The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (35 page)

Celia walked back to the tree. She was struck dumb. She tried to get the words out of her mouth, but they were stuck at the back of her throat. She saw Ernesto take a couple of steps towards her through the light mist surrounding her. Eventually, she found her voice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. How did you find out?”

“Your aunt told me.”

“My aunt Marie? How is that possible?”

“She’s here at La Glorieta.”

“I don’t understand. Ernesto, I don’t understand. Why would my aunt tell you about Joseph? She’s here? Has something happened to Joseph?”

Ernesto walked quickly to her side. She was trying to clear her head.

“I don’t understand,” she repeated.

“Celia, I met with your aunt this morning. She has come to tell you that your husband is dead.”

Celia felt her body sway to the side. She thought she was going to fall to the ground. She saw Ernesto move closer yet again.

“Dead?” she said just before she fell into his arms.

She closed her eyes and in the darkness felt Ernesto stroking her hair. When she opened them, again he pulled her closer to him, and she heard the sound of wretched sobbing leave her mouth. Finally, she stopped crying and searched his eyes.

“How did he die?”

Ernesto wiped a tear from her cheek and told her everything, leaving no detail by the wayside. As Celia learned the cold, hard truth about Joseph’s demise, he held her and continued to stroke her hair.

“Dead? He’s dead? So now I can go home?”

“Only if you want to,” Ernesto answered.

Celia searched his eyes. Did she see disappointment in them? Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her because that was what she wanted to see.

“I don’t want to leave. I want you to forgive me,” she blurted out.

“There’s nothing to forgive, and I don’t want you to leave me. My heart would break. I would do anything to make you stay… I love you, Celia. I love you.”

He loved her! She had to know if he was telling the truth. She cupped his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. He didn’t flinch. She saw tears in the corners of his eyes. She saw sincerity captured in their light. She saw love, and it was real!

“You love me?”

He smiled. “Yes, I do.”

She wanted to tell him everything now. There was no need to hide the truth any longer. “I thought it would be for the best to say I was a widow. I thought Joseph would just disappear as though he never existed, but I was wrong. He was always there, destroying everything I touched, everything I wanted, laughing at me in my dreams, taunting me until I thought I would go mad. I can hardly believe he’s gone.”

“He has. He’s gone, and he will never hurt you again.”

“I suppose I should feel sorry that he died, but I’m not. I’m not sorry at all.”

When she’d finished speaking, she snuggled into his chest. He pushed her gently away and tilted her chin with his hand.

“I love you, Celia Merrill. I love you with all my heart, and I promise you that no one will ever hurt you again for as long as I live and breathe. I will love and protect you until the end of our days. Will you be my wife? Will you have me? Will you allow me to make you happy?”

She searched his eyes again and nodded, and she felt only pleasure when his mouth covered her own, and as his kiss deepened, all thoughts of Joseph Dobbs were banished. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, and his mouth. She tightened her arms around his neck, pressing herself closer to him, and when she drew away, she was smiling, with silent tears caressing her cheeks.

“Yes, I will marry you. I love you, Ernesto Martinéz, so much.”

Celia sat by the window, staring pensively at the perfect full moon. She opened her journal and smoothed the pages with the back of her hand. It had become a daily custom to document everything at the end of each day in the pages bound in leather. So much had happened, so many wonderful things, and she was loath to leave out even the tiniest details.

18
February
1914

I
can
hardly
believe
that
I
have
been
married
for
a
whole
week.
Ernesto
is
my
husband,
and
I
love
him
more
and
more
with
each
passing
day.

John
and
his
wife,
Pip,
are
a
delightful
couple,
and
I
was
genuinely
sad
when
they
left
us
today.
My
cousin
is
like
my
aunt
in
so
many
ways,
especially
when
he
smiles
and
when
he
is
in
deep
discussion
about
something
or
other.
I
still
can’t
believe
that
I
have
gone
my
whole
life
without
knowing
him,
as
I
now
feel
I
have
known
him
forever.
I
made
John
and
Pip
promise
to
return
for
the
summer,
or
at
least
for
a
couple
of
weeks.
I
don’t
want
to
lose
him
now,
and
there
are
still
so
many
things
I
want
to
know
about
him
and
his
family.

