Tasha Alexander - Dangerous to Know

A perhaps too-discreet voice of reason suggested to me my feelings might have differed if her attentions had met with direct and obvious resistance from my husband. Colin’s gaze locked on mine, but I did not see in his eyes what I wanted and felt myself slipping into a sea of unpleasant emotions. Madame Prier reached towards me, concern on her face, her words revealing she’d incorrectly identified the source of my angst.

“Please don’t judge us too harshly,” she said. “When Edith was taken away, I mourned for longer than you can imagine. It was worse than death, knowing she was alive but inaccessible to reason. Toinette is correct even if her manner is…abrasive. Edith’s passing is a relief—she’s out of whatever strange hell trapped her all these years.”

“It’s outrageous that you would say such a thing.” I hadn’t heard Laurent return, but felt the weight of his hands on the back of my chair behind which he now stood, the fire of anger painting his olive complexion. “If you had let her come home, she’d still be alive.”

“This is the sort of conversation that can lead to nothing but pain,” Colin said, stepping around to hold out his hand to the other man. “Colin Hargreaves. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

Laurent scowled but let Colin shake his hand. His mother introduced the rest of us, who were granted nothing beyond a stiff nod.

“Are you really going forth with this entertainment tomorrow, Maman ?” he asked. “Your concert?”

“Mais oui,” Madame Prier said. “You know I have already grieved.”

“Then stop drowning yourself in mourning clothes,” he said. “The hypocrisy is outrageous. Or do you care more about the opinion of your acquaintances than in holding to your principles? You want to look as if you grieve.”

“I shall not discuss this with you, Laurent,” she said.

“And I shall not remain to hear any further nonsense.” He turned to me, a look of ferocious intensity shooting from his eyes. “Lady Emily, it is you who found my sister, is it not?”

“I—I—yes,” I said, cringing at the question and lowering my eyes to avoid his mother’s gaze.

“I’ve returned to ask for a word with you in private.” His voice held no note of query, only demand. He held out his arm, as if to guide me from the room. I did not rise from my chair. “Can you not move on your own? Must you seek permission? To whom do I apply to receive such a thing?”

Unaccustomed to being addressed in such a manner and paralyzed at the thought of him questioning me about what I’d seen, I said nothing.

“It’s perfectly fine, Emily,” Colin said, coming close and helping me to my feet, his voice husky and quiet. “He’s entitled to know, and it’s best done away from his mother.”

In principle, I agreed. Principles, however, are one thing in theory and another in practice, particularly when sticking to them means being sent off with an angry stranger to speak about a topic I’d have preferred to forget altogether. “May my husband accompany us?”

“No,” he said and opened the door. “ Seulement vous . This is not a garden party. You’ve no need for a chaperone.”

Colin put a gentle hand on my arm. “Don’t make him speak of these things in front of other people. It’s too awful.” I searched his eyes for sympathy to my plight. He touched my cheek.

“It’s just that—”

“Go, Emily,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Hardly aware of anything beyond the thumping of my heart, I followed Laurent. Even before he’d closed the door behind us, Toinette’s laughter filled the room.

Laurent balled his hand into a hard fist. “He should have taken her instead.”

We walked along a small corridor and up three flights of a square turning staircase to a dim, wood-paneled room, whose wide windows afforded a glimpse of the top of the cathedral. In one corner stood a pianoforte, its case covered with haphazard stacks of paper similar to the ones scattered over a long table pushed against the wall. A glossy puddle of black had ruined the pile nearest an overturned inkwell, and the only chair in the room lay tipped on the floor.

“Did she suffer?”

“I—I—” How could I answer such a question? He grabbed my arms and shook me.

“Tell me what you saw. Did she suffer?”

“I didn’t witness the crime,” I said. My heart pounded and my stomach lurched, my breath catching in my throat.

“But you saw her. You saw what he did. I must know.” His eyes, wild and fierce, scared me.

“Yes, she did suffer.” Tears spilled from my eyes as I remembered her face and the unnatural angle of her head. “Unimaginable horrors.”

“I must know everything.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“What did she look like?” he asked.

“Brutalized.”

“She was strangled first?”

“I don’t know!” I said, summoning the strength to push him away from me. “You will not force me to live it again.”

“I have to know.”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you wish to never sleep again? To be haunted by a ghastly and inhuman image?”

“No one possessed more humanity than she. Even in death she couldn’t have lost that.”

“You misunderstand,” I said, my voice now firm. “I speak of the crime.”

“Did you see her eyes?” he asked, clutching my arm in his strong hand.

“Her eyes?”

“Yes.”

“I—” I closed my own and remembered hers. “They were vacant. Dark and empty.”

He dropped my arm and turned away. “Then he did take her soul.”

“No one’s eyes look natural after death,” Colin said. We’d returned from Rouen without Cécile, who had stayed behind to attend Madame Prier’s concert. More, she assured us, out of a desire to observe the family’s behavior than an interest in music. At the time of our departure, going home appeared a more appealing option, but after another painful evening with my mother-in-law, I was beginning to question the wisdom of the decision.

“There was something to the way he said it.” I felt all knotted up inside. “The idea that the murderer took her very soul…”

“You’re upsetting yourself unnecessarily.”

“When, exactly, did I lose your sympathy?” I asked, pouring tea from the tray we’d had sent to our room.

“You haven’t, my dear. But we cannot go on forever concerned with nothing but this business.”

“Forgive me. I wasn’t aware of a prescribed time for recovering after stumbling upon a ghastly murder scene.”

“You know that’s not what I’m suggesting. But—and do forgive me, Emily—you haven’t seemed yourself for so long. I’m worried that you’re…”

“That I’m what?”

“I don’t know. That you’re allowing these events—all of them—to consume you.”

“All of them?” Shock did not begin to describe what I felt. It was as if the floor had crumbled beneath my feet. “Surely you don’t include the baby?”

“I do,” he said, not meeting my eyes. The sound of blood rushing loud in my ears, I took his face in my hands and turned it, roughly, forcing him to look at me.

“How dare you?”

“I don’t want to lose you, too,” he said. “What are you letting yourself become? You haven’t looked at your Greek since we left Constantinople. You’ve made no mention of any of the myriad projects that used to matter to you. I can’t even remember the last time you picked up a book to read without me prodding you first.”

Studying Greek after the death of my first husband had catalyzed in me an intellectual awakening and transformed me from a typical society girl into a person I hoped was more interesting and open-minded. For months I’d dedicated myself to translating Homer’s Odyssey into English, pausing only to focus on the task of cataloging the ancient art tucked away in country houses so scholars might know where to find significant pieces. The work was satisfying and challenging, and meant a great deal to me. It hadn’t come as a surprise that I’d abandoned it during my honeymoon, but during the months thereafter, while I recovered from my injuries, I’d not returned to a state of productivity.