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I should have known, in retrospect, how it was going to end. How it always ended with us, ever since I had taken her down to the boathouse, ever since my affair with Mrs. Danvers had begun five months prior. I should have known it from the way she talked about Rebecca, from every my Rebecca that fell from her lips.
I should have known it wouldn’t take her long to possess me in the same way.
What I didn’t know was how much I wanted her to.
(What I didn’t know was that I wanted to possess her back.)
As promised, in the months that followed the beginning of our affair, Mrs. Danvers had helped me truly become Mrs. de Winter, showing me how to navigate the social graces of being Maxim’s wife, of being a woman in the public eye. With her I flourished, so much so that even Maxim noticed, convincing me to throw a small dinner party a late night in January, the first one since the disastrous costume ball some months prior.
The party was, by all accounts, a success. It had been us and a few of Maxim’s friends and their wives, a small but elegant dinner followed by drinks and dancing. Formalwear had been required, no costumes in sight. I had worn a short lilac dress despite the cold, a sheer thing that fell just below my knees.
I had spent the night hanging off Maxim’s arm, laughing at his jokes, smiling, playing Mrs. de Winter the best I knew how. Towards the end of the night I found myself enjoying it, enjoying his attention, the attention from the other men in the room. If Maxim noticed the way their eyes lingered on me, for one night he didn’t care, the only sign of his possessiveness his arm snaked around my waist.
I leaned into him, into his warmth, an almost-empty glass of cabernet in my hand. We were happy, I told myself. Tonight, we were happy, and there was no acting involved.
I finished the last of my wine and set my glass down, turning back to Maxim, whose fingers had tightened on my hip. He was staring at someone across the room, and I turned, catching sight of Mrs. Danvers, who had already turned her head away. Her profile was sharp, her hair pulled back into a lower bun than normal, the closest she would allow herself to informality. Maxim had given the rest of the servants the night off, Frith included, but I knew as well as he did that Mrs. Danvers would never allow herself a break.
Maxim frowned. “I don’t like it,” he said, half to himself and half to me.
“Like what, Maxim?”
“The queer way she watches you,” he said. “She used to look at Rebecca the same way.”
My stomach turned at the mention of Rebecca.
“You know how she is,” I said softly. “Please, Maxim, I don’t want to think about Mrs. Danvers tonight, not when everything is going so well.” I smiled up at him, trailed my fingers down his arm.
He did not answer me.
“Darling,” I said, and he finally turned his attention back to me. I reached up for him and kissed him, lingering, my mouth firm against his.
His hand on my hip slid a little lower, and I kissed him harder, the way she would have, the way a wife was supposed to kiss her husband.
I opened my eyes as I pulled back, and as I did so he smiled, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“How about,” I said, “I go get ready for bed, hm? The party is winding down anyway, I should think.”
Maxim looked down at me, smiling. “I’ll meet you upstairs in thirty minutes then.”
“Of course, Mr. de Winter,” I teased, and as I broke away from him I pretended not to notice that his attention had wandered back to Mrs. Danvers, and that she had gone back to staring at me.
I did not go up to my bedroom right away. I’d known I wouldn’t, just like I’d known that when I entered the west wing, she would already be waiting for me.
The windows to the balcony were thrown open, the cold night air sending a chill through the room, though not an unpleasant one. I welcomed it on my flushed skin, taking a breath. I could see her just beyond the doors to the balcony, half-warped by the thick glass.
“Jealousy’s not a becoming look on you, Danny,” I called, and she turned. She did not step off the balcony, however, and I sighed and went to meet her.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. But she turned back away from me, staring out at the sea.
“I think you do.” I said. I touched her elbow and this time she did face me, stepping back until we were on equal footing, using her height still to tower over me.
“You reminded me of her,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. “Flirting and laughing with those—those men. With all of them.”
I swallowed. I had long grown used to her mentions of Rebecca, to her comparisons of me to her. But I had been feeling good about being Mrs. de Winter, if only for tonight, and didn’t want to be compared again.
So I did what I knew would work. I ignored her barb, and picked a fight.
“Maxim said he doesn’t like how you were watching me,” I said coolly, relishing the look on her face when I used Maxim’s name.
“And I don’t like how he was watching you,” she snapped. “Like you’re some piece of property, some thing he owns.”
“I’m his wife, Danny,” I said, and maybe it was my own exasperation at Maxim, but now I was truly angry, and I needed someone to take my anger out on and she was there. It wasn’t fair to her, I knew it wasn’t, but when had anything in our lives ever been fair?
I could have blamed it on the wine. But I was sober, and I knew it, and she did too.
“You kissed him,” she said, her voice strangled. Her hands fluttered at her sides, her tell that she was upset.
But I was in no mood to coddle her, not that night.
“Of course I did, he’s my husband,” I said, the second time I had uttered such a sentiment in as many minutes. Her face flushed as if I’d struck her, and it just made me bolder.
“What right do you get to be jealous, Danny?” I asked. “Hm? You knew I still shared my bed with him.”
Her eyes flashed. A warning. One I would have heeded, had I not been so angry, but I couldn’t stop myself. “And what would you have done, anyway? Would you touch me in front of all of them? Would you flirt with me?” My voice was raising but I couldn’t stop it. “I think you wouldn’t. I think you would have just watched, like you did tonight, watched as my husband did all the things to me in public you’ll never get to—”
“Stop this,” she hissed. “Stop this. You aren’t her. You don’t belong to him.”
