Chapter 31 Daybreak
Chapter Thirty-One
Daybreak
The staff opened the pool on the first of June, as they did every year, draining the winter’s stagnant weight and refilling it with water so clear it mirrored the sky.
Jack stood on the back veranda, as two groundsmen folded back the heavy canvas cover and a third skimmed the surface, sweeping away the debris. The morning air carried the faint mineral scent of limestone and chlorine, as salt air blew onto the terrace from the sea.
Steam rose from the blue water as the morning chill lingered past its welcome. Spring seemed reluctant to leave, forcing summer to arrive slanted and tentative, almost apologetic in exhausted shades of gold.
“Water’s a comfortable thirty-two degrees, sir.”
“Thank you, Tom. Looks like a fine day for a swim.”
The gardener worked at the ledge where a low bed of flowers bloomed. The hedgerows had thickened into walls of glossy green. If he squinted his eyes and looked far enough, he’d see a speck of black in the distance, where The Preserve rested like a hibernating bear.
They were all islands.
People assumed loneliness was a condition of the poor, a consequence of too little, but loneliness lived just as comfortably in excess.
He recognized its shape in every empty room of Thornfield Manor.
The way his footsteps echoed off marble floors.
The way one dinner plate filled a table built for twelve.
No matter Jack’s circumstances, the silence at the center of his life remained constant.
He bore it, not with bravery or grace but with the dull, mechanical acceptance of a man who expected nothing more. Jack made peace with his solitary life in slow, grinding increments, the way a man makes peace with a terminal diagnosis.
Cursed to always be a distant observer. A protector that no one watched long enough to recognize. His path had been carved by his own design, of course, so he accepted it with unquivering resignation.
Daisy would live her life and he would ensure the cold never touched her again. A silent guardian who watched from the shadows, but never dared to interfere.
She would settle into a home filled with love and laughter. Her children would never know hunger the way they did. They would never know the brave things their mother did for their security, and that was the modest beauty of it. They never had to.
The world was full of whispered secrets. The more comfortable a person became, the easier the seedy truth became to ignore.
He wanted her to forget. Every struggle. Every tear. Every scream. He wished her a life of ease and pleasure, knowing all too well the pain of memories that overstayed their welcome.
His memory was long and filled with sharp, jagged edges he wouldn’t wish on anyone. Like a guest that lingered too long after a party ended, he viewed the world with sobering hindsight.
The silence in the absence of music. The unquenchable thirst for distraction after the champagne had run dry. It was a perpetual, haunting hangover that never faded, but it was also the only way he knew how to live.
So he accepted it.
“Pool’s ready for you, sir.”
Jack set down his tea and stripped out of his silk robe. “Thank you, boys. There are fresh scones in the dining room. Myrtle made them this morning. Help yourselves.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Setting a towel on the settee, he dove into the water.
The cold seized him like a fist, but his body quickly adapted. He swam beneath the surface, eyes open, watching the pale blue world distort above. Sunlight fractured and sound vanished.
There was a time when silence nearly destroyed him. The quiet before a heavy footfall. The click of a door. The chime of a bell. Silence threw every other sound into such sharp contrast, the smallest rustling could crash like a wave and leave a person drowning in fear.
It was why he liked music. He loved the chaotic, endless clatter of jazz and how it swallowed the silence in big chomping bites.
Music was a gift. A comfort. A chaotic distraction.
Silence was honest. It made a man face who he truly was. No masks, no noise, no more disguises.
As he neared the surface, a blurred figure took shape.
Jack breathed deep and wiped the water from his eyes. Nick stood, holding a towel and his robe.
“Sir, you have a visitor.” He stepped aside, and Jack’s heart stopped.
She was a radiant vision his brain instantly denied. He didn’t trust his eyes as his lungs forgot how to breathe.
The last of his breath rushed out in a single word, “Daisy.”
She raised her hand tentatively. “Hi, Jack.”
Her face had filled out, and her clothes were new, but her eyes still told a story of hardship that he suffered a pressing need to ease.
Jack rushed up the ladder, water splashing off of him in urgent disorder.
“Sir,” Nick muttered, handing him a towel.
Buffing away the water, Jack quickly covered himself with his robe. He took a step forward, then stilled. “What are you doing here?”
Her smile was brief. Too brief to reach her tired eyes. “You’re not an easy person to find.”
