Page 38 of Salt in the Wound
Happened. That word. Like I’d had no choice, like it was all something that had fallen into my lap. What had happened this summer was hardly that; I had chosen it all, every step of the way.
Your sins to save God’s kingdom.
The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped into the open expanse of the great room, already thinking I would grab something easy to eat and then spend the rest of the evening working on a paper for my pre-Columbian art class. My father was in London, Bryn was back at Wellesley, and I was alone.
Something I was a lot, it seemed.
But I’d only made it a single step into the penthouse before something tingled at the back of my neck.
Someone was here.
Silently, I bent down to unlace my boots and pull them from my feet. I slid my bag to the floor, pulling the knife with the honeysuckle blade from the front pocket and easing it from its black leather sheath as I crept toward the grand spiral staircase that led up to the library and then to the observatory. Someone was up there, I was certain of it, and it wasn’t my father, and it wouldn’t be cleaning staff at this time of day. The building was supposedly secure, but as I’d learned in Rome, that hardly mattered to someone with the right motivation.
I mounted the stairs in my bare feet, moving the knife from standard grip to reverse grip as I did, like Mark had shown me in the karate school more than two years ago. It had felt so foreign in my hand then, random and awkward, my movements random and awkward with it. Now—after years of being determined never to be bested like Mark had bested me that day—I felt certain and assured with any knife I happened to pick up, and especially with this one. The way Mark had it made was indelible perfection: sometimes my hand felt wrongwithoutthe bone and gold handle nestled in my palm, rather than the other way around.
The bone was warm in my hand as the library came into view. Shelves and shelves of books collected over the years—my mother’s favorite books about medicine, chemistry, and botany, books Uncle Mortimer had sent from Rome written in all the languages I’d been made to learn as a girl. Even my father’s pretentious collection of leather-bound antiques, purchased for decoration, looked organic and at home with all the other titles.
Twenty-two windows lit the circular space, revealing the fading autumn light, and a massive globe gleamed next to two armchairs. It was open, and a decanter of whisky sat unstoppered inside it.
But that wasn’t what had caught my attention. At the far window, looking out toward the Hudson, was a man in a charcoal gray suit, a tumbler of my father’s favorite single malt dangling from his fingers. Even though it was late in the day, the suit was still immaculately pressed and his blond hair was styled perfectly in place.
“Going to kill me, Isolde?” asked Mark as I climbed the final step. He hadn’t turned around to look at me, so how—
The window.He could see my reflection in the window, knife and all. A rookie mistake—something that happened all too often around him.
I didn’t sheath the knife or put it away, however.
“How did you get inside?” I asked warily.
He still didn’t turn, merely lifting a shoulder and then raising the glass to his mouth. “I have my ways.”
Bribing the doorman, most likely. I’d have to look into that later. I could no longer afford the presumption that any space was completely secure. “Whyare you here? If you wanted to arrange another training session or appearance at Lyonesse, you could have texted—”
“Have you spoken to your father recently?” Mark interrupted.
My father? “No. He’s in London right now.”
Mark took a drink and then braced his forearm on the window as he swallowed. “He spoke to me today. About our engagement.”
A thousand different possibilities swarmed through my mind.
Did Father want to end this betrothal, after being the one to force me into it in the first place? What would Uncle Mortimer think? And would it mean I could return to my original plan of taking vows after college?
Surprisingly, the thought didn’t bring the relief it might have once, nor the joy. I still wanted to live as a nun, of course; it was the dream that had been snatched from me—but—
But I didn’t know. Maybe I’d adapted too much to the idea of being joined to the cold, suited man in front of me. Or maybe I’d seen too much, done too much, to imagine myself as a bride of Christ now. I’d already begun creating a life as Christ’s mistress instead, seeking his love from the shadows rather than the light.
And perhaps it was the role I’d been shaped for anyway. Gathering crumbs for my uncle among the world’s elite, turning my body into a weapon…all of that would hardly be useful in a cloister, and I wanted to be useful above all. ToserveGod, not just with my prayers, but my hands too. And for better or for worse,servingwas inextricably threaded with marrying the man across the room.
“And what did he say?” I asked. My voice was steady, even, though I felt anything but steady right now.
“He said”—Mark’s voice was rough and bitter, and there was heat in it. I wondered how much scotch he’d drunk—“he’d like some surety that we are following through with our engagement, and that our marriage is inevitable.”
“Surety,” I repeated. I had no idea what my father could mean. The prenuptial agreements had been long signed and filed away, and now that my graduation was only two and a half years away, there had already been some talk about hiring a wedding planner. As far as I knew, everything was happening as it was meant to.
Mark took another drink, dropped his arm from the glass. “This is the first you’ve heard of it, then?”
“I have no idea what you or my father are talking about.” Which I hated. It was never a good idea to be in the dark when it came to either of those men.
