Chapter 20
Scars tell us what we survived
IVY
After a night of fractured sleep, I wake before the sun does.
Alistair isn't there. He never is—he gets up at some ungodly hour to work out or run an empire, and by the time I'm vertical he's usually been functional for hours.
I lie in the dim blue light and think about Brumilde. She was still in theatre when we left the hospital. Alistair had a call on the way home and didn't tell me anything concrete.
I try to go back to sleep, but it doesn't take.
The coffee machine in our wing has three steam wands and I don't have the faintest idea how to use it, so I pad downstairs.
My feet make no sound on the runners and the grey light makes everything—the paintings, the vase of whatever Isobel's gardener has selected this week—look theatrical.
I pass portraits of stern-faced ancestors who would wonder what someone like me was doing in a fancy house like this.
There is someone already in the kitchen. She is maybe twenty-five, small and dark-haired, in a neat black uniform with a small enamel pin of a daisy on her collar. She is arranging a silver tray.
“Oh—Mrs. Ravenscroft.”
I look blankly at her for a second. I don't think I'll ever get used to being called Mrs Ravenscroft.
“Can I get you something?”
“Please call me Ivy,” I say. “And coffee, yes. Any coffee please. All the coffee.”
She smiles and fills another French press with just-boiled water.
“Is the tray for Isobel?” I ask. “I'll take it.”
She hesitates, but makes the concession, and tells me where to find Isobel's office.
Her office door is mostly open.
She is behind her desk—fully dressed at five in the morning, silk blouse and a narrow skirt, hair done, the gold chain at her throat I've seen on her before.
Her laptop is open and the screen's light is on her face.
She looks as immaculate as ever, but also a little worn out.
Her raven cane is propped against the desk.
On the corner of the desk, beside her water glass, is a small prescription bottle and two white pills she has not yet taken.
I knock with my foot to announce my arrival.
When she sees me she pushes the laptop shut with one elegantly manicured fingertip.
“What luck. I've been wanting to speak to you.”
“I brought coffee.”
“Thank the gods,” she replies, a new sparkle in her tired eyes.
I set the tray down, press the plunger, pour two cups, and take a seat.
I'm afraid to ask, but do so anyway. “Brumilde?”
“Stable. She came out of surgery just before midnight. They have her in ICU but the surgeon was very pleased. She took the worst of it on her back—damage to a kidney, a concussion, multiple lacerations. With any luck, she will be home by the end of the week.”
I close my eyes. She must have covered Alex with her body. I want to weep, but I swallow the lump in my throat and keep it together.
“Alexander was sleeping soundly when last we heard. He comes home this morning. His wound was worse than I expected, poor thing. But it's not a bad thing to have a scar. Scars tell us what we survived.”
My eyes sting, and I look down at my coffee, blinking, trying to clear the beginning of my tears. I need to change the subject. “How long have you been up?”
“A while. I don't sleep well when my family are in hospital.”
“No. Apparently I don't, either.”
“Brodie's man who investigated the damage to Ascot Grange said they'd put a bomb in the nursery wall.”
I grimace at the sheer brutality of it. Who would do that? A baby’s nursery! Anger and grief mixing together in my chest.
How dare they? My fingers curled into fists. “They must have sent someone in when the solar was being installed,” I whispered.
“It's not your fault,” replies Isobel. “Elena Kuznetsova would have found a way in regardless.”
I reach for any kind of comfort. “But she's dead, now, right? She's really dead. We're safe.” I was desperate to believe it, but I knew before Isobel answered me that the life of a Ravenscroft is never truly safe.
Isobel almost smiles, then sets her cup down.
“Ivy. I'm afraid we have another difficulty.”
My first thought is Christopher's recent gambling debts, but Isobel is looking at me in a way that suggests otherwise.
“There was a message in the night. On a channel only certain people use—from a man I have known about for a long time and never met.”
My cup quivers.
“Hargrove claims to have been a silent partner of Mikhail and Elena for a number of years. A senior one. The kind that doesn't appear in photographs. He has heard the news about Elena and has drawn the obvious conclusion. And he is of the view that half of the Kuznetsov fortune is his.”
“Half of Alex's trust.”
“Half of what was Mikhail's, which became Alex's, which is now in Alistair's safekeeping. He is informing me—with great courtesy—that he intends to collect it.”
“Courtesy?”
“The courtesy of a man who believes he will succeed.”
I blink at her, taking it in. “Does Alistair know?”
“Not yet. The message came just after three. I don't yet know how I want to handle this, but I will think of something.”
She looks out of the window. “Ivy. There is something I need to tell you. And I need you not to tell anyone.”
“Alistair?”
“Not Alistair.”
“Isobel —”
“Especially not Alistair. For now. I will tell him myself, when the time is right. I am not asking you to lie. I am asking you to carry something for a short while. Will you?”
I take a breath.
“Yes.”
“I have been giving some thought to what the end of my life looks like.”
I don't say anything.
“As you know from our conversation on your wedding day, I am not going to be here for as long as I had planned to be.”
“Isobel —”
“Let me finish, darling.”
“I have watched people I love die badly, Ivy. Not in the moral sense. In the other sense. Prolonged. Diminished. Beyond anything they would have chosen.” A dry inflection. “I am a woman with particular views on dignity.”
I nod. I understand.
“I am not going to do it that way. I have a plan. I have a place I intend to go. And when it is time, I am going to go. On my own terms. Before it becomes something this family has to watch. And they cannot know about it, because they will try to stop me. I’m sure you understand.”
My eyes have filled.
“When?”
“Not yet. Soon. Not yet.”
“And Hargrove?”
“I will deal with Hargrove. Squashing this threat is going to be my last responsibility as matriarch of this family.
I have given my whole life to this family, Ivy.
I don't—” her voice catches once—“regret a moment of it. Not one. But it is time for me to handle one last thing and then go my own way.”
She stops. Her eyes have gone brighter.
“So. I am asking you, Ivy. To keep my secret. Please.”
“It's not my secret to tell. I won't tell him. I won't tell any of them.”
She reaches across the desk and takes my hand. She squeezes once, hard, and lets go.
“Thank you, my darling.”
“There you are.”
Alistair's voice behind me. I jolt and turn. He is in the doorway, sweaty from the gym, a towel around his neck.
I smile. “I came for coffee.” My voice sounds normal.
“That's no surprise,” he murmurs, winking at me. My tender parts wake up. God, the man is delicious.
“Come in for a cup, darling,” says Isobel. “We have something to discuss.”