Fiona

by Meredith Moore

  It turns out that knowing the truth of something and hearing it out loud are two completely different things.

  I know then, just as I’ve lost him completely, that I love him. I’m in love with him. And the world has never seemed so cruel.

  I push myself off the window seat. “I should check on Poppy,” I manage to whisper before walking out of the room as steadily as I can. I force myself to put one foot in front of the other until I reach the closest bathroom, where I sink to the floor and completely break down.

  I tried so hard to ignore the fact that I had fallen for him. I wanted to believe that I could float above it all, that I’d be able to sit by and watch Blair and Charlie start a family together and my heart wouldn’t break into a million little shards, puncturing my body like shattered glass from the inside out.

  But I can’t ignore it anymore. I love him. I love the way he looks at me like he can see every little secret inside me. I love the way he smiles, always with a bit of surprise, like he wasn’t expecting to. I love the way he brightens the moment his sister enters the room.

  It’s why I couldn’t leave, why I played the secret-for-a-song game, why, as much as I wanted to let him go, I couldn’t.

  I love him, every part of him. His past, who he is now, who he wants to be.

  And he loves her. Or, at least, he’s choosing her. And all that love that I have for him will shatter inside me, ruining me.

  CHAPTER 29

  When I’ve cried myself out, I run the bathroom sink and splash some cold water on my face. I wait until my eyes are a little less red and puffy before heading to the kitchen to search for some lunch—or dinner, rather, seeing as it’s almost evening. The kitchen is much more crowded than I expected, filled with footmen and housemaids gathering in a huddle with the cook and her helpers. They turn to look at me when I enter, all of them pressing their lips tightly shut.

  “What is it?” I ask. “What happened?”

  After a brief silence, Alice speaks up. “They found the butcher knife. The one used to kill Copperfield.”

  The blood rushes from my head, leaving me dizzy and swaying. The knife. I forgot about the knife, bloody and incriminating underneath my mattress.

  “Mabel wants to talk to you,” Alice says as I grasp the countertop for support. “She’s in her office.”

  I look around the room, taking a deep breath. No one has on a friendly face, and one of the maids regards me with an expression of open disgust.

  I make my way through the kitchen and into the hallway that leads to Mabel’s office. I know what will happen now. I’ll be fired and sent away, maybe even to jail. I’ll never see Poppy or Charlie again.

  Tears form in my eyes, but I blink them away. I won’t cry. I will not let myself cry, not in front of Mabel.

  She’s sitting behind her desk, going through a stack of receipts, when I enter. “Sit down,” she says sharply when she sees me.

  I sink into the hard, uncomfortable chair across from her.

  “I’m sure you know by now that we conducted a search of all the rooms in the castle once we learned the knife was missing,” she says. “I’m sure you also know that we found it in your room.” She pauses, staring into my eyes. “Do you want to explain yourself?”

  “I don’t know what happened,” I say in a rush. “I went to bed after the ball and I . . . I just woke up with it like that—with the knife in my hand, and it was so bloody, and I was horrified. I had no idea where it came from or whose blood was on it.”

  “You don’t remember stealing the knife, going out to the stables, and stabbing the horse?” she asks. Her voice is cool, but there’s a gleam in her eyes as she watches me. How excited she must be to have a reason to fire me. She blinks, and that gleam is gone.

  I shake my head furiously. “I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I mean, I would never—I would never hurt Poppy like that. I would never hurt Copperfield like that!”

  Her features become even more strained as she continues to stare at me. “It’s troubling to me that you could commit such a heinous act and not even remember it.”

  “But I didn’t! You have to believe me. I think . . .” I stop myself, trying to gather my thoughts before I dare come out in public with the crazy suspicion I’ve been harboring for hours now. “Mabel, I think Blair did it. I think she killed Copperfield and then made it look like I did it.”

  “Blair?” Mabel says, her eyebrows raised in shock. “You’re trying to accuse Blair of killing the horse?”

