Chapter 4
Marcus had helped Isabella from the beginning.
Not by reading Eleanor’s letters.
By helping her hide that she had.
His motive was embarrassingly ordinary.
He wanted his sister secure.
Their parents were dead.
Their family name still carried influence but little money.
Marcus had survived by attaching himself to larger organizations.
First Vale.
Then Sterling.
When Isabella began dating me, he saw stability.
Access.
Work.
Respect.
He did not create her relationship with me.
He did encourage it.
When Isabella admitted she had secretly read Eleanor’s letters, Marcus told her to stop.
Then changed his mind.
Why?
Because the technique worked.
I opened faster around her.
Trusted her.
Invited Marcus into limited family business.
Everything improved.
One stolen intimacy produced several legitimate opportunities.
That is how people teach themselves not to call something theft.
“What did you think would happen when I found out?”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“I thought you never would.”
Honest.
Then Isabella learned more letters existed inside Bunny.
She told Marcus.
He said leave them alone.
For months she did.
Then our engagement began.
That changed her fear.
Marriage meant eventually sorting Eleanor’s possessions.
Charlotte growing older.
Questions.
What if Bunny tore?
What if the letters surfaced after the wedding?
What if one mentioned something Isabella had repeated word-for-word?
Every year made exposure worse.
So she decided to find them before marriage.
Not destroy them initially.
Read them.
Know the risk.
Then put them back.
Control through information.
Again.
I looked at the torn rabbit lying on the table.
Charlotte’s mother had chosen the one object her daughter never willingly surrendered.
Maybe intentionally.
Maybe simply because Eleanor trusted a toy more than adults.
I did not know yet.
“What did you expect to find?”
Isabella whispered:
“A warning.”
“About you?”
“About women after her.”
The insecurity underneath everything finally surfaced.
Isabella believed Eleanor had designed the letters to keep controlling me from the grave.
Interesting projection.
Because that was exactly what Isabella had begun doing with them.
She feared dead-wife control while borrowing the dead wife’s voice.
I opened another letter bearing my name.
This one was dated two weeks before Eleanor died.
William, grief will make you sentimental about me. Fight that.
I almost smiled.
Eleanor knew me.
Then:
Remember I was difficult, stubborn, jealous, and once threw your shoes into the fountain because you missed our anniversary dinner.
True.
Isabella stared.
She had never heard that story.
Good.
Then the next line:
Do not turn me into a saint. Charlotte deserves a mother she can remember as a person.
I sat down.
May you like
For two years I had done exactly what Eleanor feared.
And Isabella had entered the shrine I built.
