be sure? You’ve only known him a few days.
That’s a poor attempt, laughable, even. I’ve only known the man of thirty-eight for a few days. I knew the child for years. I knew the adolescent for a summer.
In the course of a lifetime, a summer is a fleeting moment, yet even these last few days are worth months of casual acquaintance, building on an already solid foundation.
I know William Thorne.
You may feel as if you do, but can one person ever really know another?
Yes, they can. After years of marriage, Michael could still surprise me, but it was trivial things, like discovering he didn’t care for mango. No fundamental revelation of character surprised me. I knew him at that level. And I know William the same way.
You wouldn’t be the first woman to say that and be proven wrong. Does that make you better than them? Smarter? Wiser?
This one makes me flinch. I had a colleague, a woman I considered a friend, who’d discovered her husband had been stalking his former intern. My friend had steadfastly denied it, breaking down in tears, pleading with me for help. But I knew her husband, and I’d endured his attentions myself. So when his wife defended him, I judged her. I would never make this mistake. I would never be so blind to my lover’s faults or so quick to defend him.
Is that what I’m doing here?
My gut says William is innocent.
My brain agrees, but warns me to tread with care.
And my heart? My heart is the timidest of all, retreating behind a stone wall of “Please let him be innocent,” hastily erected fortifications in case I’m wrong.
Cordelia isn’t falsely accusing her brother. There’s pain in her voice and in her eyes, deep and agonizing pain. She thinks her beloved brother murdered her, and she has suffered nearly two centuries under the weight of that horrible conviction.
“It wasn’t William,” I say. “I saw Harold carry your body here to bury you.”
Fresh pain. “Harold loved my brother. We all did. William is difficult, and he is hard, but that only makes the prize all the sweeter. When he smiles, the skies open overhead, and the sun shines only on you.”
That is indeed the allure of falling for a difficult man. It’s the siren’s call of a million literary bad boys. They’re a challenge. Winning them is so much better than gaining the heart of a sweet boy who turns his smile on everyone.
Except William is no literary bad boy. When August compared him to Heathcliff, William scoffed. Rightly so. Heathcliff was an egocentric, obsessive sociopath who would destroy his supposed true love rather than see her happy without him. There’s no evil in William. He’s hard and difficult, but the villagers adore him, and he earned their love through genuine goodness.
“I saw—” I begin.
“You saw Harold with my corpse. You saw a loyal family pet helping his master. William killed me in a rage, and Harold cleaned it up for him. Buried me and let William tell the world I’d walked away. That we’d argued, and I left.”
Cordelia and I had a falling out many years ago. I have not seen her since. I regret that, but . . . Perhaps we could change the subject?
I want to ask Cordelia how she died, but first I must speak to William. Hear his story, untainted by her version of events.
Am I saying I think she might be right?
No, I’m not. Yet there may be a tragic grain of truth here. Not that William put his hands around Cordelia’s neck and strangled the life from her, but that they argued, and something happened, and she accidentally died.
“You doubt me,” she says.
“I don’t doubt that you think William—”
Her frustration lashes like an electric whip. When I stagger back, her eyes widen in horror, and she hurries toward me.
“I am sorry,” she says. “I don’t know how I do that. It isn’t intentional. But I need you to understand. I have two deaths on my conscience, and I cannot bear a third.”
“Two deaths,” I say. “Teddy and Eliza. You believe William killed them as well.”
“You do not understand my brother, Bronwyn. You please him now, and so you see only the best of him. You are a plaything, an amusement, a trifling.”
I must flinch, because she surges toward me again, saying, “I’m sorry. That sounds cruel, but if I must be cruel to save you, then I will. Teddy adored William, and my brother enjoyed the attention .