Page 58 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Jean-Philippe,

You’ve done it again. Truly, I’ve only one thing left to say.

“Let them eat cake.”

Yours,

Babette Dravenhearst

The house always came alive at night.

Margot awoke at the witching hour with a shuddering gasp, chest arching toward the ceiling. She tasted jasmine in the air. Light flickered beyond the French doors. Margot slipped from Merrick’s bed and went outside.

She stood on the balcony in her nightdress, watching a streaming lineup of ghostly motorcars approach the manor, headlights circling the roundabout, passing up and down the drive under the magnolias. The moon hung low overhead, as thin and sharp as the blade of a scythe.

Margot turned toward the house. The master bedroom was dark, but the companion suite was brightly lit. She slipped back inside through the other set of doors.

Babette was there, wearing a gown of ivory lace with a high neck and full voluminous sleeves that tapered at the wrist. Her hair was pinned up with two glittering diamond clips. A bridal veil tumbled down her back. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, one hand gliding over her stomach.

Without a backward glance, Babette strode to the door.

Margot followed.

The hallway was dark and impossibly long. Longer than it should be. Colder too. Jasmine hung heavy in the air.

Babette glowed ahead, her white bridal gown cutting through the darkness. Doors flew open as Margot passed, but she didn’t look inside. The only memory she was interested in was the one unfolding before her—Babette’s final night at Dravenhearst Manor.

When Margot reached the top of the stairs, she paused. Babette descended, her veil dragging two steps behind her. Richard, Ruth, and Xander all waited in the foyer, three pairs of eyes drinking in the Dravenhearst bride. Margot leaned over the ebony rail to watch.

A pair of hands gripped her from behind, startling her. She gasped, teetering. There was a perilous moment when her stomach spiraled, when her vision blurred, and she imagined the fall. How the air would rush as she plummeted…

“Babette!”

The grip on her shoulders was ironclad, pulling her back. She spun and saw the real Xander. Heavily wrinkled, hair white and spotty.

“Babette,” he cried her name again. “I’ve packed and delivered your suitcase to the rickhouse. Everything is in place. Richard need never know.”

“What?” Margot’s brow creased. A shadow shifted over Xander’s shoulder in the dark hallway. A pair of white eyes, low to the ground.

Beau. Muzzle down. Eyes sharp.

“I’ve done as you asked,” Xander said. His bulbous blue eyes rolled about in his head, half mad. “We’re even now.” He squeezed her shoulders tight, just hard enough to yield pain.

Margot was locked in his talons like a field mouse. Prey.

“It’s there,” he repeated. “Inside the rickhouse, just as you asked. I’ll not tell Richard where you’ve gone, and you’ll not say a word to Evangeline about what we’ve done.”

“Xander,” she began. He was confused, though something about his words niggled at her.

His hands moved from her shoulders to the front of her nightdress, fisting there in his twisted grip. His eyes filled with tears. “Please, I’m begging. Set me free of you, Babette.”

“I’m leaving tonight,” Margot said, leaning into his delusion. “You’ll be free of me.”

“We should never have done what we did,” he hissed, spittle flying. “I love my wife. I can’t lose my wife.”

“You won’t.” She could make the promise because she knew, twenty years later, it was true.

Yet Xander was still haunted. Still consumed by the memory of his mistake.

“Can you ever forgive me?” He closed his eyes, exhaustion seeping in. “I need…to be forgiven.”

Margot’s gaze softened. “Yes. You’re forgiven, Xander. I forgive you.”

His hands released her, and he stumbled away, mouth gaping. Fingers trembling. He raised his eyes heavenward. “Thank God. Oh, thank God.”

Margot exhaled, stepping away from the railing. Beau slunk out of the shadows and positioned himself at her skirt. His warmth brushed her leg, reassuringly solid.

“We’re even then,” Xander said, straightening. “Your secret in exchange for mine. Your bag is at the rickhouse. Make haste and depart.”

Margot froze, her brain finally catching up to her intuition. “Xander…the rickhouse? Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“The rickhouse, not the stable?”

“You told me the rickhouse,” he said, holding firm. But his eyes were still crazed, eerily blue, flashing with the milky taint of cataracts. Margot didn’t know if she could trust him.

