Prove It

I had to put this madness right, and put it right now.

“Step aside. I’ll go and find Gloria myself.”

I dragged my aching body out into the corridor. Behind me, my father shouted, “Gloria Ernst!” but I didn’t slow my step.

The sheer gall of her. How can she stand in my own manor, before my own people, and play me?

That kind of trick had only ever worked when we were children. Back then, when Gloria pretended to be me and fooled our parents, I’d laughed it off as harmless mischief.

“She’s out of her mind.”

But I couldn’t laugh now. This had gone well past any prank.

How can she tell a lie this outrageous? And the ones who’ve swallowed it — have they all lost their minds? Look at the physician, at my parents, at the way they’re reacting. They’re treating me like a woman gone completely mad.

For a moment my fury at Gloria curdled into something like betrayal toward the servants and my parents. Only for a moment, though, because feelings like that did nothing to set the situation right.

I cradled my throbbing head and tried to piece together, step by step, how things had come to this.

There’s no way that girl pulled off something this huge on her own. Which means someone at her side was egging her on.

Someone who could command this manor at will. Someone who could take Gloria’s side and shield her.

Yes — there’s one such person.

Cedric Drake. My husband, and no longer in his right mind.

I caught a housemaid just as she rounded the corner.

“Where is she.”
“Yes, madam?”
“I asked where that girl is!”
“A-are you looking for my lady? My lady would be in the rose garden just now…”

Without waiting for the rest, I set off for the rose garden at a near run. I hadn’t even thrown a shawl over my housecoat. So much for the dignity of a noblewoman, for the etiquette drilled into me all my life. None of it mattered now.

Outside, the sunlight was dazzling and bright, as if in defiance of my wretched heart. Far off, among the roses in full bloom, Gloria and Cedric sat idling over their tea.

“You… You, how could you…”

As I advanced on them, step by step, disbelief all over my face, they caught sight of me and rose from their seats.

“Good heavens, Ria. You’re up? They told me you’d hurt your head badly and had to rest.”

Gloria had my manner of speaking, my very voice, and she’d arranged her features into a mask of worry. Even her dress and the ornaments in her hair were mine. This was more than some subtle imitation; she had made herself into my exact double.

The woman standing before me was a flawless ‘Marienne.’

“Duchess, is your condition any better now?”

Beside her, Cedric shamelessly heaped his concern on me. For the first time in my life, I learned that when absurdity passes a certain point, the mind goes blank and white.

So they mean to see this through.

I felt neither disappointment nor resentment. Only an anger I couldn’t hold down.

“You’d all do well to stop. Because I have no intention of playing along with this absurd little farce.”

When I took another step toward them, Cedric moved Gloria behind his back. The eyes regarding me with such contempt no longer belonged to the husband I’d known.

“I know why you’re doing this. But it’s gone too far. You know that perfectly well.”
“Duchess Ernst, that is enough.”

Cedric had flung that false title at me out of nowhere. Watching the faint tremor in his eyes, I finally let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh.

“Honestly. This isn’t sane.”

Then again, if they were the sort to own up to it easily, they’d never have dared an outrage like this in the first place. Fighting to steady my trembling body, I forced open the fist I’d clenched tight.

“So what is it you mean to do now? Cast me out and install that girl as the lady of this manor? And you, Gloria — you’ve got the gall to take part in this madness?”

The commotion in the garden drew the manor’s servants over one by one. My parents, who had come hurrying after me, were among them.

The moment they’d ringed us in, Cedric cried out, as if for the benefit of every last one of them.

“Please — stop this!”

Cedric let his anger pour out in exaggerated gestures, like an actor in a one-man play.

“When I think of Mari tumbling down the stairs because of you, I still can’t sleep at night. It makes me far too angry. And now what? Now you claim to be Marienne?”

As they watched Cedric rage, the servants let their own murmurs slip. One wondered aloud whether there was ever a quiet day in this house, and what the fuss was this time; another said that first she’d cracked her head, and now she seemed to fancy herself the lady of the manor.

The din set my ears ringing. Even through all the uproar, Cedric didn’t let up his tirade against me.

“Do please come to your senses. How much more patience must I show you?”

The sheer gall of it. As if he had any right to say such a thing.

“What, exactly, is it that you’ve been enduring?”

I demanded, past all restraint now. Patience. From a man who had carried on a sordid affair behind my back, and now meant to steal my very name.

“I was a fool to try to turn a blind eye to your infidelity! I actually believed I could settle this matter quietly, on my own terms!”

If it had been at all possible, I’d meant to divorce him quietly. I’d told myself that if I only endured it, alone, that would be the end of it. For the sake of the family and its honor, I had believed that was the right thing to do.

But they cast me aside without a second thought, for all the pains I’d taken to cover their faults. My breath wouldn’t come properly, and my emotions had slipped beyond my control.

And in the end, I struck Cedric Drake hard across the face.

— Smack.

The sharp crack split the air as its final note, and then silence swallowed everything. The servants clustered at a distance didn’t make so much as the sound of breathing. Theirs was a silence steeped in shock.

“Good heavens, Ria! What do you think you’re doing!”

Gloria rushed to his side to check on him. Cedric’s head, wrenched brutally aside, stayed frozen there for a long moment.

