Chapter 18 #2
He handed her a towel and walked with her to the place she seldom entered, his small private study off the main dining room.
The space was a clutter of pictures, oil portraits, other art and mementos of his travels around the world as a young man.
He studied in Europe, and the busy shelves of the small room reflected that with knickknacks and souvenirs.
As Pru tried unsuccessfully to dry her hair, he chatted about how overwhelmed he was these days and how things had really gotten out of hand at the town hall with the tourist season.
He laughed as he recounted a particularly funny exchange with a family who thought they had lost their toddler only for her to be strapped to the father’s back in a sling all along.
“I remember the day of chasing you around, the sleepless nights and the worry of messing up keeping me up, making me just as clueless and tired as they were—”
“Father, tell me about Margaux Belcourt.”
If her question surprised him, he didn’t show it.
None of his huffing and puffing and waves of dismissal was present.
No, he sat still, the only indication he heard her the fact that he had stopped speaking, but he had not looked at her.
His eyes were unseeing, trained on the wall opposite his desk.
When she opened her mouth to ask again, he just lifted a hand, and she allowed him the pause.
“Well, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a very long time. Seems like another lifetime, Prudence Ophelia.”
She did not look away though he never raised his eyes to her.
“She’s dead.” She watched his face very carefully, for signs of… Heck, for any signs. But there weren’t any. Not a flutter of lashes, not a gulp, not even a pinch of his lips. Just nothing.
“I already told Rhiannon Crowhart that I’m sorry to hear that. Are you here to accuse me of something?”
And there was the very first note of displeasure that he had allowed to slip in since she walked through the door.
“No, I’m not. Why should I be?”
He got up and limped to the corner of the room where he poured himself three fingers of bourbon but did not drink it. Pru hated the smell, the overly sweet and smoky notes of it making her nauseous.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with her, Prudence.”
She said nothing, just gripped the armrests on her chair tighter and waited. After a few moments, he took a long gulp and gave her a longer stare.
“She’s always caused trouble, ever since she was young. You have finally settled into a nice routine here on Dragons. Sure, you are still stubborn about becoming my deputy, but I am not giving up hope. And you’ve begun a good life, finally parting ways with that other woman.”
He sighed and flicked a spec of lint off his sleeve before continuing.
“I never said anything while you two were dating, but I feel like I have to speak up now. Lyle, the boy you went out with during your summers here in high school, he works at the town hall, you know? He’s been asking about you.
He’s a strapping young man. Good churchgoing family…
” He took another sip of the bourbon. Pru could tell he wanted to go on espousing the virtues of Lyle, whose face Pru couldn’t even remember, but something in her eyes must’ve told him he’d be wasting his time.
He exhaled, and his voice now resembled the one Pru recognized from church.
Deacon Fowler speaking to the masses. “Rhiannon Crowhart is bad news, Prudence.”
She had to marvel at how their years of silences and avoidance and small talk had hidden the true nature of his thoughts. She always suspected, but having them thrown in her face like this, finally in the open, was an unpleasant revelation.
“That other woman” had to be Lisa. He couldn’t even say her name though he knew everyone on the island. And “good life”? He might as well have called her bisexuality the road to perdition right then and there. Deflection might work on him, Pru thought, desperate to change the subject.
“Bad news or not, she is going to fund the Halloween Fest now that Town Hall backed out. It’s one of those events that brings crowds to Crow’s Nest.”
He tsked dismissively.
“More trouble than those crowds are worth. And the Town Council has spoken. The good people of the Nest are uncomfortable with devil worshippers on the island.”
“Those “devil worshippers” were one of the biggest source of income for the businesses. How did you vote, Father?”
He did not hide his gaze this time.
“I abstained, Prudence.”
She wanted to say that while he might’ve abstained his opinion on the matter was loud and clear, what with calling the festival-attending tourists “devil worshippers” and surely that influenced the members of the Council.
Pru weighed her options in her mind. Should she argue? Should she leave? She settled for a third choice. Some things were simply more important.
“So, about Margaux Belcourt, Father?”
He took another large gulp of bourbon.
“I’ve not seen her in ages, Prudence. And we weren’t close. I knew her husband, old Jerome. He’s been dead for almost two decades now.”
Pru tugged on her cardigan’s sleeve, her skin chilled, and laid down her last ace card.
“You own three of her sculptures.”
He flinched, and the amber liquid sloshed over the rim and spilled on the carpet. Pru almost gagged, the scent intensifying, filling the room, clinging to the surfaces.
“I do. They are somewhat valuable, from what I understand. They’re not a DeVor, my girl, so you will not be quite that rich once I kick the bucket, but then nobody really is DeVor. Belcourt surely never was. Still the work is good, decent, I’d say. They’re in—”
“Mom’s old room. I know.”
