Implicit, p.22
Implicit, page 22
A giggle bubbles and then boils over to full-blown hysterics, which makes him worse and me more uncontrollable. Poor Gary is stuck in the middle, looking from Ru to me and back again.
“Eliza,” Gary says carefully, once I’ve gotten myself under some control with just the odd hiccupping giggle. “There’s quite a lot of paperwork and estate records to go through to meet the due diligence of such a comprehensive prenup.”
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Ru says, pacing up and down in front of the fireplace whilst chewing his thumbnail.
“The problem, Earl Ashby, is that my client has recently lost her mother and her will hasn’t yet been finalised. The prenup must take that into consideration, no?”
“What does that mean? There’s more money to be added?”
“There are assets to be considered for a full picture and in the interest of a fair agreement. Yes.” Gary turns those astute eyes back to me. “Eliza. There is a lot to discuss and it might be easier to do that at my office.”
“Nonsense,” Ru cuts in. “This prenup was at your request, Mr Lucas, and now you’re telling me you can’t do it?”
“Earl Ashby. There is a rigorous process to go through. Especially when ancestral lands are involved. Any legal paperwork will require approval way above my head, and it will have to be properly prepared with the appropriate wax seals and so forth. If we don’t do this today, I’m afraid I can’t fit it in until next Tuesday.”
“Fine,” Ru fumes, throwing his hands up. “Get the blasted thing done. I’ll have the car brought round.”
“There’s no need, sir. I’ll take Countess Beaufort to my office now and we can finalise the paperwork between us within the hour. Without causing disturbance to your day.”
I’m aware that both men are looking at me and I’m expected to do something now, but I have no idea what that is, so I say the first thing that comes into my head. “I... um... I’ll just... use the powder room.”
Gary stands and buttons his jacket as I negotiate myself to my feet. My legs are leaden. Unstable. But I manage to make it to the corridor and keep one hand on the wall as I follow some internal compass to the bathroom.
As I’m walking back to the drawing room, my toe catches the edge of loose carpet and pulls it back an inch, exposing its predecessor. I lean down and press it back down into place and a familiar dark-blue pattern catches my eye before it disappears. A flash of how this place used to look. How I remember it.
I trace the edge of the newer sage-green carpeting along the corridor and up three steps that lead to the housekeeper’s cupboard. Ru and I used to play hide and seek here at Longridge and that was a favourite spot of ours. His games room was just opposite the cupboard. You can see the treehouse from there. I’m vaguely aware of the idea that I should go and see how it looks now when I’m brought back to the present.
“Ah. There you are.” Ru moves forward but Gary is faster.
“Let’s go.” He takes a surprisingly light but firm hold of my arm and leads me outside to his Porsche. He opens the door and pretty much lifts me in one-handed. I watch him walk around and get into the driver’s seat. He starts the engine, glances across at me, and pulls my seat belt over my shoulder, clipping it at my side. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters again. “I can’t believe he bought that bullshit.”
“Wh-wher are we g-g-oing?” I ask as Gary speeds off the dual-carriage way at the wrong junction.
“I’m taking you to the hospital. And I want a drug screen.”
Seth
The total fucked-up mess of the failure I’m wading through comes at me like a speeding train as I leave The Shard. Everything is gone. Eliza. My company. My product. I’ve lost everything. And I was so fucking close to having it all.
Does she know I was being held? Does she believe that I’m a rapist? Or that I left her? It doesn’t matter now. I’ll never see her again. She’s marrying him. Lord Fuckwit.
I walk until I can’t anymore, half-aware of the blaring horns when I step out into the road and the worry that flashes over young mothers’ faces before they pull their children closer as I go by. I’m probably slightly more than half-dead when I walk into another hotel to take a room.
“Thanks.” I accept the keys the receptionist offers me and make my way to room thirty-three. And don’t speak to another living soul for weeks.