Hadn’t Ruth said the bag was delivered to the stables? And Alastair, on the telephone…he’d said he waited at the stables.

The stables, not the rickhouse.

“Xander, are you sure—”

He lunged, his hands twisting into her nightdress again. “The rickhouse.” He shook her shoulders, enough to jar her head. “That’s what you told me. Is this another one of your games, Babette?”

“N-n-no!”

“Do you want me to take you there? I’ll show you. I’ve done as you asked. I only ever do as you ask.”

“No.” She wrenched away. She wasn’t going anywhere with him, least of all the rickhouse. She turned and fled down the stairs.

Xander didn’t give chase. He remained on the landing, watching her with those milky aged eyes. Beau was at her heels, stepping on the hem of her skirt.

“Go to bed, Xander,” Margot called, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “You’ve no more business here tonight. Go to bed.”

He melted into the shadows of the house and disappeared.

Margot drifted to the base of the stairs, gripping the newel post in her shaking hands. Overhead, the crystal chandelier swung like a pendulum. The foyer was empty and cold, the veil to the past shattered. Babette was gone.

Margot’s mind raced.

Xander had been insistent. He took her bag to the rickhouse.

Ruth had barely mentioned it in her recollection, but Margot was certain she specified the stables.

And again, Alastair had been very clear on the telephone tonight, the meeting place was the stables.

He was told so by Ruth herself when he arrived outside the party—she browbeat him away from the door, directing him to the stables to hide.

He waited there all night, Alastair did. Waited until dawn for a woman who never showed. Alastair, who swore on his parents’ graves he had not poisoned Merrick. That he had nothing to do with Babette’s death. That he’d lived with a broken heart for twenty years…

Margot rubbed circles over her eyes. When she opened them, weary, the front door blew unlatched in the wind. The chill of centuries blasted into the foyer. Beau yelped, pressing against Margot’s legs.

“Shh,” she murmured, bending to scratch the dog behind his ears.

She peered outside and saw a woman running across the lawn, heading for the hill.

A wedding veil fluttered behind her like an ivory parachute.

When Margot passed over the threshold of the door, a shudder ran through her—the ghost of Richard, storming back inside the house, moving directly through her with tears coursing down his cheeks.

Margot lost her breath. His crossing felt like being doused with a bucket of icy water.

The wedding veil disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Margot began to run. She had to see. She had to know.

Paws thundered behind her—Beau, giving chase.

Her white nightdress twisted insidiously at her ankles, threatening to trip her as she lengthened her stride.

She lifted it to her knees, the skirt turning ominously silken in her hands.

She pointed her feet in the direction she’d last seen the fluttering of Babette’s veil.

Not heading for the stables, but for the rickhouse.

The rickhouse doors were cracked open, their metal handles covered with frost. Light spilled out in a single thin beam. Margot panted, pressing a palm to the door, followed by her ear. Trying to listen.

The night was silent. It answered no questions.

Margot knew fear. It twisted its snakelike tendrils around the hammering beat of her heart. Squeezing, telling her no. Telling her to turn back. To wake Merrick.

Whatever she did, above all else, Do not go into that rickhouse alone.

But never yet had a Dravenhearst bride been able to resist the pull of Rickhouse One.

A lantern cast flickering shadows on the wood floor. Margot’s gaze lowered, and her hand opened in shock, dropping her skirt to the floor. The skirt that, horrifically, no longer belonged to her nightdress but her bridal gown. Margot wore silk. Silk where moments ago had been cotton and wool.

She caught her breath, a trembling hand raising to her chest. And then she heard it, just ahead. Beyond the first row of ricks—ricks that had been empty a few hours ago, now filled with barrels…blocking her view.

But she heard. Raised whispers.

And she saw. A pair of long shadows.

Ghostly black shadows on the wooden floor. Close together. Two people. Just beyond the first row of barrels.

Margot turned the corner.

Babette was there, pressed against a wooden beam by Ruth. Ruth, who had her hands in Babette’s red hair and her lips on hers. Kissing fiercely.

“You promised,” Ruth pleaded against her lips. “You promised me.”

Babette pulled back. “You should know better than anyone not to trust my promises.”

“You’ve always kept them to me. Always.”

Babette licked her lips. “I have to go, Ruth. I can’t stay in this house another day, not with the baby. Alastair loves me. He’ll take care of me.”

