The Mermaid Collector (24 page)

“What do you think? He’s a raging alcoholic.”

“Why? Because he had too much wine last night?”

“This isn’t about last night. This has been going on for years, and he needs to be in treatment.”

“I was with him all morning, Tom. He was fine.”

Tom frowned at her. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Defend him.”

“I’m not defending him,” she insisted, but even as she said it, Tess could see Tom’s mind was made up. She watched his eyes swerve to the car again, then return to hers after a moment, looking wounded and hardened all at once.

“You have feelings for him, don’t you?”

“What?” Tess stared at him.

“Let me guess—you went home and consulted your charts or cards or whatever it is you use, and it turns out Sagittarius is your perfect match. Is that it?” Tom said. “Well, congratulations. I wish you both a long and happy life together.” He turned from her and headed back toward the house.

Tess stood frozen with shock at his accusation for only
a moment before outrage took over. Racing to catch up to him, she came around to block his path, stopping his charge at the edge of the lawn. “I don’t want to be with Dean, you jerk!” she sputtered. “God, I wish I did. At least he isn’t afraid to live his life!”

“And I am. Is that it?” Tom demanded.

“I think you’re
terrified
,” Tess said. “And I think you’re terrified that if you let him live his life, he won’t need you.”

“If I let him live his life, Tess, he’d be dead.”

“You can’t know that.”

“You bet I can,” he said firmly.

“Why?”

“Because I live in the real world, not some fantasy land where I base my every move on the stars or some crackpot legend about mermaids because I don’t want to see what’s staring me right in the face.”

Tess knew at once that she should leave, that what would come next would only make things worse, maybe even ruin them beyond repair, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“You’re just like Buzz, you know that?” she said. “You think you know what’s best for everyone, and you’re too stubborn to admit that you don’t!”

“I’m not the bull here, Tess. I’m just the boring, responsible guy, remember?”

“You can’t change people who don’t want to change, Tom.”

“So why even try, right?” he asked, gesturing lamely to the car. “Why not say the hell with it and just let them
fend for themselves? Why not let them drive into a ditch or end up at the bottom of the ocean?”

Tess sucked in a sharp breath, the words like a strike. At once, Tom’s brow twisted with regret. He sighed. “Tess,” he whispered. “Christ, I’m…”

She shook her head fiercely, the tears already soaking the edges of her eyes as she whirled away from him and began up the driveway. For a moment, she wondered if he’d realize she didn’t have a ride and come after her, but she knew he wouldn’t. The damage was done, and they both knew it.

She marched up the dirt road, her view so blurry she could barely see where the shoulder slipped into the trees. It was just like Dean had said: Tom had unsealed himself for her, and now he was closing the gap once again. He liked to be in control too much to let anyone in for long.

Fine, Tess thought, dragging her hand across her wet eyes and down her cheeks. He could have his control. He could eat dinner with it, count stars with it, make love to it.

She was going home.

DEAN WOKE A HALF HOUR
later and sauntered into the kitchen. In his growing fury, Tom had paced the house, wanting nothing more than to fill a pot with cold water, carry it out to the car, and douse Dean with it. His parting words to Tess haunted him; yet he still wished she could have seen his side in it all. Maybe it served him right for
letting go of his routines, his commitments, for wanting things to be different. Let the rest of the lunatics lose themselves in this festival nonsense, Tom thought; he had responsibilities, and he’d shirked them long enough. Now that Dean was here, life would get back to its order. Tom would make sure of it.

“I don’t know what you expected,” Dean said, shaking out a cigarette. “I told you I didn’t want to go, and you made the appointment anyway. That’s what you get for trying to run my fucking life, Tommy.”

Tom said nothing from his seat at the table. While Dean slept, he’d tried to work his way through the dauntingly thick file that had come with the house, trying to decipher the ancient receipts and legal documents. He’d given up after only a few pages, unable to concentrate.

Dean looked through the doorway. “Where’s Tess?”

“She’s gone,” Tom said tightly, rising from the table and moving to the counter.

“You mean she left?”

“I mean she’s gone.”

Dean shook his head. “I knew you’d do this. I knew you’d fuck it up.”

Don’t bite the bait,
Tom thought as he dragged a sponge over the trail of Dean’s ashes.
Don’t do it.
When he looked up, Tom spotted a taxi steering down the drive. He dropped the sponge into the sink and moved across the kitchen to the room’s other window, the one that had a better view of the driveway. By the time he got there, the car had
stopped and a woman with long black hair had climbed out, clutching a redheaded infant to her shoulder.

“Dean…” Tom’s voice was thin. “Why is there a woman with a baby in our driveway?”

Dean came to the window and stood beside his brother, his face falling.

He sighed.

“That’s Petra.”

SOMETHING WAS TERRIBLY WRONG
, and Lydia knew it.

In truth, she’d known it far longer than she’d let on. The instant Linus had labored off the rescue boat, the very first moment their eyes had met across the landing, Lydia Harris had known her husband was no longer her husband; that something within him, something deep, something binding, was now missing.

“What do you expect?” Annabeth Owen whispered
condemningly when Lydia had finally suggested it in the months following the men’s return. “God only knows what they endured out there. They might have died. Who can know that sort of terror? Pray we never do.”

