She pushed the door open and walked in slowly.
“Good evening,” she said, concealing her curiosity. The room was spacious, a beautiful study with six rows of bookshelves parallel to her and an oak desk off to the right where Edgar watched her tentatively. There were few furnishings in the center: two armchairs and a side table, with an immaculate moth display as the focal point. A fire burned in the hearth to the far left of the study, with the same craftsmanship as the one in her own.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Remi said, ducking her head.
“No?” Edgar asked. “It was quite a long day. I myself am feeling tired.”
“It was.” She agreed. “But there is so much to take in, I feel I can’t sleep yet. The house is...new to me.”
“Ah.” Edgar nodded in understanding. He laid the papers in his hands down and sat back in his chair. “If you find yourself wandering, please know my study is always open to you.”
“Thank you,” she said, slipping into one of the chairs as the floor creaked underneath the new weight. A clock somewhere ticked, beating easily against the sound of the wind outside. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all.”
Remi hummed a reply, distracted by the moth in the glass case. It was much larger up close and so true to life that it could flutter away at any given moment, even though she could clearly see the pins that held it in place. She felt sympathetic to it, dead yet displayed for everyone to gawk at. In a way, it was how she felt standing at the altar, a pretty thing pinned down under a glass dome while prying eyes glittered from the watching crowd.
Distracted by her pitiable thoughts, she didn’t hear at first what Edgar said.
“Saturnia pyri,” he repeated. “The great peacock moth.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“There are nests of them around the Isle.” His chair groaned with the motion as he stood, approaching the glass display. “I have a few other species, but none quite as eye-catching.”
“Is it your favorite?” Remi asked, standing. She felt weak on her knees, but it was necessary to close the space between them. It was still curious to her that he would give her a room and leave her be on their wedding night. She wanted to ask if it was something she’d done or if he felt she was too young.
Edgar moved his hand away from the hardwood base of the display, evading her attempt expertly. “It is.”
“Monsieur Leone…” Remi felt her voice tremble. “I want to ask…”
“About our arrangement?”
She found his eyes watching her. They were kind, just as they were so many hours ago at the altar. “Yes.”
“My dear,” he started gently, “I must tell you that I have only ever loved one woman in my life. Her portrait is there above the mantelpiece. Immortalized in all of her earthly beauty, just as this moth in its display.”
Remi followed his gaze. The portrait he’d fixated on was subtle but large enough that she could make out the woman on the canvas. The late Madame Leone passed well before Remi’s arrival, but the island was never without its stories of their romance. A traveling Romani woman wooed by an upstart young man with startling good looks.
Truthfully, everything she knew about their family came from gossip.
“How many years has it been?”
“Twenty long years.” Edgar moved closer to the fireplace, distant from Remi as he spoke. “She fell ill after a difficult pregnancy. Benoît was six at the time, looking forward to having two siblings to look after.”
Oh my. “To lose children... I cannot fathom it.”
“We were deeply hurt by their loss.” Edgar nodded. “My wife felt that wound deeper than the rest of us, as you can imagine. Her illness took her body, but I believe their loss took her much sooner.”
Remi felt her chest tighten. She dropped her gaze from the portrait, unable to see the late lady without feeling the need to cry.
She never knew about two other children. The truth of her passing was hard to win through constant gossip and twisted iterations of the same tale. Ironically enough, the people preferred their tall tales and fairy tales about the Leone family over the truth of their tragedy.
When Remi’s marriage was first announced, all anyone could discuss was the reception or the wedding colors. A handful of folks mentioned his first wife, but there was little else discussed past that. Even when Tante Beline hosted a tea party for the ladies on the island to celebrate the engagement, the only thing any one of them could think to talk about were the invitations and Remi’s gown. Despite their surprise at Edgar’s intent to remarry, they mentioned nothing else about the family’s past or its dark tragedies.
Remi considered it odd since the backbone of their get-togethers was gossip.
Maybe Tante Beline had something to do with that. Beline would have wanted to keep everything “easy to swallow” for her benefit more than Remi’s.
“My dear girl,” Edgar turned and tucked his arms behind his back. “My hope is that you will find comfort here. You’ll want for nothing.”
But why? she wondered. Why marry me? What about Ben?
It was the question she couldn’t ask aloud, as though asking would cross a line that laid bare at her feet. Edgar tapped her lightly on the shoulder and went back to his desk, returning to the papers he’d been studying earlier.
By leaving her there, conversation abandoned for busy work, he made it clear that their wedding night would be nontraditional. He would not touch her or share a bed with her. Though it relieved Remi, she felt utterly alone. Meeting the painted eyes of the woman above the mantelpiece, Remi stared long into their depths and wondered what it was like to be so loved, even in death.
“Feel free to visit my study whenever you like,” he said as she wandered to the door. “I have plenty of books for you to read if you’re interested. Borrow as many as you want.”
Remi nodded. “Thank you.”
“Goodnight,” he said.
Remi left, suddenly tired, as she found herself back in her new bed. That night, curled in the warm duvet, she dreamt of moths and weddings and ghostly faces watching her from the portraits on the walls.
EDGAR’S FUNERAL
REMI
