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‘Originally, yes.’
‘Your sister also believes that you only invited Effie here—and now I discover her daughter as well—because she had nowhere else to go.’
‘Is this conversation going somewhere relevant? I was under the impression that I could do whatever I chose, given that it is my own home. Or would you rather I’d seen them out on the streets?’
‘I would rather hear that you had told Effie that it wasn’t an action made out of the goodness of your heart so much as you making her and her daughter pawns in your quarrel against me. And against your father.’
‘You talk about him as though you’re a team,’ Tak spat out instantly.
Something in his tone had Effie spinning around, as though she could hurry back down the corridor. As though she could somehow soothe his pain.
‘He’s never been a team player. Not for you. Not for anyone.’
‘He loves me in his own way,’ his mother hissed furiously. ‘If it hadn’t been for my becoming a mother—if it hadn’t been for you—then he would have wanted me for a lot longer.’
‘He never loved you—can you really not see that?’ Tak roared. ‘He is selfish and cruel and he only loves himself. He has only ever loved himself.’
‘And you are just like him,’
The accusation hung in the air like a knife thrown at a spinning board just as time was frozen. Effie couldn’t move. If she did then she might race back down to that kitchen, take that virtual knife and stab that woman right in the heart with it. The way she had been stabbing at Tak all these years, trying to beat him into submission with her cruelty, her callousness.
How he had become such a decent, compassionate man in the face of it all was a miracle.
‘If you think that, Mama,’ Tak managed icily, ‘then why push me for an arranged marriage? If I’m so like him, how could you want to put some innocent bride through everything you went through?’
‘Because, contrary to what I know of you, people think you’re a catch, Talank. And your father will benefit from a lot of contacts if we make the right match. You owe us that much. You can keep this tramp of yours on the side, if you really need to.’
Effie could feel Tak’s fury even from where she stood. His mother’s words might have cut into her, but every time Tak defended her it felt like the most soothing of balms.
‘Effie is not a tramp. And if I were to marry anyone I would marry her. I would have no mistress. She would be enough.’
‘But you aren’t going to marry her, are you, Talank?’ his mother continued victoriously. ‘And for all this noble talk of yours, you and I both know the truth, don’t we? You didn’t just choose Effie as this mutual buffer you claim. You chose her deliberately.’
There was no reason for Effie’s blood to chill and slow in her veins, she told herself anxiously. No reason at all.
‘Careful...’ Tak warned.
But his mother had clearly smelled blood and now she was going in for the kill. Whether it was Tak or Effie, she didn’t care. In any case, one equated to the other.
‘You chose to align yourself with a woman who would sully your reputation by association.’
‘That’s enough.’ Tak’s voice was icy.
‘She is unmarried with a child. Damaged goods. Even you couldn’t carry that kind of toxic baggage and still be useful to your father and me.’
The truth slammed into Effie like a knee to the chest. Powerful enough to cause internal bleeding and even cardiac arrest. It catapulted her back to a time when she hadn’t been good enough. When people had done everything they could to disassociate themselves from her and she had been wholly ashamed of who she was and where she’d come from.
But this time she had no one to blame but herself. From the start Tak had warned her that he would hurt her and she hadn’t believed him.
More fool her.
‘I warned you—that’s enough!’ he bellowed.
It was enough for Effie. The silence stretched out, straining, twisting, pulling taut. And with it came a tugging on her heart, until she felt as though it might tear in two.
She couldn’t bear it any longer.
With her hand over her mouth to stifle any sound, she finally found her strength and raced up the corridor to her room. All she had to do was find her clothes and she would be out of there within minutes.
