Chapter 3 - The First Bride)
It was only the wind. Claire wedged a watering can against the door and returned to the call.
Anna told her that twelve years earlier, when Ethan was twenty, Margaret had arranged a private wedding between them after Anna became pregnant. The ceremony had not been legally filed. Three nights later, Anna woke in the east wing with blood on her dress and no memory of how she got there. Margaret told her she had miscarried, suffered a breakdown, and attacked Ethan.
“Did you?” Claire asked.
“I believed I did for nine years.”
Anna had been sent to a private psychiatric clinic in Vermont. Margaret paid the bills and controlled every visitor. Ethan was told Anna left him and terminated the pregnancy. Only three years ago did Anna escape the guardianship and obtain fragments of her medical record. They showed sedatives in her blood and no evidence that she had ever miscarried.
“Then what happened to the baby?”
“That is what Ethan has been trying to learn.”
The wedding to Claire had forced Margaret to repeat an old ritual. On emotionally significant nights, she drugged Ethan and drew blood from a port implanted behind his ear. She claimed the procedure prevented a hereditary neurological illness. Ethan had recently discovered there was no illness.
“Why take his blood?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know. But she kept mine too.”
Anna warned Claire that Blackwood House was held in a trust that would transfer to Ethan upon a valid marriage. Margaret would lose legal control within thirty days unless Claire signed a spousal waiver. Claire remembered the documents Margaret had casually placed beside her breakfast plate.
“Do not sign anything,” Anna said. “And do not tell Ethan I spoke to you until you know which version of him you are dealing with.”
The phone went dead.
Claire returned to the house and found Ethan waiting in the library. Sunlight fell across shelves of leather-bound books and a portrait of his late father, Charles Blackwood.
“Did she answer?” Ethan asked.
Claire studied him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married before?”
“Because I wasn’t. Not legally.”
“That is a lawyer’s answer.”
“It is the only answer I know is true.”
Ethan admitted he had recovered Anna’s number six months ago. He had hidden the phone because Margaret monitored his accounts, car, and main phone. He married Claire because he loved her, but also because marriage activated the trust and gave him access to sealed family records.
The confession cut deeper than Claire expected.
“Was I your wife,” she asked, “or your key?”
“Both,” he said, and immediately looked ashamed.
May you like
Before Claire could respond, Margaret appeared in the doorway holding the unsigned waiver.
“There you are,” she said. “The notary has arrived.”
