Page 89 of Moonshine and Magnolias
“He let me think I had cured him of impotency. How’s that for manipulative?”
“I’d say pretty good. That’s one I hadn’t heard before.”
Wendy laughed in spite of herself. “I bet you’ve heard a lot.”
“I have. Which is why I’m still thinking he was sincere. At least, eventually.”
“I don’t know.” Wendy sighed and picked up the stashed manila envelope, then tapped it against her knee. Something small and hard rattled against her thigh. So it contained more than a letter. “If this was you, I’d be all over you for even considering talking to him again.”
“I know. So it’s a good thing I’m not you.”
“He lied to me, Brandi. Used me. Used all of us.” The words were out of her mouth before she thought to hold them back and she held up the envelope. “Why am I even considering reading this?”
“That’s something you have to ask yourself.”
Wendy flopped back in her chair. “I’m pathetic.”
“No, you’re not.”
She knew her world was turning upside down when her cousin’s words were cause for introspection. She didn’t make eye contact for fear of seeing horror on Brandi’s face with what she said next. “I want to see if maybe even a little of what we had was real. He changed my whole life, and in only a month. A month! My way of thinking, which seemed so logical, my way of living, which was so safe.” She drew in a deep breath. “If it was all a lie, if it was because I was vulnerable…”
Her cousin said nothing, only held Wendy’s hand.
“So what do I do?”
“Only you can answer that. Don’t think, just speak. What do you want to do?”
If Wendy voiced her thoughts, she’d have to act. There’d be no going back. She closed her eyes and spoke before she could stop herself.
“I want to read the letter.”
Chapter 18
Rob parked his car among the hundreds of others already taking up space in the open lot across the street from Fountenoy Hall and joined the stream of people waiting to cross the street. A cannon boomed and he jumped in spite of himself. A second later, a cheer went up from the crowd. Music and the squeals of small children drifted over from the tents, but that wasn’t what Rob wanted to hear. Wendy’s voice, telling him about her family. Her delighted laughter. Her cries of passion, when it was just the two of them, alone.
What he really wanted was time. To apologize again, to see if she had read the real results of his research or seen the contents on the flash drive and understood their significance.
To ask her if she could ever forgive him.
He climbed the wooden steps of the horse-drawn carriage shuttling everyone to the reenactment, settling in between a family with small kids and an overly-affectionate couple. Police officers stopped the traffic to let the carriage pass. It clomped down the drive, kicking up dust. Rob scanned the crowds that spilled onto the front lawn.
He hadn’t been able to guess Hal and Dad’s reaction when he had uncovered the treasure. Confusion. Surprise. Disbelief. But the facts didn’t lie, and theyfinally accepted the truth. Then Dad took the information to Mom.
While she didn’t embrace him with open arms, she listened enough to know the search was over. They could begin repairing what the curse had broken between them.
Women in colorful period dresses strolled by on the arms of men in jeans and t-shirts. A tall man in a tricorn hat recited Patrick Henry’s speech from the Second Virginia Convention to whoever would listen. When Rob got off the carriage, he saw the red-headed prince in Union garb, doing a passable impression of General Sherman. He wore the uniform well. Two men dressed conspicuously in black followed him around, their shoulders broad enough to keep the prince in shadow. Brandi was on his arm, holding a lemonade and grinning at something he said.
Loïc turned around and Rob ducked into the nearest tent.
The woodsy smell of the handmade display tables piqued his interest enough to spend a few minutes browsing the books on top before heading out again. Loïc wasn’t in sight anymore. Rob continued down the row, dodging British soldiers marching in their red coats and Americans in grays and blues while he made his way to Fountenoy Hall’s front stairs.
According to the program, there would be a brief memorial for Maybelle Clayton before a messenger would bring news of the approaching enemy in about half an hour. Wendy wouldn’t need the extra burden of seeing him when she was already emotionally fragile. He’d find her after the messenger delivered his lines.
She had to know he’d be back today. If she had read his letter. He imagined seeing her, yearning on her face as she smiled at the sight of him. Bile rested in the back of his throat. The yearning would turn to pain and panic. Like seeing him will rip open an unhealed wound. Which it probably would.
He’d take that over indifference. He popped an antacid into his mouth.
A crowd had already started gathering at the stanchions placed across the circular drive near the Hall, marking the boundary for the next act of The Winning of Pansy Hamilton. Rob watched a woman weave a blanket on her loom and bought some haymaker’s punch to have something to do with his hands. It came tohim in a mason jar, like the ones used as tumblers in the library. He carried it while he waited for the messenger, not yet able to lift the reminder to his lips.