“Yet here you are.” He took another hesitant step.
She reached into her small purse and withdrew a letter. He recognized it immediately.
“You did this.” When he didn’t try to deny her accusation, her face pinched. “A scholarship, for underprivileged women, in my mother’s name.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, too much for Jack to bear, so he closed the distance. “It wasn’t meant to make you cry.”
She slapped the letter to his chest. “The Pamela Burdan Memorial Fund.” Her lips pressed into a tight line. “I contacted the trust. Seeds of Hope? That’s you.”
“I wanted to honor the woman who raised you.”
Twin tears fell from her lashes. “You didn’t even know her.”
“I know her daughter.” He reached for her cheek, sweeping away that vicious tear. “I’ve missed you.”
Her eyes closed as she leaned her face into his touch. He didn’t know how long they had, so he savored what little contact he could get.
“Why didn’t you come for me?”
Her words caught him off guard. “You… You left.”
Looking up at him with those haunting green eyes, she shook her head. “I didn’t know what was happening. Everything was suddenly falling apart. Tannh?user, the—”
“Shh, shh, shh.” He pulled her into a tight hug, grateful she didn’t push him away. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? You saved me. Again. I think about what could have happened, and I…I…”
He drew back, holding her shoulders firmly as he looked into her glassy eyes. “Don’t think about that.”
She nodded. “I know. I try not to.”
He spent countless nights forcing himself to see the situation from her side. “I never wanted you to see that side of me.”
Her brow pinched as she blinked back more tears. “What side?”
“Ugly. A killer.”
“You were defending me.”
He released her shoulders and stepped back. Over the weeks that followed what would be the last feast, he made a decision to accept who he was. Daisy deserved the truth. “That’s not the first time I’ve killed a man.”
The silence stretched, cool and slow, like a wayward breeze slicing through a balmy summer day. But she didn’t run.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.” She licked her lips and glanced at the nearby garden table. “Can we sit?”
“O—of course.” He fumbled over his words and quickly pulled out a chair. When she touched her throat, he rushed to pour her a glass of water from the pitcher on the tray.
“Thank you.” She sipped steadily, draining the glass as her eyes scanned her surroundings. “Your house is big.”
He chuckled, more tickled by her presence than amused by her words. “Do you like your new home?”
She met his stare and set down the empty glass with a shaky hand. “How did you know—”
“I wanted to make sure you were…safe.” He caught her hand, tracing the backs of her knuckles with his thumb.
“I am.”
He studied her face. Dark circles still hid under her eyes. “Are you happy?”
She shrugged. “Most days. Nights are…hard.”
Jack nodded.
Her lashes lowered as her gaze dropped to their hands. She opened his fingers and dragged her thumb over his signet ring. He sensed her piecing together the things that went unsaid.
Like a toy soldier controlled by a key, every muscle in his back tensed until his lungs were too tight to breathe.
“Was he your first?”
Jack’s eyes closed. The chancellor had been the first of many things. Most of them evil. “Yes.” His throat constricted to a pinhole.
“Screaming,” she said softly, face tight as she dragged her finger slowly over the raised letters.
“Yes.”
Her brows drew tighter. “He put all those marks on you?”
This time, his voice abandoned him. He nodded.
“How old were you?”
His lungs collapsed as though under the foot and weight of a crushing giant. “It started when I was six.”
The air shifted as she looked up at him in disbelief. “Six?” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “When… When did it stop?”
It never fully stopped. Those brutal moments lived immortally inside of him. “I escaped when I was fourteen.”
A soft sound of disbelief skipped past her lips. “Eight years.”
“Daisy, there are things I’ve done that others would never understand. I don’t expect you to—”
His words cut off as she pressed her lips to his. For the briefest moment, the world found balance again.
He cupped the side of her face and closed his eyes, savoring the contact while he could. He wished they could hide from the truth forever, safe and secluded, pretending the world wasn’t this imperfect place. But he had a purpose to serve.
Capturing her hands in his, he pulled them from his face.
“It’s all a glittering lie,” he confessed, putting pressure on the fragile illusion the world desperately wanted to believe.
“I’ve made an artform out of dismantling corrupt and powerful men.
Do you understand? I host The Feast, not just to help tributes, but to use them as bait.
The right circumstances can bring out the worst in people.
And every year, I watch, adding names to my list.”
“Like Hadrian?”