Page 39 of An Immaculate Deception

“The carriage to take me home!”

She blinks.

I look out the window. There is no carriage waiting. Astounding.

“Did Leandro not…” I sigh, exasperated. “Go tell the driver to get the carriage ready.”

She nods and scampers off.

I go to Leandro’s room to see if he is there. I have no more patience for his slowness, his deranged manner. Especially now that I know his true nature—that he rejected our baby. Looked me in the eye and pretended it wasn’t his. It was nice of him to come look for me this morning, but he still did not say anything about the baby. He did not take back what he said last night.

“Leandro?” I call out.

Leandro is not in his room.

I deduce he must still be downstairs. A small pile of glossy photographs on his nightstand catches my eye. Not the older daguerreotypes, but more modern, smaller ones. I pause. I see the outline of a woman. I pick it up.

In the photograph, a young woman sits gracefully in the drawing room with her long dark hair high up in a ponytail. Her hair is lustrous and velvety, her skin smooth and sun-kissed.

Her face is cast in shadows.

I recognize the drawing room of this very house. These photographs were taken here. By Leandro, no doubt.

She holds flowers in her hands, has a hibiscus tucked behind her ear and one in her hair.

She is barefoot. In another photograph she wears pointed heels. There are many photographs of her, all inside this house. But in all of them, her face is obscured. At times, it is simply cast in shadows or she looks away. I can see the delineation of her jaw. Other times, she wears a veil. Sometimes she’s facing a dark corner of the house. It is peculiar, as if the photographer angled it this way on purpose.

These must have been taken by Leandro, but he himself doesn’t appear in any of the photographs.

I recognize the pearl earrings and silver bangle bracelets from the vanity in the lavender room. She must be the mystery woman from Leandro’s past. The one who smells of lavender rose. The one whose dresses he gave me. Maybe even the foul woman who appeared in the mirror.

I flip through the photos faster and faster. A deep discomfort burrows in my gut. I search for Leandro in the photos, for anyone else, but they’re all of her.

It appears that he couldn’t get enough of her.

Her wearing a purple pendant around her neck and opal rings on her knuckles. With her knees on the carpet, with her head resting on a pillow, with the window as a backdrop, with the wall paintings as a backdrop.

Most of the time she wears a simple gray dress, the kind one might wear around the house. I recognize it—it was amid the pile Leandro gave me to wear the day I woke up here.

I come across a series of photos that make me sick.

She tips a bottle of liquor toward her mouth, wearing an underskirt and nothing else. She lets the drink spill onto her exposed neck and chest. She lifts her skirts and rests a hand on each knee, spreading her legs for the camera obscenely, wearing stockings and high heels. She sits on a bed littered with rose petals. Bustles and veils and corsets are strewn on the floor alongside men’s pants and shirts.

She beckons to the camera with her fingers and a vicious smile.

I sweep my arm over the dresser and hear the clattering, breaking, and scattering. Shards of glass and clay litter the floor, water spills from a broken vase, and I revel in all of it. A blazing fire rips through me from head to toe. Maybe I have hysteria, but I was right. I was right about him having an affair, I was right about his deceitfulness, about his betrayal, about his lies, and all of them yesterday, all of them looked at me like I was a madwoman.

Footsteps thunder up the stairs, then Leandro appears at the door. He gawks at the mess on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s no wonder”—my voice is icy—“you denied the baby. No wonder…”

“What…?”

His face. Leandro’s gawking face inspires a primal rage within me. I seize the candlestick from the mantel and lash out at him.

“You ruined me, you vile, disgusting coward!”

Leandro cowers against the wall, raising his arm protectively over his head as I hit him with the candlestick.