The bite of Edith's nails into my flesh jolted me but I'd expected it. Deserved it. Her grip was surprisingly strong for such a little hand and so pale. I looked up into her face, which was stock-still and drained of all color. All I could see were those wide brown eyes, unblinking and locked on me.

Shame flushed me; heat seared my face and I felt roasted under Edith's gaze. Helpless to break away, I looked at her, feeling my mouth twist up as pain such as I'd never known wracked me through. "Edith . . . ." I pleaded.

We stayed that way for slow minutes that crawled by. I heard the ocean waves churning out beyond the veranda, heard the clink of china at other tables and breathed in the brine that hung heavy on the overcast morning air around us.

Caught in the glass of the moment.

"Why?" came the tiniest, softest sob from her beautiful lips. With that, a tear followed, rolling down her cheek. Edith ignored it, and I wanted so much to wipe it away. No, kiss it away and comfort her for this cruel blow. Her question needed to be answered, though, and I drew in a breath.

"It was . . . all we could give each other," I sighed, feeling shame leaking with my words. "At first, for comfort. We turned to each other without hesitation in that cruel world of our home. Later . . . out of a strange sense of mutual desire, I suppose."

I swallowed my bitterness, my mouth filled with ashes. Edith still gripped my wrist, and I had no doubt I'd be wearing little crescent indentations there for a while. Part of mine longed for her to dig deeper.

To draw blood.

After an age had past, I heard her speak again, her voice just as soft and wounded. "And . . . now?"

"No more," I murmured with a growing sense of strength in my words. "After she bore a child and it died at her hands I realized that my sister cannot love. Whatever we had between us, though it may have begun as a dark and twisted love, it is no more, Edith. I cannot live the way we were. It has been a while in coming, and now . . . ."

Edith's face was streaked with glittering trails and yet she never stopped looking at me with those huge, vulnerable eyes of hers. So still—I thought the shock was too much and she might faint.

"Thomas," she murmured very quietly. "I need you to go. Go away. Stay away until . . . I come and find you. Do this now, please."

I rose. Her hand dropped away from my wrist, and as I had foreseen, the little dents left by her nails stood out against the thin skin of my inner wrist. One mark bled. Slowly I turned away from her, steeling myself against the wave of misery rising within me. Deep down too, was a sense of despair.

Had I lost everything?

I didn't know.

I spent the rest of the day walking the ship, moving from deck to deck, prowling restlessly from one location to another. The ship's library offered me no distraction, nor did the billiards room or the cards room or the dining room. I cursed myself, argued with myself and moved between a tiny sense of pride in unburdening my darkest secrets to the one person in the world I trusted all the while damning myself for the same action.

I wept. How could I have done this so baldly, so badly? I'd taken Edith's trust and crushed it under the weight of an evil she didn't deserve to deal with. I'd poisoned her soul out of my own need, and yet in doing so . . . in doing so, I knew I'd saved her from Lucille. If there was any merit in what I'd done it was that. Edith and I would file for an annulment, and my beautiful butterfly would be free and safe.

A small comfort, but the first choice I'd made that mattered.

Every now and then I sucked at my wrist, tasting the little fading marks there.

It began to rain, and I stayed out at the rail, letting the chill soak through me. It suited my mood. I watched what light there was left fade when the sun set behind thick clouds. The sea grew rougher after dark but I hardly noticed, so caught up in my own bleak thoughts.

I could end it, I knew. Right here, I could easily climb over the rail and plunge myself into the inky waters down below. Allow the ship's wake to suck me under and free Edith in a different way. There might be an inquest, but she'd be free to go.

Lucille . . . would probably follow me, I thought. Therein lay the difference between us. I could live without my sister, but I didn't think she would choose to without me. The guilt of that washed over me in a fresh wave. I cursed it.

I loved my sister. There were so many moments, so many gestures and kindnesses she'd showered on me in our lives. Times and memories I would never be able to make anyone else understand. Yes, we had been lovers, but we had also been friends and confidants and companions as well. I knew my sister's tastes and favorites as she knew mine.

