The rain was still coming down, and on the gray, damp ride back to London, Jack and I couldn’t seem to get a conversation going. I read from my guidebook for a while so we’d know what important sites we were zooming past, but I could tell he was only half listening.
My brain wasn’t really engaged, either. Memories of the Count kept pushing all other thoughts aside, flowing like toxic lava from that dark, erupting place inside me. Jack was right when he compared the Count to Alistair. He’d been sparkling and funny and always the center of attention—but even as a kid I’d sensed a hidden sadness in him. Like my mom’s. They seemed kindred spirits in a way. Maybe because they both spoke German. He must have seemed like a breath of home to her in the alien world of Kennebunkport.
I think he showed up around the time my grandfather died, when Dad found out he’d been cut out of the will and stopped going to Goose Hill. He would stay in New York and write—and drink, and Mom and I would go up for the summer. Mom must have been horribly lonely.
It was so tragic. And all my fault. My greedy little fault. They’d both died because I wanted a stupid piece of candy. And I suppose I wanted justice after Wogs and Jack had teased me. Children can be so cruel and fierce.
When we got to the outskirts of London, I tried to make chirpy plans for some sightseeing that afternoon. Jack hadn’t even been to the Tate, or the British Museum.
But he stopped me, mid-chirp. “Sorry Nick. I’ve got to start back. I’ve got to make the Dover-Calais ferry this afternoon. Lots of traveling ahead of me: bus, ferry, train, train, train, bus. I’m due back at my post by O-eight-hundred hours on Saturday morning.” His voice sounded clipped and military.
“Oh no!” I couldn’t stand it. He was going away. Maybe forever. And if he thought of me at all, it would be as nothing but a barfing drunk.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“We’ll get together again. I promise.”
I looked away so he couldn’t see my eyes. My nose stung with tears.
“Listen Nick. There’s something you need to know. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up about whatever happened with the Count. I don’t know what you think you’re remembering, but it couldn’t have happened. Not like you think. Count Santa Claus wasn’t having an affair with your mom. It’s true he was having an affair with a member of your family. But it wasn’t your mother.”
I felt a chill, remembering Alistair getting cozy with my aunt.
“Not Aunt Livy!”
“No. Your Uncle Con. It’s kind of an open secret in Kennebunkport. He’s—you know—kind of light in the loafers. He’s had a series of boyfriends. Junior members of his staff; sometimes townies. He even came on to me once.”
There was no reason this news should have upset me any more than the rest of it, but it brought on the flow of tears I’d been fighting all morning. Not just because Jack was never going to believe me but because my uncle was gay and the secret was “open”—to everybody but me. I felt betrayed. The one solid thing in my life—my uncle and aunt’s marriage—was a sham.
One image rose in my mind as a focus for my anger: Grayson Bell. Now I knew those awful stories he’d told me must have been true. Creep.
“Hey, your uncle’s a good guy,” Jack said. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great boss—really generous. The whole town loves him.” Jack squeezed my shoulder. “Speaking of your uncle, I almost forgot.” He pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket. “Mr. Conway said you might be low on cash, so I should make sure you have enough to cover expenses until you get home.” He handed me a stack of bills.
“Jack, I can’t take money from you.” It had to be close to five hundred dollars.
Jack laughed. “Oh, it isn’t mine. It’s from your uncle. As I said, he’s amazingly generous. He sent me a hefty check, too. Do you need more?”
My breath caught in my throat. “He paid you? To come and find me?”
Jack gave a nervous laugh. “Kind of. Well, to cover expenses. But the way I travel, I didn’t spend it, so if you need more…”
“This is a job for you?”
Jack reached for my hand, but I didn’t want him to take it. No wonder he didn’t mind cleaning up my vomit. He was a paid servant. A family retainer. I had the awful thought he might have considered the romance a part of his job, too.
We drove in silence after that. By the time we turned onto the Brontës’ street in Maida Vale, I actually felt relieved to be back.
But my relief was short lived. I spotted an ominous black limousine parked in front of their building. One of the Brontës must have a rich relative in town. I wasn’t prepared for this.
I felt even worse when Jack suggested he just drop me off, since there wasn’t any nearby parking. I couldn’t stand to be dismissed like that, as if he’d put in his hours and now he was free of me.
“Please. At least say goodbye to Anne and Emily.”
That worked. He drove around the corner and found a parking space and walked me back, carrying my pack.
Emily was at the door almost before I rang the bell.
“Thank god you’re here! You have, um, a visitor. She’s pretty upset. She’s in the front room.”
Had my Aunt Livy decided to descend on us? In light of what Jack just told me, this was going to be grim. Better get it over with. I rushed into the lounge.
But it wasn’t Aunt Livy. There, sitting on the chintz-covered settee was Delia Kent. Smoking. I had a sudden craving for a cigarette myself.
“Where the fuck have you been, Nicky?” Delia’s hair was wild and her designer suit a mass of wrinkles. “I’ve been in the hospital all night. He needs you. You may be the only one who can save him. He’s really done it this time.”
I stole a glance at Jack, but his face was stern and opaque—a soldier’s face.
Emily jumped from the chair where she’d been sitting next to Delia. “It’s Alistair. He tried to kill himself for real this time.”
Delia gave us all a look of pure fury. “Of course it’s for real. It’s always been for bloody real. Why don’t you selfish little girls see what you’re doing to him?”