When my time is up, I know I need to go back to reality. To face the chaos I’ve left behind. I just don’t know if I even want to try to rebuild. It seems pointless. Eliza will hate me. She’d be better off without me. She might even be married by now. To that fucking psycho.
I berate myself the whole way to my parents’ house, conscious that I’m digging my own grave deeper and deeper but unable to stop. Maybe I need a shrink. I smirk to myself in macabre humour as I head inside, expecting to find my mum.
The usually show-home perfect house is in disarray. And it’s empty. I glance at the time. It’s after six. There should be people home. But after checking through the empty rooms, I head to the space that was my childhood bedroom and fall, fully clothed and totally drained, physically and mentally, onto the bed and dream of Eliza.
***
“Shhh! He’s asleep!” someone hisses. Mum? “Shut the bloody door!”
“Kari. Come out. Let him sleep,” Dad pleads with Mum.
“Get your hands off me.”
He sighs. I know that sound. He’s tired of fighting too. Just as drained as I am. I allow the sleep to sink its hooks into me and pull me under again with willing surrender.
***
“Boys?” Mum again. Light creeps into the blacked-out room. “Is he still out?”
“Yeah. Poor bloke,” one of the twins says. I can’t tell which.
“He couldn’t have gotten much sleep in there. Leave him. I’ll tell him you were here.”
“Call me when he wakes?” my eldest brother asks.
“I will, darling.”
“And me.”
“I’ll let you all know. I’ll make something nice for dinner. We could probably all do with a decent meal.”
***
“Seth?” A gentle touch smooths over my head. “Sweetheart?”
I prise my eyelids apart. “Hey, Mum,” I croak and she flings herself on me, clinging onto my neck. I lift a heavy arm and drag it over her, around her, and her breath shudders through her lungs and washes over me.
“Sweetheart,” she sobs and I feel like a total arsehole for refusing to see her. To see any of them. For leaving. For putting them through too much.
“I’m so sorry, Mum.”
“Why?” she gasps, pushing away from me. And I finally see her face. She looks awful. Pale and pinched. Like her baby boy was charged with rape of all things, and then disappeared. Letting her wonder. For weeks.
“This.” I run the backs of my knuckles over her too-pale face and she breaks down all over again. I wrap my arms around her tight and let her cry. “I’ve got you. I’m okay. It’s all going to be all right now.”
“Is it?” She hiccups.
“Yeah. I have a lot to make up for. I know...”
“No! No. Seth, my boy, you were...” Her chin wobbles and I pull her to my chest again. “This is supposed to be my job,” she whispers as I soothe her.
“Not today.”
“Seth!” Joe calls as I walk down the stairs thirty minutes and a shower and shave later.
“Hey, man.”
“Oh, mate! Are you a sight for sore eyes!”
“You too.” I smile a little and he runs at me for a hug. “Whoa! I should get locked up more often,” I joke. He glares. “I’m sorry, guys. I know I put you all through a lot. My head was such a mess... My life is over. Everything. It’s all gone.”
“We get it, mate. You didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but, mate, we’re your family...” Matt begins as we sit around the kitchen table that evening.
“That’s... You don’t get it.” I sigh and put my beer bottle down on the table. “I screwed up again. I’ve made some huge fucking errors of judgment. Messed up... everything. I have nothing left. I’m screwed.”
“Hey. At least you still got your girl.”
“Huh,” I scoff. “Nope. I screwed that up royally. I refused to see her too, to talk to her. I didn’t call her.... after... everything. She’s never been more vulnerable and I... She’s marrying someone else.” I glug more beer as pain closes its fist around my heart. And the front door bursts open.
We all start, all the guys are on their feet in a second. I push Mum behind me instinctively as my brothers surround her, and Dad runs in. His eyes are wild, his face scarlet, and when they land on mine, he practically screams. “Get in the car. Now!”
He runs from the room and is back seconds later with my boots. “Now! Now, Seth!” He throws them at me and I catch them on reflex but don’t get a chance to put them on before he’s bundling me out the door and into a police car. Still stunned. The tyres squeal and sirens blare as we race off.
