Page 39 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Babette, ma petite amour,

Peacocks—these wild ideas of yours!

For you, my muse, I enclose a gown like no other. A visionary dress for a visionary woman.

They won’t be able to take their eyes off you…or their hands.

Your humble servant,

Jean-Phillipe

The lighting in the boudoir was dim with a crescent moon rising beyond the French doors.

Babette sat at the vanity, the folds of her peacock-feathered gown cascading over the seat, trailing to the floor to coalesce in a puddle around her bare toes. She swept a plump powder puff across her face, dusting it pale and smooth. Turning her skin to porcelain.

“That’s it then, is it?” Babette asked, dropping the puff atop its copper tin. “You’ve gone and fallen in love with him, given yourself away, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “You’re foolish.”

The sound cracked Margot’s spine into a straighter position. “I’m foolish? For loving your son?” She bit down hard on the final word, her warm breath crystalizing in the frigid air.

“My son is a Dravenhearst,” Babette snapped. “Pretty words drip heavy from their serpent tongues. Smart girls don’t trade their hearts for words alone.”

Margot walked to the settee, then settled there. “Perhaps you’re jealous.” She flounced her nightdress as though it was the finest gown of Parisian silk and Italian lace. “It’s only natural, I suppose all mothers are. When their son gives his heart to another.”

Babette popped her lips into a perfect O, painting them with a berry stain. “And he’s told you so, has he? That he loves you?”

Margot opened her mouth to reply, then closed it.

“Oh, fledgling.” Babette chuckled. The lid of an ornate jewelry box opened next. She withdrew a pair of canary diamonds and fastened them to her ears. “They’re very good at this game, trust me. We must be better.”

“Just because he hasn’t said it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it,” Margot replied, uncertainty rising. Where was Eleanor when she needed her? Ever the romantic, surely she would understand. Margot looked left and right, searching.

“She’s not here,” Babette said, flouncing her hair. “Eleanor is dealing with her own ghosts tonight, the most pressing one shaped like the hulking Dravenhearst man warming your bed. You’ll understand yourself soon enough. He’ll turn on you. They all do.”

Down the hall, the wail of a baby sounded—a toddler with a full set of lungs. Babette rubbed her temples.

“Babette!” Pounding rattled the adjoined bedroom door. “Babette, Merrick’s crying.”

“I have ears, Richard,” she bit back. She lowered her breath so only Margot could hear. “That’s what the bloody nursemaid is for.”

“Babette.” More pounding. The tenor of Merrick’s cry rose to a fever pitch.

“I’m getting dressed,” she shouted back, ripping a strand of pearls from the jewelry box and heaving them at the door. They landed with a startling rattle, the strand slithering like a snake as it settled.

A sigh through the wood, footsteps moving away.

Babette spun on her stool, wide eyes on Margot. Sweet eyes. Alluring eyes. She unfurled her fingers to reveal a pair of silk stockings. “Would you mind? I’d ask him”—she jerked her head toward the door—“but he’s being a dreadful oaf tonight, isn’t he?”

Babette lifted the hem of her feathered gown as though it was the curtain going up at the opera.

She extended her pale, creamy leg—toes pointed—for Margot.

Meanwhile, her fingers worried at her forehead, forcibly smoothing the lines.

“If only he’d stop crying,” she murmured. “Just once. For just one hour.”

“You could go to him.” Margot couldn’t keep the judgment from her voice. “You could hold him. Dry his tears and rock him to sleep.” Mother him.

“Is that what you think motherhood is? You imagine it like Madonna and child?” Babette arched an eyebrow. “You’ve much to learn. And learn you shall.” She jutted her chin toward Margot’s stomach.

“He’s your son.”

“Yes, he is. And when I first gazed upon his face the day he was born, do you know what I saw?”

Margot slipped Babette’s toe inside the silk sheath, then unrolled it over her ice-cold leg. When she reached the top, unfurling mid-thigh and releasing as rapidly as she could, she looked at the ghost bride from beneath frost-crusted lashes.

“I saw what he would grow to be,” Babette continued. “I saw a Dravenhearst man in my arms. A deadly one, just like all the rest. It’s very dangerous to love a Dravenhearst…even more dangerous, perhaps, to be loved by one.”

“What does that mean?”

The door swung open with a bang. Margot stumbled away from Babette.

“Darling! Your timing is impeccable.” Babette lifted the remaining stocking for her husband. “Would you be a dear?”

“Merrick stopped crying,” Richard said, frozen several feet away.

“Yes, Evangeline is with him. That’s what we pay her for, after all.”

He pursed his lips. Margot drifted nearer, curious.