“I loved you before he did. Before both of them. We’ll run away together, you and me.”

Babette tilted her head. She brushed her fingers down Ruth’s cheek, tucked a lock of escaped blonde hair behind her ear. “I know you love me.”

“But?” Ruth’s voice cracked.

“But he can give me more.” Babette pulled away.

“He’s not even here,” Ruth spat, gesturing to the empty rickhouse. “He didn’t come for you. I did. I came here with you twelve years ago, when you asked me, begged me. I’m still here, and now I’m the one who’s asking. I’m asking you to choose me.”

“He’ll be here,” Babette replied confidently. “He loves me.”

Ruth flinched. Her black gown glittered in the lanternlight, and her eyes bled with betrayal. And pain, so much pain.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Babette snapped. “I owe you nothing, Ruth.”

Her jaw dropped. “How can you say that? How can you say that after everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been to each other? A decade of our lives, Babette. It’s been you and me from the start.”

“I’m after a fresh start.” Babette narrowed her eyes. “And I’m not taking anything with me. I don’t want to take anything with me.”

Ruth tipped her head back and laughed. The sound rang through the rickhouse, echoing amidst the rows. Margot recognized something very dangerous in that laugh.

Ruth moved forward, a steely glint in her blue eyes. “I could ruin you. You know that, don’t you?”

“If you do, it will prove you never truly loved me. That more than being with me, you wanted to be me. Always clinging close, ingratiating yourself in my life. My circle. My world. Do you fancy yourself the next Mrs. Dravenhearst?”

Ruth paused and tilted her head, considering.

Babette chuckled under her breath. “Don’t fool yourself. You could never carry it off.”

“Looks like you’re the one who couldn’t, turning tail and running away,” Ruth baited. “Your husband, your life—I could make it mine in an instant. If I truly wanted it. You have all of this”—she gestured at the distillery around them—“because I let you have it. And helped you keep it.”

A flash of fire in Babette’s eyes. “You didn’t let me have anything. You have a place here because I allow you to stay. When I’m gone, you will be too. And unlike me, you have nowhere else to go.”

“I always land on my own two feet, and they’re strong enough to hold me up.

But you?” Ruth’s gaze darkened, twin irises of molten destruction.

“You’re a disgrace, a leech. Only as strong as the people around you, propping you up.

Maybe someone should step in here and make things right.

Maybe you’ve been the curse on this house all along. ”

Babette threw the first slap, stinging and loud. Straight at Ruth’s cheek.

But then Ruth’s hands were at her throat, wrapping around the heavy pearl collar of the wedding gown. Tightening. Cutting off air.

Margot opened her mouth to scream, knowing it would be fruitless. That what had died here could not be saved. “Stop! Stop it!”

Horrified, watching the color drain from Babette’s face, Margot stepped back until her spine slammed into a barrel.

A freestanding one, lined up in the aisle.

She blinked, seeing the copper whiskey thief on top.

The one she and Merrick had used mere hours ago.

She blinked in confusion and looked up. All the barrels suspended in the ricks had vanished.

The entire first floor of the rickhouse was empty.

The imprints of Babette and Ruth were gone.

Margot shuddered, nauseated by what she’d seen. She could not, would not believe it. Didn’t want to. She had befriended Ruth. Drank tea and gin rickeys on her porch. Had been saved and reassured by her the night Merrick was poisoned. Trusted her…

No.

No, no, no.

She stumbled toward the rickhouse door. The weight of the past bore down upon her, threatening to snap her neck, to cut off her air supply. Margot couldn’t breathe—

“Noose, dearie?” Eleanor appeared suddenly, offering a length of rope.

Margot reared back and screamed.

The door to the rickhouse opened with a pealing screech, revealing a tall, stately woman with immaculately manicured blonde hair.

Ruth. In riding boots and a tailored pantsuit despite the late hour. Older, wiser, and infinitely more composed than the figment Margot had just seen.

Infinitely more dangerous, she realized.

Eleanor vanished when the door opened, dropping the noose to the ground. It landed with an ominous thump at Margot’s feet.

“Margot?” Ruth slid into the warehouse, her sharp eyes taking in the length of rope on the ground. “What are you doing in here?”