Not that Egerton thought he was evil. That was the problem with him—with all these men who hurt women. They did not think what they did was wrong. They thought women were inferior and thus deserved to be treated like chattel. It was disgusting, and he could never forgive it.
But it did make him wonder about Egerton and why his mind had betrayed him in his old age.Maybe he is starting to feel regret for what he has done, so his mind is making him forget. Maybe he cannot live with what he did.
Winston swirled his glass. The questions Egerton had ignited in him were not settled. He still did not know whether or not to believe Egerton’s paranoia that Clementine was still alive. His instincts told him that she was not, but a small part of him could not help but hope.
No,he told himself sternly.You saw her jump.
He would never forget that day. Searching the woods for her after she had run off on the ‘walk’ she had proposed they take. A terrible feeling of dread building with every moment he could not find her. She had just told him she was with child, but she had not been happy about it.
“This child cannot grow up under my husband’s thumb,” she’d said, as they walked through the darkening woods. “I love him too much to allow that.”
“I will help you, Clem,” Winston remembered saying. He was young and full of that youthful certainty he could change the world. “We can get an annulment. Or I will simplytellhim that you are coming to live with me.”
She had given him a sad, incredulous look. “A woman cannot just leave her husband, Winston,” she’d said. “She is legally required to return to him and perform her marital duties. And now that I am with child, it will be even harder. He has legal rights to this child.”
“We will find a way,” Winston had said, undeterred. “Father is gone, and I am the Duke now. Nothing can stop me. Egerton is nothing to me, and I will crush him under my boot.”
She had laughed wildly at that. It had been a terrible screeching sound he’d never heard before, and it had made him shiver in fear. “He is stronger than you think,” she’d said, once her laughter subsided. “Do not underestimate him.”
After that, he had urged her to return home with him, but she had insisted they keep walking. Only then, when he left her to relieve himself, had he come back to find her gone. For half an hour, he had searched the woods wildly, screaming her name.
And then… there she was. A long figure, on the clifftop, silhouetted by the moon behind her.
And he had known she was going to jump even before she began to run toward the cliff’s edge. Somehow, he had known. The moment he called out her name…
The moment she knew I was watching.
He stiffened, suspicion seizing him. What if she wanted me to see so that there was evidence of her death? What if she needed me to believe she was dead so that everyone else would?
But he had seen her go over the edge… Where else could she have gone? It made no sense. Nor did he believe she could havesurvived such a fall and swam to shore. Not when she was with child.
Winston sighed and shook his head. He should not dwell on these things. Clementine was dead, and that was in the past. If he kept living in the past, then he would forget to live in the present. And the present, for the first time in his life, was actually something he liked.
The present was filled with Vanessa.
At that moment, there was a knock on his door, and he looked up to see his wife—as if summoned by his thoughts of her—standing in the doorway. Her hair had been let down from its coiffure, and it hung loose around her shoulders, shiny in the candlelight. She was, to his surprise, wearing only a white dressing gown over a silk nightrail. It was not the most modest attire, and he felt his mouth go dry.
She looked lovely, like an angel that had descended to his study, and he felt one hand tighten on his drink and the other on the edge of his table. It took everything in him not to rise, go to her, and take her in his arms, lose himself in her scent like he had done when they had slept side-by-side in the inn.
She smiled at him as she closed the door behind him. “Staying up late, are you?” she murmured.
“I am having a night cap,” he said, raising his glass. “Would you like to join me for one?”
She raised an eyebrow in a mischievous way that made his heart pound.When had she become so confident and coy?He liked this side of her, he realized. Well, he liked every side of her. The shy, sweet Vanessa and the confident, flirtatious Vanessa.
“I suppose I shall join you,” she said, and she came over to his desk. He rose and poured her a glass of whiskey then handed it to her. She took a sniff and immediately made a face.
“Ugh—you like this?” she asked, eyeing it uncertainly.
“It is an acquired taste,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching.
She raised the glass and took a very small sip—immediately, she began to cough.
Winston laughed. “You do not have to drink it,” he said. “It is not to everyone’s liking.”
“No, no, I want to keep drinking it,” she argued. “I like it.”
“You are not a very good liar, you know…”