“To think you’d even strike me now…”

After a beat, Cedric straightened and fixed me with a savage glare.

“Then go on — prove it. Prove that you truly are my wife.”
“…Prove it?”
“Yes. Prove it.”

In all my life I’d never heard a more absurd demand. How was I supposed to prove that I was myself? I’d never once imagined facing anything like this, because being ‘Marienne’ had, from the moment of my birth, been the most natural and self-evident fact in the world.

“What — not confident you can?”

Cedric pressed.

“Not confident? Hardly.”

I threw it right back at the smirking Cedric. Even so, my mind raced without pause, hunting for some proof that I was myself.

And at last, I found my answer.

“Of late, more and more houses have thrown themselves into the perfume trade, and the competition has grown fierce. So our house has been seeking out a new way forward.”
“Hah — Duchess Ernst. Who here doesn’t know that much? It was printed in the financial dailies.”

Cedric fired back without missing a beat.

True enough. The mere fact that House Drake, which had ruled the perfume trade for years, had reached a turning point was hardly enough on its own to prove who I was.

“But the direction the business is to take from here — that would be hard to know. Unless one were the very person who proposed it and oversaw it.”

Cedric’s eyes wavered, just slightly.

“Beyond producing and distributing perfume, our house’s ultimate aim is to offer each customer a scent tailored to them alone. That’s the whole reason you’ve been going about meeting with perfumers of late.”

Of course, I didn’t imagine that reciting House Drake’s business plans point by point would be enough to prove myself entirely.

“And once everything’s in place, we agreed that the very first bespoke scent would be a gift to the flower of high society, Lady Seiline — as a kind of promotion.”

But I knew where the document laying all of this out in writing was kept, and that could prove I was Marienne.

“There are papers in my study where I laid all of this out myself. If I truly were Gloria, I couldn’t possibly know about them.”

Everyone held their breath, hanging on our exchange. Or rather, on my desperate plea, to be precise.

“Sophie, go to my study and bring those papers. They’ll be at the very top of the second drawer on the right.”

I singled out one of the servants who’d been watching it all unfold.

“The key to the drawer is on the third shelf of the bookcase, in the first slot.”
“Ah— um…”

Sophie’s eyes darted between me and Gloria, caught on whether she ought to obey.

At that, Gloria sighed, as if she of all people found this whole thing the most trying. Then she gave Sophie a small nod of permission.

“You may go, Sophie. And if the papers aren’t there, try the left drawer. That’s where all the important documents will be.”

I couldn’t say why, but at Gloria’s words an ugly foreboding crawled the length of my spine.

Even my husband shouldn’t know where that drawer key is kept. So why is Gloria so brazenly sure of herself?

As I waited for Sophie to return, my unease swelled by the moment.

If even this can’t prove who I am, then what am I to do?

After a while, Sophie came back into the garden, her face flushed with agitation. In her hands she held sheets of white paper. Just as I reached out to take them, certain beyond the slightest doubt…

“Madam — I’ll bring these to my lady.”

Sophie hesitated a moment, then walked past me and put the papers into Gloria’s hands.

“Just as my lady said, the papers came out of the left drawer.”
“Yes — well done.”

Gloria took the papers with a light nod of thanks for the trouble.

“That can’t be. I clearly put them—!”
“Enough now, Gloria. Everything you’re insisting on — those are all things I told you about a while ago.”

Gloria shook her head as if it pained her, as if to say: what was the use of arguing with a sick woman?

“I’m sorry, Cedric. I only meant to keep poor Gloria entertained while she was bored here at the Count’s manor, telling her this and that, and — well…”

A strange silence followed.

Reflexively, my eyes swept the crowd. Every last person gathered in the garden was watching me with contempt.

I can’t let it end like this.

Panic seized me. I couldn’t just stand there; I had to say something, anything.

“Then what about you? Can you prove that you’re ‘Marienne’?”

At my question, Gloria arched a graceful eyebrow.

“You have to prove it too. That you’re not ‘Gloria’ but ‘Marienne.’”

Unable to rein in my agitation, I pressed her for an answer.

“Go on — say it, now!”

At that, Gloria curled one corner of her mouth into an ominous twist, then all at once knit her brow as if she were terribly at a loss. Even that trifling gesture mirrored me to a spine-chilling degree.

“This is a little bewildering. I’m the real one, and yet — where am I even to begin proving myself?”

Gloria said.

“I suppose I’ll have to offer up something you couldn’t possibly know. Yes — it’s a little embarrassing, but…”

She gave a shrug, more brazenly self-assured than ever.

“I know everything about Cedric. His tastes in food, his preferences, his habits, right down to his schedule. I even know how many moles there are on his body, and where he has a scar.”

Good heavens. Her words were so vile, so filthy that I sucked in a sharp, hollow breath.

“That’s only because you committed adultery with my husband!”
“That again. Cedric and I are already married — how could there be anything wrong with what’s between us? If anyone’s heart is in the wrong, it’s yours, coveting my husband…”

Gloria dabbed at dry eyes as she spoke, adding that she simply couldn’t fathom how we’d ended up in a situation like this.

“All right — if you truly are Marienne Drake, then answer me this. On which thigh does Cedric have a scar?”

Gloria asked, and in the same breath Cedric let out a sigh deep enough to sink into the earth. His face was the very picture of profound humiliation.