I can’t get anything from Dad that makes sense, just fragments of sentences like LSD and Molly. Brain swelling... sedated.
Even as we pull up to a huge building that proclaims itself a hospital on the signage and looks like no hospital I’ve ever seen, I still have no clue what he’s talking about or why I should need to be here and not eating my dinner and finishing my beer.
Dad takes off running as soon as he’s killed the engine and I have no choice but to pull on my boots and follow him. Past a gaggle of reporters and right in to a scrum of coppers and doctors. He doesn’t join them but takes a wide right and stops outside the second door down. He takes a breath, pushes his hair back from his face, and taps on the door.
A male voice calls out, “Come in.”
Dad pushes it open. And my knees fail me. He looks back as I slump against the wall. “She’s awake now,” he says softly, stepping towards me again with caution. “She’s okay. Well... she’s over the worst of it.”
Over the worst of it? She looks... dead. So pale. So thin. Her eyes are sunken shards of slate in the virgin snow, staring straight ahead but totally lifeless.
“Eliza?” my dad says, splitting his attention between me and her. He moves silently towards the bed as though he’s tiptoeing. “Eliza, I’ve got Seth. Seth’s here.”
I watch her face for some sign of recognition. That she can hear him. But there’s nothing. And I finally understand the phrase the lights are on but no one’s home.
“You try, Seth.”
“Me?”
Dad nods. “We’ll be outside.” He and the other guy I barely noticed stand and make to leave.
“No. I... Dad. I’ve been charged. You shouldn’t leave her with me.”
Pain and anger flash across my father’s face before he clears it and assumes a more understanding expression. “No one believes that, Seth. And Eliza definitely won’t.”
“Does she know?”
“I have no idea.”
“Charged with what?” the other guy asks in a cold tone that needles me. But I can’t say the words. Dad presses his lips together silently, and eventually the guy follows him outside but stays by the window. As much as I’d like to close the blinds and shut them out, it’s probably best I don’t.
I stay where I am and start speaking. All the words that have been in my head for the last several weeks. My feet inch closer as I spill my heart out on the floor whilst hoping that it’s enough to get through to her. Wherever she is.
I fucked up... I should have called... I’m sorry... I love you.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Talking. But my throat is hoarse and Eliza hasn’t moved a muscle. I take a breath and brush my fingers slowly over the back of her hand, the one without a drip, and curl them around hers as I sweep my thumb back and forth across her knuckles. And her fingers twitch and tighten.
I perch on the bed and take her other palm too, gently. It’s probably sore. “Eliza? Honey, can you hear me?” I release one hand and reach out to touch her face.
Her eyes flutter closed, and for a second, I think she fell asleep until I feel the tears on the backs of my fingers.
“Eliza?” I try again. When there’s no response, I shift around to sit beside her, half on the bed, and wrap her in my arms, gently encouraging her head down to my shoulder, my fingers raking lightly through her hair. She smells wrong. Antiseptic and sterile. But she feels right. Leaning against me.
She shudders as she takes a breath and shifts her weight slightly to burrow into my side, and a dull ache tightens my throat.
“Sweetheart...” I kiss her forehead and hold her tighter as her arm lifts a fraction and falls across my belly.
“Seth?” she croaks, her voice cracked and raw.
“Hi,” I choke back as her tears fall and mingle with mine.
My dad and the other bloke come back in sometime later. Eliza is sleeping with her head on my shoulder and her emaciated body curled into mine. I hate that my fingers bump over her ribs when I stroke her skin, her hip bone when I rest my hand on her waist.
“What happened?” I demand. Louder than I intended. Eliza starts but quickly settles when I cup her head and kiss her temple.
“Step outside. I’ll explain,” Dad says, his voice soft so as not to wake a sleeping baby.
“No. Tell me now.”
It’s the other guy who answers. “I was trying to get in contact with Eliza.”
