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“For Christ’s sake, Evie,” I heard him grumble. “Haven’t you destroyed enough?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
My mother’s voice was loud and clear behind the door. A sign that she was well and truly furious. Normally, the laudanum kept her sounding meek and muddled. It pleased me to hear her sounding like her old self again, even though I knew it was prompted by the worst fight my parents had had in years.
“Nothing is destroyed,” my father said. “Everything is fine. The firm is just going through a rough patch. Which is why it’s so important right now that we have the money to keep it going.”
My mother let out a derisive snort. “Our daughters’ money, you mean.”
“It should be our money.”
“Over my dead body,” my mother said.
This prompted my father to reply, “Don’t tempt me.”
“My parents had good reason for creating that trust,” my mother said. “If you could get at that money, you’d spend it all in a year and Lenora and Virginia would have nothing.”
“Nothing is exactly what they’ll have if the business goes under and this place is foreclosed on.”
My sister and I exchanged worried glances. We had no idea things were that bad, even though we should have suspected it. My parents barely spoke, let alone fought, which is why when their argument echoed down the hall, we both ran for the door to listen in. We knew something big had to have caused it.
“They’ll be just fine if it does,” my mother said.
“And what about me? You won’t care if I lose everything?”
“I’ve already lost everything,” my mother said. “Why shouldn’t you? Or are you more worried about your little whore? I suppose I should say whores, since there have been many over the years.”
“Don’t act so innocent with me, darling,” my father shot back, spitting the term of endearment he used on me with undisguised venom. “We both know the truth.”
My mother’s reply was so quiet that my sister and I had to press our ears against the door to hear it. Even then, we could barely make out the half-whispered “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” my father said. “I know why you married me. Just like I know that Lenora isn’t my daughter.”
I gasped. So loudly I was certain my parents heard it through the door. My sister was certain, too, for she clapped a hand over my mouth and whisked me down the hallway to the first open room. She yanked me inside just as the door to my mother’s bedroom opened. We huddled in that darkened room, my heart pounding and my head woozy from shock, as my father looked up and down the hallway.
“Girls,” he said in a voice so stern it turned my blood cold. “Were you eavesdropping?”
My sister kept her hand over my mouth as my father passed the open doorway, mere inches from us. I’d started to cry then, and my tears dripped over her fingers.
“Are you there, my dear and my darling?”
When he paused just past the door, I became certain he was about to leap inside, grab us both by our necks, and drag us out of the room. To my utter surprise, he moved on, down the hallway and to the Grand Stairs. When his footfalls faded to silence, my sister and I finally emerged and hurried to my bedroom. Inside, I threw myself onto the bed and began to weep, fully and openly.
My sister stood by the wall, her arms folded, in no mood to comfort me. I’m sure it never even crossed her mind.
“Do you think it’s true?” she said. “That we could lose Hope’s End?”
“That’s what you’re concerned about? Even after what Father said?”
“Oh, that.” My sister shrugged. “Mother was in love with one of her parents’ servants and got pregnant. He abandoned her and she had to marry Father to avoid a scandal. I thought you knew.”
I shook my head. I had no idea.
Although, in hindsight, I think I should have. My sister and I bore only a slight resemblance to each other. Our noses were different. As were our hair and eyes. We looked less like siblings and more like cousins, which strangers had mistaken us for on more than one occasion.
“Well, now you do.” My sister paused as a cruel smirk formed across her lips. “Honestly, you should be relieved. Now you know where you get it from. And that you’re not the only slut in the family.”
She then swanned out of the room, leaving me alone and with a hollow feeling in my gut that she knew about me and Ricky.