Chapter 3
Chapter Three
VICKY
At risk of crushing the delicate crystal champagne flute, if I grip it any harder, I set it down on a passing server’s tray and make fists of my hands. How dare Nicholas leave my sister’s funeral before we’d completed the ceremony? And here he is, waltzing into her wake when most people have left already as if he’s turned up late for a party.
I’ve always known he didn’t love Beth, but I’d hoped he at least respected her. I guess I have my answer to that now.
He wanders over to his father, and they share a word. Whether he senses my fiery glare, hot enough to melt the skin off his face, or his father says something that draws his attention to us, he glances across the room. His gaze sweeps over my parents, then me. I pour every ounce of hatred into my stare, leaving him in no doubt of how much I despise him. How I wish with all my heart that he were the one lying in a cold grave instead of my sister.
Beth .
Agony spears my chest, sharp enough that I press a hand to my sternum and rub. After a few seconds, the pain eases, but as Nicholas makes his way toward us, it flares up again. This time, even rubbing it doesn’t help.
“Laura, Phillip, I’m?—”
“You’re disgusting,” I cut in, not wanting to hear another word out of his treacherous mouth. “You couldn’t even be bothered to stick around for Beth’s funeral. You are a?—”
“Enough, Vicky.” My father squeezes my upper arm firmly enough to leave a bruise. “You’ve already disrespected this family in front of the entire congregation. I don’t want to hear another word from you, young lady.”
“It’s okay, Phillip.” Nicholas lays a hand on my father’s shoulder, but the flare to his nostrils gives him away. He’s furious. Good. “Emotions are running high,” he adds.
If it were just me and him, he wouldn’t be as polite. He’s respectful to my parents only because he almost married their daughter. Instead, he had a hand in killing her.
“Not yours, obviously,” I snap. “What have you got in there?” I poke a finger in the general direction of his chest, trying not to notice how taut the muscles are, straining against his dress shirt. “A swinging brick?”
“Enough.” This time my dad yells loud enough to draw the attention of the remaining guests who’ve stuck around for the free food and expensive champagne. Not for Beth. Not for my Beth. Most of them didn’t even know her. The De Vils took charge of the guest list, just like they took charge of everything else, including my sister’s remains. It kills me to know I’ll have to come to Oakleigh in order to spend time with her.
“You will apologize to Nicholas right this second,” Dad orders, bringing me back to the present.
“Phillip, that’s not necessary.” Nicholas switches his gaze from my father to me, a steeliness in his eyes, the merest hint of a veiled threat. Now we see the beast.
“I’m trying to find out who killed Elizabeth, Victoria. I had a lead that couldn’t wait.”
“We know who killed her. You did.”
My father vibrates beside me, and Mum’s eyes are wide and unblinking as if she’s struggling to process what’s happening. Or maybe she’s worried what my contempt means for her and Dad. Whatever the reason, I don’t care. I stopped caring the second my sister stopped breathing.
Nicholas flexes his hands as though he’s trying not to clamp them around my neck, and a subtle blush steals over his cut-glass cheekbones.
“That’s not true,” he grinds out through clenched teeth.
I snort. “If you hadn’t upset her that night, she’d have come home with us. She’d be safe and sound instead of lying in a cold grave.”
The sigh he expels comes from deep within him, the action one of a man inching toward the end of his tether. A part of me wants to push him further, to see what would happen if he exploded. He strikes me as a man so tightly coiled that it fascinates me what he’ll do if that thread of control holding him together snaps. I’d love to be the one to make him lose his shit.
“At the risk of repeating myself for the hundredth time,” he snaps, “I said nothing to Elizabeth that would have upset her. She was stressed about the wedding, and I reassured her. The next thing I knew, she’d vanished.”
“To get away from you.” I can’t help wanting, no needing the last word.
“Cut me a fucking break, would you?” He almost growls each syllable, the underlying threat of retribution one that won’t work on me. I’m beyond caring what my impertinence will do. Way beyond that. “Finding Elizabeth’s murderer consumes my every thought, night and day.”
“Oh, bless your frozen little swinging brick.” Sarcasm threads through every word. “How awful it must be for you.” I wrench out of my father’s vise-like grip and storm off knowing I’ve only worsened my fate, but I’ve got no fucks left to give. They’ll probably send me away again like they did after I helped Imogen sneak off the estate. An ill-advised action that ended in her kidnapping.
