Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
I race back to my room, my steps powered by rage. My pulse hammers in my ears like a drum roll, and every inch of my body is covered in sweat. What the fuck. What the actual fuck?
All this time, I’ve been waving at a little girl’s taxidermied corpse.
By now, I expect Rowland to have disappeared into the shadows, leaving behind an empty bed strewn with ropes, but I find him still tied to the bedposts.
His head snaps up and he gazes across the room at me, his black eyes glittering with apprehension.
The bindings cut red welts into his wrists where he’s been testing his bonds, and his shirt rides up to reveal defined abs.
“What the hell did you do to that little girl?” I yell, waving the knife in his face.
He closes his eyes, his body falling limp against the restraints. “Not me,” he says with a pained sigh. “Edward. He smothered our sister when we were children.”
The words ricochet off my brain like bullets on tile. My mind struggles to process the fact that Rochester’s supposed daughter is his younger sibling. And he’s also imprisoned his feral brother who claims there’s a long list of victims. Eventually, they sink in, making my gut twist.
I stare at the bound man, finding a resemblance to Rochester. The nose is identical, and beneath all that dirt are the same strong brows. But something about him is off. I can’t tell if it’s the wild edge or the way he flinches like a whipped dog.
“You’re saying he murdered a child.” The words are flat, as if they’re coming from the other side of the room.
He nods. “Adele was his first victim.”
My breathing comes shorter, faster. Each inhale scrapes my lungs raw but never brings enough air.
I stare at his face, searching for lies, but all I see is a reflection of myself.
His black eyes are empty. Hollow. Like something crawled inside and died years ago.
I shake off that thought and focus on the immediate danger.
“Wait. How long ago was this? And how the hell did he get away with killing his own sister?”
Rowland gulps. “He was ten. Father’s favorite. The week we were due to go to boarding school, he smothered Adele.”
Prickly heat floods my veins. How on earth can he talk about it so matter-of-factly? My free hand clenches into a fist so tight my nails bite into my palm. “And you let him get away with it?”
He shakes his head from side to side, his breath turning shallow. “I didn’t know what was happening until the servants found her dead.”
“Okay,” I whisper, reeling on my feet.
“Father blamed me because Edward told him I put a cushion over her face the week before. He dragged me to the attic and tied me to a cot, saying no son of his would end up in an asylum. After that, the only kind company I had was Mrs. Fairfax.”
Fairfax. The name punches me in the throat. That woman who served me breakfast on my first morning. Who supposedly disappeared to take Adele to a mainland hospital.
I lean closer. “If Adele never had typhus fever, then where the hell did Mrs. Fairfax go?”
Rowland jerks his head to the side, unable to meet my eyes. His throat bobs beneath his bushy beard like he’s trying to swallow something too big for his throat.
“Answer me or I’ll slice you open.” I wave the knife like a baton.
“She died ten years ago in her sleep and has been in the attic ever since,” he says, the words a tired rush.
The room tilts sideways. I stumble backward, my hip hitting the dresser hard enough to rattle the mirror. In the reflection is a wild-eyed woman with tangled hair.
“That’s impossible. I saw her. I talked to her. She showed me around. She made me breakfast. She was real.” I whisper, but even as I say it, doubt gnaws at my stomach like acid.
Rowland squeezes his eyes shut.
My mind races through every interaction with the housekeeper. Mrs. Fairfax filling the doorway with those massive shoulders. The mask covering the lower half of her face. The deep voice that didn’t quite sound female. I stare down at Rowland, who still can’t meet my eyes.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I snap.
Silence stretches between us like a live wire. My heart hammers against my ribs in double time to the distant ticking clock. It feels like the house is counting down to something terrible.
“Talk to me,” I yell.
Rowland squeezes his lips shut. Works his jaw beneath all that unruly hair, and pinches his features like he’s tasting something sour.
“What is it?” I say through gritted teeth.
