by Lila Felix
Benjamin neighed in agreement and so did I.
“Your sister is referring to one of two places. The first, I’ve alluded to. I was in the The Plots the night I heard your father trying to-sell you off.” He stuttered it out. It still bothered him twice as much as it bothered me. “That night, I was collecting payment. If I don’t go and collect the payments once a month, then I don’t get paid. The owners aren’t the most upstanding of citizens.”
Disgust curled around my gut. “You loaned money to those people? What they do to women…”
“I wasn’t the one who made the deal, Delilah. My father signed some less than upstanding mortgages. I’m trying to get out of them, but it seems no one wants to deal with those people. They were probably desperate when they approached my father about them in the first place.”
I’d once heard Adele comfort Elaine when she thought her husband was visiting The Plots. She’d said that ‘Boys will be boys.’
I never wanted to meet one of those boys.
Porter wasn’t one of those kind.
“Why would Adele be there?”
He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t her that saw me there. Maybe she’s just repeating gossip.”
Looking out across the swampy grass, I squinted against the sunlight, determined to heat me up despite the constant chill in my bones. Porter’s word-of-mouth indiscretion was the last thing on my mind.
They would laugh—or worse, whisper. Whispering was the cruelest of offenses. Whispers held enough evil to rattle the strongest of hearts but not enough to be deemed a sin.
They would chastise him for his choice of bride.
“Where’d you go?”
His voice jolted me out of my self-loathing. “I’m here.”
“I’m sorry. I will get out of any business with that side of town as soon as possible. I knew it would bother you. I’d planned to get rid of it all before you found out. I hate that place even more now.”
“It’s not that. Are you sure I should be going with you? It’s not too early to turn around—or I could walk back.”
With one jerk on the reins, he brought us to a complete halt. “Tell me the truth. You don’t want to go with me?”
“I don’t want to be an embarrassment to you.”
He cracked a sideways smile and the reins on Benjamin’s back. “You’re the only one who still sees that scar, Delilah. I’m proud to have you as my wife.”
That shut me up for the rest of the trip.
~~
The city was concrete—all of it. The buildings were, for the most part, the same color and they matched the street, creating a singular wave of vision from the building to my own toes, never breaking pace.
It was ugly.
Yet beautiful in its bustling people. They gave the place color. Pink and peach colored dresses pockmarked the rest of the crowds of blue and gray ones, every woman done up as though they were prepped for a wedding—or a church service.
I’d never seen such fashion.
It looked painful.
Waists were cinched below hats that mimicked tiny top hats with bursts of flowers or colors to prove they were feminine.
I looked down at my drab burgundy dress and was thoroughly unimpressed either way.
There was no point in dressing up a ghastly beast.
“The hotel is over there where I usually stay. If you like it here, I was thinking about buying an apartment. The top floors of the hotel we are staying at are apartments.” Seeing the quizzical look on my face, he chuckled. “We’ll talk about that later.”
My eyes flared at some things I’d never heard of but dared not ask about.
“Where else did you go?”
He knew exactly what I meant.
“I can show you tonight. It doesn’t open until late in the afternoon. Are you hungry? We can get something to eat before or after we check into the hotel.”
I wasn’t hungry at all.
“Hotel it is. After that, maybe I can show you where I work.” He grabbed my hand with the suggestion. “They’ve all been asking about you. They claim I’m keeping you hidden away. Don’t. Don’t even think it Delilah Jeansonne.”
Transparency was a great skill of mine—at least around Porter.
Minutes later, he stopped the horse at a place marked the carriage house and paid a man to take Benjamin, grumbling about him being taken better care of there than at home.
“The hotel is right next door. Come on.”
He offered his arm, though he was loaded down with suitcases. I saw a couple in front of us, the man and woman walking arm in arm as a boy no older than twelve struggled behind them, carrying their things.
I hoped he was getting paid well, but knew better.
“My father always said we shouldn’t get too comfortable in our money that we forget to work hard,” Porter whispered down to me.
I nodded, my eyes still trained on the thin boy who could’ve been my male counterpart.
“Porter, it’s been weeks. We were beginning to think your new bride had you detained.”
He laughed but I didn’t recognize the sound.
“She’s here. Delilah, this is Henry. He’s the owner of this hotel. Anything you need, he can arrange it.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Henry. Thank you for the offer.”
Henry, much shorter than Porter and much heavier, took the suitcases from Porter and bid us follow him up several flights of stairs to a room with double doors.
“We have it from here, Henry. Thank you.”
He didn’t move as Henry walked away, instead choosing to stare me down.
“Stay here one second.”
Porter jangled the keys in the lock and after only one trip brought all of the suitcases in, shutting the door behind him. When he came out, his arms were empty and he threw both doors open wide.
Before I knew it, I was in those arms.
“What are you doing?”
