Chapter 17
SAGE
Aweek later, a boat arrives, prearranged to take me to the mainland for a dress fitting in town. The storm that everyone has been freaking out about hasn’t hit yet, so everyone is frantic to get things done before it finally does.
Not fazed by the weather in the slightest, my mother made arrangements the moment she saw the headlines in the papers about the wedding being only days away.
Normally, I would balk at the idea of going to a store my mother chose.
But this might be my only chance to escape the island and meet Laine and Nola.
I need their help to come up with a plan to kill Troy well before the wedding day.
And the last message I sent them said I could meet today. They will be waiting for me.
You should have killed him when you had the chance, Nell voices at me.
I shove her out of my head. It’s not like I could have killed him and didn’t. The dinner knife I stole from the kitchen is never going to work. I don’t have the guts to stab someone. I’m not cut out for messy kills like Laine.
And despite everything, I still don’t have proof he killed Nell.
Gathering more evidence has been difficult of late.
His office has remained locked, and breaking into his phone has been impossible.
Troy left for London on business shortly after the barn, when he looked at me like he wanted to devour me, just like he did on the stairs.
It still feels like a fever dream.
All I have is a confusing memory of what happened in the tack room, which makes me wonder if I imagined that strained moment between us, or if I made it up.
On top of that, my dreams have changed. Instead of chasing Nell and then falling to my death, now I dream of Troy.
Every night, he brings me to the brink of death in more ways than one, with his hands at my throat and his lips searing mine, fire burning all around us.
And then I wake up drenched in sweat and a needy ache between my thighs that won’t go away,
Not unless I deal with it.
Only the birds outside know what I do in the dark, under the sheets, alone. I have no choice but to let go, touching myself until I’m truly lost, with his face haunting my mind and echoes of his rough hands branding my skin. I have to clamp down on my lips to stop myself from even saying his name.
Then, after, I suffocate myself into my pillow….
The horror of what I’ve done, corroding away inside of me.
To make matters worse, Mundel’s permanent scowl has been following me around the house.
He caught me trying to sneak off with bolt cutters, so I had to make something up about the old bicycle locked up near the greenhouse, saying I thought I could use it to explore the grounds.
He gave me a funny look and said it was missing a wheel.
Only Kathy’s insistence that I help her cook has kept me sane. With nothing to do but worry, baking has taken my mind off things, that, and talking to the horses each morning, feeding them the best carrots, taking care to close the barn door behind me.
As I’m leaving Grayfleet, Kathy gives me her spare raincoat to wear and then gives me a stiff look, suggesting that I also do some shopping while I’m in town.
“Elias can drop you off at the mall after.”
I keep my expression neutral. “I’m allowed to go alone?”
She raises a brow. “You’re a grown woman, aren’t you? If you’re staying, marrying Master Troy, you can’t keep wearing my old clothes.”
Days of rain have bloated the lake, turning minutes into an eternity. But the boat ride is over before I can panic too much.
Mundel waits by his car as we dock. Not the nimble Jeep he uses on the island that I assumed we’d be taking, but one that’s big and flashy—a huge black SUV.
Mundel opens the passenger-side door, and I climb into the enormous cream leather seat, feeling lost and insignificant as I buckle in. I should say something, anything. The silence is horrible.
“I-I thought we’d be taking the jeep.”
He looks at me like an idiot. “The jeep is stuck on the island until the rains stop.”
“Oh.” I process this. “So, normally, you can drive across? When the water’s lower?”
“When it’s not flooded, yes. There’s a crossing.”
We don’t speak for most of the journey. Mundel switches on the radio while I drum my fingers on the seat.
I’m tense, my nerves on edge, with Troy’s phone stuffed in my pants because Kathy’s two-piece doesn’t have pockets, and I wasn’t wearing the raincoat when I came downstairs.
It’s not too low; it’s just below the waistband, sitting against my hip.
I had to turn it off because Troy kept calling his own phone around the house looking for it.
I do not need incessant buzzing right near my groin.
When we drive past the signs for the shopping center, we keep going, into Old Fleet, and then pull up into a cramped alley behind a row of towering Victorian buildings.
My stomach tightens. “Where are we?”
He shoots me a bored look. “Where do you think? The address your mother sent.”
“This doesn’t look like a wedding dress boutique.” It looks like a place where people disappear. Mundel is going to get rid of me in this dark alley.
