I heard a voice through the open window. The evening had cooled, and J.C. had gone on at dinner about how much she liked sleeping in a cool room in the nude, and then she had laughed at my reddening face. “Oh, Precious Bride. I am so bad, I know. It’s age, I think. I have no reason to care what people know about me.”
Still clutching the slip, I crossed the room to kneel on the window seat. (On the small table beside it was, indeed, a balloon glass with a splash of cognac in the bottom. Unfortunately, the glass was resting in a puddle of the stuff. How careless she was! But I didn’t dare clean it up lest she realize someone had been in the room.) Sighing, I pressed my forehead against the glass. The view from this side of the house was remarkable in the daytime: the garden below, the woods, and then the distant purple ridge of mountains beyond. It was a vast, romantic view, and it made sense that the largest, grandest bedrooms were on this side of the house. Now the ridge was just a faint line against the horizon, but I could see the maze in the garden and three figures in the center of it quite clearly. Three, where there should just have been Hera, standing on her moss-grown pedestal, her peacock in her arms. Stunned, I squeezed my eyes shut for a second to clear them. When I opened them again, the figures were still there, etched in the same silver light as the flowers on the wallpaper.
“What are you doing in here?”
Hearing Press’s husky whisper, I should have been chagrined. Ashamed of myself. But I couldn’t look away.
“Charlotte!”
Without turning, I waved him toward the window.
“Why are you in here, Charlotte? Where’s J.C.?”
I sat back on my heels, not knowing whether to laugh or cry out in indignation.
Press put his hand on my shoulder as he leaned forward to look. I watched his face, looking for the same shock that had taken hold of me. Instead, a sly smile came to his face.
I looked back down at the scene below. J.C. was on her knees in the white pea gravel surrounding the statue, just a foot or two away from one of the marble benches, her arms wrapped around the hips of the skeletally thin man standing in front of her, her face pressed into his groin. She wore a clinging robe, her head, back, and waist a trim, recognizable silhouette. The man’s face was upturned to the clear night sky; his eyes were closed, a look of sublime pleasure softening his sharp features.
Terrance.
I put a hand against the window to steady myself.
Press looked down, still amused. “Poor Charlotte. Let’s get you back to your bed where you belong.”
“But we can’t. They have to stop!”
“They’re adults, Charlotte. This isn’t any of our business.”
“Of course it’s our business. She may be a guest, but that man is at our table every day. He serves our food.” I shuddered. “It’s disgusting. And he’s. . . .” I couldn’t find the words.
“What are you talking about?” Press looked genuinely puzzled. “Hugh?”
I shook my head, continuing to whisper, afraid they’d hear even though we were many feet above them.
“It’s not Hugh. Didn’t you see? It’s Terrance.”
Press chuckled and rubbed my shoulder. “Honey, it’s not Terrance. That’s Hugh down there. Although I rather like the idea that she’d be a good sport and give Terrance a thrill.”
“No. You’re wrong.”
“Am I? Look again.”
God knows, I didn’t want to look into the garden again; but Press seemed so confident, I had to see for myself. I leaned forward again, trying not to look at J.C. but at the man’s face.
There was no doubt that it was Hugh. But I had definitely seen Terrance. I felt tricked somehow. Deceived. As Press led me from the room, I sensed a lightening of the heavy atmosphere I’d felt when I’d earlier crossed the gallery. It was as though the house were laughing at me.
Press helped me into my own bed and got in to spoon against me. He kissed me lightly on the back of my head as though I were a child and told me to just forget what I’d seen.
“She’s a pistol, that J.C.; I’m sorry she shocked you.”
I didn’t think of myself as a prude, but I imagined what Olivia might have done. J.C. would surely have been quietly asked to leave.
“We can’t have people like that around Michael. I don’t want Hugh here anymore, either. What if Nonie had seen them? Or Marlene?” I didn’t mention Terrance. A part of me was still certain that I’d really seen him, and I knew that he had witnessed—done!—far worse. But I wouldn’t tell Press what I was thinking. What if he was a part of the deception? Though a part of me was very relieved that he hadn’t been the man with her in the maze.
“They’re adults, darling. It’s not any of our business. And Nonie isn’t here, is she?”
“You need to speak to Hugh.”
“It didn’t look like he was forcing himself on her. Did it look that way to you? What they were doing wasn’t so bad. It’s not like we’ve never done it.”
I stiffened as he slid his hand over my hip and into the curve of my waist.