Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Martine Lilian Herron
I’m distracted as I dress for the day, rubbing a bit of cream across the wound between my breasts, unashamed at how my nipples harden when it hurts to the touch.
I loved him pressing his nail into the cut this morning. Reopening the commitment we made to each other. He, by design, me by submission.
I don’t want to let it heal. I don’t want to let it close. I want to pick the scab off until it becomes a sliver of scar tissue. Something ours that can be pressed into the history of time.
If Hayden Herron destroys me, if he takes every ounce of me I’m willing to give, there will be nothing left. I'm sure of it.
So for now, I’ll have my scar.
I phoned Dale not long after Hayden left, and she immediately jumped in the car.
I hear the tires crunching on gravel before I see her.
The old windows rattle faintly in their casings, and I let the curtain fall as Dale’s car pulls up the drive, a silver ‘95 Mercedes coupe gleaming in the morning light. She parks beside Hayden’s black Jaguar XJR, sleek, silent, and impossibly arrogant, like its owner.
She steps out, smoothing the front of her pale trench.
The collar flips smartly against the breeze.
I catch the edge of her sunglasses, oval-shaped and tortoiseshell, and a flash of classic pearls beneath her freshly blown bob.
She looks expertly polished. Her heels clack against the stone steps as she walks up to the door, pausing just once.
I open it before she can knock.
“Martine,” she breathes. “This place is…”
I step aside. “Hey, Dale, come in.”
Dale walks into the foyer like she’s stepped onto a film set. She cranes her neck to take it all in: arched ceilings, the chandelier throwing golden light across the marble floors, the tapestries, the ancestral oil portraits watching us from the walls.
“It’s like something out of a classic Bond film,” she murmurs.
I lead her into the drawing room, her heels striking the parquet in a sharp rhythm behind me.
She doesn’t sit right away. She’s still looking at everything, at the velvet drapes, the flicker of the fire, the sense of hush that clings to the room like dust in a museum.
But her eyes land quickly on the tray. Tea has already been laid out for two by the footmen.
The silver service gleams on the low marble table, thin porcelain cups with delicate green trim, a matching pot, and lemon slices resting on a small crystal dish.
Cubes of sugar are stacked like tiny blocks beside silver tongs, and a fine porcelain plate holds a neat arrangement of sugar almonds, candied ginger, and rose-petal shortbread.
“So,” she says carefully, her tone shifting. “You said you needed to talk. That it was…important.”
My left hand moves without thinking, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, and that’s when she sees it.
The emerald.
Her breath catches. “Wait.”
I glance down at my hand, at the delicate silver band and the deep green stone it holds. The ring glows against my skin, impossibly vivid in the light.
“You sounded strange on the phone,” she says slowly, as she sits. “Now I know why.”
I lower myself into the opposite chair, my brown linen trousers folding softly at the knee.
My blouse is made of ivory silk, slightly sheer, with a long ribbon tie at the collar, in a French style.
My hair is pulled back into a low knot. I’m not wearing much makeup, just a rosewood stain on my lips.
She’s dressed just as precisely. A navy cashmere sweater tucked into a beige A-line skirt, low Chanel slingbacks in soft patent. Not flashy. Just expensive.
Dale’s eyes flick over me, then stop at my left hand.
Her breath catches. “Okay, we need to talk about the ring…”
I follow her gaze. The emerald sits in a halo of gold, worn on my ring finger without apology.
“This is new,” she says softly. “I’ve never seen you wear that.”
“It was Hayden’s mother’s,” I say.
She leans forward. “Hayden gave you his mother’s ring?”
I nod.
Her brow furrows.
She blinks at me for a beat, and then her expression shifts, the realization hitting all at once.
“Oh my God,” she breathes. “Martine, you’re married.”
I laugh, surprised by the sound of it. “I guess so.”
She’s already halfway leaning across the table, hands flying up. “No, no, don’t even, he gave you his mother’s ring. That’s not a fling, that’s not a flirt. That’s the kind of thing men do in novels where people die dramatically in the third act. Is a body going to show up soon?”
I smirk. “Are you quoting Rebecca?”
She looks wide-eyed. “I’m quoting every haunted, high-Society romance where the man is brooding and mysterious, and the woman wears long nightgowns and probably walks into danger with a candle.”
“Well, I do have a few silk nightgowns,” I admit, laughing. It feels good to sit here and be a girl for a stolen moment.
She gasps, as if I've proven her point. “See?! You’re not just dating him. You’ve been, what’s the word, claimed.”
