Chapter 37
The squeak of the door wakes me. It’s early, the air is moist, and I sit up in the bed, clutching the quilt around me, and stare, half asleep, into the startled face of a man in a cheap derby hat. “Oh,” he says.
I scream, fully awake now. “What are you—” I scramble back, grabbing the first hard object I find—which turns out to be a book. I brandish it anyway, every muscle taut as I brace myself against the headboard and prepare to launch my weapon.
My panic fizzles into anger as I take in his countenance, the crooked angle of his hat, his hands held up in shocked surrender.
And…I know this man. “You…you…” He was arguing with AJ at the pub in St. Ives.
Before that, I’d seen him in the park in Cheltenham, where he’d stared me down as if he despised me.
Because he’d recognized me. He must have.
He’d been the one to tell AJ where to find me.
Nigel.
“What are you doing here?”
He exhales. “Come off it now, it’s only me.
Came to water the plants.” He flips out his key to the flat.
He closes the door and seats himself at the table in Ansel’s spot, his gaze never leaving my face.
He’s suspicious of me. He was then, too.
Why? What had I done in my past life? The reason bobs in the distance, a quick flash of color that won’t come into focus.
“I see you’ve decided to return home.” His voice jars me into the present.
With a glare, I fling the curtain closed across the alcove holding the bed, separating it from the rest of the flat.
I hear the door open and close as he discreetly excuses himself, but when I drop the quilt in the privacy of the makeshift bedchamber, I realize I climbed into bed fully clothed, my gown a rumpled mess.
Like my poor brain. My whole life, really.
Pouring water into the basin, I strip to my chemise and wash quickly, selecting a simple eyelet gown from the wardrobe and buttoning it in front.
Blush-colored with a scarlet sash, the gown doesn’t look familiar, but it does look like me.
When I’ve scrubbed my teeth and twisted my hair into a loose chignon, I emerge and call out, “Hello?”
He reenters and closes the door behind him, striding to the kitchen to water the plants.
“Who are you, exactly? And how’ve you come by a key to my flat?”
He turns and his face shutters again. The only other time I’ve seen such abhorrence is on Sabine St. Laurent. “Nigel Brooks, Mrs. Winthrop. AJ gave it to me so I could care for the place.”
“I assume we’ve met before.”
“Far too many times.”
“And you are what, a relation? Friend?”
He sets down the watering can and comes to stand directly before me. “Stop with this silly game, Merryn. AJ may be blind, but I’m no fool.”
“Good. Then you’ll be able to answer questions for me.” I sit at the table, forearms crossed.
He lowers his eyebrows and sits opposite me.
I focus on the argument I overheard between this man and my husband. She will find out, Winthrop. She’ll find out what you’re up to and leave you so fast your head will spin. There’s deep loyalty underscoring those words. “First question. Why are you indebted to my husband?”
He looks uncomfortable. He didn’t expect that question, apparently. “You already know the answer to that.”
“Humor me, then.” I smile as I rise and move into the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Coffee. And I’m his business partner.”
“So he’s helped you become successful in business, and now you owe him. Which is why you despise me. You like Ansel, yet you believe I’m no good for him.”
“A man’s entitled to his opinions.”
“Next question. What are my husband’s business interests?”
“None, thanks to you. Everything is gone.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“He successfully started and ran several businesses, the details of which you never cared enough to know. First a hotel, with locations in several seaside towns. That fared well, so he opened a small department store near London. Leiths, it’s called.
Then when purchasing habits grew unstable, he veered into automobiles.
The most unusual, ahead-of-their-time machines owned by England’s wealthiest. He was brilliant at it, except he had a certain someone at home, badgering him about paying more attention to her.
” He stiffens. “He straddled those fences as long as he could—home and business. Then just when business was booming, suddenly he backs out. Walks away with his hat and case, and hands over the keys. Never darkened the door of that place again.”
“And you blame me for that.”
“Shouldn’t I?” His eyes are a flinty color.
My heart pounds. Was I truly demanding?
“He sold all his businesses off at once, dumping them like a load of trash. Everything he’d dreamed of and worked for.”
“Because I asked him to?”
“Because you broke his bloody heart.” He slams the table.
I sit back in the chair, stunned. Silenced.
Anger lights his face. “It was a fool game to you, Merryn Winthrop, but everything he ever did was wrapped up in you. Was for you. How many times he uttered the words, ‘married above my station.’ He had to prove himself, day in and day out. To improve your lot. Then you ‘died’ and broke his heart and made certain he was blamed for your death—and when I think about how you plotted it all.”
I grip the chair beneath me. If I’ve acquired any new skill these past years, it’s knowing when to stay quiet. The man is a steam engine, barreling through, and no words will stop him.
“He’s brilliant, and his potential is limitless. Everything that man touches turns to gold, except…You are his weakness, Merryn Winthrop. I told him that from the moment he met you and declared his love.”
“Did he declare that?” Before or after he spent my money? Or tried to kill me?
Or did he?
“I tried talking him out of turning his back on it when you die—disappeared. He’d built it all himself.”
“So…he did have investments.” My heart deflates. I hung on to a secret hope that I’d find him honorable in all other ways, but he lied about this, too.
“No, you had investments. That’s how he saw it, anyway, seeing as it was your money he used. They were your investments, even if it was his brilliance that made it happen.”
“If he’s so brilliant, then why did the money run out?”
He looks at me as if I’ve gone deaf and dumb. “Out?”
“Yes. My vast wealth, which he invested in the businesses. If they were so successful, why did the money run out?”
His face pales. I’ve made some blunder, of course.
But that isn’t the issue. “It didn’t. Everything you gave him, he poured right back. When you ‘died’ he liquidated, and he deposited nearly double the amount.”