He kissed my non-scarred temple and wrangled me into a more secure hold. “We never got to do this. I’m trying to make things right here. It may not be our home, but it’s a threshold nonetheless. Here’s to a happy honeymoon, my love.”
I stayed stunned until he laid me down on the bed, covering my body with his.
“This is how it should’ve been. Alone. Like this. No one to bother us.”
His gray eyes ran so deep. He studied me, his face hovering above mine, the rest of him deliciously weighing me down.
“We have to make up for lost time.”
“Starting now.” He spoke those words against my lips, the warmth sending spirals of bliss around every muscle in my body.
Hours later, my stomach gurgled. I hadn’t heard that sound since marrying Porter.
“There I go, neglecting you again. Let’s go eat and then I can show you the other place I have gone.”
I stopped him with my hand on his chest. “Porter, it’s fine. I don’t need to know. I trust you.”
He didn’t budge.
“I think I needed to hear that more than ‘I love you’. I’m still taking you. I want you to see. Never do I want to see doubt in your eyes.”
“Let me get dressed and then I’ll go wherever you’d like me to. This place is a little overwhelming.”
“It can be. That’s why I choose to keep my house and travel. The city has its pulls—its secrets, just like everywhere else. The key is not to get sucked in. Before I had a reason to go home, I’d considered moving here.”
Taking a quick look in the mirror, I regressed to plaiting my hair over that side of my face.
Porter’s voice startled me. I startled at the slightest of noises lately. “Trust me. It would hurt if you got any more beautiful. Let’s go.”
The man was a liar.
We ate at a restaurant that doted on us even more than Eliza, if that was possible. Porter didn’t meet my gaze once during the meal, but then again, I wasn’t looking at him either. There was more fine things in that one room than I’d seen in m
y life.
The women in the room gawked at me. There was plenty to look at. Besides my face, there was the obvious difference in my dress. Theirs was much the same, but a little tighter, a little more revealing.
“We can go to the other place now.”
“Sure.”
Porter paid for the meal with a flick of his wrist. He must’ve had a tab there. They knew him by name and didn’t seem surprised to see his new wife seated across from him.
Again, he took my arm as we walked the streets. Other than a few gazes at my dress, I didn’t get very much attention.
“It’s through here.”
Porter pointed lazily down a bricked hallway between two buildings. At the end was a tiny shack that resembled the cabin at the edge of Porter’s property. As we approached, I saw flowers and plants that, from a distance, seemed to be dead, but bloomed the closer we got.
“What is this place?”
“Trust me.”
“Who is here?”
My curiosity overrode my trust.
“This is the other place that I went—someplace they might’ve seen me. Someone might’ve seen me here.”
He was still hung up on my stupid sister’s gossip.
We entered the place, stepping over a line of salt around the threshold. A haunting wind chime moaned our arrival.
“I told you not to come ba…” The woman, dressed in the most colorful outfit I’d ever seen stuttered at my presence. “I see you’ve brought your destiny.”
“My destiny?”
The dark-skinned woman hummed as she took her place in a chair that took up most of the room.
“I told that girl that she wasn’t her destiny. Wasn’t any use in trying to push against a wall.”
Porter stepped forward, acknowledging her.
“Told who? Marie?”
“Marie? Is that what she’s calling herself these days?”
I tugged on Porter’s hand when he didn’t immediately respond.
“I don’t understand.”
“Marie is not the name she was given. At least this time she picked a good French name. Shame she ended the cycle.”
“When I came here before, you wouldn’t tell me anything about her. Why now?”
The woman rolled her eyes and fiddled with an alligator head, one of two that made up the arms of her chair. “Couldn’t talk about it until she was gone. Well, until she expired.”
Porter’s jaw ground against itself while his face reddened.
“But she’s not—gone—she’s still here—tormenting us.”
“You can’t just kill the vessel. You must cut the tether. Don’t be ridiculous. Your mama knew how these things went.”
Porter attempted to lunge at the woman, but was frozen by something invisible.
“Now, now, Jeansonne. Nothing worthwhile was ever achieved by force. Come here, child. Your husband is going to take a minute to recover.” Beside me, Porter’s face has turned ashen, his eyes were fixed straight ahead like he’d been seized in time never to recover.
Her bangle covered wrist lifted as her hand reached out for me. Her skin was silken, it reminded me of the fabric Adele’s dress had been made of.
Turning my hand over and over again, she studies the lines with the tip of her index finger. The place is quiet. I expect a dramatic entrance any minute by someone needing a hex or worse.
“She grows, doesn’t she? First appearing to you as a little cher and now growing every time you see her. Why do you suppose that is?”
The ludicrous answer knocked at the back of my mind, but I knew better than to make myself look like a fool. “You had to fall in love with him, didn’t you? That’s where all the trouble began. The more you fell in love, the older she got. The older she got, the more cracks in her contract.”
“Contract?”
“Mmm…there’s no such thing as a one way deal in this house.”
Instead of answering anything, the tiny woman with the royal disposition was only posing more questions.
