“Promise you’ll at least try. And if Matt says anything about you coming to this wedding after what he’s done and then sent you an invitation . . . he’ll have me to contend with.”
“You’re going to be my knight in shining armor?” she asked.
“No swords. I’m going to tell him what a useless human being he is.”
She turned back toward me and placed her warm, soft hand over my arm. “Please don’t say a word. I’ve managed to avoid him so far—that’s all I’ve got to do until we leave on Sunday.”
“He better keep away from you.”
I couldn’t stand up to the man who’d discarded my mother like she was nothing because he was dead, but if Matt even breathed in Stella’s direction, I couldn’t hold myself responsible for what I’d do.
“Promise me you won’t say anything,” she pleaded.
“Stella, I can’t make promises that I don’t know I’m capable of keeping,” I said, replaying her words back to her.
“Don
’t think I haven’t seen that steel in you. I know you are perfectly able to control yourself if that’s what you want to do.” She slid her hand over mine. “Don’t think I’m not grateful. Just you wanting to protect me is . . .” She sighed. “More than Matt ever did.”
“But why should I control myself? That guy needs some home truths—”
“For me. That’s why.”
With those two words she’d stolen the wind from my sails.
For her.
It was a simple reason, but the best. And one that couldn’t be argued with.
“I promise I won’t say anything,” I said. For her—she was worth the promise.
For her, I’d keep decades of frustrations locked up and wouldn’t unleash them on Matt, however tempting it was.
For her, I wasn’t sure if there was anything I wouldn’t do.
Twenty
Stella
Beck held my hand as we left the hotel room to join the others downstairs for a lunchtime picnic. I’d woken up feeling sore—not on the outside but somehow the inside of me was bruised. Maybe it had been that way for some time and I just hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t believe I’d confessed to Beck last night about Matt and Karen. He must have thought I was a total doormat.
Just as we were stepping onto the brick veranda, Karen appeared. There was no heading off in the opposite direction or avoiding eye contact—we were face-to-face, and shame rose from my feet and seeped into my belly. Shame for not saying anything to her and for allowing myself to be treated the way she treated me.
“Hi,” she said, glancing down at my hand linked with Beck’s. “It looks like the sun is going to hold.”
“Looks beautiful,” I said, trying my best to smile. Even if I did have the courage to say something, I couldn’t risk upsetting things for Beck. Henry was Karen’s godfather after all. If I ruined her wedding, we’d be asked to leave, and Beck would lose his chance of getting Henry to sell him his building. But if I was to say something, I might tell her how her first boyfriend had turned up at my house the week before he ended things between them and told me he loved me. I might say how her little sister, Elsie, had told me once that she didn’t like the way Karen spoke to me. I might even show her the message I got from her mother the day after the invitation arrived, telling me how sorry she was for what her daughter had done.
But of course, I stayed silent.
“Well, head over to the weeping willows where everything is set up,” she said. “I’ll catch you later.”
“She’s very upbeat,” Beck said as we made our way down the steps. “It’s annoying.”
I laughed. “Yeah. She’s always been that way—nothing much gets to her.” It had always seemed like Karen had some kind of internal suit of armor.
“I think it’s genetic,” he said. “Life’s always wonderful.”
Different colors of tartan picnic blankets were laid out on the grass by the river. On each blanket there was a wicker hamper and a square card with names printed on them. Beck would think this was normal and put it down to the idiosyncrasies of the upper classes, but set seating at a picnic was anything but normal—it didn’t matter who you were.