Chapter 4
The last morning she managed it, she wore her pearl earrings and a dark blue shawl.
“You look like you’re attending a board meeting,” David said.
“I am meeting death,” she replied. “I see no reason to look careless.”
He laughed.
She did too.
It turned into coughing, and David helped her back to her room.
Three days later, he found her before dawn.
Elizabeth lay peacefully in bed, one hand resting on Edgar’s portrait, the other folded over the blanket.
The room was filled with pale morning light.
For a long time, David sat beside her.
He had expected relief.
Instead, he felt grief.
Not the grief of a husband losing a wife in the usual way.
Not love, exactly.
But the grief of witnessing someone’s last loneliness finally end.
The funeral was small.
Robert stood beside the grave with red eyes and perfect posture.
Elizabeth’s lawyer attended.
A few old acquaintances arrived, whispered politely, and left quickly.
David stayed until the cemetery workers began lowering the flowers.
Afterward, the lawyer asked him to come to the manor.
“She left instructions,” he said.
In the study Elizabeth had once forbidden him from entering, David sat across from the lawyer while Robert stood near the door.
The will was clear.
Monroe Manor.
Investments.
Art collection.
Bookstore holdings.
Liquid assets.
All of it was left to David Carter.
David stared at the papers.
“That can’t be right.”
May you like
“It is.”
“I was married to her for one month.”