  “I know it sounds crazy—”

  “Yes,” she interrupts, and I flinch. “Yes, it does sound crazy. You’re accusing a poor girl, who is still recovering from a horrible miscarriage, of murdering a child’s beloved horse and then planting the knife in your room to frame you? Who on earth do you think you are, lass?”

  Of course she doesn’t believe me. No one would ever believe a story like that. I don’t know how to make any of this make sense, so I keep my lips pressed together.

  I take one twisted moment to appreciate how well Blair has played this game. She has spent every moment in this castle making herself so sympathetic and beloved that everything I could say to contradict that impression makes me sound insane.

  She’s won.

  “I think I’ve heard enough. We need to send you someplace where they can take care of you. Give you the help you need,” Mabel says.

  “What?” I say. It takes me a few moments to interpret her words. “You want to send me to—what, a hospital? Why not just fire me, send me home?”

  She stands and clasps her hands in front of her. “I think you need help. I do care about my staff, after all. There’s a very good facility in Twicken, in the Borders. It’s the best in the country for people like you.”

  She’s talking about a mental hospital. She wants me to go to some asylum, where they’ll diagnose me with schizophrenia and lock me up forever.

  “You can just fire me,” I say. “I’ll go, no arguments, no fuss. But I won’t let you put me in some asylum.”

  She twists her lips into a grimace and nods, as if she was expecting me to respond this way. “Very well. If you refuse to go, then we’ll have to press charges. You just murdered a giant horse, for heaven’s sake. You’re too dangerous to be let free. And if you’re not . . . in need of some psychiatric help, then you have nothing to fear from a doctor’s evaluation. It’s your only option.”

  I stand and back up into the doorway. “I won’t go. You can’t make me.”

  She stands up, too, glowering at me. “Fine. Refuse to come quietly. We have plenty of evidence to make a very convincing court case.” Her words are full of warning, just daring me to defy her.

  I shake my head. “I won’t go.” I inch further into the hallway, ready to run, but instead I back up right into someone’s arms.

  I spin around, terrified that whoever’s holding me has orders to drag me to the asylum whether I agree to it or not. But instead I see Charlie. I sag into him with relief, but then he lets go of my shoulders, focusing a powerful glare at Mabel.

  “What’s going on? Someone told me you’ve accused Fiona of killing Copperfield.”

  Mabel straightens her spine. “We found the missing knife in her room, under her mattress. Covered in the horse’s blood.”

  Charlie looks at me, wary.

  “I didn’t do it,” I assure him. I tell him how I woke up with the knife in my hand, how I’m not even strong enough to injure a horse so big, how there’s no way I could have committed such a horrible crime and then not remembered it.

  “She says Blair did it,” Mabel interjects before I can finish convincing him that I’m not crazy.

  “You think Blair stabbed Copperfield?” he asks, confusion in his eyes and voice.

  “I don’t—I don’t know who did it,” I say, stumbling over my words. I realize then how dangerous it was fo
r me to confess my suspicions to Mabel.

  “She went on and on about how Blair is trying to frame her,” Mabel says.

  “Is that true?” Charlie asks, looking down at me.

  “Gareth said he saw a woman running out of the stables last night,” I say, fumbling for words. “I don’t—I mean, it’s possible that Blair—”

  “Why would she hurt Copperfield?” Charlie asks. I can hardly hear him. I can barely concentrate on anything except the way he’s looking at me, with confusion and . . . pity. Like I really am crazy and he’s only realizing it now.

  I can’t bear for him to look at me like that, so I hide my head in my hands. “I don’t know. I don’t—I’m sorry. I just know that I didn’t do it.”

  Mabel whispers something to Charlie. All I hear is the word “hospital,” and I just keep my face hidden, my eyes closed, as if it’ll make all this disappear.

  Maybe they’re right. Maybe I really am crazy. I woke up this morning with a headache and no memory. Was that some kind of aftereffect of a psychotic episode?