She’d never been this close to Richard. His dark hair, stubbled jaw—the resemblance was uncanny.

But it was his hands that stopped her dead in her tracks.

They hung loose at his sides, his fingers unfurled.

The sheer breadth of them, the veins over knuckles, the shape and slender length of the fingers…

Margot had been touched by those hands. Merrick’s hands.

Across the room, Babette smiled slowly, wicked with satisfaction. Another Dravenhearst man…just like all the rest.

“What I pay her for,” Richard said.

“Semantics.” Babette waved his comment away. Her hemline went up again, curtain rising. Bare leg, pointed toes. “Be a dear, won’t you?” She offered him the remaining silk stocking.

Richard’s scowl lifted in a grin. He dropped to his knees, planting a kiss on Babette’s exposed knee. He rolled the stocking upward with practiced fingers, lingering over her thigh. Wrapping his hand around bare skin. Possessive.

“Not now, darling,” Babette murmured. “Guests are arriving.”

“There are always guests arriving,” he said. “Always a full house. Maybe I want you all to myself tonight. I doubt they’ll even notice.”

“I’ll be missed.” She rose with a laugh, her exquisite gown falling to the floor. Curtain down, show over.

His scowl returned. Richard strode to the French doors, raising an arm over his head to lean on the frame as he gazed into the night. Lights shone on the drive—a few guests arriving in motorcars, more still in carriages. “What if I miss you? What if Merrick and I both miss you?”

A flicker in Babette’s eye. Annoyance. “You have me all the time.”

“Do I?” Richard continued to stare at the lineup of arriving guests. He took a deep breath. “Is Alastair coming tonight?”

Silence.

Margot sank back, blending in with the walls. She held her breath.

“Did you invite—”

“It’s a party!” Babette threw up her hands. “Everyone between here and Louisville is invited. How should I know if—”

The speed with which he moved was astounding. Faster than a panther, he crossed the room in a dark blur and slammed Babette against the wall with the force of thunder, a crashing boom that rattled the whole house.

Margot cried out, but no one glanced her way. This memory would play on with or without her.

“Goddammit, Babette! You promised.”

No quip came. There was always a quip, and that was what worried Margot the most. Not Babette’s shocked eyes. Not the small gasp of fear betrayed by her lips. It was the loss of her voice.

“Tell me you love me,” he pleaded, pinning her shoulders to the wall. A trapped butterfly. “Only me.”

“Let go of me.”

“Tell me he’s nothing,” Richard begged, shaking her. “Tell me you won’t see him anymore. Promise me.”

Babette raised her chin, a fierce glint in her eye. Margot knew the answer before she said it, saw the shape of the word formed by her lips.

“No.”

Only the sound of breathing. Panting. Harsh. Guttural. Their faces mere inches apart.

“It’s just a game to you, isn’t it?” he whispered. “Me. Your son. Pieces on a chessboard.”

“I prefer checkers.”

“Goddammit!” He slammed her back again, and his hands flew to her throat. Squeezing.

Margot flew away from the wall.

“You are not to see him, not to look at him. Not to breathe air in the same room as him. I won’t ask again.”

Margot was at Richard’s shoulder now, clawing. Trying to haul him away, but her fingers plunged straight through his suit jacket. Flesh moving through frigid vapor, nothing to grip.

Not real, not real, not real.

Babette was turning purple. It seemed very real indeed.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Margot screamed, slapping ineffectively at his hulking, transparent shoulder. Such a large man. Strong as an ox.

Strong in all the same ways as her own husband, she realized, stumbling back in shock. She’d never thought of Merrick that way before, in terms of the damage he could inflict.

But those hands…Merrick’s hands…circling the pale throat of a redheaded woman…

Weak, fading, Babette struck. Her slap hit true, right across Richard’s chin. It was enough to snap him from his stuporous rage. He released her, staggering away. Staring at his hands in horrified shock.

Babette crumpled against the wall, gasping.

“What have you done to me?” Richard whispered, fingers shaking.

Babette gathered herself and stood to her full height. Spine unflinching, eyes blazing. A single peacock feather slipped loose from her magnificent gown and drifted to the floor.

“I didn’t know you had it in you. I’ll admit it, you almost had me fooled,” she said, fingers rising to her throat. “I wanted you to be different.”

“Babette, I didn’t mean—”

“You’re exactly the same as your father,” she spat.

To hide her eyes—eyes filling with tears—she crossed the room to her vanity.

Dug through her ornate box until she’d pulled a thick collar of jewels from its depths.

Five strands wide. She slipped it around her neck, choker tight, to conceal the bruising already leaching through.

Richard fell to his knees. His voice was a plaintive whisper. “Babette.”