Chapter Forty-Two
Orléans
“Joan of Arc would have been no virgin, had she met Stanley Pierce.”
I slide my gaze from the view before us, Joan of Arc’s narrow home in the heart of this ancient city, and turn to look at Hal.
I don’t conceal the fact that I’m perplexed by his comment.
Since we left Paris for Orléans, he’s been increasingly inclined to bring up the man’s name.
Is it because he’s still wounded that Mamma left, choosing Stan as her friend and provider?
Or, a worse thought, does Hal know more than I’ve told him—that Stan was not only a friend to me and Mamma, but also my lover?
I shrug, looking back toward the saint’s home, a structure of brick and stone ribbed in timber. Managing what I hope is a disaffected tone, I say, “Hal, I wish you would not bring up that name.”
“The man’s a devil, Eve. If only you knew.”
If only you knew, I think. Still, Hal’s comment makes me suspect that he might not in fact know the full truth of my past, and that gives me some measure of relief. So I say, “But he’s not here, mercifully, and I’d rather not think of him.”
We are standing together in the broad square of Orléans, the famously besieged city of France’s beloved virgin warrior, on a pilgrimage that Hal had been most enthusiastic to make.
While I’m happy to see the fabled city, to visit the site where the saint held out against a conquering army, to hear Hal tell of her virtue, I can’t help but feel that this stop does not compare to Paris.
Traveling, of late, has lost a bit of its luster.
Hal’s mood has taken a noticeable dip since that day we visited the Bagatelle gardens, when he raised the idea of marriage and we returned to the hotel to find Mamma intent on departing.
Perhaps we should return to Paris, where we were so happy.
Perhaps, back there, we can recapture the magic that was swirling between us before Mamma’s retreat threw everything off-kilter.
Or maybe it was my refusal to acknowledge his proposal of marriage; perhaps Hal’s patience with me has finally expired.
That evening, back in our inn overlooking the main square of Orléans, Hal and I sit down to a private dinner in the sitting room of our suite, a sprawl of rooms with separate bedrooms and this salon between them.
We have barely been served our entrées before he confirms my suspicion: he has in fact run out of patience. “Why won’t you marry me, Eve?”
I swallow the bite of lamb I’ve just begun chewing. Of course I knew he’d ask me again. But I don’t feel ready to address this, not in this moment.
“Do you not care for me?” he asks, his voice low.
“I do care for you.” And it’s the truth. But perhaps now I need to tell him the whole truth.
“Then what is wrong with me, Angel? What failing of mine prevents you from taking my hand?”
His vulnerability softens me, and a sigh slips out. “It’s not your failing, Hal, but mine.” There. The words are out. I look through the window at the square below, unable to bear the earnest intensity in his eyes. “I’m not…precisely…all that you think I am.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, confusion apparent in his voice.
I look around the room, ensuring the attendants have all gone. Then I turn back to him and force myself to meet his stare. Drawing in a fortifying breath, I begin. “There was a night, years ago, when my entire life changed.”
I tell him. I tell Hal all about what happened when I was sixteen and Stan yanked me from the innocence of my girlhood into the realm of womanhood, without my ever knowing it was happening.
I describe the darkened stairwell with the doors that opened from within.
A room swathed in crimson. My belief that we were returning for a late-night dinner party and how I found instead a table set for two.
Champagne, oysters, a mysterious midnight phone call pulling Stanley from the room.
More champagne, his urging that I keep drinking.
How my head became a cobweb. A swing through the air.
And then, nothing.
A black void without feeling or memory.
Before I startled awake, naked and in pain, back into the world of red.
Feeling returning, but still no memory.
And everything, including me—especially me—broken.
It’s the first time I’ve ever spoken the words aloud. It’s the first time I’ve ever even allowed my mind to move through the events of that night in such vivid detail, revisiting the pain that still aches within, even as so many of the memories remain out of reach.
“He drugged you, Evelyn,” Hal says, after considering all my words in a glowering, brooding silence. “That much is clear. Stanley Pierce drugged you so that he could rape you.”
I wince, my heart clenching at his unvarnished words, words that I’ve never voiced, even to myself. Then I say, “In truth, I’ve never understood what happened. The memory is so hazy. All I knew for certain was that I was never to tell anyone.”
Hal reaches his hand across the table, taking mine in his. The press of his skin on mine, in this moment, is jarring. But his tone is soft. “Well, you’ve told me. And I can see how painful it was to speak. But you’re safe with me. I shall protect you.”
I could cry, I’m so relieved. I hadn’t even realized what an unburdening it would be to speak the words aloud.
To share the truth that only I have had to carry.
So I decide to share even more. The hours pass, and we remain together at the table, and we talk and talk.
I tell him everything as it comes to my mind, going back ever further in time.
I tell him about Stan and his lavish spreads atop the Madison Square Tower.
The private elevator. The chauffeured motorcar.
The photos of me he had taken privately.
Mamma’s going away, leaving me in Stan’s care.
“You have been a victim of them both,” Hal says eventually, his voice heavy.
“He’s a viper, to be sure. But you’ve also suffered at the hands of your mother.
Look at you, only sixteen at the time and left alone in the hands of a beast. Now not even twenty years old, and already you’ve endured a lifetime of misuse.
And see how she’s abandoned you yet again. Only this time, I shall keep you safe.”
Hal rises from the table and comes to my side, kneeling before me. “You are still my angel.” He takes my hands in his, his voice tender as he looks down at our intertwined grip. “You are trembling.”
“I know.” I can’t make myself stop.
“You do not need to be afraid, not anymore.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. In that moment, I make a decision. I give his hands a squeeze. “Hal?” My own voice sounds hoarse.
He lifts his gaze to meet mine. “Now there are no more secrets between us,” I say. “Now that you truly know me…if you’ll still have me, I will marry you.”
At this, his pale features break open in a wide grin. Hal looks happy, so very happy. He knows the truth of me, and yet he still adores me. He still wants me. He still wishes to give me a life more beautiful than anything I could have ever dreamed of.
So I can’t help but wonder in this moment: If he can be so happy—if we can be so happy together—then why can’t I stop shaking?