“Ever see a picture of Porter’s grandmother?”
I shook my head. We hadn’t gotten that far.
“She looks an awful lot like Marie, mais non?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, did you know that a spirit can revive itself, generation after generation? Come back and cause all kinds of hell to the ones they despise? Of course, it requires a great deal of know how.”
I shook my head against the nonsensical rattling of information. The way she held my hand made my head foggy and my thoughts dim.
“His mother, that fat tub, made the same choice as you. Falling in love with one of the Jeansonne’s didn’t fall into Marie’s plan. Come to think of it, neither did her lover murdering her. Either way, she’s gone.”
“She’s not gone. She haunts us.” Porter’s tone grew desperate for more information as did my heart.
“That’s because she’s only half of the deal. The bastard must die too. I can…” She canted her head to the side, regarding us with a sinister half-grin. “Take care of the situation for you.”
My brain screamed against the idea.
“At what cost? If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that nothing is free.”
At the boom of his voice, she released my hand and latched onto Porter’s. Again, he was stilled in place.
“Your money is worth nothing except kindling in my house.”
“If not money, what?”
“A future favor. I name the price at a later date. Could be next year. Could be the next lifetime. But your friend would be gone and this time for good.”
I took a few steps back from the confrontation and the potentially life-altering deal on the table. The links this woman had planted were finally starting to form a chain. Everything was connected.
And Porter had circumvented a grave mistake.
My eyes broadened with the realization.
“Are you saying that Marie is the reincarnatioMarin of Porter’s grandmother?”
A wind of disgust blew through the dishrag curtained windows.
“I doubt she would’ve ever consummated the marriage. Anyway, his grandmother, the one he knew, was his step-grandmother. They weren’t actually related. Collette killed his real grandmother. Oh…poor Porter. Doesn’t even know his true family history.”
Insincerity poured from her mouth like melted wax. This whole twisted scheme was her doing, along with her cohorts, and she took pride in the mess she’d made and the rubble in its wake.
She let go of his hand and wiped her own back and forth as though wiping the dirt from her hands—along with any subsiding guilt.
“And my mother?”
“Your mother, like this chit, wasn’t part of the plan. Marie was to marry you, the house and all your wealth would be hers and then she and Rebel would murder you. I suspect that Marie grew a conscious after three generations of lying and deceit and killed herself over it. She’s stupider than you. Half of your wealth was my cut. And now it’s gone.”
Her lament over the lost money was the most genuine emotion she’d expressed so far.
“Do whatever it takes. Get rid of her.”
“And the boy?”
“I’ll break my grandfather’s contract. Wait…that was part of it too. To keep Rebel close to us.”
“Ahhh…the story is still unfolding.”
Spiders crawled along my arms and webs clouded my vision.
“We need to leave, Porter. Now.”
There was no time to wait for his answer. Pulling him by his jacket, I trudged through the room at a slow pace, feeling like the door grew further and further from my reach with every step.
“Help me, husband.”
At the word, his attention snapped to me and broke the sludge we were buried in. We reached the door and at the touch of dusk’s sleepy sunlight on our faces, we were free from the grasp of evil that clutched the air of that shack and its mistress.
Except now we were strapped
into a deal with the core of our repression.
“What will she ask of us?” I whispered as we walked numb into the falling night.
“Me. She will ask something of me. This has nothing to do with you. Let’s get you back to the hotel before more demons find us.”
His tone stung. Even in the precipice of our ghosts, he’d always said we would get through it together.
My heart cracked. I was alone again.
Chapter Twenty
Porter
Processing the compilation of lies would be no small task, but it was secondary to Delilah. I should’ve never gone to The Plots that night. I should’ve sent someone to collect my debt.
Paying a price for Delilah was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
She’d probably be married off to someone normal by now if I hadn’t felt the compulsion to have her for myself.
Even being alone would be infinitely better than being married to an impetuous bastard who can’t even decipher the lies right under his nose.
“Why are we running?”
Her voice, as it always had, stopped my haste. “I’m sorry. I just want you as far away from all of that as soon as possible.”
“I’m not scared, Porter. I know you will keep me safe. You always have.”
The truth in those tomorrow eyes killed me. She believed her own words, no matter how far from the truth they were. I would always attempt to protect her from the world. My ability to do so was the subject in question.
“I’ve done a pathetic job of it. But that ends tonight.”
She caught me in a dead stare, attempting to get a reaction from me. She would get none, mostly because I couldn’t look her in the eyes again. That clear blue unabashed love staring back at me clung to my heart and would never allow me to follow through with what I needed to do.
What I should’ve done in the first place.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning after I go to the bank.”
I stuffed clothing into my suitcase without a care.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
The bed slumped with her light weight as she sat on the side.
“Maybe I should ask where I’m going. Isn’t that what’s happening? You’ve decided this is all too much? I’m not worth the money after all, right? To think, we almost made it a month.”
