Chapter Nineteen #2
“What’s wrong with fig leaves?” she asked.
It would be a long and confusing explanation, and we didn’t have time.
How could I ever explain my nightmares, and the uncanny placement of the fig tree in the Crowthorne orangery compared to the one at Heather House?
Even as I gave a brief explanation in my mind, I realised it sounded ludicrous. They were just plants, nothing more.
“Figs, fig leaves, they’re a hot trend right now...” said Eugenie, tailing off. “Are you sure you aren’t having second thoughts?”
She was right – I was delaying things, and I didn’t want to waste another moment. Every of fibre of my being was urging me toward the altar, where he would be waiting for me.
“I’m certain,” I said determinedly. “Let’s go.”
Nicholas took my breath away.
Standing at the altar, tall and broad shouldered with his narrow waist cinched by a buttoned-up brocade coat in charcoal, he was devastatingly handsome.
He turned his head to one side, glancing my way. The light from a high chapel window caught the threads of silvery grey in his tousled locks of dark hair. That same light caught the dimensions of his Roman nose, the gentle but exquisite twist in its middle, and the steely line of his square jaw.
His eyes, black and consuming, watched me with a bewitching desire beneath their hood of eyelashes. I couldn’t fathom now how I’d ever found his appearance so merciless and cold, his gaze unkind, when he was anything but.
He was an extraordinary man, with as many secrets woven through him as there were threads in his waistcoat, and I loved him, inexorably.
There was a man who would kill for the woman he loved.
Both of them, a cruel voice whispered in my mind, reminding me of her. Reminding me that I was not his only love.
I paid it no attention as I walked, resolutely, to meet him at his side.
?
After the reception dinner, we made our way to the marquis where the band struck up for our first dance beneath the stars. The older male singer softly crooned the song of our first dance: Fairy Tale by Frank Sinatra.
I blushed beneath my makeup as Nick held me at the waist, swaying me.
The crowds around us disappeared as we danced, and wave after wave of emotion flooded me with endorphins to the tips of my fingers and toes.
I’d never seen Nick looking so free and relaxed, in his element, applauded by all the guests that were happy for him.
The very people he swore didn’t exist, leaving only those suspicious, covetous few who believed the worst of him.
They didn’t exist; not tonight. Never again.
Margaret had dressed as if attending a funeral; a stiff black skirt and blouse, her nails polished, but little else to mark that she was anywhere else but work.
The fact she refused to believe Nick’s account of Alexander, her favoured child, was unforgivable in my eyes.
She was dead to me. We paid no mind to her as we swayed, and when he leaned down to kiss me, he dipped me so low that I squealed with shock and delight.
The crowd applauded, and the band segued into a rendition of The Way You Look Tonight as guests filtered onto the dance floor.
I dabbed the moisture from the corners of my eyes on a napkin at the buffet table. Nick plucked up his pocket square and took over, so gently that it only made me more emotional.
“What’s the matter, darling?” he asked, his finger tracing the line of my cheekbone. I kissed it. “Should I sweep you away upstairs and make you forget whatever unhappiness is spoiling this moment for you right now?”
A laugh escaped me, the tears finally rolling down my cheeks.
“I’m just so very happy,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “I’ve never been so happy before in my life.”
Nick pressed a kiss to my forehead and drew me close to him, rocking me, his lips nuzzling my ear. He softly sang the words of Fairy Tale, calming me, reminding me I was safe, forever, in his arms.
“You were so enchanting when you walked down that aisle,” he whispered, his fingers lacing with mine. “I couldn’t believe you wanted to belong to me, to be my wife. To be buried with me one day, rotting with me.”
“And until that day comes, we’ll enjoy our lives. Really live, perhaps, for the first time,” I said.
A laugh-line creased at the corner of his mouth as he drifted into a smile, looking as if a weight had lifted from him. Like he could accept for the first time in his life that his best years were ahead of him, the heights of happiness there for the taking, for both of us.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for some time now, darling, though I suspect I know the answer... When you sneaked your way into the mortuary all those times, alone, after hours...what were you hoping to find?” asked Nick, toying with a lock of my hair.