She knew the sculptures all too well. Abstract interpretations of emotions, something little Prudence could not understand.
But she had spent enough time in her mother’s study as a small child, missing her mom during the long summers she stayed with her father and clinging to the things she had left behind in this house.
Still, even back then she knew the sculptures were her father’s and her father’s alone.
She left him in the study to his bourbon.
They’d have to talk again, chiefly about the trouble he thought Rhiannon was causing, but that was for another evening.
One where Pru had a clearer mind, unclouded by visions of young Rhiannon and a woman for whom she left everything behind: her family, her craft, her heart.
Pru stepped into the room on the opposite side of the mansion and took the three statues in. No, she decidedly knew nothing about art. At least this kind of art, modern, provocative, sharp-edged, and it made her feel foolish, like a country bumpkin.
The careful scroll of the name on the bottom of each of the three wrought iron statues spelled the name. Belcourt. Eight letters. It sounded foreign to little Prudence. Exotic. Mysterious. It sounded painful now. Achy. Bruised. For some reason she did not want to see them. Now or ever again.
She tried to tell herself it had nothing to do with Rhiannon and those forest green eyes that held an ocean of despair that opened like a coffin, like a tomb, when she talked about her dead wife.
Pru turned around to catch her father in the doorway, watching her. Carefully. Too carefully. The familiar features cagey now.
For the second time this evening, Pru left without saying goodbye. She couldn’t stomach more questions and wasn’t certain she wanted any answers. She wanted silence. And she wanted the wind. And the burn that every encounter with this particular wind branded on her heart.
Rhiannon’s apartment was quiet around her, sighing in relief at her entrance as if it had missed her. She had missed it too. The graceful lines of stone and wood. The soft edges of leather and wool. The scent of petrichor that always lived between these walls.
She had no home. Neither her place nor her father’s filled that hole inside of her, and yet somehow, in just two days spent here caring for Rhiannon, this space felt the closest to belonging than others ever had.
Pru stood still for a moment. She knew it was dangerous.
To feel this way. To think this way and to fancy herself belonging here.
Like the very wind, Rhiannon could be gone in a blink of an eye.
Likely would be. She had said as much. Moreover, Pru couldn’t see someone like Rhiannon settle on the island.
It was too small—it could never contain her.
Her power, her wild. And Pru knew she was just walking to her own heart’s slaughter by coming here for comfort after a long day. Yet she had come anyway.
Patches lifted her head from a pillow in front of the dormant fireplace and squeaked quietly at her before cuddling closer to Boleyn, who still pretended that the possum did not exist despite immediately wrapping a possessive paw around her.
Pru walked in darkness, leaving a trail of her clothes behind herself like crumbs she’d collect before the morning arrived to find her way back. Searching for succor here was one thing, spending the night, another.
Naked, she slipped under the covers, where soft, silky skin met hers and willowy arms immediately pulled her closer. There was no recrimination, no accusation, no acrimony. Just welcome. And this welcome broke Pru’s heart. It cracked in pieces, like the glass Rhiannon had shattered yesterday.
“I was waiting for you.”
The voice that had launched a thousand desires rasped in her ear, sending shivers down her spine. Pru trembled unashamed. The darkness hid everything, the anonymity of it making her bold.
She lifted her chin, giving the seeking mouth better access.
“You knew I’d come.” She didn’t ask, it had been a foregone conclusion for both of them the moment Rhiannon had stepped into Ceridwen’s garden earlier.
“I did know. That you’d come. And come.” Slow, sure, oh so sure fingers found her wet and wanting, circled her opening once and then entered her before she knew what was happening. “That you’d want me. Only me. To touch you. To fuck you. To undo you.”
So that was all Rhiannon would say on the matter. To Pru it spoke volumes. And it did nothing for her broken heart other than scatter the pieces even more.
“I want you to put me back together, Rhiannon.”
Whether Rhiannon understood, or whether she heard the plea in Pru’s voice, remained a mystery, at least to Pru herself, but Rhiannon did what she always did best—undoing Pru with her lips and her mouth, with gentle touches and firm strokes.
It went for hours, Rhiannon’s insatiable need rivaling her own.
Orgasm after orgasm, it felt like a possession, like branding.
And it emptied Pru like nothing in her life ever did.
Of thoughts and anxieties. Of her fears.
Of worries and what-ifs. What did it matter that this wouldn’t last?
What did it matter if Pru would be left with those scattered pieces of her heart?
Nothing mattered, because when the sun peeked through the half-closed blinds and Pru made to rise and leave, Rhiannon held her closer, whispering only a few words.
“Please. Stay with me. For just a little while. Stay.”
Pru stayed, even though the “little while” part undid her. The price was worth the undoing.