Belmary House Book Two (6 page)

He shook his head fiercely as she opened her mouth. “If you apologize one more time, I’m leaving.”

She didn’t want him to leave and clamped her lips around the words. “But I am, though. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.”

“You’re certainly not,” he said. “You were muttering about failing earlier. You haven’t failed anyone.” He leaned over the table, looking deeply into her eyes. “I pretended to have more hope for Camilla than I actually did, but I had to see it to the end. I had to try. If I didn’t try to save her I would never be able to visit my mother’s grave again. I will mourn her, Matilda, but you needn’t worry that I’m beyond repair.”

“You just lost your sister and your brother-in-law,” she said, angry at herself for not being able to gain control of her emotions. “You’re essentially alone in the world and I’m acting like a fool.”

He pulled her hand across the table to kiss it. “But I’m not alone. I have you, and I’m worried about you right now.”

She sobbed harder, never feeling so unworthy. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I don’t want you to comfort me. I’m going to be fine.” Unable to help herself she apologized again. “I’m so sorry, Julian, I only want to help you through this.”

She took a deep shuddering breath and furiously wiped her face with her sleeves, managing for the moment to stop bawling.

He frowned, taking out his handkerchief and doing a better job of mopping away her tears, before taking both her hands in his. “Well, I don’t want to think about my own predicament right now. I feel quite certain it’s not going away any time soon, so it can wait a bit. If you want to help me, trust me enough to tell me what has you so upset.”

His bossy tone strangely comforted her more than his firm grip on her hands or the concerned look in his eyes. She sniffled and shook her head, still wanting to be the outwardly strong woman he so admired.

“Why did Kostya do that?” she asked, a sudden anger smashing down on her.

Yes, this was familiar too, and definitely easier than the sadness. She laughed, knowing it wasn’t a question worth asking, Even if there was an answer, nothing changed. She’d learned you could ask questions for years and nothing ever changed. God, he must think she’d gone crazy.

He lapsed into a long silence, looking as if he was really trying to figure it out. He shrugged, his face perplexed and a bit irritated, but he showed none of the signs of grief or anger that she felt.

“I think he was trying to figure something out,” he finally answered.

She didn’t know how he could be so calm when it felt like bees were crawling all over her. “It’s so cruel,” she cried. “It’s just mean.”

She looked down at his hands wrapped around hers and slipped out of his grasp, too worked up to be able to accept his nurturing. More tears rolled and she swiped at them, sick of it.

“That’s how my father died,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t give up until she told him about her past. “Sometimes I hated him so much for it.”

“Ah,” Ashford said quietly. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his eyes turned somber. “You found him?”

She was once again astounded at his ability to read her, to understand. He was so inept sometimes, but when it counted, he came through.

“I left school early because of cramps,” she explained. “I always went to my mom’s studio after school and we drove home together, so I was going to lay around until then, but the place was swarming with bridesmaids trying to get fitted so I just walked home.”

She found that it wasn’t all that difficult telling him, and it didn’t give her the crawling nausea to recall it. Something about his steady, neutral gaze gave her strength.

Since her mom’s studio was so noisy and crowded, she’d ambled the twenty or so blocks to get home, her cramps disappearing as she walked. She passed her school, knowing the responsible thing to do would be to go back and finish out the day, but she was a normal kid, and having already been dismissed, just eased guiltlessly past.

“Why did he do it?” Ashford asked.

She studied him and saw he wasn’t pitying her, the thing she hated most. He looked sorry, but it was different. She blinked a couple times, trying to dismiss her old anger and confusion. It was ten years in the past and she wanted it to stay there.

“He was depressed,” she said. “You don’t think about that the way we do in my time. It’s a sickness, and you take medicine for it. He took medicine, and went to a doctor.” She stopped and took a breath, and he held out his hand. Grateful for the choice, she took it. “But it didn’t work and he got worse and worse. I used to feel bad, because sometimes I’d get upset at him for always being so down. I wish I would have been more patient.”

He nodded, but didn’t offer any words of wisdom, another thing she was grateful for.

Her father’s depression had become so severe he’d been put on leave, something that plunged him further into despair. She knew when she got home that day that he’d be there, and as she passed the corner store, thought about stopping to get him some ice cream in the hopes of putting him in a good mood for even a few minutes. The irritation she felt at him for not being able to get better, and the defeat she knew she’d feel when the ice cream failed to cheer him up made her stomp past the store without going in.

“That’s something I couldn’t deal with for a long time,” she said. “I got obsessed with thinking that the ice cream might have changed something.”

She only ever admitted it to herself, but stopping in the store would have also saved her from the heartbreaking last minutes with her dad.

As it turned out, he had called his partner so his wife or daughter wouldn’t be the ones to find him, and Lieutenant Nader was on his way when she arrived home. Her father was in the kitchen and looked shocked to see her. She’d explained she came home sick and he asked perfunctorily if she was all right before kissing her on the forehead and starting to cry. She’d felt tired and angry to see him like that and had surely had the sourest imaginable face on as he looked at her.

‘Go on over to your grandma’s,’ he’d said through his tears, before going upstairs. ‘I want to hear the door shut behind you.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she’d said, slamming the back door so he would think she’d gone, but coming back in, wanting to eat a peanut butter sandwich and take a nap.

She was untwisting the peanut butter lid when she heard the shot. Still holding onto the jar, she walked upstairs, knowing she shouldn’t, wishing she’d gone to her grandmother’s like she’d been told. She stood frozen in her parents’ bedroom doorway, hearing the pounding on the front door, but unable to go down and answer. Lieutenant Nader finally crashed upstairs and pulled her away and she sat where he put her while he cried and made phone calls. It had taken days for the cold, heavy feeling in her limbs to go away, and the last image of her father never did leave her.