The
madness
that
enveloped
the
house
over
the
last
few
weeks
has
finally
died
down,
and
in
a
way,
I’m
glad
that
everything
has
returned
to
normal,
although
I
must
admit
that
I
enjoyed
all
the
attention
in
the
days
leading
up
to
my
wedding
day.

15
June
1914

Ernesto
cried
tonight
when
I
told
him
about
the
baby.
His
happiness
was
the
most
wonderful
joy
to
see
and
left
me
with
a
feeling
of
complete
and
utter
contentment
that
ultimately
has
shown
me
that
God
does
indeed
work
in
mysterious
ways.
Joseph
Dobbs,
instead
of
destroying
my
life,
has
been
the
instrument
of
fate
that
eventually
led
me
to
happiness
above
and
beyond
my
greatest
expectations.

From
the
darkness
of
inconsolable
grief
and
immeasurable
despair,
my
marriage
to
him
has
led
me
to
undertake
a
path
of
self-awareness,
and
I
have
now
found
the
courage
and
determination
to
conquer
my
past,
a
past
which
was
filled
with
self-loathing
and
recriminations.
In
essence,
my
rebirth
is
thanks
to
a
man
who
wished
me
dead,
and
the
happiness
I
now
feel
is
a
direct
result
of
his
evil
legacy.

I
do
not
know
what
the
future
will
bring,
but
I
have
had
more
happiness
in
these
few
short
months
than
a
person
could
ever
hope
for
 
.
 
.
 
.
or
deserve.

Chapter 33

J
oseph Dobbs sat outside a bar nestled in a backstreet of the Montmartre district, overlooking the sprawling city of Paris. He’d come to this bar almost every day since his arrival in Paris, and the simplicity of his life now never failed to amaze him. He lived in a one-room flea-infested attic only two doors down from the bar, with a woman that he’d picked up shortly after finding the hilltop district. Her name was Suzanne, and she’d taken him in after a night of sex. She’d loved it, loved what he did to her, had begged for more, and he’d obliged. He didn’t see much of her—didn’t want to. She was a prostitute and worked nights in the Bois de Boulogne, a park where rich men paid for pleasure without commitment. He gave the prostitute the odd tumble in the mornings, along with a few francs to keep her happy, the same francs that she hid in a trinket box under the bed. She gave him a roof over his head, and in return he gave her what she wanted, but only when it suited him. Women were so fucking stupid; it made him laugh.

Apart from the fleas, the attic was home to half the rats in Montmartre. Dampness blackened the walls and the bed crawled with crabs, but he was happy there, and unlike Celia, Suzanne never asked for anything, not even for his affections. His bad leg still gave him grief. He still walked with a limp but only a very slight, annoying weakness of foot that didn’t diminish his attractiveness in the slightest. It had improved, he thought, probably because he had to walk up and down the steep hill that separated him from the posh avenues and bars that served men who served his purpose; stealing from drunken men on wine was easy in the wide Parisian avenues. He had accumulated enough francs to keep him going for a while, and more would come if he played his cards right, in every sense of the word.

He’d arrived in Paris with twenty pounds and had spent a lot on the journey through France, wanting to get to the capital as rapidly yet as discreetly as possible. His mother had given him about one hundred pounds, give or take a couple; he had no idea where she’d gotten the money.

For the most part, the journey to Paris had been uneventful. He’d shed his mother’s garb on the outskirts of London and had made his way slowly and cautiously across the country. He’d seen a few policemen inside the Dover docks, and getting on the ferry had probably been the most difficult part of the journey because of their presence. The bastards hadn’t lost any time in chasing him.

Joseph ordered a drink and checked the time on the pocket watch that he’d stolen from some man on Avenue Foch. He was due at the club in an hour. Getting on that ferry, he remembered, had really forced his brains to earn their keep. It was his brains that had beaten Marie Osborne, her bastard son, and the hangman’s noose; and it was his brains that would see him through the doors of the posh gambling club tonight.

It had been touch-and-go getting on the ferry. He’d crept inside a warehouse attached to the jetty. Men were loading crates onto the ship, while others were marking them off in ledgers. He’d managed to slip by them, and once inside, it had been easy to find a pallet marked for Paris; Lady Luck had showed him the way. He’d slipped under the rough grey sheeting and ropes covering the wooded slatted crates and had made himself as comfortable as possible in the tiny space the pallet afforded him. Once on board, he’d found himself alone in the cargo hold. The bulkhead door with a wheeled handle had opened for him but only after using every bit of strength he had. It had been a risky plan getting on that ship, but everything in life was a risk and a gamble worth taking.

