Chapter 4

EDWARD

It surprises me that I feel relief more than anything else, because I expected nerves, maybe even doubt. Instead there's only the quiet satisfaction of completion, of a job well done.

What I don't feel is shame, not one iota of it. Yes, Iris is only twenty-four, and she's motivated by self-interest, as I am, but she also fully understands what this marriage is. The lawyers were clear, my father was brutal in hammering the point home. She doesn't pretend affection in private, and I don't demand it.

But we're in public, and most critically, we're at our wedding, so the love charade is being carried out in full force and with great enthusiasm. She's clutching my hand as we walk down the aisle to the church doors, laughing and accepting congratulations. She looks like the happiest woman in the world, her green eyes sparkling as brightly as the massive diamond on her engagement ring, which she'll always wear with the more discreet gold band. One ring announces her marital status, the other announces my financial status. Both take her off the market... and both increase her value.

I glance at my father as we pass him, a reflex that I've never quite unlearned, even now at the age of twenty-seven. He holds my gaze and nods his dark head at me, just the smallest movement, but it steadies me all the same. He always knows when things have been done correctly.

The sunlight outside is hot and blinding after the cool dimness of the church. Gallantly placing a supportive hand on my bride's delicate lower back, we take one step down the stone stairs, then another... and then I'm seized by a strange pressure in my chest, as though something has closed an iron fist around my heart.

With no warning, between breaths and blinks, the whole world tilts.

I have time to think that this is certainly not on the agenda, definitely not part of the plan.

Then I'm falling, falling into blackness.

HELEN

I'm the last to leave the church. It's a small rebellion, but I allow myself these now. The church empties in a rustle of fabric and murmured approval, and I remain seated long enough to feel the silence settle back into the arched elegance. I've always liked quiet; it makes everything clearer.

Of course, I've known from the beginning what all of this is. As Thomas' ex-wife I was excluded from the legal formalities and negotiations of Edward's marriage, but I didn't have to be there to know what took place. After all, I myself went through the exact same process with Thomas and his father almost thirty years ago.

I see it in the way that Iris stands – not hopeful, not romantic, but braced. I recognize the posture, because I once held it myself. Thomas and I didn't marry for affection; we married for structure, for alignment, for advantage. Love was never promised, and I learned early on not to grieve what I was never owed.

Edward understands this. He needs a wife to inherit cleanly, to give him children, to move forward without complication. Iris understands it too, obviously. After all, she's here, wearing pure white and chaste gold.

I get to my feet, turn to look out the doors at my only child and his wife. From where I stand, I can see them clearly. Iris is clinging on to Edward, her hand resting on his arm, his hand on her back helping her down the stairs. Her face is turned to his and she's laughing, her fiery-red curls cascading over her slim shoulders. Despite myself, I can't help but admire her lush beauty, her youth, her glow.

Then it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Edward pitches forward suddenly and without a word, his head striking the stone steps with a sound that's both dull and final. Iris freezes for a second, then falls to her knees beside him. There's shouting now, confusion, people rushing forward.

Thomas is already moving through the crowd, his massive shoulders clearing the way.

He descends the steps with a speed that strips years from him, his attention fixed entirely on Iris. He doesn’t look at Edward, he certainly doesn’t look at me. His focus narrows, sharp and absolute, until there is only her – kneeling there, white silk darkening with my son's blood, hands trembling as she clutches at nothing, young and shaking and already ruined, even though she has no idea.

Iris looks up at me now, eyes wide and searching, as though I might tell her what to do next. Indeed, I am a woman who gives instructions and orders, but I don’t do either of those things in this moment. I watch instead, cataloguing the details:

The way that Thomas places himself in front of her without thinking, his body angling instinctively to protect her from the wall of people and sound. The way his hands find her shoulders, firm and unmistakable, not asking permission, not waiting. The way she yields, leaning toward him at once, blindly, as though her body already knows where safety is located.

Something in the connection between them is too immediate, too practiced to have been born in this moment. It has the quality of recognition rather than reaction, of a line already drawn being followed to its inevitable end. This is not the awkward intimacy of shared shock, this is gravity finding its center.

The realization lands cold and precise in my chest.

This isn't an accident, I think, not yet knowing what I mean by it, only that something has ended on these church steps, something neat and containable, and something far more dangerous has begun.