“So, yes, I found him,” she told Ashford, glad it was all out, but wanting to be done with it now. Her tears had dried and she felt lighter. Her memories no longer desperately flapped around in her mind, but calmly waited for her to put them away. “I was in therapy for five years, and I guess I still have problems with it.”

“The gun,” he said, patting his side and frowning. “I won’t carry it anymore.”

“You don’t have to stop carrying it. I’m mostly fine,” she said. “I wasn’t for a while. It’s why I’m a fingerprint analyst instead of a police officer.”

She rolled her shoulders and cracked her stiff neck, realizing how tensely she’d been holding herself.

“So many things about it sucked, but one of  the worst things was, when something traumatic happens to you as a kid, people look at you differently. No matter what you do or don’t do, they’ll find a way to attach it to what happened. It infuriated me when people would act like a bad grade didn’t matter, or if I made a mistake they’d look all knowingly at each other and tell me it was fine.”

“That would be untenable, yes,” Ashford agreed.

“Before you brought me here, I got fired from my job. I screwed up a case pretty badly, and even ten years after the fact, people were still going around whispering about how it was understandable. And the thing is, I just messed up because I wasn’t that great at my job. I should have worked full time with my mom, because I actually enjoyed that, but I wanted to live up to my dad’s memory.”

“I honestly can’t imagine you not being remarkable at anything you set your mind to, but I believe you,” he said.

“You’re sweet, Julian.” She put her face in her hands.

Now that her past was firmly under control, she was embarrassed for being so high maintenance, and the current situation rushed back at her. Scurrying around to his side of the table, she slid onto the bench with him and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I love you so much,” she said, because it was true, no longer worried about whether he’d say it back. “I don’t know how you can be all right about any of this, and yet you’re being so good to me.”

“I love you, too,” he said, kissing her temple. “I’m all right because of you, because you’re with me.”

She held on tighter. “You’re really okay about Camilla?”

“I’ll take it as it comes,” he told her resolutely, and she saw the glimmer of sadness in his eyes. She would continue to be there for him as he needed her.

“What about Kostya?” she asked.

“Yes, what about Kostya,” he sighed. “I suppose we’ll see.”

It was such an odd answer, even coming from Ashford, that she was at a loss what to say. Before she could think of anything, he got up and looked around the room distastefully.

“We can’t sleep down here,” he said. “I’ll find us a nice room upstairs and set another fire, but if you want a bath, it’ll have to be in the kitchen. As sweet as you seem to think me, I won’t haul water.”

When she woke up the next morning, it took her a few minutes before everything fully sunk in and she missed those moments of peacefulness when they faded away into harsh reality. Ashford was still asleep and she rolled out of bed as carefully as she could, wanting him to sleep as long as he needed. She knew he hadn’t had a good night’s rest since before they left for France, and she was still worried he hadn’t yet completely accepted what had happened. He was being too calm. Even if he’d reconciled himself with losing Camilla, there was no way he could have been prepared for losing Kostya.

She padded down the stairs, sniffling as she thought of Kostya. It was so unfair, and she couldn’t help but think they should have done something differently, told him the whole story, better prepared him.

“Or never sent for him at all,” she muttered as she fed logs onto the dying fire Ashford had started the night before in the dining hall, and then went to ransack the kitchen.

The devastation she still felt had destroyed her appetite, but she’d learned that preparing food kept her mind nice and empty. A few rogue tears splashed onto the empty shelves as she leaned into the dim pantry. She’d only known Kostya for a little more than a month, but she grew fond of him in that time. It had been especially fun to watch Serena tease him until his somber face broke into a very lovely grin. Poor Serena was going to be inconsolable.

At the very back she found a bag of flour and a jar of some sort of vegetable floating in briny liquid. She’d grown better at cooking, but she wasn’t a miracle worker, and if she didn’t find something else, they’d be eating the world’s driest biscuits that morning. If only she had an egg or … she looked out the kitchen window to see an apple tree and made a victory fist in the air, then headed out to pick some. There was also a small vegetable patch and she ended up having the makings of a strange but filling salad.

Ashford surprised her by sliding his arms around her waist from behind while she chopped green onions. He kissed her and made a face at her salad, continuing to hunt around until he found a sack of potatoes.

“Oh, that’ll be a nice main course,” she said. “I’ll just put them in the coals.”

“Are you certain you’re from the twenty-first century?” he asked. “Why aren’t you complaining about the lack of rapid food or electricity?”

She giggled. “It’s fast food, and it isn’t good for you anyway. Electricity would be awesome, though. I do miss that a lot of the time.”

He took her hand as she headed toward the fire. He looked like he wanted to say something but just shook his head and smiled at her. She tucked the potatoes into her apron pocket, smoothing his hair from his brow, then tried to smooth the deep lines of concern that were etched there.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’ll go back to England and check in on the house,” he said. “We can stay there or go back to Scotland if you prefer.”

She sighed. “I mean here. We can’t just leave—” her voice faltered as she thought of Kostya left behind in the underground room.

“I know, Matilda. But let’s give it another day.”

What was he waiting for? Ashford’s peculiar calm unnerved her, afraid it was only a fragile shell, and afraid of what might happen if it cracked. She only knew Kostya for a short time and she was nearly unhinged by his fatal decision. He was Ashford’s brother-in-law, a friend since childhood. Perhaps it hurt too much to think about yet. She knew she’d never understand him completely, and even more maddeningly, he’d never explain himself.