“So what happened to her? Was it the baby?”
“No—and in a way, yes.” I swallow hard, fighting back the memories of that night. “For some time, my father had been—strange around her. She’d noticed it, and it worried her. She tried to avoid him. He found reasons to touch her, get her into corners, would make comments that were entirely inappropriate for a man of his age. She wanted to leave. But she also wanted to finish school, so we waited.” I smile faintly. “Margot loved the same poetry and books that I did. We would spend hours hiding in the barn, reading together, before we—” My jaw tightens, and I break off. The memories of what Noelle and I have done together are all too close. I don’t want to hurt her by talking about my intimacy with another woman.
“It’s fine,” Noelle says gently. “I think there are things you’re going to tell me that will be harder to hear than this. And besides, we’re not—” She takes a deep breath, looking away. “Go on.”
I close my eyes, the memories of that last night rushing back, the grief welling within me. It’s been many years since then, but it still feels close. The pain hasn’t faded as others said it would. “We were making plans to leave that night, when she told me. My father overheard—”
I shake my head, gritting my teeth against the pain of remembering. “He came into the barn in a jealous rage. He called Margot a whore, and a slut, and called me terrible slurs as well. He screamed at me that if I was the son he’d hoped for, if I were a man, I wouldn’t have to fuck my stepsister to get a woman. He told her he would cut the abomination that was our baby from her belly and then—”
As I speak, I feel Noelle’s fingertips touch mine gently. She doesn’t speak, and my eyes are closed against the onslaught of memories, but it helps just the same. “I threw myself at him,” I murmur quietly. “I tried to fight him off. But he was a big man, stocky and muscled, and I was nothing. A skinny boy. He threw me into farm equipment and stunned me, and then he—” I shudder, the words sticking in my throat. “He went for her.”
“And he killed her?” Noelle’s voice is soft, pained, as if she’s hurting for me. I can’t help but remember that I told this story once before, to Anastasia, and she felt the same. She hurt for me, touched me gently, and tried to tell me it wasn’t my fault. And yet, I’d hurt her anyway. I know Noelle will feel for me now, at this point in the story. But later—
“He told her he wouldn’t let this filth stand. He—” I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat. “He got my stepmother, and together they—they ended the pregnancy there, out in the barn, as I watched. Like Margot was some farm animal.” My teeth grind together as I speak, every word forced out. “She passed out, bleeding. They took her back inside. For three days, she was sick. I stayed away from her, torn to pieces. I hurt as if they’d done the same to me—I thought terrible things, but I blamed myself most of all. And then, on the third night—”
I suck in a breath, feeling as if it’s taking everything out of me to tell even this again, and this is only the beginning. “She came and found me. I’d been hiding out in the barn, not eating, not sleeping. She still wanted to run. To be with me. We fought—and my father found us again. He’d followed the blood trail she left out to the barn—and he lost his mind. He screamed at her, called her ungrateful, and said he’d tried to purge the sin she’d committed out of her. That he would show her what it meant to have a man inside her, if she wanted one again already so badly. He—violated her, again and again, as wounded as she was, and beat her as he did. When he finished—” A low sob rises from my throat, and I lean forward, the pain of remembering too much. “She was dead. He had killed her. I tried to go to her, screaming and crying, but he grabbed me and beat me too. He left me there next to her body.”
When I open my eyes, Noelle is staring at me with such stark horror on her face that it startles even me. “Oh my god, Alexandre—” Her eyes are welling with tears. “That’s horrible. He was a monster. It wasn’t your fault—” She shakes her head fiercely. “None of that was your fault! You were all but children, and he was anadult. To even think of such a thing, to do such a horrible thing—you didn’t kill her by loving her! That was your father’s fault, not yours—”
“If I hadn’t touched her, if I had buried my desires, if I had found a woman who wasn’t forbidden—she would be alive.” I swallow hard. “That is the simple truth of it.”
“Alexandre, no—”
“And even if you’re right, and that wasn’t my fault,” I continue, cutting Noelle off sharply. “There is more.” I take a deep, shaky breath. “I can stop now, if you don’t wish to hear more. If that is enough.”
