Chapter 83 She Stole It From Me
Blair went utterly still in Rufus's arms.
His voice was a fractured murmur, spilling from his throat in uneven waves, every word cutting into her ears like a shard of glass.
"It was my fault, Cecilia… I should have trusted you. I was wrong. All of it."
He kept repeating himself, tangled in half-formed sentences, each one steeped in remorse. Regret for pushing Cecilia away again and again. Regret for letting her suffer. Regret for killing her.
Blair's expression darkened, her composure slipping like a mask about to fall. Rufus… regretted? The thought struck her like a slap. Her whole body trembled, nails biting into her palms until blood welled up. But no pain could smother the blaze in her chest.
A replacement. That was all she was — a stand-in for a dead woman.
Years of careful planning, swallowing humiliation, eliminating Cecilia from his life piece by piece… and in the end, Blair was nothing more than a vessel for embracing Cecilia's ghost.
The humiliation was bitter enough to taste. The hatred was a tide threatening to pull her under, cold and relentless, dragging her into a darkness she had thought she'd conquered long ago.
In the cold air of the wine cellar, the silence pressed in, heavy as stone. Somewhere in the shadows, Cecilia's spirit hovered, watching with detached scorn, her presence like a whisper at the edge of hearing.
Pathetic, wasn't it?
Blair forced herself to choke down the bile rising in her throat. She could not break now. Not when she was this close to reclaiming what she believed was hers.
She lifted her hand, mimicking the rare moments of gentleness Cecilia had once shown, patting Rufus's broad back with slow, deliberate strokes. Her voice softened, adopting that fragile, self-effacing tone Cecilia had worn when she was overlooked, the kind of tone that made her seem small, almost invisible.
"Rufus, I'm here… don't be sad. It's over now. See? I'm still with you."
"You've been drinking too much. Let me help you upstairs. I'll make something to sober you up, all right?"
It was the kind of submissive language Blair had once despised Cecilia for — meek, without dignity. But now, to soothe Rufus, she wore the mask willingly, even letting her breath catch in a way that suggested vulnerability she didn't feel.
"It was my fault before. I made you angry, made you worry."
She pressed her cheek to his back, lowering her voice further, adding a careful note of appeasement. "I won't do that anymore. I'll be good. I'll listen to you. Just… don't hurt yourself like this."
She was trying to pull him out of his grief for Cecilia, to tether him back to her. Rufus was fragile now. Vulnerable. This was her chance. If she could make him depend on her again, then Cecilia's death would finally mean something. The thought tasted like victory, sharp and metallic.
Before she could finish, Rufus's arms tightened around her. His breath was hot and ragged, each word pushed out from the deepest part of his chest.
"No. Don't say that." His voice was hoarse, weighed down with pain. "I'm the one who should be sorry. You shouldn't have to be good. You should never have changed yourself for me."
He clung to her like a drowning man, burying his face in her neck, his voice breaking into a sob. "Cecilia… fight with me again. Argue with me. Please… don't say things like that."
A flicker of triumph lit Blair's eyes. She tilted her head up, leaning toward his lips. She would seal it with a kiss, erase Cecilia once and for all.
But just before her cold lips brushed his cracked ones, Rufus's body went rigid. The sweet, cloying scent of her perfume flooded his senses. The feel of her in his arms was wrong. And those words… "I'll be good. I'll listen to you."
No. This wasn't Cecilia.
Rufus's bloodshot eyes snapped open, the haze of alcohol burning away in an instant. He shoved Blair back hard. She stumbled, her spine slamming into the wine rack. Bottles rattled violently, glass clinking in warning, one rolling to the edge before settling back with a sharp knock.
"Blair?" He braced himself on the floor, pushing to his feet. His gaze was cold, cutting through her like a blade. "What are you doing here?"
He rubbed his temple, irritation flaring in his voice. "If Cecilia saw you here, she'd be angry."
Blair froze. Her mind went blank. Cecilia… saw? How could a dead woman see anything? The idea was absurd, yet the conviction in his tone was chilling.
He's insane. Rufus had lost himself completely in a ghost.
He wasn't worried about her — the living woman in front of him — but about whether the dead Cecilia's spirit would be displeased.
Blair's composure shattered. "Cecilia is dead! Dead!" Her scream was raw, her tears spilling fast. "Rufus! Wake up! She's gone! Burned to ash!"
"She can't see! She doesn't know anything anymore!"
"Why are you still thinking about her?! Why?!"
Her voice rang sharp in the empty cellar, echoing off the stone walls, each reverberation slicing through the tension like a blade. But Rufus's face did not change. His silence was worse than any argument.
The cellar door slammed open with a force that made the hinges groan. Owen burst in, his usual calm replaced by a strange mixture of fear and something almost feverish.
"Mr. Chapman!" He was breathless, clutching something wrapped in a clean handkerchief, his knuckles white.
"When we were clearing the ruins… from the room Mrs. Chapman was last in… we found this."
His hands shook as he unfolded the cloth.
A jade pendant lay in the center, darkened by smoke yet miraculously unbroken. The dim light caught on its surface, glinting faintly like a memory refusing to fade.
Rufus's eyes locked on it. He stepped forward, snatching the handkerchief and taking the pendant in his hand. The stone was smooth and warm, the shape achingly familiar, its carved patterns worn by years of touch. He could feel the weight of it in his palm, heavier than it should have been, as if it carried every moment he had shared with her.
Charles's mocking words roared back into his mind.
"Steamship."
"Ten days."
"And now you realize… you found the wrong person?"
The world tilted. His muscles locked, blood surging to his head only to drain away in an instant, leaving him cold to the bone. Every truth he thought he knew began to crack, splintering under the pressure of the memories that pendant carried.
He was on the edge of something terrible when a sharp female voice cut through the air.
"That's mine!"
Blair lunged at him, her face drained of color, terror twisting her features. Her voice was high, trembling, warped by panic.
"That's my pendant! How could it be with Cecilia?"
"She must have stolen it! Yes! She stole it from me!"