Page 69 of Hazard a Guest
“He would be,” agreed Ember, “if I planned to tell anyone about it.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Freddy demanded lazily as he found his repose, “after he tried to kill me like he did?”
“You’re right,” Ember said, snapping her eyes to him, “I should, but only because he failed and you’re still talking.”
“Oh, my heart,” Freddy returned, grinning and unbothered.
“Freddy’s question is mine too,” Joe said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t you? You’ve got what you need now to ensure your safety and his removal from the board. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“It is what I wanted,” she acknowledged, her gaze floating out to the window overlooking the winter garden. “Isn’t that funny? It is exactly what I wanted, and here it is, and now I don’t want to do it.”
“It’s justified,” Joe protested. “Legal. He has done something that merits punishment. Why would you shy away from that, after everything?”
“Because,” said Ember without turning back, her eyelids flickering shut in the bathing light of the early morning, “because he didn’t know. Because I might have made the same mistake on a different day, in a different life. And because my husband would be disappointed with me if I did.”
“Your husband,” Freddy repeated flatly. “The dead one?”
“Him, yes,” Ember sighed. “And the next one.”
There was a long, gonging chime of silence. Joe felt it resonate in his stomach, in his ribs, in his heart, but no one else seemed to. Ember stayed in the chair, eyes closed against the sunrise, and Freddy just stared, his mind attempting to parse what she’d said like a bird tugging on a worm.
“You’re going to marry Beck?” he blurted out, indignant.
“What?” she said, lashes flickering open, a giggle on her breath. “No, of course not. I’m going to marry Joe.”
“You are?” Joe heard himself ask.
“Of course I am,” said Ember, and she closed her eyes again, like the matter was settled.
“Oh,” said Freddy, turning his eyes over to Joe. “Congratulations?”
“Thank you,” said Joe, just as baffled but far more grateful. He thought he ought to sit down, so he crossed the room and took the chair opposite Ember, dropping his weight into it while his limbs caught up with the words still echoing from corner to corner.
He glanced up at the piskies in the upper corners of his room and saw how gleeful they looked at this development. They approved, it seemed, and that was well, because if they hadn’t and it would have spelled doom, Joe still would have gone along with it anyway.
“You said there was something for me,” Freddy reminded her from his throne of pillows. “A gift?”
“Oh.” Her eyes opened, a grin spreading over her face. “It’s about your mother’s wedding.”
“Weddings! More weddings. Of course it’s weddings.” Freddy sighed, shaking his blond head.
“They’re going to wed at Crooked Nook,” Ember told him, her eyes fully open now, her attention fully fixed on Freddy, “and they’re going to invite you.”
“Of course they’re going to invite me,” Freddy said petulantly. “I’m their son, aren’t I?”
“You’reherson,” Joe corrected, baffled.
“They’re going to invite you to Crooked Nook, Freddy,” she said again, watching, waiting for it to sink in.
Freddy sat up, a frown stretching his bruised cheek. “So I can’t go?” he asked, the playfulness gone from his tone. He fiddled with the gold band on his left hand, seemingly unaware of the instinct. “I can’t go to my own mother’s wedding?”
“You can, in fact,” Ember corrected, waving the stack of written sheets in Millie Murphy’s handwriting in his direction. “Claire has withdrawn the blockade officially. You can go home.”
“I can …” He stared at them, his eyes deep and reflective like cores of arctic ice. “I can go home?”
“You can,” said Ember, grinning this time with no sharpness, with no taunting. “You can go home, Freddy.”
Joe turned to look at the other man then, at the conflict of laughter and sobbing that skittered across his face, at the shock of it and the promise. He had felt like that now and then, he thought, like he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming.
