Page 40 of The Dravenhearst Brides

When she turned, her eyes were clear, hard.

She grabbed his cravat, yanking his head up.

“You may be just like your father, but I am nothing like your mother. Make no mistake, I won’t stand for it.

” She released him and strode to the door, pausing in the frame.

“Lay a single finger on me ever again, and I’ll do what she should have done. I’ll kill you myself.”

Margot gasped.

“Babette,” Richard cried, rising to his feet.

They both followed the lady of the house into the hall, Richard storming, Margot fretting.

The hallway was dark and chilled. Margot shivered. Richard’s specter blew straight through her, giving chase. Margot convulsed from the burst of cold. So sharp, so painful.

Babette rounded the corner, heading for the stairs. As Margot staggered down the shadowy corridor, raised voices argued on her left. A door swung open of its own accord, hinges whining. Slow. Light spilled into the darkness.

Margot froze as a fresh burst of frigid air exploded into the hall. Hesitantly, very hesitantly, she edged forward. Peered inside.

Eleanor was in the parlor. Eleanor and another dark-haired man. Twice her size with a scruffy jaw carved from marble. Long-fingered hands.

Another Dravenhearst man. Bearing down on her.

The smack of a backhand stole all the breath from Margot’s lungs.

The power of it so strong, it knocked Eleanor off her feet.

She flew, tumbling onto a wingback couch.

For the first time, she wasn’t wearing her bridal gown and veil.

Just a housedress. Simple. Pale pink. When she lifted her head, fearful eyes trained on her husband, Margot understood.

Eleanor’s face, finally exposed, was littered with bruises. At the temple. Beneath her right eye. Fingermarks on her neck. Her cheek was bright pink, and what was pink today would be purple tomorrow.

The man grunted with exertion, then lumbered forward.

Eleanor’s shriek was powerful enough to blow the door closed in Margot’s face. She stumbled away. Running from the nightmare.

Another door flew open, to the right this time. Another scream.

Eleanor again. A blue dress and an arm across her throat, pinning her to the wall. Her husband’s hand twisted in her hair, wrenching her face up to look into his eyes.

“Tell me you love me,” he said.

Margot flinched away from the familiar words.

“I love you,” Eleanor whispered, voice hoarse but earnest. Eyes shining with it, the terror and the love.

The door slammed shut.

Four more steps, another door.

Eleanor on the floor of a dark, empty nursery. Sobbing. Her fingers latched around the bars of a crib, clenching tight enough to splinter wood.

A kick to her ribs from a foot in shiny black shoes. “What good are you? What good are you if you can’t give me a son? Locked in this room all day, crying. You take everything from me. Everything!”

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor screamed. “I’m trying. I’m trying so hard. Please. We can try again. Let me try again.” She spun, hands latching at his waist. Undoing his pants. “We’ll try again.”

The door blew shut. Margot ran. She wanted to close her eyes. She was almost at the end of the hallway. Only one more door. Only one more door to pass. Only one more door in this house of horrors.

It opened with a slow, ominous creak.

“No more,” Margot whispered. No more windows to the past.

She didn’t want to see, but she looked anyway.

A four-poster bed with bloodstained sheets. Eleanor, panting, sweaty, wild hair and even wilder eyes. Her husband at the foot of the bed. A physician crouched on his haunches, a newborn baby in his hands.

But the room was silent.

The room.

Was silent.

Margot covered her gaping mouth with a tremulous hand. The baby was blue and still. And far, far too small.

“My baby,” Eleanor gasped, forcing herself upright. “Give me my baby!”

The physician looked at the Dravenhearst man beside him and shook his head. In that moment, the man was just a man. A man not yet a father. Not yet, maybe not ever. He crumbled, grabbing the bedpost for support.

“My baby!” Eleanor’s voice was shrill, her hands extended. Grabbing. “Please.”

The chill gripping Margot’s bones was born of so much more than cold. She shook with it all the way to her core.

“Mrs. Dravenhearst,” the physician began slowly, so very slow. “I’m…I’m sorry. Stillborn.”

Eleanor blinked twice, uncomprehending.

“He’s stillborn,” the physician repeated, lifting the child.

“He…” the man-not-yet-a-father repeated, choking on a sob. “He.”

“My son,” Eleanor cried, reaching again. “Give him to me. It’s all right. He’ll be fine. I’ll feed him…and then…” She hiccuped, tears beginning to fall. “And then…”

The physician shook his head.

“I’m his mother,” she shrieked. “His mother. Give me my baby.” She howled, a cry so raw, so feral, it crossed space and time, needling into Margot’s brain. Every nerve connection shattering like glass.

Instinctively, Margot’s hand flew to her stomach, caressing the spot where her own child grew. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fathom…

There was only one thing she could do. She reached out and closed the door. Fell into it, eyes closed. Tears leaking.

