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His mother seems like a different person. Like she’s broken out of a cage and is feeling the sun on her face for the first time in a long while. Alessia is fascinated.
Maryanne talks more about Seattle and Ethan and her exploits there. Alessia speaks of her audition at the RCM and her auditions to come.
The only person who doesn’t seem at ease is Caroline. She glances continually at Maxim as if trying to convey something.
Finally, during dessert, Caroline rises. Maxim automatically does too.
“Darling,” she says to Maxim. “I need to speak to you and give you those items that belonged to Kit. Please. Can we do it now?”
Maxim’s gaze slides to Alessia’s, and his eyes are wide, with what—panic?
Why?
Alessia decides this is something between him and his ex-mistress. Nothing to do with her. So she gives him a reassuring smile and offers a slight shrug of her shoulder.
“Of course,” he says to Caroline and follows her out of the room, leaving Alessia with her in-laws.
“Alessia, darling,” Rowena says. “I’ve heard a great deal about your musical talent. I’d love to witness it. Would you do us the honor?”
“Of course. I’d love to.” Alessia rises from the table and heads to the upright. She lifts the lid and tries the middle C. It has a rich, robust tone that echoes in pure gold through the room. “It’s tuned,” she says, almost to herself, and takes a seat on the stool.
* * *
With a sinking heart, I follow Caro into the dark shrine that was Kit’s study. I’ve not been in here since he died. It’s a little oppressive, with navy blue walls, large paintings, and a shelf crammed with his curios, photographs, and trophies. I think I detect a faint hint of his cologne, and a vision from a long-forgotten dream or nightmare pops unbidden into my head. He’s leaning over me. You’ve got this. This is what you were born to do. And he’s smiling his crooked, sincere smile that’s reserved for those rare moments—well, I thought they were rare—when he’d fucked up.
I’m suddenly thrown.
Perhaps they weren’t so rare where Caro was concerned.
Hell. I’d always looked up to Kit and envied him.
He got the girl. He got the title. He was gifted at his work in the City.
From the dining room, I hear the piano. The piano on which I learned to play.
Alessia.
She’s playing Clair de Lune, and I remember the last time she played that, I did too—and what a life-affirming experience that was. It’s calming, knowing she’s close by, and it pulls me from my gloomy thoughts to the matter in hand. The last thing I want to do is betray his confidences. His journal was exactly that. It contains his private thoughts, and I don’t want to intrude on those, and I don’t want Caro to do the same.
I decide to grasp the bull by the horns. “I heard what you said to Rowena.”
Caro leans against Kit’s antique desk and crosses her arms. “You know, then.”
I sigh. “I know that Kit knew you had been or were playing away.”
Caro’s gaze stays steady on mine. “What did he write in his journal?”
“He was angry with you and Rowena. That’s all. That’s the last entry. I don’t think he meant to kill himself. He was just angry. Angry at the shitty hand he’d been dealt.”
“Are you including me in that shitty hand?”
For fuck’s sake.
I slump into one of the tartan armchairs facing his desk. “I don’t know, Caro. It wasn’t me who wrote it. And I’m in no position to judge. Neither is Rowena, as she’s said. Was it one person? Several people? That was between you and Kit and your conscience.”
She peers down at her fingernails, then turns and slumps into the chair beside me. “I did love him.”
“I know you did. What did Rowena mean about him being difficult?”
Caroline sits up straight and peers at her fingernails again. She sighs. “He was aloof and demanding. Controlling. Occasionally violent.”
What the fuck!
“With you?” I ask, sitting up properly as shock reverberates through every cell in my body.
She nods and looks from her nails to the ceiling. “Not often.”
“That’s awful. Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I couldn’t. I was too ashamed. And to spite him, I sought companionship elsewhere. I didn’t think he’d mind. He did.”
“Oh, Caro, I’m so sorry.”
“Maryanne noticed. She told your mother. I think Rowena had words with him.”
She stops… and we listen to the faint strains of the piano that Alessia plays with such finesse, but all I can dwell on is that my family has been utterly shite, and I was completely unaware.
“I knew I’d made the wrong choice,” she whispers.
“Caro. Don’t. We’re not going there. What’s done is done.”
“It was so hard for me, watching you aimlessly dipping your wick in anything with a short skirt and a pulse.”