  It doesn’t make any sense, but nothing about going crazy ever does.

  My only hope—the only light that I can hold on to—is that Blair really is the one to blame. Now it’s not just me she’s trying to convince—she’s got the whole castle thinking I’m crazy, so they’ll push me out of the house and away from Charlie.

  I sit back down on Mabel’s uncomfortable guest chair, and Charlie kneels in front of me. “Fee?” he says softly.

  So I’m Fee now to him. No longer Fiona. I feel the sting of my nickname as if it were a knife stabbed into my neck.

  He tugs at my arm, wants me to uncover my face and look at him, but I can’t. “Fee, I’m worried about you,” he murmurs. “I think maybe it would be a good idea for you to talk to a doctor. Just talk. Nothing permanent. What do you think?”

  There’s no going back. He thinks I’m crazy now. No matter what the doctors say, he won’t ever see me as anything else.

  I’m numb as I finally uncover my face and meet his concerned gaze. I nod.

  “Okay. Okay, then,” he says, resting back on his heels. “Can I get you anything? Tea or . . . anything?”

  “Can I see Poppy?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, and then he must think better of it, because he just breathes out heavily instead. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he says finally.

  I can’t do anything but nod.

  He waits with me in silence until Mabel comes back. “I’ve called the hospital,” she says. “Dr. Furnham agreed to meet with Fiona tonight. Albert is getting the car ready, and he’ll take her there now.”

  “Great. Well, let’s get this all sorted, then,” Charlie says, falsely cheerful. He stretches a hand out to me, and I take it. But he lets go of my hand as soon as I’m up, and I’m left with no lingering warmth.

  I follow him out of Mabel’s office and into the grand part of the house. I look around, trying to memorize every little detail I can of these beautiful rooms. It’s the last time I’ll ever be here, in the castle, I know it.

  We cross in front of the main staircase, and I look up. Blair is at the top, looking down at us. Charlie doesn’t seem to notice her as he opens the front door. I watch her as I step through after him, and as he starts to close the door behind me, I swear I see her start to smile. A dangerous, wicked curve of a smile.

  I slide into the backseat of the car and take a deep breath. I have to be strong, for Poppy’s sake. I have to prove that I am sane, not a danger to anyone. Maybe after proving this to the doctors, I can go back to the house and everything can go back to normal.

  “How are you feeling, Fee?” Albert asks as Charlie and I buckle our seat belts. I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror, and I see the wary assessment in them.

  “I didn’t kill Copperfield, Albert,” I say as calmly as possible.

  He doesn’t respond.

  CHAPTER 30

  The drive there is painful. I’m sitting next to the guy who nearly kissed me last night in a room full of strangers, and now he’s turned away from me, staring out the window as if I’m not even here, mere inches from him. Because he thinks I killed his little sister’s horse.

  If I weren’t so hurt and terrified, I would laugh. Because this whole situation is just so insane.

  We pull up in front of a small official building, and I realize it’s the same hospital in Beasley where Blair supposedly miscarried.

  “I thought we were going to the . . . facility in Twicken?” I say to Charlie.

  His eyes are filled with caution as he looks at me, as if I’m an unexploded bomb. “It’s too far away, and Mabel says they stopped accepting new patients for the night. So Dr. Furnham has agreed to do your consultation here. Depending on what he says, we’ll take you to Twicken tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” I say, trying to sound reasonable and compliant.

  I get out of the car and follow Charlie inside. Albert says he’ll meet us at the front desk.

  We walk into the waiting room, and I see the same doctor from last time, Blair’s doctor, standing there. Waiting for us, I realize, as Charlie approaches him.

  “Miss Smith,” he says, shaking my hand with a firm grip. “I’m Dr. Furnham. Nice to meet you.” He looks beyond me, and I follow his gaze to see Albert, who’s just walked in. Albert is looking at him with a blank expression on his face, and he doesn’t introduce himself.

