The Secret Beneath the Veil

He mentally sighed, too experienced a fighter not to recognize she was preparing to start one.

“Mikolas.” He mentally applauded her take-charge tone. “I have to go back to London. My aunt is very old. Quite ill. She needs me.”

He absorbed that with a blink. This was a fresh approach at least.

She must have read his skepticism. Her mouth tightened. “I wish I was making it up. I’m not.”

If he expected her trust—and he did—he would have to trust her in return, he supposed. “Tell me about her,” he invited.

She looked to the clear sky, seeming to struggle a moment.

“There’s not much to tell. She’s the sister of my grandmother and took me in when Grigor kicked me out, even though she was a spinster who never wanted anything to do with children. She had a career before women really did. Worked in Parliament, but not as an elected official. As a secretary to a string of them. She had some kind of lofty clearance, served coffee to all sorts of royals and diplomats. I think she was in love with a married man,” she confided with a wrinkle of her nose.

Definitely a sentimentalist.

She shrugged, murmuring, “I don’t have proof. Just a few things she said over the years.” She picked up her coffee and cupped her hands around it. “She was always telling me how to behave so men wouldn’t think things.” She made a face. “I’m sure the sexism in her day was appalling. She was adamant that I be independent, pay my share of rent and groceries, know how to look after myself.”

“She didn’t take her own advice? Make arrangements for herself?”

“She tried.” Her shoulder hitched in a helpless shrug. “Like a lot of people, she lost her retirement savings with the economic crash. For a while she had an income bringing in boarders, but we had to stop that a few years ago and remortgage. She has dementia.” Her sigh held the weight of the world. “Strangers in the house upset her. She doesn’t recognize me anymore, thinks I’m my mother, or her sister, or an intruder who stole her groceries.” She looked into her cooling coffee. “I’ve begun making arrangements to put her into a nursing home, but the plans aren’t finalized.”

* * *

Viveka knew he was listening intently, thought about leaving it there, where she had stopped with the doctors and the intake staff and with Trina during their video chats. But the mass on her conscience was too great. She’d already told Mikolas about Grigor’s abuse. He might actually understand the rest and she really needed it off her chest.

“I feel like I’m stealing from her. She worked really hard for her home and deserves to live in it, but she can’t take care of herself. I have to run home from work every few hours to make sure she hasn’t started a fire or caught a bus to who knows where. I can’t afford to stay home with her all day and even if I could...”

She swallowed, reminding herself not to feel resentful, but it still hurt. Not just physically, either. She had tried from Day One to have a familial relationship with her aunt and it had all been for naught.

“She started hitting me. I know she doesn’t mean it to be cruel. She’s scared. She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. But I can’t take it.”

She couldn’t look at him. She already felt like the lowest form of life and he wasn’t saying anything. Maybe he was letting her pour out her heart and having a laugh at her for getting smacked by an old lady.

“Living with her was never great. She’s always been a difficult, demanding person. I was planning to move out the minute I finished school, but she started to go downhill. I stayed to keep house and make meals and it’s come to this.”

The little food she’d eaten felt like glue in her stomach. She finished up with the best argument she could muster.

“You said you’re loyal to your grandfather for what he gave you. That’s how I feel toward her. The only way I can live with removing her from her home is by making sure she goes to a good place. So I have to go back to London and oversee that.”

Setting aside her coffee, she hugged herself, staring sightlessly at the horizon, not sure if it was guilt churning her stomach or angst at revealing herself this way.