Dreaming of Manderley by Leah Marie Brown (23)

Chapter Twenty-eight

We are preparing for bed when Xavier drops a slender volume onto his nightstand—the same slender volume he brought to the pool. The cover is worn blue leather and the title, Poems for Seafarers, is embossed upon it in swirling silver letters. The swirly letters reflect the lamplight like a lighthouse beacon, beckoning me closer or warning me of impending disaster, I don’t know which.

When Xavier steps back into the bathroom, I lift the book of poetry in my hands, holding it as if it might suddenly turn to dust and blow away. I open to the middle and find a poem by Lord Tennyson; the yellowing page is dog-eared and the type smeared from someone—presumably Xavier—running his finger over the words.

Oh Tennyson! What kindred souls are we? Would that my tongue could utter the thoughts bothering me. Would that I could tell Xavier the truth: that I don’t ever want to step foot on a boat of any kind—sailboat, speedboat, ocean liner, or kayak.

At the bottom of the page, someone has put a small mark, this in pencil, beside the poem’s final stanza.

Such a melancholic poem, so full of nostalgia for what was loved and lost. I read the lines again and it becomes clear Tennyson was writing about the loss of a lover or dear friend. Sixteen lines of carefully chosen words to convey a deep sense of mourning.

I touch my finger to the yellowing page, trace the faint pencil mark beside the last stanza, and wonder what Xavier had been thinking when he highlighted “Break, Break, Break.” Who had he been mourning?

I hear the name whispered in my head and quickly turn the page. I close the book and open to the frontispiece, an engraving of a ship being swallowed by a dark, stormy sea. Moonlight illuminates the ship and the wave it rides upon—the last ray of light before eternal darkness. My attention is held not by the haunting scene, but by the inscription, written in elegant, loopy penmanship on the title page.

A maggot of doubt begins wriggling into my heart, spoiling the sweet, unsullied trust I’ve had for Xavier. He does not love me. I am but a placeholder for the one he lost. He still loves Marine. Why else would he carry a maudlin book of poems given to him by his darling Marine?

I close the book again and put it back on the nightstand, but I can still see the words my most beloved and the large, looping M of Marine’s signature seared on the back of my eyes.

I press my hands to my face, pushing my fingertips against my eyelids as if the act will blot Xavier’s first wife from my mind, from his heart. I don’t want to think about her, to wonder why she gave Xavier a book of poems written in English. Did they have English terms of endearment for each other? Did they dream of one day moving to England or America, retiring to a quaint fishing village in Cornwall or Massachusetts? Did she read to him from Poems for Seafarers? Did they lie in bed, Marine stroking his head, running her slender, manicured fingers through his hair as she murmured the words of Whitman or Dunbar?

Xavier emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of soap and citrus-scented steam, his hair damp from the shower he takes before bed, his chest bare, a towel wrapped around his waist.

He stops to press a kiss to my forehead before circling around to his side of the bed. I grab my iPhone and pad into the bathroom. As soon as I have closed and locked the door, I slide to the tile floor and push my phone’s home button, as if possessed by the spirit of another woman, a jealous, insecure woman.

Marine de Maloret.

I type the name into the search bar and hold my breath as I wait for the returns. The first hit is an article from a French language newspaper out of Quimper. I click on it and a bold, black headline appears—La bataille la plus âpre de l’Europe se poursuit—followed by a photograph of an unsmiling, tuxedo-clad Xavier standing beside a striking brunette in a sleek black cocktail gown, her hand resting casually, but proprietarily, on Xavier’s forearm. They are standing on a neatly clipped lawn, a towering gray stone château in the background. The caption beneath the photo is in French, but the names Monsieur et Madame Xavier de Maloret need no translation.

I enlarge the photo and stare at the woman standing beside my husband, the creature who has been a ghostly presence these last few weeks, sensed, not seen, and immediately regret using the power of the internet to exorcise her. Striking might not be a potent enough word to describe Marine. She is everything I am not—confident, stylish, gorgeous, at ease with her beautiful, lithe body. If I were in Monte Carlo, I would wager a small fortune Marine moves with the singular grace that seems the divinely bespoke trait of tall, slender women. All of the evidence is here—in this single photograph—the tilt of her chin, the posture subtly emphasizing her long, lean legs, the serene smile. How can I ever hope to compete with the memory of Marine?

The lights are off and the drapes closed when I finally return to the bedroom. Xavier lifts the blankets and I climb into bed beside him.

“I thought you would never be finished in there,” he says, pulling me against his hard, naked body. “It feels like an eternity since I did this”—he kisses my lips—“and this.” He takes my bottom lip into his mouth, nibbling and sucking on the plump flesh, while his knee spreads my thighs.

“Xavier?” I gasp.

“What are you doing?”

He chuckles low in his throat, the sound seductive in the night-darkened room, with his chest pressed against my breasts. “I am going to make love to you.”

And he does. Slow and hot, groaning as he holds me tight around the waist and eases his body into mine. He is maddeningly restrained in his lovemaking, patiently stoking the flames of my desire until I clutch his waist and push him deep inside me, deep into my womb, silently urging him to increase his tempo.

Beads of perspiration drop on the pillow beside my head, echoing in my ears like spring rain pattering on a tin roof. Still, Xavier keeps his rhythm slow and achingly gentle.

“Tu es à moi, Manderley.”

Mon-de-lee.

Hearing him pronounce my name the way only he does, with his heavy French accent, so that it sounds like a sensual moan uttered by a lover in the throes of desire, touches a raw place in my heart and I begin to cry. Hot, silent tears slipping out of my eyes and down onto the pillow to mingle with his beads of perspiration. I weep for what I have and what I fear is not mine to hold.