“Dale.”
“No, listen, look at you, sitting in this scarily large manor, drinking tea with candied ginger, wearing emeralds that belonged to someone’s dead mother. What am I supposed to think?”
“I didn’t say you were wrong.”
She pauses, her voice softening, though I catch the flicker of worry in her eyes.
“Please tell me you don’t love him.”
I tense, reminded of exactly why I invited her over in the first place.
“You see,” I begin, choosing my words carefully, aware of how easily the wrong ones could make me sound cheap, “I know you were Hayden’s Chosen, Dale, but I feel like there may be more you’re not letting on.”
“We’ve been over this,” she says, giving me a strange look.
“Not in detail,” I counter, my voice sharper than intended. “I just find it a little strange that you’re so eager to be friends with me, given my relationship with Hayden.”
Jealousy, foreign and unwelcome, creeps into my tone.
She studies me for a moment. And then, to my complete disbelief, she bursts out laughing.
She doubles over, clutching her stomach, as if I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing imaginable. Her laughter spills out, wild and amused.
“Martine, don’t be daft,” she says, breathless, straightening up as she wipes at her eyes. “Yes, the man is attractive, obnoxiously so, but nothing ever happened between us. He wasn’t mine. He never even tried. Plus, I was seeing someone else anyway.”
I blink, hating the punch to the gut from her reminder, “Oh, right.”
Dale grins coyly.
I open my mouth, then close it again, exhaling. “I’m sorry. I just had to ask. Everything’s changed so quickly lately. Sometimes it feels like Hayden’s the only thing I have left to hold onto.”
She tilts her head, her expression softening. “Well, you’ve got me too, you know. Friendships count, Martine. Even the unexpected ones.”
I let out a quiet laugh, glancing down at the lukewarm tea between us. It suddenly feels too polite, too soft for the conversation we’re having.
“You know what?” I say, nudging the dainty cup away. “We should have martinis for a conversation like this.”
Dale perks up immediately. “Finally, something sensible.”
We both laugh, and then blink at each other in mild surprise.
“Gin with a lemon twist?” she guesses, a knowing tilt to her smile.
I pause. “That’s exactly how I take mine.”
She grins. “Of course it is.”
I lean toward the door and catch the attention of a footman passing in the hall. “Could you bring us a martini service? Gin with lemon twists, please.”
He nods and disappears down the corridor.
Dale leans back, watching me with a quieter kind of curiosity.
“You know,” she says gently, “you never did answer my question.”
A beat.
“Do you love him?”
I don't answer right away. It’s like admitting I love someone so awful could mean I’ve relinquished all of my power, something I’ve come to learn Dale sees as paramount.
Her words don’t offend me. They’re fair.
I glance down at the ring, the silver band warm against my skin, the emerald feeling like a watchful eye. I don’t know if the word “love” even fits in the world we belong to. It feels too small. It feels too light, soft, and far too delicate for what I think of Hayden.
“I’ve given him something a little more lasting than love,” I say.
Dale goes quiet, the slight smile on her lips slowly fading into something closer to judgment but not quite.
“…God, you didn’t do the…” she whispers, not finishing her sentence.
I nod.
And for a moment, neither of us says anything.
Dale picks up a sugar almond and rolls it between her fingers. She’s quiet for a pause, then asks like she disapproves, “Are you coming back to school?”
The question lands like a cold draft.
I look away out toward the window, where the garden hedges blur into the gray afternoon.
“I’m not so sure,” I say.
“Not this term?”
I shake my head. “Maybe. Hayden seems to have some reason why I can’t return right now, although he won’t discuss it.”
She watches me. “God, Martine, I’m struggling to keep my questions to myself, but is that what you want?”
I take a breath. “I don't know what I want right now.”
She leans forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees. “Is it Hayden?”
I pause. Then nod. “I want to be with him. He thinks the only place safe for me is his home, and I hope, Eulogia.”
Dale takes that in, slowly. “But you’re not in danger, are you?”
I glance down at the emerald ring, turning it slightly on my finger. “Not in the way you’re thinking, plus, it’s impossible to get any information out of Hayden. But I do know…this world I’m part of now, it has ruthless expectations.”
“And he doesn’t trust you to be out there alone?”
“It’s not about trust,” I say. “It’s about control. And I let him have it.”
Dale blinks. “Why?”
“Because I lost my family. My entire sense of direction. And Hayden…” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “He stepped in.”
“His way,” she echoes, quietly.