That clearly surprised him. “Her what?”
“She kept a diary.” She rose. “Mother’s words shocked me, but once I looked, really looked, the truth became obvious. Anabelle and I share your nose and chin and hands.”
“Coincidence.”
“So too our stature. Moreover, Anabelle’s skin is light.”
“Stop!”
She could not. “Mother made you promise to treat her exactly the same as me. That’s why you let her grow up as my friend, why she learned to read and write, why she slept in my room.”
“You know nothing of what happened.”
“I know what Mother wrote, how disappointed she was, how her heart broke when she discovered what you had done.”
He rose. “Silence!”
Though he towered over her, she could not stop. Once begun, the words must run their course. “I love my sister and want the best for her and her baby. Yes, she is married. She has been for four years. It’s time she lived with her husband.”
“That decision was not yours to make.”
“Wasn’t it? You gave her to me.”
“Upon your wedding, which you have done everything to ruin. Anabelle is still my property.”
“She’s your daughter.” Elizabeth would not back down. “The truth cannot be hidden. The harder you try to smother it, the more it wiggles free. Now even Charlie knows.” She had left the diary and Mother’s Bible with him before leaving tonight for what she had expected would be her farewell voyage.
“Charlie? You told Charlie?” The veins bulged on his forehead. His cheek ticked, but she ignored the warning.
“I gave him the diary.”
The blow snapped her head around and spun her backwards. She slammed against the wall. Pain shot down her spine and robbed the strength from her legs. She slid to the floor and into darkness.
23
Shadowy images and muffled sounds drifted in and out of Elizabeth’s consciousness. Whether dream or reality she did not know. Heaviness pressed upon her. Even her eyes could not open. Pain knifed marrow from bone and soul from body. Death beckoned, promising the peace that life could not bring.
Rourke.
His name tugged her back toward the pain.
She looked for him in this land of shadows, but he was always just beyond sight. She tried to call to him. Her mouth moved. Her lips opened, but no sound came out.
Rourke.
There he was, just above her. He grasped for her hand, but she slipped away, falling, falling. She clung to the last bit of canvas. The abyss beckoned. The black ocean tugged. He called out for her, stretched forth his arm. She could see his hand, could nearly reach his fingers, but the distance was too great.
Don’t leave me.
He looked back. Just once. Then he was gone.
Forever. Somehow she knew that he would never return. That knowledge weighed upon her. The pain and emptiness were too much to endure.
She let go. The waters closed over her, yet she gasped for breath.
A murmur of voices broke through the shadows, pulling her back from the depths.
A woman’s frantic cry. “Will she end up like her brother?”
A man’s hushed reply. “It’s too early to know.”
Though the murmuring continued, she slipped away again, this time to the shore. Her toes dug into the narrow fringe of glistening white sand. The turquoise sea stretched before her, endless as the sky. If only she could get to the other side. Then she would find Rourke. He’d been here, nearly within her grasp moments before, but now he was gone. She searched the horizon for his ship. She called out his name. She reached out her arms and wept for their emptiness.
“Lizzie, my Lizzie,” a man wept. “Can you ever forgive me? Please open your eyes. Please give me a chance to beg your forgiveness. The fault is all mine. I was wrong, so wrong, in so many ways.” Sobs muffled his words until the last. “Please, God, don’t make her suffer for my sins.”
Not Rourke.
Father. His agony pleaded with her, yet she recoiled. Ran. As fast as she could along the shore, where the glassy waves lapped against her toes.
Again she looked for Rourke. Again she reached out.
Return to me.
Yet the horizon remained empty.
With a shudder, Elizabeth awoke. Her eyelids flew open, and she immediately closed them against the blinding light.
“Good afternoon, Lizzie.”
“Charlie?” His name rasped against her dry throat.
“At least you know who I am. I don’t suppose you’re ready to play chess, though.”
She cautiously opened her eyes a fraction. “Bright.” And closed them again.
“I’m sorry.”
She heard a thumping sound, then sensed diminished light. This time she lifted her eyelids a bit at a time.
“I wanted to study,” he said. Again that thumping sound. “Seeing as you’ve been sleeping for four days now, I saw no reason to keep the room dark.”
“Four days?”