Fiona (19 page)

An hour later,
Poppy is in warm, dry clothes and back in bed for an early nap after an exhausting morning. I'll get her to eat something when she wakes up, but for now, I retreat to my spot on the windowsill in the library and pretend to read a book that I grab at random off the bookshelf.

There's no way I can leave now. Poppy's just been through a horrible trauma, and she needs safe, familiar faces around her. She doesn't need to deal with me leaving suddenly on top of everything else.

I leaf through the pages, but instead of the words in front of me, all I can see is the bloody knife in my hands, the pool of blood that I knelt in, the huge horse lying dead on the ground.

I woke up with every scrap of evidence in my hand, but . . . what if I wasn't the one who killed Copperfield? What if this
was a trick, another move by Blair? Gareth said he saw a woman running out of the barn. What if it was Blair running back to the castle with the murder weapon so she could plant it on me?

My stomach turns. How could she be that twisted? To take that knife and plunge it into Copperfield's neck, just to scare me? What kind of demon would that make her?

I don't know what to think anymore. I'm glad I hid the knife under my mattress, though. Tonight, once it's dark, I'll sneak it out of the castle, maybe bury it in the woods somewhere.

And then, because he always finds me, Charlie is at the door.

“Is Poppy all right?” he asks.

“She's sound asleep.”

He sighs, stepping farther into the room.

“I have to apologize for last night.”

“Please,” I whisper. “Don't.” I know what he's going to say, and I know that I definitely don't want to hear it.

But he holds up his hand to stop me and says it anyway. “I'm sorry that I've been playing games with you. That I almost kissed you. I shouldn't have.”

I close my eyes, pained. I should be a bit happy, I guess. At least I know I didn't imagine it. At least it actually happened.

But nothing about this moment is happy.

“I hate that I hurt you,” he continues, and I can hear the
anguish in his voice. “I hate this entire situation. I hate trying to deny how I feel about you.”

I hold my breath and wait for him to go on.

“I can't hurt Blair anymore. And I can't hurt
you
anymore. So I promise, from now on, I won't lead you on.”

“You're choosing her,” I say dully, finally opening my eyes. He's still so far away from me, but I can see his green eyes clearly, his strong jaw, his red-brown curls. All the features I love about the guy who will never be mine.

“I have to,” he says.

Of course he does. He has to do the right thing, because he spent so many years of his life doing the wrong thing, and he wants more than anything to be a different guy.

I want to scream at him. I want to hit him and pull his hair and kick him and make him realize that this choice he's made is going to make us both miserable.

But deep down, I can't help but like him even more for making it.

“You're going to marry her.”

Charlie clenches his jaw.

I hate that I asked him. I already know the answer, but I still don't want to hear it.

“Yes,” he says softly.

I feel my heart fall right to the ground, and I wish that the floor would swallow me up. Because even though I've closed my eyes again, I can feel Charlie's gaze on me. And I know that he can sense every bit of pain and agony that this has caused.

It turns out that knowing the truth of something and hearing it out loud are two completely different things.

I know then, just as I've lost him completely, that I love him. I'm in love with him. And the world has never seemed so cruel.

I push myself off the window seat. “I should check on Poppy,” I manage to whisper before walking out of the room as steadily as I can. I force myself to put one foot in front of the other until I reach the closest bathroom, where I sink to the floor and completely break down.

I tried so hard to ignore the fact that I had fallen for him. I wanted to believe that I could float above it all, that I'd be able to sit by and watch Blair and Charlie start a family together and my heart wouldn't break into a million little shards, puncturing my body like shattered glass from the inside out.

But I can't ignore it anymore. I love him. I love the way he looks at me like he can see every little secret inside me. I love the way he smiles, always with a bit of surprise, like he wasn't expecting to. I love the way he brightens the moment his sister enters the room.

It's why I couldn't leave, why I played the secret-for-a-song game, why, as much as I wanted to let him go, I couldn't.

I love him, every part of him. His past, who he is now, who he wants to be.

And he loves her. Or, at least, he's choosing her. And all that love that I have for him will shatter inside me, ruining me.

When I've cried myself out,
I run the bathroom sink and splash some cold water on my face. I wait until my eyes are a little less red and puffy before heading to the kitchen to search for some lunch—or dinner, rather, seeing as it's almost evening. The kitchen is much more crowded than I expected, filled with footmen and housemaids gathering in a huddle with the cook and her helpers. They turn to look at me when I enter, all of them pressing their lips tightly shut.

