“Then what?”
“Because he’s rich, and beautiful, and I—” She faltered. “I am not.”
Elouise straightened. “Did he tell you this?”
“No,” she said. “The opposite. The reason why we’re in this mess is that he nearly took Nelson Taylor’s head off in a public square for insulting me.”
“Well then, it sounds like he’s a man of good character who cares for you.”
“He does,” she said. “But it’s hard, Lou. So hard to believe.”
“Maddy,” Elouise said, taking Maddy by the hand and leading her to the settee, where the two sat, facing each other. “I know what it’s like to have a man’s attention. And I know how utterly meaningless it can be. Or at least I did, until I learned to trust the one man who gave me what I truly deserved—his respect and his love.”
“Wasn’t it scary?”
“Terrifying,” she said, her smile radiant. “But the thought of being without him was scarier still.”
“But what if being with him means not being here?”
Elouise took Maddy’s hands in hers, giving them gentle kiss.
“Maddy, my sweet warrior. You have a life to lead, and if you are letting your happiness slip from your fingers because of some misplaced idea that you must be here at the expense of your own joy, then Everwell isn’t your home. It’s your prison.”
Maddy blinked. She thought of Sylvie, so able to mind her flowers. And The Grove, with the berry patch, and the keyhole garden, which could be enough work for a dozen girls like Sylvie who might want a chance for something better.
Was it too late for that now?
* * *
The past week had been one of the most emotionally exhausting efforts in Beau’s entire life. His first concern was Jessica, who was one part fury at her husband’s betrayal, and the other pure anguish. It had been Jess who’d made the connection between them, after she’d discovered papers tucked away in the back of Neil’s drawer.
“He’d always been jealous of you, Beau,” she’d said, the two speaking quietly over a glass of their father’s best Scotch. “And maybe he accepted that the company would be yours, because you were the son. And then?—"
She’d trailed off, apparently unwilling to say aloud the secret that had been untold.
“—and then he found out I wasn’t.”
“You know?”
“I think I’ve always known,” he said, then relayed how he’d met Hollis and learned the truth.
“Well, Neil didn’t like it,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek, her voice rough tears and lost sleep.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Get a divorce,” she said. “Yes, it’s a scandal, but so is being married to the man who murdered my father and tried to take the company away from us.”
“You know the irony is that I probably would have let him run it,” Beau said. “He just needed to wait.”
“He couldn’t run that company,” Jessica said, swallowing the remainder of her drink in a single gulp and placing the thick crystal glass down with a heavy thunk on a nearby mahogany table. “The man didn’t know how to make a decision. The trick with a man like Neil was to make him think every good idea was his.”
“Well Christ, Jessica,” Beau said, sitting back. How in the hell did it make any sense that the one person who had the talent to run the company and the desire to do it, wasn’t entitled to it? He would fix this—and if the board didn’t like it, then they would find themselves out of job.
“What about you?” she’d asked. “You’ve spent half your time with the police, and half with this Dominic character.”
Beau told Jessica about Madeline and the threats she’d received from Nelson Taylor.
“I remember that case,” she said. “In Cape Enrage.”
