Part 18 (1/2)
”What can I do for you, Vienna?”
Mason wasn't used to hesitance in her adversary, but Vienna seemed to be fighting emotions she did not want witnessed. An uncertain smile fed her face and she stood with her hands clasped before her. A sunbeam burnished the fine, loose hairs that floated out around her head. She looked frail and easily bruised, hemmed in by the tortured trees and shrubs, their long predatory fingers plucking at her thin skirt.
”Mrs. Danville let me in,” she said, moving farther along the path toward Mason. Her steps were gingerly taken, avoiding broken bricks, encroaching plants, and a finely wrought bird's nest still that still held the fragments of a blue egg. ”Could we talk?”
Another step and Mason would be able to touch her. The thought made her hands tingle. ”Please, go ahead.”
As if she knew she was about to ask a strange question, Vienna covered her mouth for a split second before letting the words rush out. ”Do you know why Hugo shot Benedict?”
Mason raised her eyebrows. She'd expected a different line of attack. A conversation about DNA samples from the night of the ball and what they would reveal. ”You want us to compare notes a hundred and forty years after the fact.”
Vienna's dreamy blue-green eyes met hers. ”It's long overdue.”
”Okay, so...why did he shoot him?”
”I can't say for sure, but Benedict was Estelle's father and I have the correspondence to prove it.” Vienna seemed to be waiting for an explosive reaction, swaying forward a little on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet.
Mason said calmly, ”Strange, isn't it, how that changes things.”
Vienna held her gaze. ”You knew?”
”I've been doing my own research, and I had an expert in the house all morning. We went through my father's papers.”
”What do you think happened back then?” Vienna asked.
”I think Estelle didn't know whose baby she was carrying.” Mason heard a swift intake of breath.
”The baby...are you sure?”
Mason decided not to embark on the psychic angle immediately. She was still trying to absorb all she'd heard from Phoebe Temple and the discoveries she'd made in her father's office.
”Estelle drowned herself after her son was born because she couldn't live with her guilt,” Mason said. ”I found her suicide note.”
Vienna cupped her hands to her face in horror. ”She was having an affair with Truman? Even after they found out they were half-siblings?”
”No. Truman was her first love, but Hugo was her husband and it seems as though they were happy.”
Vienna frowned. ”Then what went wrong? What did her note say?”
”It was a letter to Hugo. She said that after their marriage she was raped by Benedict. He was in a rage over the diamonds. Truman had bought them without his permission, then they were sold at a loss when the engagement couldn't proceed. The old man thought he was ent.i.tled to recompense in kind and extracted it from Estelle.”
”His own daughter?” Vienna gasped in disgust. ”Oh, my G.o.d.”
The story was hard to tell. Mason kept herself in check by pausing to take slow breaths. ”When Estelle found she was pregnant she was terrified that she might be carrying Benedict's child. She was very depressed after he was born.”
”And she took her own life,” Vienna whispered.
”She blamed herself for the rape,” Mason said. ”In the letter she told Hugo what Benedict had done. A few days later Hugo went to Beacon Hill and shot him.”
”What else could he do?” Vienna murmured. Her face was very pale. ”Did Hugo tell Truman why he did it?”
”He must have, and I guess Truman didn't believe him.”
Vienna seemed to be taking Mason's measure. Strange that for all her scheming, she could keep her regard so steady, drawing her close, exactly the way Mason drew a nervous horse. Holding open a door, but making no demand.
With quiet resignation, she said, ”I wish I knew the truth about the night of the ball.” She hugged herself and rocked slightly on her heels. ”I'm not an idiot. They think they're protecting me by not talking about it.”
”You've also been protecting them,” Mason said with an edge of cynicism.
Vienna lowered her arms and turned her head away. Her tone hardened. ”I'm not the only one. Mrs. Danville's been lying to protect the Cavender name all these years. Can you look me in the face and deny it?”
When Mason was silent, Vienna closed the few paces between them. Anger seemed to jolt her hands up to Mason's face, setting off a defensive tremor that made her muscles knot. Every nerve quickened. Mason heard a dry swallow and thought it was her own until she saw Vienna part her lips.
”Well?”
Somehow, despite the paralysis of throat and body, Mason's heart continued to beat and her lungs to inflate. ”No, I can't deny it.”
They stood very still. Vienna slid her hands from Mason's face to her shoulders, using her for balance. Her full, beautiful mouth was trembling. With every short, shallow breath, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell sharply. She didn't shrink back when Mason put a steadying arm around her waist.
”Tell me, Mason.” The plea was raw.
There was no going back. Mason had the sense that she was balanced on the edge of a precipice between two worlds. The leap from past to future was impossibly far and she was filled with dread at the risk she would have to take, yet she was weary of her lonely exile. Even that banishment she could have endured indefinitely, if it meant sparing Vienna sorrow. But she could see her silence had produced the opposite effect.
”It's not my father she's been protecting,” she said finally. ”It's me.”
”You?”
She heard the wounded sigh a split second before she felt the air leave Vienna's body. Her red hair swung forward and she seemed to fold at the waist. Mason caught her as her legs gave way, and then held her tightly, outlasting her ineffectual struggles. Vienna threw her head back and the wild green of the garden seemed to wash into her eyes, enlarging them before coursing into her lashes and down her cheeks. One of her fists few free, landing a glancing blow to Mason's jaw.
Mason caught the wrist and locked it behind Vienna, forcing her in, trapping her. Their bodies were crushed so tightly, she could feel Vienna's heart slamming against her own.
”Stop fighting me and listen,” she said next to Vienna's ear. ”It's not what you think.”
Vienna turned her head away and twisted helplessly. ”Let me go.”
”Not a chance. We should have had this conversation a long time ago.”
Vienna kept up her struggles for a few more seconds, then drooped against her. ”I don't believe it.” She almost seemed to be talking to herself. ”You would never do that.”
Mason let her lips brush the gossamer skin where Vienna's cheekbone protruded. ”No. You're right. I would never hurt you.”
”I was raped.” Vienna's voice caught on a sob. ”Everyone thinks they can hide it from me, but I know.”
Mason shook her head. ”Do you really think I'd allow that to happen?”
Vienna's eyes narrowed. ”What are you saying?”