BRYONY SIMONS
CHAPTER
1: THE STRANGER
"Dr.
Gothart," Dr. Stone said with the usual sneer in his tone. "As our
resident expert on the perfect murder, what is the ideal way to poison a
victim?"
Bryony
watched Mr. Simons for a reaction to
the unusual question, but none came.
Dr. Gothart
removed his pipe, a beautiful pipe of polished dark wood and a large bowl with
a gold lid, gold trim, and gold mouthpiece, and leered at Dr. Stone.
"Strychnine,"
Dr Gothart replied. "In brandy. Virtually undetectable; causes rapid onset
of death." He held out the decanter. "Sidney, your glass."
CHAPTER
2: ICE CREAM SOCIAL
She glanced back at Mrs. Parks
intently nodding her head as fourteen-year-old Addison Drake shared Mr.
Munson's establishment of the lumber trade. No one would miss her. The
stranger's request was most inappropriate, this Bryony knew from all of Mrs.
Parks' lectures, but...well...how dangerous could a world-famous musician be,
especially in a crowd?
CHAPTER 3: PSST! BRYONY HAS A BEAU
"It's followed me all my life.
If you track that star, you shall always know my whereabouts. And know wherever
I may be, I will be thinking of you."
CHAPTER
4: THE DAM BREAKS
During
the trip, she tried not to wonder how, where, and with whom Mr. Simons spent Easter. Indeed, she tried not to think
at all, for all thoughts led back to the musician and cut with sharp lonesome
teeth.
CHAPTER
5: THE WONDERFUL HOUSE IN THE WOODS
At first Bryony attributed his
reaction to jealousy at this demotion... until she remembered him furtively
exiting the woods with a mud-caked shovel.
CHAPTER
6: UNTIL DEATH
He merely stepped forward and back, slowly, and
she moved with him, her eyes watching only his, with John increasing the tempo
as she gained confidence. They moved like the lake's rolling waves at twilight
until even the very walls of their arena fell away. There was only the magic of
her music box melody, the contraction of John's muscles as she and he sailed as
one, and the urging in his blue irises, beyond which dwelled a man very much in
love with her, whom Bryony loved with her whole heart and soul and mind and
strength.
Inside
her stocking, only a garter restrained a love letter from another man.
CHAPTER
7: WHERE HEARTFELT DREAMS COME TRUE
After John paid the bill, they
walked back to the train depot, where Bryony saw an iron horse for the first
time, up close, not an illustration in The Times. It gleamed like descriptions
of obsidian in books and blew smoke like a dragon.
On this dangerous beast Bryony would
ride with John.
"John?"
"Hmm?"
"What if we're killed?"
"We won't be killed."
Bryony started to shake, and she
grabbed John's arm. "How do you know?"
He raised her face to his, and he
never looked more kind.
"Because," he said,
holding her chin with one gloved hand and brushing her tears away with the back
of the other. "This is the beginning of our life together. Not the end of
it."
"But how do you know?"
"Bryony, choose now: faith or
fear."
"What do you mean?"
"Choose."
CHAPTER
8: THE SERPENT
Finally, she
had to ask. "John, did she just...?"
"Yes."
"But
he's not her husband." She turned around and stared at the door from which
they exited, wondering which room in the Rutherford's mansion they were
defiling, and wondering how they managed to get away with it. "How could
she?"
"Same
way he does."
Bryony
blinked. "He...what do you mean?"
"Exactly
the same."
"As
in..." Bryony dropped her voice lower. "As in infidelity?"
"Yes. And
as 'in men.'"
CHAPTER
9: SHATTERED GLASS
Although
meat enriched Bryony's blood, her mind sagged under the weight of her sins, and
her resolve to experience the world withered.
Her father had almost died because
she had strayed. And she had almost died because she had strayed from food she
needed to live, food her father hated her to eat.
But she needed her father to live.
And her father hated the two things that brought life to her life: dead animals
and John.
She did not know what to do.
CHAPTER
10: SHADES AND SHADOWS
"It's
an illusion," John said, stroking her hair while his heartbeat soothed
her, and his respiration roared in her ears. "Created by the interplay of
light and shadow."
"I'm afraid."
He drew her closer and yawned.
"Don't be."
But she was.
