Fallen Hearts (Casteel 3)

Only this time she had been preparing herself for her final gala affair. I gasped and seized Tony's arm as we both stared down at what was obviously a dead Jillian. On the floor, just beyond the reach of her dangling fingertips, lay the bottle of tranquilizers.

Martha Goodman was weeping hysterically. I went to console her.

"What happened?" Tony asked, as if hearing it said by someone else would be the only way it would register in his mind as real. Slowly he went to Jillian and knelt at her side. He took her hand into his and looked into her silent face. Death made the smile under her mask of makeup look even more grotesque. He turned to me and Martha Goodman. "What happened?"

"Oh, Mr. Tatterton, I didn't know she even understood what it was she was getting whenever I gave her the pills. I told her they were vitamins, just so she would take them willingly. She always smiled and nodded and looked eager to take them."

"Yes?" he said. Martha looked to me. Why wasn't he understanding. She turned back to Tony.

"Well, she must have always known what they were. Sometime during the night she snuck into my bedroom and stole the whole bottle. Then she came back in here, dressed herself like that, and made herself up like that and . . . and she took the entire bottle of tranquilizers. I never heard her; I never knew what had happened until I got up to see how she was and found her like this. But it was too late. Oh, dear, it was too late," Martha said and started to cry again.

I tried to comfort her. "Martha, it's not your fault. You can't blame yourself," I said.

"My darling," Tony said tenderly, wiping off Jillian's makeup. "You'll be able to rest now. There will be no more ghosts to haunt you."

He fell to his knees and pressed Jillian's limp wrist and hand to his forehead. His body shook with silent sobs. Martha stopped crying and both of us stared down at him. Somehow I hadn't thought Tony capable of such a show of emotion. Most of all I thought he had lost his love for Jillian once she had become mentally ill, but he was crying for her now as if she had died at the peak of their love. I suddenly realized that in a strange and eerie way he had refused to see her as anything but the beauty she'd been. Perhaps that was the real reason why he decided to keep her at Farthy, hoping that, even miraculously, the woman he'd once loved would return to him.

"I can't believe she's gone," he repeated over and over. "I can't believe she's gone."

He looked at her the way he used to, when I had first come to Farthy and found them active and vibrant and alive, when Jillian was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and Tony the most elegant man I had ever met. They were some kind of dream couple, the younger husband and his princess living in a castle built from dreams and rich make-believe.

"Jillian," he moaned. "My Jillian." He turned to me, his watery eyes pleading to hear the words, "This isn't so."

"Oh, Tony," I said, "perhaps this is what she wanted the most; perhaps she couldn't live the way she was living any longer. At least she put herself to sleep, seeing herself the way she was--forever young and beautiful. I'm sure she was happy until the end."

He nodded and looked back at her.

"Yes," he said. "Of course, you're right." He kissed her hand and then stood up, pressing his palms against his eyes, then running his hands over his hair as he straightened his posture. "Well," he said, a harder, more formal tone coming into his voice.

"We've got to call the doctor anyway. There is always an inquiry whenever there is an unattended death."

"Oh, dear me, dear me," Martha Goodman said. "The poor woman."

"Now, no more of that," Tony said quickly. "Let's do what we must. There are arrangements to be made. People to inform." He turned to me. "Will you be all right? Can you . ."

"Yes," I said. "Martha and I will comfort each other. It will be all right here, Tony. Do what you have to do. help with anything you want."

"Thank you. Well," he said, looking back at Jillian once more, "I'd better go inform the servants and call the doctor."

Martha's sobbing grew harder and louder as he left the room. I walked with her back to her own bedroom and advised her to get dressed.

"I'll go do the same," I said.

"Yes, of course. You're right. I have to get myself together. Thank you, Heaven. You're so strong."

I left her and went back to my suite, stunned by Jillian's death, so hard on the heels of Troy's resurrection--and the resurrection of my love for him. I was not a stranger to Death.

I thought about Jillian passing from this world to the next; I didn't pity her as much as I pitied Tony. He had tried to cling to a part of his life that had been happy and wonderful, but now there it was irrevocably gone. Never before had he been as alone as he would be now.

After I dressed I called Logan in Winnerow to tell him the news. He promised to be on the first plane to Boston.

"How's Tony taking it?" Logan asked.

"He's keeping himself busy right now with all the arrangements. The hard times will be afterward," I said, speaking from experience.

"And how are you?" Logan asked.

"I'll be all right."