Curse of Rose de Winter

Chapter 42

"You can never be happy, not with those lies you're living with...who even are you?"

I woke up, the words still in my ear. Ruby was in her own room. Dylan's orders.

It was true, I've been living in so many lies my life was confusing me itself, like an illusion. No, more like a drawing of circles made up of circles, or a hand drawing a drawing of a hand drawing a drawing that was the first hand.

Why are people so confusing?

I ate breakfast and wished I was at ease as Calvin and Ruby, who talked of seeing their cousins again. Together, they said, they would all see Blanche and Vaughn would help her meet them all slowly.

After breakfast we moved to the tea room to talk about Blanche. Dylan never smiled in everyone's presence and was stone cold.

"We were told," Calvin updated me, "that you were hired as Blanche's replacement and your real name is Rose?"

"Would you s-stay with us?" Ruby looked hopeful and I hugged her sitting next to me.

"I'm not sure, I intend to leave soon," I said.

"You will leave, then?" Scarlett smiled. "That's a pity. Would you like to work for me?"

"No, Rose and I need to talk things out," Dylan suddenly declared. "Alone."

"You don't have rights to her or anything!" Scarlett snapped.

Yet when Calvin led the crowd by standing up and leaving, she followed with a roll of her eyes. Ruby's eyes flickered away from Dylan and she gave my hand a small squeeze.

With everyone gone, and Vaughn probably tending to Judy right now, I faced Dylan, heart pounding heavily.

His eyes were dark, so dark it felt like sinking in an abyss as I looked in.

"Did you always know Blanche, Dylan?" I asked drily.

"No. It was a few weeks after I got into that fight with Auguste about the fortune. I met Judy through Hughes, who went occasionally as Auguste's messenger, and introduced myself. Since Judy trusted Hughes she accepted the small cabin I offered her to stay in for Auguste's funeral. Hughes asked her to stay put for him until the will was read."

"And then?" I asked.

"I couldn't take it. I couldn't stop wishing I could've received the will, and you said you could help me." His eyes turned away.

"So money was everything?"

"No!" He sighed. "It was you, Rose."

I wouldn't be bought by his sweet words.

"Are you really working with the goddamn mafia for this? Bothering the Blackwoods, making sure they'd lie I was Rose forever?" I was finally letting loose my bottled emotions. "I always thought we would be allies!"

"And we are!" Dylan argued, and when I backed away he stood up and hand my hand.

Gently my hand rested and I swallowed, his warm fingers over mine and then our fingers intertwined. I was feeling foolish again, telling myself to hold that hand when I should brush it off.

"I had regretted choosing you as a replacement, so much," he whispered, body close to mine. Like that day we laughed under the sun in summer, his real voice returned. "I regret it so much—but then I realized it was meant to be, Rose. You were just as lost as me."

"I—I wasn't," I whispered.

Lies.

Sal and the Blackwoods scared me so much. I was living by adapting fake aliases. I had no true identity. I had no one to rely on to the point I went to find Auguste of all people, that rainy day that sealed our fate.