he said slowly, smiling at Geraldine. Until she smiled back, as if they were together in this. Because they were. “We really should get her back. What an excellent idea.”
RETURNING TO LONDON was like being slapped in the face with the pitiless palm of a little too much reality. But there was nothing to do but grin and bear it.
Eleanor gritted her teeth, figuratively and literally, and set about cleaning up Vivi’s mess.
Not the big mess, of course. Not the mess that haunted her, making her feel sick and small and ashamed. Or shaky every time she saw the Daily Mail in a newsstand. Not the mess that rolled around inside of her, making her feel as oily and greasy and horrid as what Vivi had done, every time she drew breath—
No, there was no fixing that. Vivi had sold Eleanor’s story as her own and asserted, repeatedly and proudly, that she would do it again. She claimed it was for both of their own good, though that prickly, ugly thing inside of Eleanor thought different and left marks every time it did. But it made no difference. It was done.
And Eleanor was just one more scar Hugo would add to his collection. One more lie to add to the rest.
Eleanor concentrated on the things she could fix.
She placated their landlord, pleading their case as sweetly as she could. She did not take Vivi’s advice to simply tell the suspicious old woman where she could stuff it, because all that money that Vivi had been promised had yet to come through. She cleaned. Everything. From what passed for baseboards in their tiny tip of a flat to the windows and back. She cleaned every cup and saucer, plate and utensil. She even cleaned out the terrifying old tea mugs, coated in tannins as evidence of their long years of use.
She cleaned as if she was on a mission.
As if it was penance.
And none of that seemed to do a single thing to make her feel better.
Eleanor suspected that there would be no feeling better. That there would be no recovering from this. It didn’t matter how she’d come to betray Hugo, surely. It only mattered that she had. Not only had she betrayed him, she hadn’t even had the decency to look him in the face and let him know she’d done it.
She hadn’t even said goodbye.
Instead, she’d snuck off into the gathering fall evening with her case and her sister, like some kind of thief in reverse.
That was the part she didn’t think she could live with. That was the part that scraped to her belly like some ravenous beast with sharp claws. Over and over again.
“You’re being a bit dramatic, no?” Vivi asked one evening.
The way she had back in that other life, when Eleanor had never met Hugo Grovesmoor and hadn’t had the faintest idea how he would upend her life. The way she did with a little too much frequency, to Eleanor’s mind, given her penchant for making an opera out of all and sundry.
Eleanor eyed her sister over the pile of mending that she’d been ruthlessly going through for days now that the flat fairly sparkled. Vivi’s trousers. Vivi’s poncey skirts. Vivi’s lovely and expensive clothes that Vivi herself didn’t bother to treat with anything resembling reverence. Or even the bare minimum of care, it appeared.
“While tending to your sewing?” Eleanor asked mildly, which was getting harder to do all the time. “I didn’t realize it was possible to be theatrical while mending.”
Vivi lifted herself up from the bit of floor in front of the telly, where she’d been flinging herself this way and that to a DVD of some shiny-toothed and alarmingly narrow American celebrity trainer.
“Everyone’s obsessed with this workout,” she’d informed Eleanor as she’d contorted about.
Eleanor had responded by finishing off the last packet of chocolate biscuits. At her.
Now Vivi plunked herself down on the small sofa next to Eleanor, making the cushion dip alarmingly and a pile of her waiting mending tip over. Eleanor thought she’d switch the telly over to a show and drown her mood out, as she been doing since they’d returned, but instead she twisted her body around so she could look her sister straight in the face.
“I know you think you hate me,” Vivi said, her voice serious and an unexpected wallop. “I understand that. I even accept it. You don’t have any experience with these things.”
Eleanor’s teeth ached. She made herself unclench her jaw.
“If you mean making up tawdry stories and selling them to the highest bidder, then no. I certainly don’t.”
“I mean Hugo.” Vivi’s voice was soft. Worse, kind. “I mean men.”
Eleanor bent her head to the blouse she was attempting to repair. She kept her attention furiously focused on her needle. But she was sure that it was no use, that Vivi could see the flush that crept up the back of her neck and threatened her cheeks as well. She didn’t understand how a topic that she’d been so pleased to discuss with Hugo—or not discuss, as the case might be, because he’d known and he’d handled it—she had no desire at all to discuss with her sister.
“I think I’d prefer to skip the ‘poor, sad Eleanor’ discussion tonight, thanks.” Eleanor had to order herself to unclench her jaw. Again. And do something with her shoulders before she lifted them over the top of her head. “I think it’s possible that the only thing worse than the story you sold might be your pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Eleanor,” Vivi said, and her voice was different. Almost unrecognizable. It made Eleanor uneasy. “I envy you. I don’t think I’ve ever been soft or dewy-eyed about anything. Not even way back when you cried over me in the hospital and I didn’t.”
Eleanor paused. She very carefully put down her sewing. And then she turned and held her sister’s gaze.
“Vivi. Please tell me you’re not about to give me ‘the talk.’”
Vivi’s eyes gleamed then, and they really did look like shiny gold coins, something that Eleanor wished she could find more annoying than she did.
“You spent all night with Hugo Grovesmoor. I think any attempt at a sex talk at this point would be a waste of breath, don’t you?”
Eleanor tried to hide the pain that flashed over her. Or that near-reflexive urge to draw in a sharp breath, as if that would ease it.
“I don’t want to talk about Hugo.”
It was more that she didn’t want to talk about Hugo with Vivi, if she was honest. But either way, thinking about him was painful enough.
“I know you’re not going to believe me.” Vivi reached over and put her hand on Eleanor’s leg, and all Eleanor could seem to do was stare at it. “I know that I’m too selfish and take you for granted and anything else you want to accuse me of. It’s all true. I know it’s true. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Eleanor. And I get to protect you, too.”
Eleanor frowned at that hand on her leg. Hard. “Is
