A LOVE UNTRUE

Daniel They say still waters run deep, but no one ever talks about how quiet they are. How cold they are and how mysterious they are. My life, before Linda, was exactly like water, smooth, dignified, and utterly hollow. I had the things a man is supposed to want and have. A sprawling estate, a marble-floored study, a family name with weight behind it. A beautiful wife, Claudia, who could hold a glass of wine and a room’s attention with the same ease. And children, three of them, Lucy, Peter, and Harry, tucked away in an English boarding school in the UK, with Claudia while she worked abroad, managing affairs with her family. Affairs I long stopped pretending to understand. We didn’t fight, Claudia and I. Not anymore. We learned the art of silence years ago, two people walking parallel hallways in the same house, never touching, never turning. Even the manor had grown tired. The walls, once white, yellowed with age. The portraits of my ancestors looked less like family and more like warnings. Beatrice, my mother, was the only one who seemed alive in the place. Alive, and furious. She clung to order like it was religion, a ruler of iron and tradition. It was a Tuesday. I remember because the cook was late and the toast had come burnt. I was in town, in a fog of routine, when I saw her. She was at the market. Hair pinned up hastily, a tear in the sleeve of her blouse, and a look on her face that made the air around her feel warmer somehow. She argued with the fruit vendor over the price of apples, and she was winning. There was laughter in her voice, sharp and playful, and for the first time in what felt like years, I smiled without meaning to. She noticed and glanced my way. I must have looked like an i***t, standing there with a bag of coffee beans and a forgotten wallet in hand. She nodded, just slightly, before turning back to her haggling. I stepped forward. “Let me pay,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. She looked at me then, full. There was no smile. Only eyes, dark, watchful, and amused. “I pay for what I choose,” she replied, lifting her chin. “Thank you, though.” She walked away with her apples. Just like that. I watched her disappear into the crowd, and that should have been the end of it. But fate is a cruel designer. Two weeks later, I saw her again, and this time around, it was in my home. She wore a pressed uniform, her hair tied back, her posture straight and formal. I recognized her instantly, but she gave nothing away. Beatrice had hired new help, someone to assist the housekeeper while our regulars were away. Her name, they said, was Linda. She stood beside the other maids during the orientation, but something about her made her seem like she didn’t belong there. She wasn’t shy or meek. She watched the room like someone used to being ignored but never surprised. Later that afternoon, she served tea. I stared at her hands as she placed the cup down in front of me. She didn’t look up until the tray was empty. “You,” I said. Her lips curved. “Me,” she whispered and walked out. Something in my chest stirred. Something reckless. Beatrice disapproved of her instantly, though she wouldn’t say it out loud, not at first. But I saw the stiffness in her posture when Linda entered the room. I noticed the icy tone she used to ask about "the girl." Beatrice knew how to smell threats. And Linda... she was not subtle, not in the ways that mattered. That first week, I found myself in rooms I had no reason to be in. The library, the back corridor, the east wing with its locked doors and dusty windows, places Linda might pass through. Sometimes she spoke to me plainly. Other times not at all. But her presence, even silent, was enough to unravel me. One evening, I found her in the garden. It was late, past ten. The moon spilled like silver across the hedge rows. She was trimming dead heads from the rose bushes, her hands bare, her fingers nicked. "You shouldn’t be working this late,” I said. "I’m not working,” she replied. “I’m thinking.” I wanted to ask what it was about, but I didn’t. I stood beside her instead, watching the way she pulled a wilted bloom from its stem. Ruthless. Precise. Beautiful. "I didn’t expect to see you again,” I said. "I didn’t expect to see you at all.” She replied. There was a beat of silence between us. Then she turned. "You’re married.” "Yes.” I said. "Unhappily?” She asked, amused. "Yes.” I said. "Convenient.” She said. It wasn’t a flirt. It was a statement. A challenge. She walked away again, and I let her. That night, I stayed up in my study, untouched brandy in hand, and thought about the look in her eyes. That look of someone who knew what it cost to want something and not have it and wasn’t afraid to take it next time. I should have stopped it then but I didn’t. I couldn’t. And in the silence of the manor, something had already begun to move, something too wild to cage, too real to ignore.