With every word she pushed me further back onto the balcony, her lips crashing into mine so it was if she was trying to steal every breath from my lungs, possess me in a way Maxim could not.
“Danny—” I gasped, but I thrilled at her kiss, the heat of it. She kissed me again, one hand snaking in my hair, tilting my head back.
“I think,” she said, her mouth at my ear, her voice low and dangerous, “you’ve forgotten who you really belong to.”
Without another word she roughly turned me around, pressing me against the railing of the balcony, the metal of it digging into my stomach. Her body was flush against mine in much the same way it had been the night after the ball, the horrible wretched intimacy of her whisper in my ear, her proximity that at the time had made me shudder—but now for an entirely different reason.
"You’re mine," she said, her hands roving over my body. "Mine, mine." She whispered it fervently, feverishly, like a prayer or a curse, her mouth against my shoulder, then my neck. Raving mad in the way I had only ever seen her talk about Rebecca.
But this—I had never seen her like this, not when it came to me. This possessive, this jealous.
This obsessed.
Her hands circled around and made quick work of the buttons on the front of my dress. I watched as one fell to the ground below, my attention torn from it when she slipped her fingers under the fabric and brushed her thumb over my breast before removing her hand and pressing it against the hollow of my throat.
“Mine,” she murmured again in my ear, her free hand now making its way down my waist, my thighs, before she rucked my skirt up and slide her long fingers in the waistband of my underwear. She laughed as she slid her fingers through my wetness, a low, wicked thing.
“Already so wet and willing for me,” she murmured. “You’d never be this way for him.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered her anyway.
“No,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “Just for you.”
She nudged my legs further apart then as two of her fingers slid inside me. I groaned, opening my eyes. I could see the lights from the party spilling out of the windows below, hear the murmurs of voices.
“What do you think he’d do, hm?” she asked, now circling her fingers almost lazily inside of me. I whined and tried to grind down on her hand, but she pressed her other hand lightly into my chest, firmly holding me against her. “Your husband? Any of them? Any of those men down there who were flirting with you, what do you think they’d do if they knew you were letting your housekeeper fuck you against a balcony right now?”
Her voice dipped on the word fuck, sending electricity straight to my core. I had rarely heard her swear before, and only once when she had taken me to bed. I knew for the most part she considered herself above such language, and a dark pleasure shot through me at the knowledge I could undo her in such a way.
“Answer me, Mrs. de Winter,” she said, her lips trailing down my jaw. “Do you think any of them could ever even dream of having you like this?”
She had quickened her pace as she spoke, her fingers expertly curled inside me. I was gasping now, panting.
And suddenly her fingers were gone, and I whined at the absence of them, gasping in shock as she suddenly clutched me to her, her hot breath on my ear.
“I asked you a question,” she said. “I want an answer.”
“Danny—Danny please—” I moaned, trying to grab for her wrist with my left hand, pull her back between my legs.
“Not until you answer me,” she said. “Do you think any of those men would ever have you the way I am now?” She smirked. “Do you think, when your husband takes you to bed tonight, he’ll ever make you feel the way I do?”
“No,” I said. “No, no, there’s—there’s just you. Only you.” I twisted before she could stop me, crushed my mouth to hers hard enough to bruise, to show her I meant it, my right hand still gripping the railing of the balcony.
This time when I pulled her hand back between my legs, she didn’t resist, instead pushing my underwear aside and sliding her fingers back into me, beginning the quick pace she had set before. I gasped as she did so, biting her lip until she pulled back from me and set her mouth determinedly against my neck.
I did not protest. I knew she was determined to mark me and I did not care; welcomed it, even. I would come up with some sort of excuse.
Something hot coiled inside me, and I knew I was close to coming, my stomach tightening as I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle my moans.
And quick, too quick, she was there, her nails digging into my wrist, pulling my hand away.
“No,” she hissed. “No, Mrs. de Winter, I don’t want you to be quiet. I want everyone to know exactly who’s making you feel this way.”
“Danny,” I groaned, “God, Danny…”
She thrust into me again and I was gone, her name spilling from my lips over and over and over, the cold railing of the balcony biting into my palms, my knuckles white as I gripped it to keep from falling. Her arm around my waist and the other between my legs were the only things keeping me upright.
When I finally came down my thighs were shaking, and without a word she drew me to her. I clutched at her back as she withdrew her hand from between my legs, dimly aware that she had smoothed my skirts back down.
I kissed her then, hungrily, my hands gripping her arms that were wound around my waist.
Mine, I thought as I kissed her. Mine.
I wanted to undo her. More than that, I wanted to prove to her that I was hers, that I could possess her as much as she could me. That Rebecca was the ghost, the shadow, and I was Mrs. de Winter, flesh and blood and alive. That I was the one who had chosen to be with her.
When I pushed her against the wall and sank down to my knees, she didn’t protest, merely lifted her skirts to give me easier access. I kissed my way up her thighs, occasionally biting at the delicate skin, relishing the sounds she made when I did so.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
I pulled her underwear down and immediately set my mouth against her, clutching at her hips. She gasped my name, one of her hands shooting out to grip the balcony railing, the other tightly wound in my hair, almost crushing me to her.
She moaned loudly when she came, louder than I had ever heard her before, so often did we have to be careful, quiet, so no one would discover us. And in that instant I didn’t care if the entire damn party downstairs heard her. I wanted them to know that she was mine, that I had finally found something in this wretched estate to hold onto.
It was my name she was saying. Mine. Not Rebecca’s.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.