Chapter 2
I did not move for several seconds.
There are lies the mind rejects because accepting them would require rebuilding too much at once.
Seraphine.
Alive.
Here.
Under my roof.
I looked at Claribel.
“Open the east corridor.”
She shook her head.
“It isn’t what Agnes thinks.”
“Open it.”
“Lachlan—”
My voice dropped.
“Now.”
She pulled a silver key from inside her bracelet clasp.
That detail enraged me.
Not because it was hidden well.
Because she had worn access to my dead wife on her wrist while accepting my engagement ring.
The east corridor smelled of cedar and dust.
Three rooms.
Two empty.
The third locked.
Agnes whispered:
“Blue room.”
Claribel stood behind me.
“She’s ill.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“You knew.”
Silence.
I opened the door.
A woman sat beside the window.
Thin.
Gray threaded through dark hair.
A book rested in her lap.
She looked up.
The room disappeared.
Age had changed her.
Grief had changed me.
But there are faces the body knows before thought arrives.
Seraphine.
My wife stood.
Slowly.
Her book fell.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered:
“You came.”
Two words.
Not shock.
Expectation.
I stared.
“You knew I was here?”
Her expression changed.
“I thought you knew.”
Of course.
Every betrayal needs two stories.
I stepped inside.
Seraphine backed away.
Small movement.
Enough to hurt.
I stopped immediately.
“I was told you died.”
She went still.
“What?”
Behind me, Claribel closed her eyes.
Seraphine looked at her.
Then at me.
“No.”
Her voice became thin.
“I was told you signed the separation.”
I laughed once.
Not from humor.
“What separation?”
The room became colder.
Seraphine crossed to a desk.
Opened the top drawer.
Removed a bundle of letters.
My name beneath every fold.
My supposed handwriting.
I recognized it.
Almost.
Whoever made them knew my hand well.
One sentence stared back at me:
Do not return to Alderbourne. I have chosen the family over this marriage.
I looked at Claribel.
She whispered:
“I didn’t write those.”
Maybe true.
But she had read them.
I could see that too.
Seraphine held out the final letter.
At the bottom was my family signet impression.
Real wax.
Real crest.
Fake husband.
May you like
Someone had not merely hidden my wife.
They had manufactured me inside her absence.
