Page 60 of The Beautiful Ones

“My father. Judge Dewey. Mr. George.” Saying their names cost me, yet I forced each one into the air. “All three?”

“Not every debt is collected beneath the same roof.”

The words settled between us.

“Then why are you here?”

She turned her face toward the portraits. The Lebon ancestors stared back with their painted certainty.

“Your mother invited us. Your father buried an honest man in Lebon soil. This house warmed itself with money taken from the suffering and believed beauty would disguise the smell.” She looked at me again. “Le Champ des Fleurs opened its own door.”

“The Deweys and Georges profited too.”

“Their names have not been forgotten.”

A violent thump shook the study door.

I jumped. Octavia did not.

From beyond the corridor windows came the soft, gathering patter of wings. One blue butterfly struck the glass. Then ten. Then hundreds descended in a cobalt cloud, battering the panes until daylight vanished behind them.

Reuben shouted inside the study.

Wood cracked. A casement flew open somewhere beyond the wall.

Octavia’s attention shifted toward the garden, and satisfaction moved across her lovely face.

“There,” she said. “Your friend has found her way out.”

I ran to the nearest window and dragged the curtain aside. Below, the dead gardenias thrashed although no wind moved. A pale head flashed between the shrubs. Elin ran bent low toward the rose garden, one hand pressed against her bodice.

Relief weakened my knees.

When I turned, Octavia stood close enough that her perfume filled my mouth: gardenias preserved beneath ice.

“What did she take?”

“Something your father was willing to murder to keep.”

“Will she be safe?”

Octavia’s gaze drifted past me toward the parlor, toward the room where Adrian waited.

“Safety is a small promise. We do not make it.”

The butterflies lifted from the study windows all at once. Sunlight returned in a white blaze. In the garden below, Elin had disappeared.

Father tore open the study door.

I heard him before I saw him: boots striking the runner, breath ragged with rage. Reuben and Judge Dewey followed. They rushed in the opposite direction toward the rear stairs, never noticing me in the shadowed alcove.

Octavia watched them go.

“The others will run,” she said. “Men like that often mistake distance for absolution.”

“And my family?”

For the first time, something almost gentle entered her expression.