God, maybe I’m the problem. Maybe there’s a reason my parents always favored Beth over me or why Nicholas chose my younger sister as his bride when convention would put me, the eldest child, in that position.
The only child, now.
Stuffing my knuckles into my eyes, I rub them hard, probably getting mascara all over my face, but who cares? I don’t.
“Vicky, wait.”
I pull up, turning as Imogen races toward me. She wraps me in a hug, and for a few seconds, I hug her back. There’s something about Alexander’s wife that’s different from what I’m used to. Many British people are frugal with their hugs, the aristocratic and rich among the worst for behaving in a standoffish way. But Imogen isn’t like that. She hugs like she means it, like she enjoys it. I’ve never visited America, but from what I understand, they’re far more open with their affections than we are. Given how comforted I am by her silent support, there’s something to be said for that.
Too soon, though, my Britishness kicks in, and I pull away, my eyes stinging with tears I can’t let fall.
Later, I tell myself. When you’re alone. When you can sob freely without being judged.
Imogen interlaces our hands. “Come with me.”
“Where?” I ask, although I follow her anyway.
“I think you could do with a bit of peace and quiet, a stiff drink, and a shoulder to lean on considering I haven’t seen your parents offer you a crumb of comfort all day.”
My vision blurs, the tears I’ve promised to hold onto edging closer to falling. I blink them away as Imogen leads me up several flights of stairs and into a library. A roaring fire glows in the grate, and the smell of old books hangs in the air.
“This is gorgeous.” I trail a fingertip over the beautiful spines. Knowing the De Vils, these are probably all first editions.
“It’s one of my favorite rooms in the house.” She crosses the polished parquet flooring to a drinks cabinet nestled in the corner and pours a dark amber liquid into a cut crystal glass. Returning to me, she raises the glass in the air. “To Beth.”
Those damn tears rush to the surface again. I duck my head while I try like hell to regain control of myself until Imogen says, “Let it go, Vicky,” and the floodgates open. She sets the glass down on an end table, then hugs me again.
This time, I cling to her, balling my hands into the soft wool of her dress. I sob and sob while Imogen strokes my hair and whispers the kind of comforting words I didn’t realize I craved.
Gently guiding me to the couch, she sits me down and passes me the glass she poured a few minutes earlier. I take a sniff, recoiling, and wrinkle my nose. “Not a fan of brandy.”
“Me, either, but it’ll help. Plus, it’s Alexander’s favorite, and he doesn’t like to share.” She grins. “If that helps it go down a little smoother.”
“You know, I think it will.” Knocking back the whole thing in one greedy gulp, I wince as the strength of the liquor burns my esophagus. “Good God, Alexander’s insides must have rotted if this is what he drinks.”
“But do you feel less murderous?” She rubs my forearm and winks, and somehow coaxes a one-note laugh out of me.
“Toward Nicholas, not even a little bit.”
“You loved him once.”
Grief, remorse, and guilt hit me like a tsunami. I had no right to feel anything for Nicholas. He was Beth’s. I’m glad she never found out I had feelings for him. It’s a shred of comfort I’m probably not entitled to but I’ll take. Right now, I’ll take anything to fill the gaping hole her absence has left in my life.
“I’m not sure I did. I think it was more like infatuation. After all, how could I have ever loved a man I don’t even know? A man who sent my sister to her death.”
Holding my hand, she gives a wry smile. “Don’t hate me for this, but if Nicholas says he didn’t say anything to her that would make her leave, then he’s telling the truth.”
Yeah, his version of it.
“Then, why did she, Imogen? Why would she get into a stranger’s cab? She wasn’t stupid. She knew the risks of being attached to a De Vil.”
“I don’t know. I wish I had the answers for you. But Nicholas is doing everything he can to find out what happened.”
A snort bursts out of me. “He’s not doing that for Beth; he’s doing it for him. For his family. No one takes on the De Vils, not if they want to keep breathing. He’s only searching this hard for the culprit—or culprits—to allow him to make an example out of them.”
“I’m sure that’s not the only reason.”
“It’s the main reason, and you know it.”