“Why? Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Gary Lucas. I’m Eliza’s lawyer. Her mother’s legal team hired a private investigator who contacted me when the Dowager Countess passed away and I needed to discuss things with Eliza. I called for weeks. Her office told me she was working away and was getting married soon.” He watches me wince and tighten my hold on Eliza before continuing. “I kept calling and, eventually, a man answered the phone. I told him I was trying to get in touch with Eliza. He kept insisting she wasn’t available, so I took my chances and told him she’d asked me to arrange a prenup. The next thing I knew, he was inviting me round to get it finalised.
“It was instantly obvious that Eliza had been drugged and was unable to leave, even if she wanted to. I said something about needing to take her to my office to get wax seals and higher approval or something for the paperwork. I don’t even remember the exact pile of bull that came out of my mouth. I brought her straight here and filed a report with the police.”
“That’s when it landed on my desk. I was still listed as the investigating officer in a cold case involving Countess Elizabeth Beaufort.” Dad frowns and steps closer to put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re holding him on remand. I got a warrant, Seth. It’s... not good news.”
“W-what’s he charged with?” I look down at Eliza. Dozing. Fitful. Twitching.
Dad clears his throat. “Kidnap. Grievous bodily harm with intent. Extortion... and sexual assault. And I might just get him for murder too. We’re searching that place with a fine-tooth comb right now. Inch by inch. It’s going to take a while.”
“You don’t mean...?”
“It was the same chemical signature in Eliza’s system as was in her brother’s.”
“My God.” My jaw muscles tighten as his words and the images that go with them swirl through my brain like a tornado. I force them to relax when Eliza stirs again. “But how old is he? Was he?”
“He would have been around eleven at the time of Alex’s death.”
“Above the legal age of responsibility,” the lawyer confirms grimly.
“What did you need to talk to her about?” I ask him.
“I can’t tell you that, Seth. Not without Eliza’s permission.”
I glance at Eliza and feel totally helpless and lost. What the hell has this woman been through whilst I was wallowing in self-pity? When I should have been trying to find her? To beg her to not marry anyone but me.
I’ve let her down so completely. I’ll be damned if I’ll ever do it again. “I need to speak to the doctor. I want to take her home.”
Dad’s brow creases but he nods and strides from the room. The lawyer doesn’t take his eyes off me as I shift around to face Eliza.
“What the hell happened to you?” I whisper, tucking her hair behind her ear. And when the corner of her mouth jumps up in a small smile, the lawyer jumps too.
“Do that again.”
“What?” I glance at him and he’s watching Eliza’s face intently.
“Talk to her. Touch her.”
“Why?”
“Seth. She hasn’t had a physical or verbal reaction in over a week.”
“Really?” I glance at him again and he’s holding his breath. Waiting. “She spoke to me earlier. She said my name and... hugged me.”
His attention flies from her to me this time. “Did she?”
“Uh-huh.” And to illustrate my point... “Honey? Can you open your eyes?”
Nothing.
I run my hand over her head and whisper, “Eliza. Look at me, sweetheart.”
And her eyelids flutter open. “What is it, Seth?”
I give her a huge smile and a tiny kiss. “Just that. You sleep if you want.”
“Hmm.” She snuggles against me tighter and Gary fixes me with a searching stare.
“Seth, I think I’m your lawyer now. I’ll get everything straightened out for you.”
“What? Why?”
“You and Eliza. I think you belong together. And as such, you are now under my legal care. Trust me, I’ve got this. I spoke with your dad. He gave me the basics and it all seems pretty flimsy to me. If you’re in agreement?”
“Umm... sure. Why not?”
After a pretty lengthy discussion with the doctors, it’s decided that, if Eliza can eat and drink by herself and pass certain other criteria, she can be discharged to my care. Mum has insisted that we both stay at my parents’ house, and that she take time off work to help me with the patient. The doctors seemed to like that Eliza would have a psychiatric doctor on hand if she needed one, but also that Mum suggested a private nurse to visit daily.
