Chapter 2 - What Margaret Knew
"The nursery," Margaret whispered.
I stared at her.
"What?"
Margaret's hands trembled against the front of her gray uniform.
"He gave her the nursery first."
For a moment, the words meant nothing.
Then they meant everything.
The nursery.
The room at the end of the east hallway.
The room I had kept locked for eleven years.
The room where I had painted tiny white clouds above a yellow crib before losing our baby at twenty-one weeks.
Dorian moved toward Margaret.
"Enough."
I stepped between them.
"Don't."
He stopped.
Margaret looked at me as though she expected punishment for telling the truth.
"Mrs. Kincaid, she had the walls repainted. The crib was taken away. Mr. Kincaid told the staff that you had agreed."
My suitcase slipped from my fingers.
A dull thud echoed through the hallway.
I had been away for six days visiting a restoration project in Vermont. I had left believing my house, my marriage, and the few things I had preserved from my old life would be waiting when I returned.
"Repainted?" I whispered.
Margaret nodded.
"Pink and cream. She said she wanted something suitable for a little girl."
Blythe emerged from the bedroom wrapped in Dorian's silk robe.
"Margaret, you're making this unnecessarily dramatic."
I looked at her.
"Take off my necklace."
Blythe touched the sapphire.
"I think we should all calm down."
"Take it off."
For the first time, she looked toward Dorian for help.
He said nothing.
Blythe unclasped the necklace and held it out.
I took it carefully.
The sapphire was warm from her skin.
I hated that.
I hated that something my mother had touched, something I had clutched while bleeding in a hospital bed, had become another woman's accessory.
I slipped it into my pocket.
"Now tell me about the little girl."
Dorian's face tightened.
"Audra, this isn't the time."
I looked at Margaret.
"Whose little girl?"
Margaret began crying harder.
Blythe stepped backward.
Then Dorian said, "She's pregnant."
Everything stopped.
I heard the grandfather clock downstairs.
One tick.
Another.
"How far along?"
He looked away.
"Twenty-four weeks."
I calculated automatically.
Six months.
Six months of sleeping beside me while another woman carried his child.
Six months of promising that he still remembered our lost baby.
Six months of watching me place flowers beside the nursery door every October.
I pressed my palm against the wall.
"Is it yours?"
His silence answered before his mouth did.
"Yes."
Blythe lifted her chin.
"We weren't planning for you to find out like this."
I stared at her.
The sentence was almost impressive in its cruelty.
"How were you planning for me to find out?"
Neither answered.
Margaret suddenly spoke.
"They planned to announce that you had separated months ago."
Dorian turned sharply.
"Margaret!"
But she continued.
"Miss Sorrell has been arranging newspaper photographs. She told the staff Mrs. Kincaid would be moving out permanently."
I looked at my husband.
"Is that true?"
Dorian ran a hand over his face.
"I was trying to manage the situation."
"Manage it?"
"Protect everyone."
I laughed.
It sounded terrible.
"Everyone except me."
He reached toward me.
I stepped away.
"Don't touch me."
His hand fell.
For seventeen years, I had known Dorian as a man who controlled entire neighborhoods through fear, loyalty, and money.
I had seen him settle disputes with a glance.
I'd heard men twice his size apologize for interrupting him.
But I had also known him as the man who held me through chemotherapy appointments with my mother, who brought soup when I had the flu, who once drove through a snowstorm because I wanted strawberries.
That man had not vanished overnight.
He had made choices.
Hundreds of them.
And every choice had brought him here.
"Where's the nursery key?" I asked.
Margaret retrieved it from her pocket.
"Dorian had it changed, ma'am. I kept the new one."
I took it.
Then walked away.
Nobody followed at first.
At the end of the hall, I unlocked the nursery.
The smell hit me immediately.
Fresh paint.
New furniture.
Lavender candles.
The yellow walls were gone.
The white clouds I had painted by hand had vanished beneath expensive wallpaper.
My grandmother's rocking chair was missing.
So was the little wooden mobile my father had carved.
In their place stood a modern crib, a velvet nursing chair, and a dresser crowded with unopened gifts.
Above the crib, gold letters spelled a name.
EVELYN.
My mother's name.
I stared at it.
Blythe appeared behind me.
"We thought it was a lovely tribute."
I turned slowly.
"You named your daughter after my mother?"
She looked uncomfortable.
"Dorian suggested it."
Something inside me finally broke.
Not into tears.
Into clarity.
I looked at Dorian, who had followed her.
"You gave her my room. My necklace. My mother's name."
He swallowed.
"Audra—"
"What else?"
He said nothing.
"What else did you give her?"
His eyes shifted toward the hallway.
That was when Margaret quietly said, "The house, ma'am."
Dorian closed his eyes.
I looked at her.
"What house?"
Margaret swallowed.
"This one."
I stared at my husband.
He didn't deny it.
And suddenly the betrayal in our bedroom seemed like the smallest lie in a house built from them.
---
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in my car with my suitcase in the passenger seat.
Dorian had offered to arrange an apartment.
He had offered money.
He had offered a driver.
I refused all three.
Instead, I called the one person whose number Dorian had never known.
My mother's former attorney.
Helen Whitcomb.
She answered on the second ring.
"Audra?"
I hadn't spoken to her in nearly eight years.
My voice shook.
"Helen, I need to know something."
"Of course."
"The house on Briarwood Lane. Who owns it?"
Silence.
Then Helen said, "Why are you asking?"
"Because my husband apparently gave it to his mistress."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Then Helen spoke very quietly.
"Audra, that house was never legally his to give."
I gripped the steering wheel.
"What?"
"Your mother placed it in a trust."
My heart hammered.
"What trust?"
"The Evelyn Vale Family Trust."
I stared at the dark mansion reflected in my rearview mirror.
"Why didn't I know?"
Helen exhaled.
"Because three years after your wedding, your husband brought me documents claiming you had transferred control."
My mouth went dry.
"I never did."
"I suspected that."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried. My letters came back unopened. Then Dorian's attorneys warned me that contacting you would violate the new representation arrangement."
I closed my eyes.
"Do you still have the documents?"
"Every one."
I took a shaky breath.
"Helen?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Can I come see you?"
"Tomorrow morning."
I looked toward the house.
A light went on in the nursery.
The nursery that should never have belonged to another woman.
"Make it tonight," I whispered.
Helen didn't hesitate.
May you like
"Come now."
And for the first time in seventeen years, I drove away from Dorian Kincaid without asking where he wanted me to go.