“What is it?” I ask. “What happened?”

After a brief silence, Alice speaks up. “They found the butcher knife. The one used to kill Copperfield.”

The blood rushes from my head, leaving me dizzy and swaying. The knife. I forgot about the knife, bloody and incriminating underneath my mattress.

“Mabel wants to talk to you,” Alice says as I grasp the countertop for support. “She's in her office.”

I look around the room, taking a deep breath. No one has on a friendly face, and one of the maids regards me with an expression of open disgust.

I make my way through the kitchen and into the hallway that leads to Mabel's office. I know what will happen now. I'll be fired and sent away, maybe even to jail. I'll never see Poppy or Charlie again.

Tears form in my eyes, but I blink them away. I won't cry. I will not let myself cry, not in front of Mabel.

She's sitting behind her desk, going through a stack of receipts, when I enter. “Sit down,” she says sharply when she sees me.

I sink into the hard, uncomfortable chair across from her.

“I'm sure you know by now that we conducted a search of all the rooms in the castle once we learned the knife was missing,” she says. “I'm sure you also know that we found it in your room.” She pauses, staring into my eyes. “Do you want to explain yourself?”

“I don't know what happened,” I say in a rush. “I went to bed after the ball and I . . . I just woke up with it like that—with the knife in my hand, and it was so bloody, and I was horrified. I had no idea where it came from or whose blood was on it.”

“You don't remember stealing the knife, going out to the stables, and stabbing the horse?” she asks. Her voice is cool, but there's a gleam in her eyes as she watches me. How excited she must be to have a reason to fire me. She blinks, and that gleam is gone.

I shake my head furiously. “I didn't. I couldn't have. I mean, I would never—I would never hurt Poppy like that. I would never hurt
Copperfield
like that!”

Her features become even more strained as she continues to stare at me. “It's troubling to me that you could commit such a heinous act and not even remember it.”

“But I didn't! You have to believe me. I think . . .” I stop myself, trying to gather my thoughts before I dare come out in public with the crazy suspicion I've been harboring for hours now. “Mabel, I think Blair did it. I think she killed Copperfield and then made it look like
I
did it.”

“Blair?”
Mabel says, her eyebrows raised in shock. “You're trying to accuse
Blair
of killing the horse?”

“I know it sounds crazy—”

“Yes,” she interrupts, and I flinch. “Yes, it
does
sound crazy. You're accusing a poor girl, who is still recovering from a horrible miscarriage, of murdering a child's beloved horse and then planting the knife in your room to frame you? Who on earth do you think you are, lass?”

Of course she doesn't believe me. No one would ever believe a story like that. I don't know how to make any of this make sense, so I keep my lips pressed together.

I take one twisted moment to appreciate how well Blair has played this game. She has spent every moment in this castle making herself so sympathetic and beloved that everything I could say to contradict that impression makes me sound insane.

She's won.

“I think I've heard enough. We need to send you someplace where they can take care of you. Give you the help you need,” Mabel says.

“What?” I say. It takes me a few moments to interpret her words. “You want to send me to—what, a hospital? Why not just fire me, send me home?”

She stands and clasps her hands in front of her. “I think you need help. I do care about my staff, after all. There's a very good facility in Twicken, in the Borders. It's the best in the country for people like you.”

She's talking about a mental hospital. She wants me to go to some
asylum
, where they'll diagnose me with schizophrenia and lock me up forever.

“You can just fire me,” I say. “I'll go, no arguments, no fuss. But I won't let you put me in some asylum.”

She twists her lips into a grimace and nods, as if she was
expecting me to respond this way. “Very well. If you refuse to go, then we'll have to press charges. You just murdered a giant
horse
, for heaven's sake. You're too dangerous to be let free. And if you're not . . . in need of some psychiatric help, then you have nothing to fear from a doctor's evaluation. It's your only option.”

I stand and back up into the doorway. “I won't go. You can't make me.”

She stands up, too, glowering at me. “Fine. Refuse to come quietly. We have plenty of evidence to make a very convincing court case.” Her words are full of warning, just daring me to defy her.

I shake my head. “I won't go.” I inch further into the hallway, ready to run, but instead I back up right into someone's arms.

