Unfinished (Historical Fiction) - By Harper Alibeck Page 0,43
maid thrust the paper into her lap. Lilith ignored it, the telegram fluttering to the ground.
“Oh, for God's sake, Lilith, pick up the piece of paper and read it!” Esther demanded, marching into the room.
Lilith stood and walked slowly toward them mantel, then flung the telegram into the fire.
“No! Miss Stone! You don't know what it says!” the maid exclaimed, red faced with horror and embarrassment at her rudeness to her mistress.
Lilith turned slowly toward the girl, eagle-eyed and somber. “I should think that is the point of burning it, you ninny.” Esther shooed the young girl out of the room, who was only too pleased to escape.
“Have you burned them all?” Esther asked.
“How do you know there are more?”
“Because the man was in love with you. If he sent one he's sent a hundred. He tried to reach you at the ship before you returned – he is determined!”
“Why does he torment me if he is, as you claim, in love with me?” Lilith said, her voice without affect, as cold as an ice cube on a spine. Chilling and calculated and horrifying at once.
Esther snorted. “Because that is how love works. Or so I am told. Love isn't rational.”
“I caught him in bed with Maria Escola. After proposing to me. And he dares beg forgiveness?”
“It makes no sense, Lilith.”
“It doesn't have to.”
“But it should! Why would he put you through the travel if only to be in another woman's arms? Why would he chase you down to the ship and leave notes? You said he shouted from the docks for three days before your ship left port. You can't see how intent he was on reaching you?” Lilith saw the maid's eyes widen with Esther's words.
“I have been trying to understand that for the eight months I have been home, Esther. If you can decipher the puzzle, I am all ears.”
Esther shook her head sadly, a shock of grey hair flopping with vigor. “I keep thinking that your father has something to do with this.”
Lilith snorted, her first real expression of emotion all day. “My father didn't make James and Maria sleep together in a hotel room in Chile.”
“No, he didn't.” Esther conceded the point. “But Lilith, it's so fantastical. The man proposes and then, after making you travel so far – ”
“Don't you think I don't know that, Esther?” Lilith's voice was so high it nearly rasped, the screech of despair thinly veiled by ingrained good manners. “That my mind hadn't turned in on itself, racing like a rat in a circular cage? That I haven't spent countless hours and sleepless minds reliving every moment, trying to grasp the exact moment during which I failed?”
“You failed?”
“Yes! I failed to protect myself. When we left McLean I swore no man would hurt me again. I failed.”
A creak in the floorboards outside their door startled Esther. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head and made her way to the door, yanking it back. Lilith expected to see one of the gossips on staff.
Instead, Esther uncovered a very guilty-looking Jack Reed.
“Just what I need,” Lilith muttered.
“Just what no one needs,” Esther joined her. Then she upped the ante. “Mr. Reed, I didn't know that you had become a regular Sherlock Holmes. Holmes never joined forces with Moriarty, though.”
Lilith stifled a giggle.
Reed didn't get the joke.
“That means that by working with John Stone you are choosing the bad man,” Esther said slowly, as if explaining a simple concept to a very young child.
He blinked rapidly.
Esther threw her hands in the air. “I give up. What do you want? Are you spying on Lilith? Is the snake plotting yet another way to lock her up?”
“What snake?” Reed asked, genuinely perplexed.
“The one you work for.”
“The one I – ” He suppressed an annoyed look, then bowed slightly toward Esther. “I would like to speak privately with Miss Stone.”
“Come to finish what you started last fall?” Lilith asked.
He blushed furiously but said nothing.
“Too late.”
“Lilith, I don't think that shade of scarlet appears in nature. Mr. Reed must be half lobster.”
“He's half something, Esther, but I'm not sure what.” Esther made a joking face and walked out of the room.
“Why are you here?” Lilith asked flatly.
“You're moving soon.”
“Yes. My father told you?”
“To Toronto.”
“Yes. As soon as my money is mine.”
He began to fidget, reminding Lilith of James in his too-tight boots. Reed opened his mouth, then closed it, sighed, then groaned.
“What is it?”
“You need to know something. It's not right to let you move and