This whole house was cursed. She understood fully now.

Cursed in a way she couldn’t ever hope to break.

The cracks ran too deep. Sorrow baked into the foundation alongside the bricks.

Blood sunken into the floorboards. Tears in the bedsheets.

Heartbreak in the windowpanes. Babies buried under magnolia trees…

“Babette!” A voice thundered from the stairs, and Margot remembered.

She remembered giving chase. Remembered Babette with Richard’s hands at her throat. Remembered a time when unraveling the mystery of the former Mrs. Dravenhearst seemed like the most important thing in the world.

The thing that would set her free.

Margot forced herself to turn the corner. Ruth stood at the bottom of the stairs in a gown colored like sunset, all fiery oranges and pale pinks, blurring and swirling, a work of art of a dress. She always looked beautiful, but tonight, she was a vision.

“Babette?” Ruth reached for her friend as she flew off the final stairs.

“Not now, Ruth,” Babette snapped but didn’t glance at her twice. Not at her beautiful dress or her concerned face.

Margot trailed behind the scene like a sleepwalker, the slumbering princess destined for the spinning wheel.

Her feet led her to the ballroom, to Ruth’s and Richard’s sides at the edge of the dance floor.

Shoulder to shoulder. A string quartet was playing, and there, dead center on the floor, was Babette in her magnificent peacock-feathered ballgown.

Dancing in Alastair Pendry’s arms. Closer than close.

Margot was woozy with fear, dizzy with it as she looked sideways for Richard. His face was devastated, a man accepting lashes for a terrible wrong. There was no fight left in him, only defeat.

And beyond him, Ruth, her face twisted as if she’d tasted sour milk. Ruth, wrapping her arms tight around her middle, standing on the outskirts, watching her beautiful best friend at the center of the dance floor. Her eyes were aflame. Burning. Seething. Scorching. Boiling.

With jealousy.

Margot stepped back, her heart stuttering. She’d never seen Ruth’s beautiful face twisted in such a way.

The strings played on. Resonate, thrumming. When Babette twirled by, she released Alastair and grabbed Margot. Their fingers joined, a ghostly connection, more whisper than flesh and bone. Margot allowed herself to be swept away.

“See how they watch us?” Babette murmured in her ear. She had no breath to warm the skin. Margot felt only cold. “See how they can’t look away?”

Richard and Alastair stood on the edges, watching every move. Ruth too, her expression dull now. Resigned.

“I’m going to tell you the secret, fledgling,” Babette cooed.

“Men don’t want a woman they already have.

They’re socialized to conquer. To chase.

To possess. If you want a thousand ships launched in your name, it takes far more than beauty.

You must be elusive. Unconquered and unconquerable.

Only then will his heart be forever yours.

Dance with another, he watches. Kiss another, he goes mad.

” With that, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Margot’s cheek, ghosting over the skin, raising gooseflesh.

Margot’s breath caught. Her voice, when it came, was high and breathy. “Sounds like a dangerous game.”

Babette’s eyes glowed with pleasure. She took her thumb and dragged it over Margot’s lower lip, pulling. “Those are the only games worth playing. I’ve given you the secret. If you want to be wanted, you can never let him have you.”

Margot’s eyes were closed, but her feet were moving. Twirling. The fortissimo of the violin swelled in her ear.

Babette’s fingers warmed within her own, coming alive. Two turns later, her chest bloomed with heat, the way it did after a sip of bourbon went down. Deliciously hot.

When she opened her eyes, it was like emerging from underwater, wrenching forcibly through the surface. A gasping breath, pulling fresh air into her lungs. A steady hand in her own.

And before her, his face.

Dark hair. Strong jaw. A Dravenhearst man. Hers.

“Merrick?” she whispered. She was engulfed by him, tucked into his arms. Dancing in a silent marble ballroom in the dead of night. A dozen Margots and Merricks—reflected in the mirrors—revolved in a close hold.

“Is that finally you?” he asked. “Are you back with me?”

“What happened?”

“You said never to wake you.”

She swallowed. The edges of the dream were growing hazy.

“You said never to wake you,” he repeated, whispering now, “but I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear to see you dancing without me. Who do you dance with, if not me?”

He dipped her slowly, bending her back. His nose grazed the soft skin of her throat.

“It was only a dream…” she told him as he raised her from the dip. “A dream, nothing more.”

They stopped moving.

He dragged his thumb over her bottom lip, pulling. Eyes heavy-lidded with desire.

A shudder ran through her at the memory. If you want to be wanted…

“Dreaming or no,” he breathed, “dancing is a dangerous game.”

When he pressed his lips to hers, hungry and sweet, she could only agree.

A dangerous game indeed.