The triplets were the darker versions of the Crownes. To the naked eye, they were just your average, beautiful and spoiled rich kids, but if you looked deeper, something was off about all of them. They belonged on the moors where their mother had spent her life.
Josephine “Jo” St. Germaine’s eyeliner was smeared around her big, doll eyes—yet no crying redness lined them.
From between his fingers, a cigarette curled smoke around Charles Junior’s sharp jaw and bored pout.
Keller’s dark and silky, shoulder-length hair barely showed one vicious eye. He was the only triplet not named after a Crowne, though rumor had it, he was named after a long-dead St. Germaine.
None of them seemed the least bit phased at their mother’s death. With the porcelain skin of their mother and the high cheekbones of the Crownes, they had all the beautiful parts of their mother and father. And, I suspected, the darkness.
They stared at their mother’s casket like they were on a museum tour of fossils. At one point, Jo took out her phone.
“I have a riddle for you, Story…” I straightened at Lynette du Lac’s soft voice. “Where does a mistress and her lover live happily ever after?”
I shrugged, knowing she didn’t give me permission to speak.
“In the ground.”
A while ago, a threat like that would have terrified me, but I remembered what Josephine had said.
I was a threat.
I turned and looked her dead in the eyes. “Are you scared, Lynette?”
Her eyes popped. “I could have you punished for speaking to me.”
I slowly looked back at the black casket, lowering into the ground as we spoke. “Then do it.”
Put me on my knees.
Lock me in a tower.
Whatever she does, I’ll do it with dignity.
Lynette opened and closed her mouth, one eye twitching. She straightened her shoulders, waving to some unseen person across the funeral, before joining them without a second glance to me.
“How…” Lottie said, mouth parted. “How did you do that?”
I did a double take, surprised to find Lottie standing next to me, and not with Grayson. The casket continued to lower, and most everyone’s eyes were on that—the only exception being Grayson.
He was alone now. In a well-fitted charcoal suit, his rose gold hair perpetually unkempt, and standing beneath a lone tree with bare branches.
Eyes on me.
Something in those blue depths I couldn’t read, but he wanted me desperately to understand.
“You can talk,” Lottie said after a minute. “I won’t…just, just talk.”
“How did I do what?”
“Talk to her that way. Weren’t you scared?”
After a moment, I nodded.
“So why did you do it?”
“That’s why I had to do it. To not be afraid anymore.”
Her brow furrowed, and she turned from me, staring after her mom. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore either…”
“Charlotte!”
Lottie straightened her spine at her mother’s voice, and without a second look in my direction, went to her.
The casket was in the ground, the funeral was over, and everyone was heading back inside.
I stayed as soft snow fell to the sandy grass. I looked around at the looping poetry etched into the various mausoleums.
I walked around the graveyard, reading the various poems.
Miss me one place, find me another…
I froze.
Could this be it? Is this what my uncle meant when he said the coin was buried beneath a poem?
West gripped my elbow, following my line of sight. “See something interesting?”
I really didn’t want to leave it. What if we were so close?
“Um…no.”
I followed West inside, leaving the only clue behind.
West walked a few feet in front of me as we went back inside Crowne Hall. I caught my reflection in the edge of an oil painting’s frame, my rounded stomach warped in the gold. For the first time, I didn’t have to hide my pregnancy. It felt odd. So many months I’d spent concealing it, and now it was on full display.
I slowed my pace considerably, trying to walk beside the triplets behind me.
Their faces were buried in their phones.
I had to hope that because of their mother’s circumstances, they would let me speak. I had to hope even more that they might know something.
“Um…” I looked around to be sure no one else could hear me talk. “Hi.”
“You shouldn’t be talking, mistress,” Jo said, without looking up. Despite the bored apathy on her chiseled, pouty face, she hadn’t spoken with any ire.
She was the only girl of the three triplets, and though named after her mother, was starkly different. Where Josephine was airy and fay-like, Jo was gloomy and unsmiling.
“So…” I dragged my bottom lip between my teeth, working out the best way to approach this.
Hey, you heard any hot goss about a shiny gold coin?
Jo lifted her head slightly, narrowing on me. “Our mom told us you were coming months ago. What happened?”
I stopped short. “What?”
But before I could get any more information, I was yanked back.
Into Grayson.
I blinked up at him as he dragged me into an alcove. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t like you talking to them.” He glared at their retreating figures.
“They’re your siblings—”
His glare slashed to me. “They’re not my siblings.”
“But—”
“Their existence is the reason my father is dead!”
His anger silenced anything I would have said.
I pulled my elbow free. “They were just about to tell me something! Apparently they were expecting me in Scotland. Maybe it has something to do with the coin—”
“Don’t believe anything they say,” he cut me off.
A minute ticked into two, and I remembered what Josephine had told me months ago. According to her, Grayson and the rest of the Crowne children didn’t speak to hers.
“Do you really not speak to them?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There’s nothing to say.”
My hand glanced my stomach. “Will Lottie’s child treat mine that way?”
“It’s different,” he growled.
“You’re right…” I quirked a tight smile. “It’s worse… You know, they probably miss him just as much as you do.”
Fiery blue eyes slashed to mine. “I don’t miss him.”
“We could be different. You could be different. You don’t have to hate them, we don’t have to hate each other.” I covered my stomach. “We could be a family. Isn’t that what you want?”
“They’re not family. They never were.”
“Then what am I?”
He gripped my face. “You’re my wife.”
“I’m living as a mistress. I’m living as the other woman.”
Grayson’s thumbs dug into my cheeks. “You’re a queen, little wife. You’re my fucking queen.”
“I can’t talk to anyone, I have to stand behind everyone, and these kids, your brothers have grown up in that life. If we want better for our kids, we have to be better, Grayson. Don’t you think maybe you could be a little biased about them? You sound like your grandfather.”