“Into what?”
“Into your bank account. What else?”
I blink.
“After you died, he wouldn’t touch your money. It was yours, he said. And besides—he wouldn’t say it, but I will—he was only doing it for you. To please you and make you happy. There, are you satisfied? His accounts sit empty and yours are full.”
My head is light, a balloon floating above the table where we face one another, arguing over the details of my life and my marriage. “So…I’m wealthy.”
“As Midas.”
“Then why are we here?” I wave my arm around the flat. It still doesn’t add up.
Various emotions—mostly confusion—flit across his features.
“Because he wished to purchase a home with money he earned himself. He might have done it, if he hadn’t poured all his profits right back into more businesses.
He’d only been at it a couple of years and he had more ambition than sense in those days. ”
I stare at this uptight, anger-riddled man sitting in my kitchen. “How might I…that is…” I cannot think of the word. “Success. How might I success—no…”
He’s frowning at me.
Heat rises. My mind trips around the delicate topic. “I want to…”
“You want his businesses?”
“I haven’t any use for those. Just my money.”
He’s still frowning.
“Access. How might I access…my money?”
Then I have the pleasure of seeing Nigel Brooks completely flummoxed. Now he believes me, it’s quite clear. His fingers go through his hair. His legs shift. They bounce. “You want access…to your own funds?”
Heat pours over my face. “I suppose you don’t know how to—”
“Of course I do. It’s at the Barclay Bank on Southgate.”
“In London?”
“Here in Gloucester.” His puzzled look would be amusing if this experience weren’t so terribly humiliating.
I file the information away and study him for what he isn’t saying. There’s a great deal. This man who does not care for me now knows more about me than I do. I stir in the chair, making it creak. “What was our marriage like, Mr. Brooks?”
“Like?” His voice has lost its sharp edges.
“Were we happy?”
I close my eyes and hear the words in AJ’s angry voice. What can I possibly do to please you? I cringe.
“You were…busy. Striving.”
“Him or me?”
“Both. But for different things.” He crosses his ankle over one knee. “He could scarcely sit still, even on holidays, and you were seldom satisfied. It nearly drove him over the edge, trying to give you everything.”
I feel AJ’s past words strike me like tiny pebbles. What is it you want, Merryn? What is it you want from me? How can I possibly make you happy?
I look to the window, focusing on the muffled noise on the street, and the answer comes like a reflex: time.
Waste time on me, Ansel. Everyone was always leaving me.
Walking out the door with a wave, on to something more important.
Time is a precious commodity, and you have so little.
Waste a luxurious amount of it on me. Let’s be poor and have adventures again.
He was halfway out the door when I said it.
I can clearly see him standing there, framed by the doorway, on the way to work he was wonderfully skilled in…
but did not care for. He thought I wanted it, but all I wanted was my dearest friend and my love.
When you can do so many things with your time, spend an abundance of it on me… on us.
My stomach cramped with longing for him.
It returns now like an instinct, so often felt.
What was it in a man that tied his identity to his provision?
How did earnings become a security net that every man felt compelled to stretch out beneath those he loved, his ability to do so somehow shaping his worth?
And what was it about me that made me long so for connection and intimacy?
So keenly feel the lack of it? He’d gift me a beautiful gold filigree jewelry box but work through our anniversary.
The crushing need for success kept him focused on the urgent and blinded to the important.
I could see it even then, but he couldn’t.
“I didn’t want an abundance of anything…except him. The one thing he struggled to give.” My words are more to myself than my companion, but they change the look on his face. “Did he enjoy his work, Mr. Brooks?”
“Nigel. Please.” He clears his throat. “He was quite passionate about it. Driven, I would say. Yes, driven. Part of the reason he succeeded.”
I don’t even know this about my husband. I did once, didn’t I?
Yes. Yes, of course I did. The fire blazing in his eyes, the boundless energy…that had always been there. My vision twists like a kaleidoscope and the pieces fall into the correct pattern.
We were so close once—long, late-night conversations beside each other in bed.
We were penniless at first, but wildly happy.
Perhaps there was a time I was not an heiress, and we had nothing but an abundance of togetherness.
Silly little dances in the morning rain.
Long walks to nowhere in particular and even a ride on a pair of borrowed bicycles—which I crashed.
Popping soap bubbles together over a sink full of dirty dishes.
Frosting smeared on noses that was kissed off.
These sensations come in rolling waves as I sit here in our home, amid the scents and sounds of our life together, leaving behind vague impressions. A whiff of longing. The vague images make one thing clear—we loved each other madly.
And yet…the accident. That’s the final piece I cannot understand. What did happen? What became of our love story? What drove him to kill me? “How did I…? The accident.”
He holds up his hand. “He wouldn’t speak of it. He nearly drowned in his grief. Even got arrested for brawling in a pub.”
I open my mind to everything I’ve closed off before, welcoming memories, begging them to return.
I long for the truth. I can’t take the story from anyone else—I need to hear it from my own mind.
But every time I sink into this part of the past, there is only panic and pressure on my chest…
and a sudden jarring back to reality, the way I once woke from dreams.
Nigel Brooks rises and straightens his suit jacket. “I’ll leave you to your day, Mrs. Winthrop. Mention to AJ that I called, would you? And if you need it…I suppose I could help you find your bank and sort out the funds.” He places his card on the table.
I blink at the man whose manner toward me has softened considerably. “Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Nigel.”
I am restless all day and through the night, and the morning sun comes with no sign of AJ…but I rise and dress in my finest tailored walking suit, gloves, and hat. I take Nigel Brooks up on his offer, walking to the business address on his card, because I need the funds for a train ride to London.
It’s court day. The rest of my story is about to unfold.