I spin around, terrified that whoever's holding me has orders to drag me to the asylum whether I agree to it or not. But instead I see Charlie. I sag into him with relief, but then he lets go of my shoulders, focusing a powerful glare at Mabel.

“What's going on? Someone told me you've accused Fiona of killing Copperfield.”

Mabel straightens her spine. “We found the missing knife in her room, under her mattress. Covered in the horse's blood.”

Charlie looks at me, wary.

“I didn't do it,” I assure him. I tell him how I woke up with
the knife in my hand, how I'm not even strong enough to injure a horse so big, how there's no way I could have committed such a horrible crime and then not remembered it.

“She says Blair did it,” Mabel interjects before I can finish convincing him that I'm not crazy.

“You think Blair stabbed Copperfield?” he asks, confusion in his eyes and voice.

“I don't—I don't know who did it,” I say, stumbling over my words. I realize then how dangerous it was for me to confess my suspicions to Mabel.

“She went on and on about how Blair is trying to frame her,” Mabel says.

“Is that true?” Charlie asks, looking down at me.

“Gareth said he saw a woman running out of the stables last night,” I say, fumbling for words. “I don't—I mean, it's possible that Blair—”

“Why would she hurt Copperfield?” Charlie asks. I can hardly hear him. I can barely concentrate on anything except the way he's looking at me, with confusion and . . . pity. Like I really am crazy and he's only realizing it now.

I can't bear for him to look at me like that, so I hide my head in my hands. “I don't know. I don't—I'm sorry. I just know that I didn't do it.”

Mabel whispers something to Charlie. All I hear is the word
“hospital,” and I just keep my face hidden, my eyes closed, as if it'll make all this disappear.

Maybe they're right. Maybe I really am crazy. I woke up this morning with a headache and no memory. Was that some kind of aftereffect of a psychotic episode?

It doesn't make any sense, but nothing about going crazy ever does.

My only hope—the only light that I can hold on to—is that Blair really is the one to blame. Now it's not just me she's trying to convince—she's got the whole castle thinking I'm crazy, so they'll push me out of the house and away from Charlie.

I sit back down on Mabel's uncomfortable guest chair, and Charlie kneels in front of me. “Fee?” he says softly.

So I'm Fee now to him. No longer Fiona. I feel the sting of my nickname as if it were a knife stabbed into my neck.

He tugs at my arm, wants me to uncover my face and look at him, but I can't. “Fee, I'm worried about you,” he murmurs. “I think maybe it would be a good idea for you to talk to a doctor. Just talk. Nothing permanent. What do you think?”

There's no going back. He thinks I'm crazy now. No matter what the doctors say, he won't ever see me as anything else.

I'm numb as I finally uncover my face and meet his concerned gaze. I nod.

“Okay. Okay, then,” he says, resting back on his heels. “Can I get you anything? Tea or . . . anything?”

“Can I see Poppy?”

He opens his mouth to speak, and then he must think better of it, because he just breathes out heavily instead. “I don't think that would be a good idea,” he says finally.

I can't do anything but nod.

He waits with me in silence until Mabel comes back. “I've called the hospital,” she says. “Dr. Furnham agreed to meet with Fiona tonight. Albert is getting the car ready, and he'll take her there now.”

“Great. Well, let's get this all sorted, then,” Charlie says, falsely cheerful. He stretches a hand out to me, and I take it. But he lets go of my hand as soon as I'm up, and I'm left with no lingering warmth.

I follow him out of Mabel's office and into the grand part of the house. I look around, trying to memorize every little detail I can of these beautiful rooms. It's the last time I'll ever be here, in the castle, I know it.

We cross in front of the main staircase, and I look up. Blair is at the top, looking down at us. Charlie doesn't seem to notice her as he opens the front door. I watch her as I step through after him, and as he starts to close the door behind
me, I swear I see her start to smile. A dangerous, wicked curve of a smile.

I slide into the backseat of the car and take a deep breath. I have to be strong, for Poppy's sake. I have to prove that I am sane, not a danger to anyone. Maybe after proving this to the doctors, I can go back to the house and everything can go back to normal.

“How are you feeling, Fee?” Albert asks as Charlie and I buckle our seat belts. I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror, and I see the wary assessment in them.

“I didn't kill Copperfield, Albert,” I say as calmly as possible.

He doesn't respond.