My gaze turns to the fire, and we fall into silence, the two of us watching the flames flicker, spit, and crackle. It’s pretty symbolic of how I feel. Every morning, I wake up, and there’s this rage inside me that burns hotter each day. They say that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and perhaps they’re right, whoever “they” are. I thought I loved Nicholas, unabashedly and fiercely, even if I’d long ago accepted nothing could ever come of it. But when Beth died, that coin flipped, and it turns out the tails side of that coin has a ferocious need for vengeance. Against Nicholas, against whoever planted that bomb, against the whole fucking world.
Burn it all down. I don’t care anymore.
“There you are.”
Simultaneously, Imogen and I glance over our shoulders, and I groan. So much for a bit of peace. Alexander strolls across the library, leaning over the couch to kiss his wife on the top of her head. A bite of envy curls in my gut. Imogen had a tough time settling into her new life here, far away from her family and friends in California, yet the hollowness in my chest spreads at the way her whole face lights up at the sight of her husband.
“Your parents are looking for you, Victoria.” Alexander glares at me, looking as if he’s swallowed something particularly unpleasant as he delivers the message.
“You don’t have to go,” Imogen says. “If you need more time.”
“No, it’s for the best.” I stand, and she does the same. “I have to face the music some time or other. May as well be now.”
“We all have to face the consequences of our actions,” Alexander says stiffly.
Imogen scowls at him, then shifts her attention to me. “You know where I am if you need me.”
One look at Alexander’s curled lip, and I know he’s going to do everything in his power to keep Imogen and me apart, which only makes me want to cling to her more. Besides, I can’t imagine Imogen taking kindly to Alexander cutting off one of the few friends she has in England. I clearly recall her waxing off his eyebrow the last time he got rid of one of her friends. Although that friend turned out to be anything but, it’s still funny as fuck.
“Thank you for being so kind.”
I make my way to the door and head toward the staircase, groaning when I spy Nicholas coming toward me. Wonderful. Ignoring him, I keep walking. He snaps out a hand, capturing my wrist.
“Hold on a second.”
I tug to break free, but it’s hopeless. “What for? I have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, I have plenty to say to you.” The corner of his eye twitches, and his jaw is locked up that tightly, he’s probably on the verge of cracking a tooth or two. “I am sick of repeating myself. I did not kill Elizabeth. I had nothing to do with what happened to her.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Nicholas. Maybe you can convince yourself, but you’ll never convince me.”
His shoulders stiffen, and I’m pretty sure if he thought he could get away with it, I’d meet a grisly end.
“You are one of the most intractable women I’ve ever met. I pity the man you end up with.”
“And I pity the woman you end up with. Although, next time, do her and her family a favor and try not to kill her before she’s walked down the aisle.”
His eyes flash with murderous intent. I give another sharp tug and finally free myself. I sweep past him, beelining for the stairs, the heat from his stare burning into my skull. I half expect him to stop me, but he doesn’t.
As if by magic, my parents appear as my feet hit the last step. My father’s face is pinched, the skin around his eyes bunched as it often does when he’s displeased. Mum is slightly more empathetic, but she’ll follow Dad’s lead. And something tells me, it’ll be quite a while before I’m given the freedom to move around at will.
If they think they’re sending me off to Aunt Sheila’s again like they did after Imogen’s kidnapping, they can think again. I won’t go.
With a firm grip at my elbow, my father propels me forward to where a member of the De Vil household has brought our car around to the front of the house. Dad waits for me to get in, then slams the door and climbs into the driver’s seat. Once Mum is settled on the passenger side, Dad fires up the engine and steers the car down the long driveway. We pass through the guarded gates and drive out onto the road before Mum speaks.
“Your father and I will discuss what you can do to make up for your appalling behavior today, Vicky, and once we have decided on the best course of action, we will inform you. Until then, you will remain in your room. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” I mutter sullenly. As soon as I get my business up and running and save some money, I’m out of here. Until then, I’ll have to live by my parents’ rules, even if a twenty-three-year-old accepting a grounding is lame.
“Good.” This time, it’s Dad wading in. “Because we need that family, and your actions have made life a lot more difficult for your mother and me.”
They both fall into silence while Dad navigates the narrow country lanes. And as the hedgerows speed by, my brain replays one question on a loop:
What can my family possibly need the De Vils for now that Beth is gone?