Bryony felt terrified of her little
girl self, a pure little girl confined in a cherry wood frame, ruling a parlor
where Bryony the woman no longer belonged.
CHAPTER
11. THE SENTINEL
Somewhere
between Henry's toast at their wedding and seeing him again in the doorway of
the morning room, her infatuation had died, just as her infatuation with Mayor
Pike had died after he moved away from Munsonville, and just as she allowed her
infatuation with Mr. Munson to die in favor of giving her entire heart to John.
Henry was just a man, a smirking
puny man, the right man for some women, but not her. Still, she must remember
her place as Mrs. Simons, and this filled her with glee, despite the blood and
the wolf.
CHAPTER
12: ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SLEEP
But the second Mrs. Fisher exited, and headed
down the path to town, Bryony let loose.
"What happened to John? Where is he? Where are we going?"
"Nothing happened to John. But Mrs. Helsby
summoned him, and he left at once."
"But why would...oh, no!"
Henry nodded.
"Is it...is it Mr. Helsby?"
"I'm afraid so."
"But why would John want me..."
Bryony stopped herself and sharply drew breath as
the answer flooded her mind. She knew why. And she couldn't do it.
"Because while John is being strong for Mrs.
Helsby, he needs you to be strong for him."
"Be strong" How can I be strong when a man
is dying in that house? Just the thought frightens me."
"Mrs. Simons, I'm merely the steward,
performing the wishes of his master. You're free to refuse John."
"And break his heart?"
Henry shrugged. "It's no consequence to
me."
CHAPTER
13: BRAVING THE WILDERNESS
He
put his arm around her and drew her near.
"Sweet, Bryony," John
whispered. "The slam wasn't against my music but on the Smythes. The other
guests...they never saw what they came to see." He raised her chin, and
his eyes glittered like crystals. "But you saw, and heard, didn't
you?"
"Yes, John."
She lay against his chest and closed
her eyes. She had no idea what he meant.
CHAPTER
14: STORM CLOUDS
But perhaps Pastor Dermars delivered
the biggest shock. Always one who stressed the joys awaiting the deceased, of
how the angels sounded trumpets to herald the arrival of a new soul into a
heavenly realm, seemed to sense the mockery of his longstanding belief.
"Forgive my lack of faith,
Bryony," he said to her in the food line, the first time he ever addressed
her as one human being to the next. In fact, he no longer looked like Prince
Charming. He looked like a tired old man. "But I can't envision a parade
of joy when we are so disconsolate. What loving God would take satisfaction in
our misery? This calamity is sorely testing me."
Before Bryony could piece together a
response, her father's voice did it for her.
"'For in the hand of the Lord
there is a cup,'" Reverend quoted coming up behind them, "and the
wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the
dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink
them.' Algernon, meet my God."
A sob broke out from Pastor Demars.
He set down his plate and bit his knuckle until the weakness abated. Then he
ladled up the beans.
CHAPTER
15: DOWN THE STEEP STAIRCASE OF DESPAIR
In
despair Susan came into the world, in despair she lived in it, and in despair
she left, leaving behind a little life who needed its mother and wound up with
Mrs. Bass.
CHAPTER
16: ENCHANTED TWILIGHT
Bryga
set down the brush and whispered into Bryony's ear, "Have you ever
wondered why we have our own quarters, separate from the other servants? Have
you ever looked into Anna's eyes and seen your husband look back?"
CHAPTER
17: BRIGHTER DAYS AHEAD
If John spoke of the orchards or the
flower beds, Bryony deftly turned the subject. She could not speak of gardens
without thinking of Henry, and she must not think of Henry again.
CHAPTER
18: SHACKLED
Perhaps
John simply disliked she'd dreamed of Henry. After all, she had only gasped out
his name, and that, perhaps, only in her mind. But even if she had gasped it
aloud, a gasping of a name could mean many things, with adultery nowhere near
the top of the list.
CHAPTER
19: DR. GOTHART LEADS THE WAY OUT
Her
stomach dropped and so did her mouth. His words deflated her lingering hope
like a lance to a rubber balloon. Slowly she sank to the floor. Every dream she
ever dreamed began to ebb. She could only gape and watch them go.
CHAPTER
20: BLOOD BATH
