Chapter 43
43
Luna opened her eyes to a softly creeping dawn and found herself across the chaise longue in the drawing room, a blanket across her legs, and the housekeeper holding a cold wet cloth to her forehead. Her head was throbbing and she thought that if she moved too quickly, she might be sick.
‘Poor lamb. With everything she’s been through, it’s not surprising that she passed out.’
‘Is she awake?’ Marcus’s voice came from the back of the room. ‘Let me sit with her. I want to be with my wife.’
Mrs Webber reached for Luna’s hand, squeezed it and muttered something about her being the daughter she’d never had. As she stepped away and returned to her duties, Marcus slid into her seat and his concerned eyes bored into those of his wife.
‘Oh, my darling girl. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through from the moment we met on the path back in April. I broke your ankle, scooped you up and promised to keep you safe, but in reality, all I have done is cause you more harm. I wasn’t there for you tonight and can’t forgive myself. I have kept you in the dark and, in so doing, I placed you in greater danger. ’
The threatened nausea slowly subsided and she shuffled into a sitting position. Fragmented memories of earlier began to drift back. Findlay was the witch, he had fooled them all, and now he was dead, so what was Marcus still keeping from her?
‘Then tell me everything.’
He rubbed his hand back and forth across his mouth and shook his head. The pause stretched out between them and his silence began to worry her.
‘I lose you either way.’
‘Try me.’
He sighed and briefly closed his eyes, as if to sort things in his own head, before he began his tale, taking himself back in time, and finally addressing the question that had troubled Luna since her arrival at Ravenswood. Where was the woman she’d replaced?
‘A storm was on its way; I could smell it. The trees were restless and there was an icy chill in the air. My wife had been hiding out in the woods for days, hysterical and violent. Sometimes my efforts to calm her only distressed her further and so I’d let her be and taken the opportunity to go into Manbury. My finances were at crisis point and I suspect she was hiding partly because she knew how much I was relying on the inheritance payment, and was determined I should not receive it…’
He took in a long breath and then slowly exhaled. Secrets once spoken aloud were no longer secrets.
‘I returned that afternoon to find one of my precious ravens nailed to the gate. There was a stillness about Ravenswood that unsettled me, and as I walked about the gardens I found dead bird after dead bird. Mrs Webber had heard noises from behind the barn earlier but was too frightened to investigate, so I headed out the back and found my wife standing in the doorway, a knife in her hand and covered in blood.’
Luna did not like where this was leading but remained silent. She had asked him to tell the truth and she must listen to it, however unpalatable it proved to be.
‘She told me that she was done with the damn birds,’ he said. ‘That she was sick of their beady eyes watching her from the treetops, mocking her existence and judging her actions, and that they deserved to die. That I deserved to die… That she was sick of me, that I was a pathetic excuse for a man and that she’d found someone else.’ He shook his head again. ‘That screwing a bad man was so much more thrilling than bedding a good one…’
She blushed at his choice of words, as Marcus got to his feet and walked over to the window, looking out across the meadow, and down to the river. It was as if he couldn’t face her as he relayed the next part of his story.
‘And for me that was the ultimate betrayal. I was broken and couldn’t do it any more. The storm finally arrived as the rain began pattering out a gentle tattoo on the shed roof and the light was all but gone. I told her that I was done with her. She was on a path that would only lead to her destruction, and I no longer had any desire to prevent it. I simply turned and walked out of the barn and into the rain. The lesson being never turn your back on a madwoman with a knife in her hand…’
Luna saw the truth of it all in that moment. The shoulder injury on the day they met.
Swinging her legs to the floor, she rose slowly to her feet and walked over to him. It seemed he had run out of adequate words. She placed the flat of her left hand on his broad back, gently sweeping up to the wound he’d been nursing in April. He reached across his chest to meet her fingers. Still, he would not turn to face her and they stood in silence for a few moments.
Bran appeared at the window before them and tapped for it to be opened. Marcus released her hand and stepped forward to slide the sash upwards, but the raven did not hop across the threshold, and instead bird and man had one of those silent conversations her husband was so adept at having, before he finally turned to face her.
‘I was with her last night, when I should have been with you. We had unfinished business and I had to say goodbye. I think Bran wants me to take you to her.’
Luna frowned. Was he talking about his wife? Or someone else? And why had he not finished his tale? His wife had stabbed him and then what? She’d been so certain that the real Luna Greybourne was dead, because she’d seen her ghost on several occasions with her own eyes – including last night in the bonfire. His words made no sense. Had Marcus put her in an asylum? Or kept her closer to home? He reached out his hand and she took it, as he guided her through the house and out into the meadow – now a yellowing carpet of dying flowers and grassy tussocks. Bran flew alongside them as the morning dew hung heavy on the vegetation, soaking into her skirts and boots, and a chill wind whipped across her face.