Anne stepped in. “I’m sorry Ms. Kent, but Alistair isn’t always…what you’d call truthful. We never know what to believe.” She pulled a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table and offered me one.
I took it gratefully. I’d only smoked one cigarette the whole time I’d been with Jack—when someone in that café offered me one. But now the sharp bite of smoke felt like an old friend.
Delia stood. “Well, you can fucking believe an overdose of Valium. I need to take you to him right now, Nicky. If he’s even still with us. It took forever for me to find you people. He didn’t have a phone number for this flat. I finally got the address out of the little book he keeps in his desk, but his office was a bloody wreck.”
She stomped over to Jack and looked him up and down. “This is all beginning to make sense now. A handsome soldier. How very Jane Austen.” She glared into Jack’s face. “So you’re the reason she broke Alistair’s heart?”
Jack started to say something, but Delia whirled around and redirected her anger at Emily. “Why didn’t you tell me she was off fucking some pretty-boy assassin? How long has this been going on?”
Jack stepped forward with an outstretched hand and a stiff, polite smile.
“Hello, ma’am. Jack Poirier. I work for Ms. Conway’s uncle. He sent me over to London to make sure she was all right. Are you Delia Kent, the actress? I just saw The Warrior Returns. Fantastic film. I hear there’s talk of an Oscar.”
Delia had no choice but to shake his hand, but she hardly looked at him. Instead, she focused on me. “You tore up Alistair’s home, beat him, and left him alone and bleeding. After we asked you to look after him. I don’t know why he’d ever want to see you again, but he kept calling your name and I promised him I’d find you.”
I tried to defend myself, but my words came out as nonsensical sputter. I looked to Emily and Anne for support, but they seemed helpless in the face of Delia’s rage.
Jack turned to me. “Nicky, let’s go to the car—to get your luggage. I need to be on my way.” He gave Delia a remarkably believable grin. “I’m honored, Miss Kent. The guys at the base are going to be so jealous I got to meet you.”
It was only after he pulled me out in the hall I could see how tightly his jaw was clenched. My only luggage—my backpack—sat in the hallway where he’d left it. He ushered me past it into the drizzle. When we got to the corner, and out of sight of the flat, he gave me a huge hug.
“I had to get the hell out of there. What a bitch.”
“Not really. She just cares a lot about Alistair.”
“She called me an assassin. I think that qualifies as bitchiness.”
His eyes showed that Vietnam pain I’d seen in him before. Assassinating people. That’s what soldiers did. He must have seen—maybe done—awful things.
“Yeah, I guess she’s pretty anti-military.” I tried to laugh. “But you sure knew how to handle her. That was worthy of Aunt Livy, flattering the hell out of somebody while you stick in the knife.”
I wanted to ask him stupid things, like would he still have come looking for me if he hadn’t been paid, and by the way, would he have fallen in love with me if I hadn’t barfed all over him? But I was afraid to hear the answers. Instead I kept defending Delia.
“The problem is—Delia’s right. I did do those awful things. I hit Alistair and made him bleed. Tore up his notebooks. I made a huge mess.”
“Really?” Jack gave a big grin so his dimples showed.
I fought the urge to grin back.
“Yeah. I’m making a lot of messes these days.”
He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Good for you. You need to tear up more stuff. Upchuck on more boots.” He laughed and gave me another hug. “What you don’t need is to go back to that guy. He sounds seriously screwed up. Take care of yourself, Nicky girl.” He pulled away and started to move toward the car.
Jack was about to zoom out of my life. To Frankfurt. To Vietnam. Maybe to get killed. Even if he’d only come here as a job for Uncle Con, it didn’t change what I felt about him. I ran and threw myself in his arms, kissing him hard. Then I buried my face in his damp jacket, unable to force words through my choked throat.
He took my chin and looked in my eyes. “You didn’t kill anybody. You were a little kid—a kid who defended herself—even against big mean kids like me. Be proud of that.”
He walked away, climbed into the TR3 and drove down the slick, gray street. I watched him disappear as rain soaked my hair.
“Or maybe we’re both big, mean assassins,” I said to the empty rain.
He was wrong about the Count. I knew what I’d done.
When I got back to the flat, Delia had her raincoat on. “Finally. I thought I was going to have to go out and toss a bucket of cold water on you two, but it looks like somebody already did.”
I stood in the hallway, dripping, and glanced at Anne and Emily. They still looked like a couple of kicked puppies.
“You should go see Alistair,” Anne said. “I guess he’s really hung up on you. We wouldn’t have talked you into going to Stratford with Jack if we’d known.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. “You made a mess of his place. That was kind of rude.”
So I went. Out to the big black Bentley with Delia. To do my duty to Alistair Milbourne, whatever that was. I flashed on an image of Count Santa Claus in his elegant, European cut suit. Maybe I was feeling guilty about Alistair because of remembering what I’d done to the Count. Or maybe I really had wronged Alistair. Or both. I didn’t know any more.
A driver emerged from the limo and opened the door for us—a small, dark man in an elegant uniform. He must have been sitting there the whole time, a spectator to my sad, soggy goodbye to Jack. I wished I could sit up front next to him—the only person who had witnessed what was in my heart—instead of riding in the luxurious passenger seat with Miss Delia Kent.