Curse of Rose de Winter

Chapter 40

It was tonight. Who could the perpetrators be? Was it even Hughes the poor butler everyone adored? He had seemed so perfect, but looks were deceiving. I looked like any other women, as did Irene, but we had dark pasts we hid.

I calmed myself and allowed Ruby to sleep first before I crept out of our bed. I dressed myself in thick black before rushing out to the back to the house. I wore the boots I wore when I first stepped into this house—I had Irene find it for me and she offered to wash it.

It had rained earlier and footprints were left. Large ones.

Instead of Vaughn it was Calvin in the clearing I usually smoked at. His face told me of the bad news before he even spoke, he was deathly pale and his eyes sunk into his face.

"Blanche! You wouldn't believe it, there's a strange shelter on the de Winter property we never noticed!" Calvin was panting as well as narrowing his eyes hard in disbelief.

I thought of Dylan's treehouse and felt nervous.

"Is it a treehouse?" I asked him.

"Heavens, no!" Calvin didn't know about Dylan's treehouse. "There's a whole other house, it seemed like an outhouse until Vaughn chased Hughes in and it led downstairs like a cellar. And we found—we found a girl. Vaughn knocked Hughes out but the thing is—dammit!"

Calvin kicked a tree's roots before bending down and crying.

"Dammit! God forbid me, but we are waiting for Dylan tonight. I didn't think it would be real, but Vaughn insisted. Vaughn knew! He knew!"

"Knew?" I was feeling nauseous and lightheaded, like it was a lucid dream. 

Calvin continued in his broken voice, "Vaughn said he you weren't Blanche, and Dylan knew where Blanche was!"

What was Calvin saying? In fact, what was Vaughn telling him? He had no right to—to suspect Dylan and go behind his back. They were both partners in crime in setting me up as Blanche.

Dylan didn't recognize me as not being Blanche when we first met. Vaughn was delusional.

"Dylan went to bed," I said. "He's not involved, is he?"

I thought of the rainy day at the treehouse, then the conversation with Hughes I overheard. Hughes, he always said, he was like a father, he wanted him with him if he lived in his own house—Hughes had poisoned him.

No, what was it? Was it Dylan who was protecting Hughes, who was protecting Auguste?

I knew nothing about Dylan. Maybe in the same way I didn't share secrets about Auguste and my previous life Dylan had secrets he never told me.

The thought of it was so lonely.

Calvin groaned, and shook his head.

"We can't trust anything! I'm watching that route, Dylan has to pass by here to enter the cellar. I should've known! God, I wish I—"

I hugged Calvin, shaking myself.

"I'm sorry, Calvin," I whispered. "But if it's what Vaughn believes, I will help. I will wait at the back door then."

"Blanche, do you think Dylan is in with this?"

His questions sent goosebumps over my skin. It felt like a touch so cold I would've believed it if someone said it was a ghost's.

"You know, it's pathetic." I kept from crying. "Dylan and his mother weren't close, nor his father. You have Ruby, Ruby had you. Maybe Hughes was all he had in a father figure. So yes, I do think Dylan would be easily manipulated as well as do something so foolish."