“No.” Noelle curls her fingertips into mine. “Tell me, Alexandre.”
“That night was the first time I thought I would kill myself.” I press my lips together tightly. “I sat there, holding her broken body, crying and reciting the poetry we loved to her as if she could hear me. I told myself I was staying alive to bury her. But even afterward, I—I couldn’t do it.” I shake my head. “I was a coward.”
“Wanting to live isn’t cowardice,” Noelle says gently. “Even if someone you love is gone—Margot wouldn’t have wanted you to die.” She shakes her head. “Even if you believe in an afterlife, it’s not the same. No one who loves you would want you to join them before your time.”
I swallow hard between clenched teeth. There’s more to the story, a part that I didn’t even tell Anastasia, terrified that she wouldn’t stay. That she would turn from me if she knew. But Noelle has already decided to leave. There is nothing I can give her now but the absolute truth, as I did that long night when the priest sat by my side. A different kind of confessional, to the last woman who will ever show me kindness.
“When Margot was buried, I went back to the house, covered in her blood. I pushed anything heavy I could find in front of the doors, and I—” I look away, remembering the horror of that night, the copper smell in the air, the rage and grief I’d felt. I hadn’t cared what happened next. “I set the house on fire.”
“Oh god,” Noelle whispers. “So they’re—”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I ran away that night, and I never looked to find out. Later on, I truly—I didn’t want to know. My mind was broken enough, and if they’d survived—” I breathe in, trying to calm the riotous emotions. “I went to Paris. I found a way to start again—but I was broken inside. Whatever strange monsters had been in my head before, they were let loose. I waswrong, in so many ways, and I fixated on collecting to soothe it. Margot had loved beautiful things—books and art, and we’d talked often about if we were rich, the places we’d see, the things we would fill a house with. I told myself I was doing it for her. I made my wealth, and traveled, and found, and collected for her—but I couldn’t bring myself to want anything that was whole. I couldn’t save her, but I could save other things. Everything that was once beautiful and rare, and now damaged, I wanted. In time, my madness turned to women too. I saw Margot in every one of them—but I never touched any of them.” I look at Noelle, desperate for her to understand that, above all else. “I destroyed Margot by loving her, by wanting her. I only sought to keep them safe. I never touched. For years after Margot, I only took my pleasure with women who were paid for it or who were at Kaito’s parties. I refused to love again or to desire any of the women I brought into my home.”
“What happened to them then?” Noelle asks softly, her tone suddenly guarded. “If you didn’t touch them, and you didn’t love them, why are they gone?”
“They didn’t trust me,” I murmur. “I tried to keep them safe. There were rules, routines, things to be abided by to keep them safe—”
“You tried to make them pets. Like me.” Noelle’s tone hardens slightly. “Alexandre, that wasn’t right—”
“I know!” The words tear out of me, painful in my throat. “I know. And they’re all gone now. They ran away, or they refused to eat and sickened. Two of them found ways to take their own lives.” Tears of guilt and shame well in my eyes, hot and burning. “I failed every time. I was all but planning to give up, until I mether.”
“Who?” Noelle asks, her voice softening slightly.
“There has only been one other woman I loved,” I say quietly. “Her name was Anastasia. I found her at a party Kaito gave me information about. She was in poor physical and mental condition from another man who had hurt her before the Russian holding the party had gotten ahold of her. He was using her as a centerpiece, strung up in the middle of the party like a ballerina in a music box. When I saw her—”
I close my eyes, remembering when I saw Anastasia. She had been so beautiful, so broken, like everything I’d ever sought to save in one perfect moment. I had thought I would succeed this time. I would make her whole.
“I had to have her. I offered Alexei Egorov an insane price for her to force him to sell—”
“I saw,” Noelle says quietly. “In your office. A hundred million dollars.”
“Oui.A price so outrageous he couldn’t say no, though I think he liked the idea of selling her off to someone who would hurt her. I only—I only wanted to help.”