He looked at his watch again. Roderick Smyth Burton, the posh fucking git, would be waiting for him. He’d met the British Consulate secretary at a game of poker a few weeks earlier. The man was hooked on the game, lived for it just as he did. Joseph smiled. The night he’d met him had been a good night for him, but Roddy, as he now called him, had wished he’d never been born. The rich bastard from the London suburbs had lost everything that night, apart from the very expensive shirt on his back. Joseph had taken him to the cleaners and then bailed him out to stop him getting his throat cut by the other three at the table.

Roddy was his age, give or take a year or two, husband to some fragile, dainty wife and father to a spotty-faced boy who went to the best private school in Paris. He loved to boast about his family. They were his pride and joy, he always said, after they’d both fucked some whores in a backstreet brothel. According to Roddy, a whore was just a means to an end. They got rid of the day’s stress because working in a consular office was very stressful, according to him. Roddy was clueless when it came to the game. Maybe in time he’d learn, but he doubted it. People either had the gift for poker or they didn’t, and Roderick Smyth what’s-his-face just didn’t have it.

Joseph got up from the chair, pushing the table away to make space. He walked inside the bar to pay the bill and studied his reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall from one end of the bar to the other. He still saw his face, but others wouldn’t recognise him now. Gone was his fair curly hair, and in its place were black short bristles so short that he could see the skin on top of his head. His clean-shaven face had gone too; that was the biggest transformation. He didn’t know if he liked the full black beard. It had grown on his face but not on him yet. He turned his head left then right; he was still a handsome bugger.

He walked into the fresh air and thought again about Roddy. The man owed him a lot of money, and tonight the debt would be paid, but only in part. The terms of the deal were clear and had been very cleverly thought up, even if he did say so himself. He’d given Roddy a photograph of himself with his new looks and had convinced the man to get him new identity papers with a new name, but Roddy still owed him big, and he would call in the rest of the debt when it suited him. The man was now in his pocket, and that’s where he would stay.

Joseph began walking down the hill, suited and booted in clothes bought by the prostitute Suzanne, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the new identity papers and what they would mean to him. They would open up his shady world. There would be no more hiding his name or himself from prying eyes. His new looks would give him the freedom to move through Paris without wondering if every stranger he saw had been sent after him. Marie Osborne and Stein, the Jew, wouldn’t give up—vindictive bastards. In an hour, he would be Harry Miller; he’d chosen that name because of a Harry Miller he’d known in Yorkshire. The man had taught him the rudiments of poker and had been his mentor until he beat him fair and square. The old man outgrew his usefulness after that.

With the new name, he would also be allowed entrance into games in big fancy hotels, guarded by men in top hats and tails, and into clubs where names on documents with official stamps were taken before you were even allowed to sit down. Money wasn’t enough to join the elite groups in Paris, but membership and an unsullied past was everything.

Joseph tripped over a loose stone in the road and swore loudly. Shooting pain coursed up and down his bad leg, and he cursed again. Celia Merrill came to mind, and his animated mood turned to rage. He had not given up on the idea of finding her, tearing out her throat, and choking her in her own blood. She was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. His bad leg, prison, and all the humiliation that went with it were her fault. Looking at a life sentence in a foreign country, comfortable but forced upon him, eating frogs’ legs and fish with eyes staring at him every time he took a bite was her fault too. He was stuck here, listening to a mumble jumble of words he didn’t understand, just trying to survive, while she was probably sitting in Merrill Farm right now, living her life as though he’d never existed.

She had stolen that farm from him, had taken everything he’d worked for. He’d languished in hospital and prison for months because of her. He’d been saved because she had to be punished, and he had to be the one to administer the sentence. That was his mission in life now. He might not exist in her mind, but she existed for him; every day and every night she existed, playing with his mind until he wanted to kill the nearest person to him just to keep the vein in his neck from bursting. He wasn’t finished with her yet, not by a long shot. Thinking about Celia led to thinking about England. Years would have to pass before it would be safe for him to set foot in Kent; he wasn’t a fool. But one day he would. She’d look up and see him at her door, and he would be the last thing she ever saw.