They came to a halt at the gate, and Marcus stood before the last of the white blooms on the rose bush, visible in the dawn as they reflected what little light was available. Bran landed on the gatepost and there was an expectant silence as they both looked at her. It took her a few moments to realise that they had reached their destination.
He had brought her to see the woman who had beguiled him and then bedevilled him.
He had brought her to Luna.
This bush was not simply part of the replanting, she realised, but a marker for what was buried beneath. Findlay had been right to claim Mrs Greybourne was dead. It all made sense now: why Marcus had been so certain their charade would not be exposed by a returning wife, and his words when he’d admitted he too had been driven to commit desperate acts.
The white rose symbolised forgiveness, and that was what he was asking for. She, naturally, had a love of the blooms that were her namesake, and had even looked up their meaning after his aunt had talked of the language of flowers. This bush was now past its best; the remaining petals had brown edges and many were scattered on the soil beneath, but the plant was strong and had established nicely. She reached out to touch a flowerhead and several further petals floated gently to the ground.
Luna met Marcus’s eyes and saw the burden he carried, and would carry with him always. He had come to his wife on All Hallows’ Eve to say a final goodbye. The second candle in the church had been for her. She didn’t ask how the woman had died, and instead gave the smallest nod of her head to confirm she understood what he was showing her, thinking how strange it was that the shrub that bore her real name, Rose, now guarded his wife.
‘We shall leave the past where it belongs,’ she said, quoting his words from their first night together back at him. ‘It’s not our truth. Let us live in a world where Marcus and Luna Greybourne are happily married and their future is full of unwritten possibilities.’ They still had to face the magistrate, and there was a very real risk that her identity would be revealed, but if this was to be their last few days together, she would embrace them.
She heard him exhale a slow sigh of relief. There was no judgement from her; she was going nowhere. Had he killed Luna in fear of his own life? Had he killed her because he simply couldn’t take any more? Or had she turned the knife upon herself because of something he’d said or done? She would never make him speak the truth of that night. In fact, she would ask no questions at all, because she wasn’t certain she could cope with the answers. It was enough that he was telling her, without the need for words, that she could be Luna if she chose. There would be no vengeful wife returning to dethrone her.
She looked across at the river, rippling streaks of gold shimmering across the surface, as that rising globe of fire bestowed colour once more on a world that had been so very black.
Finally, he spoke. ‘I have always preferred the front of the house: the wildflower meadow, open landscape and view across the river. I think you are happier here too, are you not?’
‘Yes,’ she said, not sure which Luna he was asking. He was after reassurance, and she was happy to give it to him.
The truth was that, despite the unpleasant memories this house held for them both, she was content at Ravenswood. She had all the family she would ever need: a loving and devoted husband, and, if the well was to be believed, a baby on the way. All she hoped for now was that they were able to make new memories and that they would be happy ones.
‘You took a huge risk, that day by the river when I broke my ankle,’ she said. ‘I was not guilty of the crime they were hunting me down for, but you were not to know that.’
Marcus studied her for some time before answering.
‘One look at your face and I knew you were a good person; your concern for both my pocket watch and my well-being completely astonished me. There was something in your eyes I recognised, something I could not pin down, but it spoke of desperation, loneliness and a desire to be loved. I think you could see that in me, too.’ She nodded. ‘I promised myself in that moment that I would never ask you anything beyond your name. My reality would be that the beautiful girl in my arms was my wife. Her kindness was all I ever hoped for; her love I had never anticipated.’
He reached out and pulled her close, wrapping the sides of his thick wool coat around them both, so that they were as one. She could smell the lingering woodsmoke and buried her head into his cotton shirt, until she found the smell of him – overpowering and addictive.
‘I have repeatedly asserted that I do not believe in witchcraft,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘Even though I’m not sure I will ever be able to adequately explain everything that has happened on my lands, but it is undeniable that real magic exists in this mysterious universe of ours.’
‘Oh?’ She looked up at his serious face.
‘Haven’t I always insisted that it is only real when you believe it? And from the moment I scooped you up from the bank, and considered that a woman could show me kindness and compassion, I realised that I deserved a little happiness. Everything I wanted was in my arms, and I have never allowed myself to stop believing you could be mine, even though it was an impossible dream?—’
She interrupted him with a gentle kiss, rising up on her toes to reach his mouth with her own.
‘I love you with a passion that burns brighter than any sun,’ he said, as they broke apart.
‘I know.’
She looked down at the rose bed and thought of the morning they’d collided. Marcus had climbed up to the path, returning to a spade lying on the ground, after washing his hands in the river and she suddenly realised why he had been so preoccupied, and not seen her racing for the ferry.
In all likelihood, moments before she had barrelled into him, Marcus Greybourne had buried his wife.