The light in her eyes was my answer. And my reward.
I had wondered, when I’d first agreed to do this, whether I’d be any help at all to Rachel. She was practically an adult, even if she’d have to wait another two years, until she turned twenty-one, before she could inherit both this house and Niels’s money in her own right. He’d set things up like that when she’d been five, and hadn’t seen the need to change his will since then, because along with all the rest of us he’d never thought he’d die at forty-two. He’d been ridiculously healthy. When his heart had stopped, he had been in the parking lot outside his gym, just coming from a workout. It was dark. He’d fallen in between the cars. No one had seen him.
Rachel had called me a few hours later in tears, and the hours after that had been frankly a blur, but I’d been here by sunrise. I’d fielded the calls from the funeral home and from my mother in Canada, sorting things through, with my father still lying up there in his hospital bed, getting over his surgery, not yet aware.
I remembered the lawyer explaining that Niels had left everything, as we’d expected, to Rachel, but with the whole estate held in trust until her twenty-first birthday. My parents were named the trustees, which would work for the finances, but my mother had spoken aloud what we both had already known: “There is no way that your father will go back to Millbank. Even if his health allowed it, which it won’t for some time yet, he just won’t go. So there’s the problem of the house, because I hate the thought of Rachel living there all by herself. And when she’s off at university, someone needs to look after things.”
I’d known what she was asking me to do, before she’d even put the words in proper order.
“Charlotte, I know it’s an imposition, but do you think you could . . . ?”
“Yes, of course,” I’d said. “Of course I will.”
There’d been no need to think things through. No hesitation.
And when Rachel smiled like she was smiling now, I knew I’d made the right decision.
With a nod she let me know we were still on for Sunday brunch and shopping. “I got us a reservation for eleven thirty.”
“Perfect. Let’s just hope this rain lets up by then. It’s no fun driving in it.”
“Did you see the accident?” she asked me. “Was it really bad?”
I shook my head. “We didn’t come down the main road.”
“We?”
“Sam Abrams, the contractor, told me the shore road was safer, so I followed him.”
“Oh, is that the guy Malaika knows? The one who does the work on all her houses?” Rachel asked. “The Mohawk guy?”
“No, his hair’s just cut normally.”
“I didn’t mean a Mohawk haircut, silly. Mohawk as in Native American. He’s like, about your age, a little older maybe, really built, short hair? He drives a big, black truck? I’ve never talked to him or anything,” she said, “but he seems nice.”
“He is. He’s very nice.”
“Nicer than—”
“Hey, go easy on the wine,” I interrupted as she reached to pour a second glass. “You’re underage. If Mrs. Bonetti comes over and finds you drunk, I’ll get in trouble.”
“Mrs. Bonetti won’t care if I’m drinking wine. Anyhow, New York law says I can drink at home.”
I’d tried that argument myself at her age, but I’d quickly learned that, when you argue with your brother and your brother is a lawyer, you get slammed by all the subclauses. The sad part was, I still remembered most of them. “Well, technically, it says that you can drink at home if there’s a parent with you, or a legal guardian. And since I’m neither one of those—” And then I stopped, because I realized what I’d said.
Rachel glanced past my shoulder to the empty chair behind me.
Mentally I kicked myself. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine. You’re right, I shouldn’t have more wine. I’ve still got lots of reading to get finished before classes start.” She set the bottle down and forced the little smile that hadn’t changed since she was seven, and was just as unconvincing now. And then she rose and cleared her dishes off the table and retreated upstairs to her room.
Left alone, I reached over and picked up the bottle and filled my own wineglass. I filled it as near to the brim as I could. And I looked, in my turn, to the chair at the head of the table.
I said, “I am trying.”
But if Niels was anywhere where he could hear me, he didn’t reply.
Lydia
The path up from the cove between the trees had not yet turned to mud before she reached its top, so it was only the last dash across the clearing that exposed her to the fury of the storm.
Her skirts still gathered to her knees, she ran more freely and had crossed the threshold of the kitchen doorway before she became aware the room was crowded with more people than it should have been.
She looked from Joseph, standing braced beside the hearth, his face drawn and determined, to her other brother, Benjamin, who had been sitting at the table but who stood as she came in, as though to block her view. Or shield her.
Looking beyond Benjamin, she found her father’s watchful eyes and focused on them, making no attempt to hide the pain and disbelief in hers as she asked in a tone she wished were less unsteady, “Father?”
He was standing with two men behind him.
No, not simply men, she thought: two soldiers.
And not simply soldiers: two French soldiers. There was no mistaking those white coats. They gleamed like vengeful spirits in the dim space of the long and narrow kitchen, where the ceiling beams hung low above them and the windows with their heavy glass obscured yet further by the pelting rain let in a sickly shaded light.
At first she had the dreadful thought her family might be prisoners, and fear rose up within her, swift and sudden as an unexpected wave. It closed her throat and stole her breath until she noticed that, although the Frenchmen wore their swords, their weapons were not drawn. They stood at ease, hands at their sides, and watched.
Her father slid his gaze from hers. “These officers,” he said, “have been assigned to me, on their parole of honour. They’ll be staying with us.”
“Staying here?” She glanced again at Joseph. “You cannot—”
Her father spoke sharply. “I can and I have. It’s my duty.” His tone, she knew well from experience, stopped all discussion and warned her to hold her tongue. Yet his stern eyes, when they lifted once more to her own, were not demanding her compliance. They were asking for her caution. “Lieutenant de Brassart speaks very good English. He’ll serve as interpreter for his companion. You’ll find them both gentlemen, and you shall treat them as such.” In keeping with this order he stepped slightly to the side and made a formal presentation to the officers. “Lieutenant de Brassart, Lieutenant de Sabran, this is my daughter, Miss Lydia Wilde.”
There appeared to be little enough to distinguish one man from the other apart from their long buttoned waistcoats beneath the white coats of their uniforms—one a bright scarlet with gold trim, the other a deep vibrant blue. They both wore the same sharp cocked hats, had the same dark brown hair fastened back in a queue, and were much the same height, being both of an age she’d have judged to be not far above Joseph’s twenty-six years. But the man on the right, in the blue waistcoat, studied her silently as his companion stepped forward.
The man with the red waistcoat bowed while removing his hat in a gentleman’s gesture.
His accented English was elegant. “Miss Wilde,” he said, “we are most desolate to inconvenience you.”
This was Lieutenant de Brassart, then.