The question took me aback, but he seemed relaxed, unthreatened, and so I answered him.
“I wanted to look at them. The bodies. I wanted to stand there alone and look at them – really look at them – and just marvel at their uncomplicated beauty,” I said, feeling a sense of calm come over me just to speak of it.
“If I admired them for just a while, I could see beyond the aspects other people find so horrifying.”
Nick closed his eyes as he smiled.
“Was that really so wrong of me, for Maggie to respond to me the way she did?”
“If you’re wrong, then so am I, and we’ll be wrong together,” said Nick, dipping his eyes, smiling at the lock of my hair that he twirled around his fingers.
“Since that night, when you and I...well, I won’t speak of it here.
You and I became true partners, in my mind.
It was the very first time we worked in unison outside of the mortuary.
The first time I felt I had a soul-companion, someone who would have my back, and I theirs.
I look at you, that way. I see your enchanting, uncomplicated beauty, even behind those aspects. ..”
“Which others would find so horrifying.” I finished for him, remembering that moment, when the light faded from Tom’s eyes. I felt so complete and understood that it brought tears to my eyes once more. “And I look at you just the same, sir,” I said.
“You don’t need to call me that any more,” he said, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Just call me Nick. You’re my partner, not my subordinate, even if it did send me rock solid to hear you utter that word so often.”
He laughed, but I knew he meant it.
He was right. It was time to venture forward as husband and wife, as partners – not as mentor and apprentice.
“There’s something else I want you to know about me,” said Nick, his voice faltering. “Things I’ve never been able to share with you before.”
He leaned close and whispered in my ear.
He spoke of his violence, in defence of his love.
He spoke of criminal charges. I closed my eyes and leaned in to him, as if being lulled by sensual promises.
He told me of his capacity for murder; of the darkness that had followed him since childhood, as a confused, misunderstood boy.
The darkness created by the abuse he suffered at the hands of his brother. The darkness that only grew.
I kissed him with a ferocity, wishing we were alone.
“My complicated husband,” I said, touching his face. “I love that darkness in you.”
“And I love yours,” he said, kissing my fingers. “I always will.”
We danced again, drifting in our own private euphoria.
I fanned my face with my hand, the air thick with the heat of so many bodies. I searched the crowds for Eugenie, hoping to catch her eye and indicate that I needed her help.
“Damn it,” I said under my breath. “I can’t see her. I was hoping she could help me out of my dress.”
“Then let me,” said Nick, sliding a finger inside the lace fanning up around my neck. He traced my jugular vein, smoothing his fingertip over my pulse. I took it and kissed it, leaving rouge where my lips had pressed.
“I have a second dress, one that I can move in much easier to allow me to enjoy the evening.” And you, I wanted to add. There was no way we were making it to the end of the evening before tearing each other’s clothes off. I sighed. Wherever she was, I was certain she was having a good time.
“Never mind – I’ll shimmy out of it myself,” I said.
“Nonsense, that’s what I’m here for –”
Someone called to Nick, interrupting him.
A man I recognised as another friend of his from boarding school.
Over the months, I’d gotten to know many of his friends and peers in the funeral business, as well as all their wives.
I was beginning to make friends of my own, and create a stable life for myself in Hampstead.
“Stay and enjoy the party. I won’t be long,” I said, planting a kiss on his chin before I made my way out of the marquis.
There was no way I was fitting into the small, cramped elevator to get upstairs.
Sucking in a preparatory breath, I lifted my hefty skirts and scaled the stairs one step at a time, regretting that I didn’t let Nick assist me.
He was my husband, after all. Just getting up the stairs was going to be difficult, let alone getting out of this thing.
I was sweating by the time I reached the first landing, stopping by the library to catch my breath.
It was no use; the neck and waist of the dress had a vice-like grip on me, and I could barely breathe.
I would get this damn thing off if I had to rip it off – and there was still another set of stairs yet to go.
It was then that I noticed the light streaming from the short corridor to the library.