When the two emerge from the bathroom, Laura is fully clothed again.
As I help her to bed and tuck the blanket around her, Laura smiles up at me. “She never pays attention anymore.”
I glance back to Nell, uncertain whether Laura is aware of what happened this evening. I hope she isn’t. I hope whatever has taken over her mind protects her from this. “Who?”
“Amelia. She always kept those pills out on the dresser, and I warned her Roark would get to them.”
Another glance back at Nell, and both of us frown. “What happened?”
“Well, what do you think happened? She wasn’t paying attention. You must always pay attention to your children. Always.”
For a moment, I wonder if she’s lucid right now, because she has never once acknowledged that her grandson was missing, or dead. What she’s suggesting is that her daughter-in-law essentially murdered her grandson by leaving pills where he could reach them.
Warm, wrinkled hands grab hold of my arm, and she lifts her head off the pillow. “Promise me you won’t leave the pills out, the way she did.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Good. You’ll make a much better mother to my Lucian’s children than she ever was.”
I clear my throat, the embarrassment of her words heating my cheeks.
“I’m going to sleep now, if that’s okay.”
“Yes, of course.” I exit the room with Nell in tow, my mind spinning with questions.
Nell closes the door behind us and blows out a breath. “Way too much excitement for one night.”
The humiliation still coursing through me on Laura’s behalf swells to anger. “Why would you do that? Why would you leave her alone like that?” Perhaps what I’m feeling is irrational, but I don’t care. Tonight wasn’t fair to Laura. Stepping away for a smoke isn’t a good enough excuse for what this poor woman just went through.
Face screwing up into a frown, she gives me a onceover. “Don’t you fucking judge me. Not when you had her son’s face between your thighs.” Her words hit my conscience like a punch to the gut.
“You saw us? You were watching us?” My momentary shock and embarrassment twists into disgust. “That’s why you didn’t hear her get out of bed. Why you didn’t see her get undressed, or leave the room. You were too busy spying on us?”
“Kinda hard to miss when you guys were out in the open.”
We weren’t, though. She’d have had to look for us, in order to see where we were, hidden in the shadows. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that must’ve been for her? All those fucking people seeing her like that? And Lucian! My God, if he can even look those people in the eye after this--”
“Oh, poor Lucian. Let me tell you something about your little Romeo. He didn’t want kids. He didn’t want Roark. And I’m guessing he didn’t want the baby Amelia was pregnant with when she killed herself. In fact, I’d bet that’s why she killed herself.”
“How the hell do you know she was pregnant?”
“One of her labs was accidentally entered in Laura’s medical chart. At first, I thought it was Laura’s, until I looked up the medical record attached to it. Amelia Blackthorne. HCG positive two weeks before she committed suicide.”
“Laura said--”
“I don’t give a shit what Laura said. The woman just walked into a crowded room naked. You think she knows what the hell is going on with her family? Aside from her precious Lucian …”
“You’re jealous.”
“Jealous of what? You and the Devil of Bonesalt? You can have your murdering piece of shit. And if you don’t believe me? Ask Giulia. Amelia never left those pills where Roark could reach them. Never. Roark was afraid to come into her room because of those fucking dolls.”
Giulia told me the same thing the first night I stayed in that room. She said that Roark refused to come into the room, that he was terrified of the doll on the nightstand. Still, that doesn’t implicate Lucian in any murder—Amelia, or Roark’s. Assuming Roark is, in fact, dead.
“You’re making assumptions about him without proof. You don’t even know that Roark is dead, and you’re willing to accuse Lucian?”
“You don’t know anything about him. He’s got his ugly face so far up your dress, you’re blind to everything around you. I’ve seen men show up at the house. Sometimes? They don’t leave. Did you know this castle is built on a big pile of bones?”
The unbidden memory of the man being escorted by Makaio and Rand into the