Tasha Alexander - Dangerous to Know

“I don’t want that,” I whispered.

“Can I count on you to stop when I tell you to?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, Emily, you don’t.”

“Then why bother to ask?”

“Because it matters to me that you understand why I’m doing this,” he said. “I’m not some unreasonable brute.”

“I know.” My voice was barely audible.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” I said.

He looked at the floor, then rose to his feet, lifting me up with him. “So knowing her child was lost to her made Edith’s mental state deteriorate more quickly,” he said, his voice rough.

“What if a man came to visit her—maybe the man who was looking after the child?—and he agreed to let her meet the little girl?”

“You’re sure it’s a girl?”

“Absolutely,” I said, numb.

“He helped her escape.”

“And months passed before she was found murdered. What happened during that time?” There was no joy in this for me now.

“Forgive me. I see how unhappy you are,” he said. “It’s not that you can’t do anything, Emily, only that you can’t do everything .”

I did understand. I did see the reason in his arguments. I even could accept that his position was just, even correct. But it made no difference. The only thing that mattered was wondering if I’d ever be able to forgive him.

When I woke the next morning, I knew I would forgive him. Anything else was impossible. Still, I was unhappy with what had transpired between us and the cautious and too-tender smile he bestowed upon me as he turned on his pillow to kiss me was like harsh light in delicate eyes. My body responded the way it always did to his touch, but there was a disconnect, and it was as if I watched us from above instead of drowning in pleasure with him the way I used to. As always, he was beyond attentive, deliciously thorough, but I wanted to cry, wanted to erase the hours that had led us to this painful and awkward place.

Painful and awkward for me, at any rate. My husband did not seem troubled in the least. Quite the contrary. He sprung out of bed, bent over to kiss me, and rang for Meg. “Ready for your morning ablutions?” he asked, whistling an obtrusively cheerful tune.

I rolled over and groaned. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Up, lazy girl,” he said. “I’m not cutting you out of the fun altogether, so there’s no need to mope. What do you think is our best strategy? Talk to the obtuse Monsieur Prier? Grill moody Laurent? Or shall we pester Dr. Girard again?”

I pulled the pillow over my head. “I’ll leave it to you to decide.”

“Oh no, my dear.” He wrenched the pillow from my hand. “I won’t have you making my decision into something it’s not. You’re still involved with this, and I need your opinion.”

Need it now , I thought, but not when things get interesting . No sooner had this flown through my brain than a wave of guilt followed, hard on its heels. I could choose misery or accept the reality into which I’d freely entered, a reality that somewhere in my soul I knew to be reasonable. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. “Monsieur Prier is unlikely to know anything about the whereabouts of the child, and I think that’s the piece of the puzzle we need to find next. Dr. Girard has told us what he will—unless you’ve some hidden plan to torture more out of him when I’m not around.”

“You’re dreadful,” he said, bending over to kiss the side of my neck. Once again, my body betrayed me and my skin delighted at the feeling of his lips.

“I doubt very much he’s the only person at the asylum who knew about the birth,” I said, sitting up. “We need to speak to the nurses, the orderlies, the rest of the staff. Someone may be able to identify Edith’s mysterious visitor. I’m confident he could lead us to the child.”

“Do you think she’s still alive?” he asked.

“The child?” I asked; he nodded. “You agree with me that she’s a girl?”

“I’ve yet to see reason to doubt your intuition,” he said.

This brought immediate tears to my eyes.

“It’s not that I’ve lost any measure of faith in you, Emily. But I’m going to better look after you from now on.”

I wiped the tears with the back of my hand.

“And I won’t have you wallowing,” he said, smiling. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I said, my insides a mass of confusion.

“So?” he asked. “Do you think the child is alive?”

“I do. And we should find her as soon as possible.”

“He was definitely French.” The girl wriggled in her chair, uncomfortable. “I never really talked to him, though. He came every other Friday, I think it was. Or maybe once a month. Can’t rightly remember, but I know I thought of him as reliable. You could always depend on him showing up again.”

The young nurse’s assistant was the eleventh person to whom we’d spoken. Dr. Girard—who assured us he’d not had a recent visit from Laurent—had not objected to us questioning them, even gave us the use of his office, though he made it clear again he had made no progress when searching out the true identity of the man who, according to the nurses, called himself Charles Myriel. Everyone remembered him as kind and constant, and the general consensus was that his presence soothed Edith, even when she was in the midst of a difficult spell. But no one had ever had occasion to extract from him any personal information. He always came on horseback, alone, stayed exactly an hour, and disappeared with no fanfare.

Frustrated, Colin and I called for the doctor to rejoin us.

“Sir,” my husband said. “We appreciate the situation in which you now find yourself. You assisted this lady in her time of greatest need—you refused to help her along , as her brother requested, when she was with child. And that means you must have sent the baby—whom you must have delivered—somewhere to be cared for. Now is not the time to hide your courageous deeds. Tell us where she is.”

“You know she was a girl?” he asked, slumping in his chair.

“Every vision Edith reported to her family was of a little girl,” I said.

The doctor shook his head. “That may be so, but she couldn’t have known the gender of the child at the time.”

“She had a one in two chance of guessing correctly,” Colin said.

“And in this case she was correct,” Dr. Girard said. “I wish I could give you something to lead you to this man who visited her, but I can assure you he had nothing to do with Lucy—she was called Lucy. Edith asked if she could name the child. How could I deny her when she was suffering such anguish? She knew her parents would never accept the girl, and agreed to let me send Lucy away—far away—with a cousin of mine.”

“So your cousin is raising her?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I felt there needed to be a further layer of distance to ensure Edith’s identity would remain secret. My cousin took the baby to Gibraltar—he was on his way to Egypt—and delivered her to the care of a Catholic convent there. So far as I know, the nuns are raising her.”

“Do you receive any reports from them?” His story seemed about as plausible to me as the queen deciding to remarry.

“I don’t,” he said. “Monsieur Prier’s reaction to his daughter’s illness was so…violent…I feared for what he might do if he learned the truth.”

“Violent?” Colin asked.

“Violent?” I echoed him. “Did you not think pointing out to us that her father was violent might have been a pertinent fact given that she was brutally murdered?”

“You’re suggesting that he might, somehow, have found out about Lucy and come for Edith, and murdered her?” the doctor asked.