normal to go see it?
But she didn’t. Instead, she ran inside again and upstairs to the room, hoping to open his drawer. She was sidetracked by the scent of flowers. A large vase of white roses had been placed by her bedside. There must be three dozen roses or more, only separated by purple leaves and small green flowers.
"Did I get it right?"
She started and turned. James was at the door. She hadn’t heard him arrive.
"White roses?" he asked.
She held a petal between two fingers. "Yes, I love them. I don’t care for the red ones.”
"Didn’t think you would. Time for your riding lessons. Come on."
"My, you're bossy."
“Can’t let you chicken out,” he said, moving into his dressing room.
The lessons went well that day, with Lee less wary of Marquise. In fact, Lee got along with the filly so well that when she heard the sea in the distance, she galloped that way.
"Vivien, where are you going?" James asked.
Marquise galloped past the large shrubbery maze at the back of the house, past the trees, until Lee could almost taste the spray. She urged the animal on, even as she heard Hero thundering behind her.
I must get to the sea.
Beyond the trees, the landscape opened into a green expanse. She could hear waves crashing below and seagulls cawing above. Lee would have continued riding, if Hero hadn’t appeared on the path to block Marquise's way.
The filly jumped sideways in fright, its hooves slipping, until James managed to take the reins from Lee and steady it.
"Are you insane?" he shouted with a scowl on his face.
He jumped down and pulled her off Marquise. She pushed him away with her gloved hands, but he still held on to her arm as if he were afraid she might fall, even away from the cliff.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"Let me go!”
/> James wasn’t listening. He dragged her forward until they were standing at the edge of the cliff. "Look down there! I said look! Do you want to fall and break your neck? Is that what you want?"
Lee looked. It was a long fall, full of craggy, pointed rocks on the way. What a horrible way to die. Maybe it had happened exactly like that: Mia had struggled as he held her close to the edge and fallen. She stared down, unable to look away, while her fingers clutched at his shirt.
He pulled her to safety again, unable to speak for a minute until he managed to say, "Don't ride here. Don't even walk here. Promise?"
“Yes.”
The horses stepped back nervously as he let go of her and took them by the reins.
"Is this where she fell?" Lee asked.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. He didn't want to talk about Mia, and he didn't react well when he was forced to do anything — but she needed to know.
James turned toward the sea. The sky was changing, as Mrs. Taylor had said it could. White clouds were chased by fast dark ones, and the water was now an unruly gray. He walked past her, almost to the edge of the cliff.
“This part of the coast used to be called Broken Waves before Deerholt was built. There were a lot of shipwrecks here — smugglers, mostly. Pirates. When I was little, the staff used to tell me stories of treasures that sank right there, and of people trying to get to them and being smashed against the rocks.”
The movement of the water crashing below hypnotized him for a few moments as the wind blew his hair over his forehead.
"She fell,” he said, “but the sea didn't take her. She got caught on that rock."
Lee looked. There were several places where the rocks formed platforms, or where their uneven peaks might have stopped a body from tumbling all the way to the sea.
“She had been taken away by the time I arrived. The police showed me the photographs afterwards. Mia was lying in the strangest position. One of her arms was twisted under her, her head was at an impossible angle, her legs looked broken. Her eyes were still open, and her mouth too, but her face was half gone. Smashed. I saw the close-ups. It was like ... horror."