But his eyes,
Lydia had wanted to say.
They’re not the same blue. I know how that sounds, but they’re not. They’re haunted. His are the eyes of a haunted man.

“It’s the baby, dear,” Mary Bartle answered. “I remember how it was. I wanted to cry at the drop of a hat. It’s a hard enough time carrying a child—and you’ve been through so much.”

“They just need time,” Annabeth said, baby Joseph on her hip, little Elizabeth tugging on her skirt. “They’re back now. That’s all that matters.”

But it wasn’t all, Lydia told herself. What did it matter that they had returned when she lay beside Linus and grew more and more certain that the man who had come back to her was changed, and changed forever. No amount of time could return something that had been stolen, that now resided in that awful, treacherous sea. Did no one else understand that?

Yes, she thought. There
were
others she could reach out to. Even Millicent Banks, wrapped as she was like cut crystal in her mansion on the green, must have noticed an alteration in her own husband.

Surely Lydia’s heart was not the only one about to shatter like satin glass.

THE KEENES ALWAYS TRAVELED TO
town on Thursday mornings. Lydia had no trouble making up an excuse to ride with them. She needed more yardage for the baby’s crib bumper; she’d miscalculated. And there was no harm in getting more molasses while she was there; why wait until they’d run out?

She didn’t dare tell Linus the truth of where she was headed when the buggy came down the road for her. She didn’t even tell Sarah or Miles Keene, too afraid they would think her mad. In the weeks following Linus’s recovery, the gossip had hushed to the faintest whispers, quieted by the news of her pregnancy. Whatever discomfort Miles had shown in Lydia’s company during those feverish weeks when Linus had gone missing had faded away, her neighbor’s courteous and mellow smile returning. Lydia didn’t dare draw fresh suspicions all over again.

Feeling the warm spring air on her face as she sat beside Sarah, Lydia wanted badly to inquire into Angus’s well-being, but she didn’t. She couldn’t possibly. She hoped over the course of the long ride that Miles might mention his brother, even in passing, but Angus’s name never came up, and Lydia told herself it was for the best. Wherever Angus was, she only hoped that he was happy, maybe even loved. Yes, she hoped that very much.

THEY REACHED TOWN SHORTLY BEFORE
ten and parted ways near the wharf where Miles meant to purchase paint. Lydia waved the younger couple off, making certain they were out of sight before she turned down the street toward the green, where the town’s most prosperous residents, shipbuilders and merchants, lived in massive brick homes.

She forced her racing heart to slow as she climbed the steps of the Banks’s Italianate mansion and stood under the columned portico. After a moment, a maid arrived at the double doors. “Is Mrs. Banks expecting you?” the young woman asked.

“No,” said Lydia. “I don’t suppose she is.”

The maid considered Lydia a moment, then disappeared for several minutes. When she returned, Millicent Banks arrived with her, dressed in a burgundy tea gown. The woman looked noticeably older—and far less congenial—to Lydia than she had that frantic day on the wharf many months before, and it was clear that Eli Banks’s wife didn’t recall Lydia. Her eyes landed at once on Lydia’s stomach, narrowing with panic.

Lydia knew what the woman must have thought.

“What is this about?” Millicent demanded curtly.

“My name is Lydia Harris, Mrs. Banks. My husband, Linus, is the lightkeeper. He was captain of your husband’s boat. I’d like to discuss something with you.”

“Now look here. If you’ve come to demand some kind of compensation…”

“Hardly,” Lydia said sharply, not about to play the lowly commoner. “I just wanted a word. About the incident. About our husbands.”

Lydia saw the briefest flicker of understanding flash across the woman’s pewter eyes, just enough that Banks’s wife stepped back and said, “Only a moment. I’m very busy, and I’m expecting guests within the hour.”

Millicent Banks led Lydia through the foyer, past the twisting grand staircase and into the parlor, where she instructed the maid to bring them tea, which Lydia had already decided she would decline, no matter the chill under her skin. Had the Bankses any children? Lydia couldn’t tell. Looking around the large room, appointed as it was with gold-leafed wallpaper, columned door surrounds, and so much gleaming china, she saw no evidence of a child’s curious touch anywhere.

Banks’s wife set her hands in her lap, but still her fingers worried the silk twill of her gown. “You should be made aware that I suggested my husband press charges.”

Lydia stared at the woman, startled at the confession. It had never occurred to her that anyone held Linus responsible for what had happened, especially since there was yet to be any clear admission to the events that had transpired. Due to the fear of putting the men through any further trauma, the case had been closed months earlier.

Or had it?

“I don’t see how that would be at all fair,” Lydia said, shaking her head when the maid arrived with tea and offered to pour her some. “Linus was doing your husband a great favor.” In the weeks following the incident, the Bankses had never sent as much as a token of apology to the Point. Perhaps the other two men had received some sort of kindness for their trouble? They were, after all, fellow businessmen—one a merchant, the other a banker. Had Eli Banks made sure to compensate
them
?

“Be that as it may,” said Millicent, “your husband presented himself as someone who could handle a boat of that size with little or no aid. Clearly, he overinflated his abilities.”

Lydia drew in a calming breath. She hadn’t come to defend her husband, and she’d be damned if she would do it a minute more.

“I’m not here to discuss blame, Mrs. Banks,” she said evenly. “I only want to know if you have found your husband changed. That is all.”

“Changed? Whatever do you mean?”