“Between kills, when Edward doesn’t have a victim to play the role, he forces me to become Mrs. Fairfax,” he mutters.
The knife tumbles from my numb fingers and clatters onto the wooden floor.
Lord have mercy. Don’t tell me the person I’ve been hooking up with this whole time was Mrs. Fairfax.
I stumble backward, my legs giving out as I collapse into the chair by the window.
My gaze drops to my trembling hands as I run through every conversation I had with the massive housekeeper.
The way she stared at my cleavage with those judgmental black eyes.
How she disappeared for days at a time. That mask covering features I should have questioned.
Meanwhile, I’ve been waving at a corpse. Smiling at a little girl with glass baubles for eyes.
Nausea claws up my throat like a feral animal trying to escape. I press my fist to my mouth, tasting terror and bile. Right now, I can barely look at the man tied to the bed, but I have to know the truth.
“So let me get this straight. Between impersonating the housekeeper, you snuck into my room, sucked my foot, groped me in the bath, and humped my ass at night?” I croak.
Rowland gives me a hesitant nod, still unable to meet my eyes.
“Did you do that with all the... what did you call them? Other victims?”
He shakes his head. “No. You were the only one who waved back.”
“I… was the only one who waved back,” I say, my voice dripping with disbelief.
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part slides into my brain like a knife between ribs, cutting through denial and landing in the soft meat of truth. Because if Rowland was Fairfax only part of the time, then that means...
I stand up so fast the chair tips backward and crashes to the floor. “Now I’m her replacement.”
Ever since that breakfast with Edward Rochester, I’ve been the one cooking. Cleaning. Scrubbing floors, polishing silver, tending to the chickens. Playing the role of the dutiful housekeeper while Rochester entertained his precious fiancée.
I. Am. Mrs. Fairfax.
Terror punches into my stomach and pushes hard. My vision tunnels until all I can see is Rowland’s face, grubby and desperate against the white sheets. The room spins like I’m on a carnival ride that’s lost its brakes.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” I pace, round and round the room like a caged animal looking for a non-existent exit, my bare feet slapping against the wooden floor. I can hear him struggling against his restraints, but he’s no threat.
“This is a madhouse. A fucking house of horrors.” I pause by the window and look out to the lawn, expecting to see another ghost, another stand-in. Is the groundskeeper in on it? “Should’ve left at the first red flag. I have to get out of here now.”
“Annalisa,” he yells over my gibbering. “Please listen to me—”
“No! I’ve been living with dead children. Psychopaths. Peeping Toms in black dresses.”
The walls close in. Sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down my spine like ice. Panic pushes my heart past my rib cage. Each beat feels like it might be the last one before it ruptures.
I try to breathe, but my nostrils fill with the smell of dust and decay. It’s like the whole house is rotting from the inside. My stomach heaves, but there’s nothing left to throw up except the bitter taste of fear.
“Annalisa, listen to me!” Rowland’s voice cuts through my spiral like the crack of a whip.
I keep pacing. If I stop, realization might set in and I’ll shatter into pieces so small they’ll never fit back together. “Listen to what? More lies? More bullshit about your psycho brother?”
“You’re in danger!” he yells so loud his voice cracks. “Edward plans to work you to death. When your body gives out and you’re too weak to scrub his floors, you’ll join the other corpses.”
My feet freeze like they’re weighted down with concrete blocks. “What?”
Rowland jerks against his restraints, making the bed frame creak under the strain. “He’s done it with twelve other nannies. All of them thought they were getting an easy paycheck, but they walked into a trap. They all ended up the same. But I need you to survive.”
I sway on my feet, my vision going double as I calculate how much time I have left before he returns from his honeymoon. He’d planned to kill me anyway, before I messed up his plans.
“No one has ever escaped him.” His black eyes bore into mine, desperate and pleading. “But I can get you out. I’m the only one left who knows how. You have to trust me.”