But he rolls his eyes. “We’re at the rear entrance. There’s no parking on the main street in the old town.”
“Oh.” I chew my lip and look around. My heart still skips several beats, but I take in a breath to calm it. Will I ever shake the feeling of being trapped?
Buried, Nell whispers unhelpfully.
Then it occurs to me I’ve screwed up. I hoped we were going close to the mall in New Fleet, where I’m supposed to be meeting Laine, not Old Fleet. “How far is the mall from here?”
“The mall?” He raises a brow.
“Is it close?”
“No.” Mundel glares at me. “I was told to bring you to the wedding dress shop and that’s what I’ve done.”
“Kathy said I could go shopping.”
Mundel grumps. That’s the only way to describe it. “That woman can say what she likes; I have my orders.”
When I don’t move to get out, he sighs. “Is there a problem, Ms. Lovett?”
“Nope.” I pop the p, trying to convince myself it’s not. I’ve no idea how I’m going to meet Laine, but I’ll find a way.
“Wait.”
I pause and look back at Mundel, nerves frayed. Has he changed his mind?
He offers me a sleek, gray credit card.
“What is it?”
“It’s called a bank card, Ms. Lovett.”
I chew my lip at him. I know what a bank card is. “I mean, why are you giving it to me?”
“The boss told me to give it to you. Unless you have your own money to pay for the wedding dress?” He sneers at the word wedding.
I shake my head and take it, tracing my finger over the words Meridian Vaults etched along the bottom.
I read once that they were the oldest private banking institution in the world, with links to the Lucians, the secret society that tried to kill Lainey. You have to be a billionaire to have an account with them.
I pocket the card, trying not to tremble. It’s cold to the touch.
Of course, it’s metal, not plastic.
“I’ll be waiting out here in an hour,” Mundel says gruffly.
He’s letting me go alone, at least. With a weak smile at Mundel, I clamber out before he can change his mind.
The cobbles underfoot are slick with water from the drains, and the air is filled with the smell of chemicals and cleaning fluids. Fleet & Fawn, etched on one of the polished brass plates, tells me which door it is.
I press the bell and wait, trying not to freak out at the industrial bins cluttering the space to my left. Out of the corner of my eye, one of the lids is slightly ajar, with pale limbs and half a torso sticking out of it. It looks like a dismembered body.
“It’s just a mannequin,” I say under my breath.
“Yes?” A clipped voice crackles over the intercom.
“Sage Amelia Lovett, er…for a dress fitting?”
The door immediately buzzes, and I hurry to push my way inside.
The Fleet & Fawn interior is lovely, if not a little too perfect. The entire place is imbued with soft lighting, and the scent of lily of the valley lingers with every step I make on polished marble. And all around me as I walk is satin and lace, delicate gowns hanging from every rail.
A woman, elegantly dressed in a long skirt and a loose-fitting blouse, in her late fifties or sixties, greets me and introduces herself as Joules. She leads me to a cream-and-gold room and makes me sit on a velvety-soft sofa while she makes me a pot of tea.
I zone out, trying to take it all in, when Joules comes back and starts telling me the history of each wedding dress, how each one is cleaned and pressed.
And how she hand stitches every bride’s name on the inner corset, so we don’t have to.
It’s a tradition I never knew about, that Wychshire brides are supposed to do before our wedding day.
Knowing my mother, she’ll make me sew in mine.
Silence settles, and I blink. Joules is staring at me, smiling, waiting. Wait. Was I supposed to say something?
“So, what do you think?”
What do I think of the tradition?
“There must be a lot of names,” I say slowly, voicing the first thing that comes to my mind so she doesn’t think I’m not listening.
She smiles back, but her brow furrows. “Sewn in the dresses? Yes, some have many. Most only have one name. Not all brides like the thought of having a hand-me-down dress.”
“Are they all handed down, then?”
“Nearly all Fleet & Fawn gowns are pre-owned and pre-loved, beautifully restored after being so generously donated.”
Not because anyone in Fleet, or Wychshire for that matter, is that generous or eco-conscious. No, it’s the fear of superstition that keeps a business like this afloat. But Joules looks proud that she doesn’t pay a penny for her stock.
I give her a wan smile.
“My mother said there was a dress already put aside?” Nell’s dress. But I can’t be myself to say her name out loud.
Joules looks at her day journal, an A4 leather-bound, gold-edged notebook filled to the brim with names, measurements, and stapled receipts.