Now, so much of that was lost these days; pushed aside for the needs and greeds of our day to day existence. And Lucille had changed in the time we'd been apart. Before she had been defiant and strong; forthright in her contempt for our parents. After her time away from me at Blackthorne though, she'd become a darker, crueler creature.

Was it possible to love and hate at the same time? That I could wish for the sister I used to have and not the sister who wore a mask of cold sanity over her madness?

Once Edith chose to end our pretense of a marriage, I decided, I would return to Allerdale Hall and Lucille. I would wait until she slept, and in the night I would kill us both. That would be for the best. The house would pass to the Crown, be razed to the ground and wild grass would grow over everything in time.

A simple plan that would work. No-one else would ever need to die, I thought with bleak surety. Edith would live to love again, someone worthy of her courage, worthy of her honest soul.

I made my way to one of the empty deck chairs and sat in it, letting the rain lash me in the dark. The chill sank into me, making me drowsy and I drifted, curled on my side, dripping and cold.

-oo00oo-

Hours later I woke to hard shaking. Pale and small, Edith crouched beside me, wrapped in a cloak, her face barely visible. I looked up at her blearily, aware of how chilled I was.

"Inside," Edith ordered me in a choked voice. "Come inside."

My legs would not work; I stumbled and had to lean on Edith, who tried to support me. We managed to get to the main stairwell where I shifted my weight to the railing. How I got to the bottom without falling was a miracle in and of itself. We lurched together into the cabin and I found myself shivering violently now, every limb cramping.

She stripped me, dropping my wet clothing to the floor and steered me into the WC. There, a steaming bath beckoned me and I clumsily climbed into it, too miserable to be embarrassed at being naked before Edith. I sank into the heat as more shudders wracked my frame.

Warmth seeped through my rounded shoulders, my crossed arms. I had barely begun to relax when I felt a touch on my spine. Edith knelt at the side of the tub, working soap in her hands, her nightgown sleeves rolled up. I tried to catch her eye but she wouldn't meet mine; instead she began to soap up my shoulder and ribs.

My teeth were chattering too hard for me to speak so I sat there and let her wash me like a stray dog retrieved from the road. Methodical she was, pouring hot water from the ladle over my spine and head, scrubbing my arms and back. The soothing combination of the heat and touch gradually worked in thawing me out, and still I held my tongue, aware that I need not speak—whatever Edith had to say, she would in her own good time.

Finally though, it was time to climb out. She handed me a towel and turned her back, motioning for me to dry myself. I did, pulling on my nightshirt over my still damp frame. When I cleared my throat, she turned back to face me in the tiny room.

"Bed," she ordered.

Edith gave away nothing in her voice but I saw a tremble in her hands as she hung up the towel. I hesitated, but she pointed through the doorway and I had no choice but to obey her directive.

I didn't know what to think. This couldn't be forgiveness, and yet it wasn't condemnation either. Perhaps someone had reported me to her, and Edith preferred not to create a scene. Whatever the case, I made my way to the bed and climbed in, keeping myself to as small a space as I could.

Edith turned down the gas jet and climbed in on the other side, her slight weight barely making the mattress dip. I stayed still, waiting for . . . whatever was to come. Sharp words? Orders not to touch her?

I waited, listening.

"Go away did not mean sleep in the rain until you catch your death of cold," came her soft chide. "I expected to find you asleep in the library, or perhaps on one of the gaming chaise lounges. I looked for you everywhere I could think of, and started to fear you'd . . . done something desperate. And I couldn't bear that, Thomas. I have lost too much too recently to lose you as well."

A rush of remorse flooded through me, along with a wondering hint of surprise. She cared. Even through all I'd told her, Edith . . . cared.

"T-thank you," I managed through my chattering teeth.

"There is more to be said in the morning," she murmured, and wonder of wonders I felt her shift across the sheets, rolling closer to me until we lay side by side, looking up at the cabin ceiling together, "but right now you are going to keep me safe."

Edith gave a little sigh and relaxed against me under the covers. In truth the dark and snug warmth of the cabin was making me drowsy too, and I closed my eyes as well. Before I drifted off, I whispered, "Safe from whom?"

"My . . . father's . . . ghost," came her slow, sleepy slur of a reply.