Finally, she made a kind of whimpering sigh, clutching a hand to her hurt cheek, and turned to look at me with a petulant scowl. “I apologize, Beatrice.”
I glared back at her, unwilling to accept what was so clearly an insincere apology.
Seth cleared his throat. “Bea? Forgiveness is divine, need I remind you? I’d accept Margaret’s apology. You are above this behaviour. Above her acting out so childishly.”
I watched something like fear and disappointment war on the older woman’s face and felt a flare of pity in my chest. She was losing her husband. It was a normal part of the grieving process to feel angry even when there was no cause.
“I’ll forgive you if you promise never to utter another bad word about my family, which, just so you know, includes The Fallen,” I allowed graciously, looking down my nose at her.
She seethed, eyes flashing. “You’re a disgrace to our religion.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” I rebutted as I swung off the table. “I’m going to clean up. Seth, Tabby, thank you for having me for dinner, but I’m going to leave early. Suddenly, I’m not feeling well.”
Without waiting for their response, I sailed out of the dining room with my head held high even though my adrenaline was fading and shakiness was descending.
I’d just punched a middle-aged woman in the face.
But, but, but she’d called my nephew a monster, my brother-in-law a heathen, and my sister a whore.
That was unforgivable.
Suddenly, the anger was back, hot and tacky at the back of my throat, and impossible to swallow down.
I used the bathroom again, spitting out the bile lingering in my mouth, wiping the potatoes off my tights, and straightening the hem of my cream cashmere dress.
I didn’t want to go back out there.
In fact, if I was being honest, I wished I’d never come to dinner. I wanted to be with Priest, with my friends and family who never judged and always supported me.
Without thinking, I left the bathroom and went into the front living room to peer out the sheer curtains at the street.
Priest was there, as he said he would be, waiting for me in the dark, clothed in black, drenched in shadows leaning against his Harley across the street. Attuned to even the slightest shift in the curtains, he snapped his head up from the wood carving he was whittling to lock intractably with mine.
Even from across the street, I felt that gaze on my soul, dark and claiming.
Mine, mine, mine, it seemed to say.
Yours, yours, yours, my heart echoed back.
I subconsciously moved toward the front doors, needing him more than I needed to heed my ingrained manners and say goodbye to my hosts.
But then I heard a girly little giggle and froze.
I knew that giggle.
It was my mother.
I crept closer to the kitchen and strained to hear more.
“Your daughter is fierce,” Seth complimented softly from behind the swinging door. “It was something to see that.”
“Oh Seth, stop being so kind. She acted terribly.”
My heart clenched at my mother’s words, hating that she would condemn me for defending our family when she hadn’t condemned my dad all those years ago for hitting Louise after finding out about her and Zeus.
The hypocrisy of living two lives was an ugly, two-faced monster my mother was adept at keeping hidden.
“She was beautiful,” Seth insisted with a smile in his voice, then softer. “Just like her mother.”
I blinked at the white panelled door, unable to compute the intimacy in his tone.
Seth was married—happily, I thought—to Tabby, who was just then in the adjacent room making nice after my incident.
And my mother?
For the past few years, she and Smoke had been flirting with something more than friendship. I always assumed my mum was gun-shy because Smoke had severe asthma and a significant heart defect. She’d already lost her first husband and nearly lost her eldest daughter, so maybe she wasn’t quite ready to sign on for more loss. I had understood that. My mother was soft, pretty, and as delicate as a figurine meant to sit on a shelf. She was not made for action or dangerous handling.
But this?
This, I didn’t understand.
Sucking in a deep breath that I held tight in my lungs, I pushed open the door a crack to peer inside.
Seth was holding my mother, who was at least twelve years older than him as if she was a young child, hands framing her gently lined face, forehead tipped to hers so all they could see was each other’s gaze. So intimate, like looking into a window I never should have opened, haunted with scenes I’d never forget.
“You’re so good to me, Seth,” Phillipa whispered, placing her hands over his. “What would I do without your guiding light in my life?”
I must have made some noise in my throat, but Seth’s head popped up, eyes unerringly finding mine.