  Dr. Furnham looks back at me. “I understand you’ve had a rough day. If you’ll follow me into my office, we can talk there.”

  “I’ll wait out here,” Charlie says, and I look up at him, horrified.

  “You’re not going to come with me?” I ask. I hate how desperate my voice sounds in the cold stillness of the room.

  Charlie glances at the doctor, then back at me. “I think it’s better if you two talk alone. Albert and I will be right out here.”

  I have to be strong, I remind myself. Strong and sane. I can handle this.

  I pull my shoulders back, nod, and follow the doctor into his office. It’s small, with only a desk and one bookshelf stacked with thick medical books and a few framed photographs of him and a woman—his wife, I assume.

  He gestures to the chair across from his desk, and I settle into it. It’s more comfortable than the chair in Mabel’s office, at least.

  “So you’re a psychiatrist as well as an OB/GYN?” I ask before he can say anything.

  He shifts in his seat. “I’m a general physician, Miss Smith. I have training in many areas of medicine. There aren’t many specialists in this part of the country, I’m afraid.”

  His temple is beaded with sweat. He’s nervous. Is it me? Is he worried about what I might do or say in here?

  “So, tell me, Fiona. What exactly happened last night?”

  I try to answer as succinctly as I can. “I came back from the ball, and I had a mug of tea and read a bit. I was asleep by midnight.”

  “What were you reading?”

  “A book about Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

  The doctor raises his eyebrows at the name, and I hope I’m not blushing. “Is he a favorite subject of yours?” he asks.

  “No,” I say quickly. “Poppy’s studying him in school, so I wanted to do some research so I could be more helpful to her.”

  He nods slowly. “Okay. So you went to bed,” he prompts.

  “And then I woke up in the morning with a headache and a bloody knife in my hand.”

  “That must have been disorienting,” he says, his tone mild.

  “It was terrifying,” I correct him. “I felt as if I’d been drugged. As if someone drugged me and put a knife in my hands in the middle of the night.”

  “Who would have done something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say as calmly as I can.

  “I
spoke to the head housekeeper, Ms. Faraday, on the phone.” He must mean Mabel. “She said you believed Ms. Rifely, Blair, did this? That she was trying to frame you?”

  I twist my hands together but try to keep my voice steady. “Yes, I mentioned something like that to Mabel, but she seems to have exaggerated my words. I only know what Gareth said—that he saw a woman running out of the stables, and when he went to check on the horses, he found Copperfield, stabbed. I don’t know if Blair was involved—all I told Mabel was that, based on what Gareth saw, we can’t rule her out.”

  “There are several women who work and live at the castle, are there not?” he says. He’s clicking his pen, out and in, over and over. I want to reach over and stop him, grab the pen, but I focus all my energy on staying still.

  I grit my teeth. “Yes, there are. Blair was just the first one who came to mind, that’s all. But I suppose it could have been any of them.”

  “Why this fixation on Blair? Why do you think she’d want to frame you?”

  I lift my chin. “There’s no reason that I know of. I don’t know why I said her name. Really. All I know is that I did not hurt that horse.”

  “Have you experienced anything like this before? Episodes where you’ve lost time or memories?”

  “No,” I say emphatically.

  He asks me several more questions, trying to get me to say anything that proves I’m crazy and unstable, like: Have I ever had violent fantasies? Do I often think people are trying to target me? Do I ever hear voices?

  I lie when I answer that last question, telling him I’ve never heard voices before.

  “How would you have been drugged?” he asks finally.

  I’ve been asking myself that same question ever since this morning. I think back to last night. I ate dinner with the staff in the kitchen before the ball. After that, I had nothing to eat or drink. Until . . . “The tea,” I say finally. “Someone must have slipped something in my tea. I drink chamomile tea every night to help me sleep. Everybody at the castle knows that.”

  “You’ve been having trouble sleeping?”

  “No. Not trouble trouble. I’m a light sleeper, so I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep. But the tea helps.”