Page 75 of In Compromise with the Earl
After the men shut the door, Oswald reached for his quill again and trained his eyes on the papers. He tried to do something, to add a line here or a few words there, but the letters began to blur into each other, which was curious because he was dry-eyed.
When he realized that his concentration was broken, he dropped the quill on the blotter and leaned back to rub his face.
“The same wound from the same knife,” he muttered emptily.
Old grief, muted but hollow, rested in his chest, an old burden he had carried for months. He did not want to admit to the hope he told himself to stave off, had sunk inside his soul anyway.
After a long moment, he stood and went to a cabinet across the room. Opening it, he took a well-worn folio out and pressed his lips tight at the indents made by his insistent fingers for over nine months. Taking it back to his desk, he opened it and read over the papers there.
There were all reports from Claire’s death, and he paged through the statements one after the other. He came upon the drawing of the knife that had been sticking out of her breastbone. It was so odd, but somehow fitting, that a sacrificial dagger had taken her life, required payment for all her sins.
He trailed his fingers over it, the dips and wicked curve of it before he sighed and closed the folio. What sense was there in hoping—again—for something that would come, more than likely would come to nothing.
Taking a look back at the desk and the work waiting for him, he grimaced. Standing, he left the room, headed up to change into riding gear then went to the stables.
* * *
Pleased with the conversation she had just had with Henrietta, Aphrodite left to find Oswald. She and the Dowager had not gotten into anything deeply intimate or sensitive, but they had spoken cordially.
Hoping she could tempt Oswald away from his work to share a late luncheon with her, she knocked on the door. “Oswald, do you have a moment?”
When no answer came, she stepped into the room and found it empty. While wondering where he had gone, she approached his desk and traced her fingers over the top of a folio. Inquisitively, she opened it to see the drawing of a dagger, and reading the top, sucked in a breath.
It was a report on Claire’s death, and this was the instrument that had taken her life. Swallowing, she looked at the dagger and noticed how deadly and serpentine the weapon was; it was pure evil.
Her eyes traced the fiendish curve of the weapon and noted the wrapped cord around the handle. Promising herself to apologize to Oswald when she saw him again, she read a few lines of the papers in the folio and realized they were so official they had to have come from the Bow Street Runners.
Closing it, she wandered back to the chamber and sat, thinking about what had just read. Leo’s words about the knife being sacrificial were true, the blade looked like one that kill rams and bulls for burning.
Biscuit came to her feet and she lifted the pup, and smiled when his tongue lolled out. “Hullo darling boy.”
Why is Oswald going over his late wife’s murder?
Had something happened with his late wife that she was not aware off? And where had he gone off to?
She started playing with the pup, rolling a knit ball to him and smiling as he scampered after it. The motions of throwing the ball grew repetitive and gave her time to think. When the puppy plunked down for a rest, she made sure a bowl was filled with water before she left to find Oswald.
After a quiet question with a footman, she realized that he had left the Hall and decided that he must have gone riding. Quickly changing, she hurried out to the stables as well, saddled her horse and rode off to meet him.
She could only imagine that he had taken the same trail through the woods that she favored, she rode down the trail and didn’t have to wait long before seeing him. He was sitting on the ground with his one knee up and arm wrapped around it. Gently coming down from her saddle, she went to sit beside him.
“I thought you might find me,” he muttered.
“What happened with your late wife?” she asked. “I went searching for you and found a folio on your desk. I apologize for—”
“No need,” Oswald said. “I would have told you anyway. Two Bow Street Runners came by this morning with the news that they have found another woman who was killed like Claire was, with the same weapon. It brought up some bitter memories and I had to get some air.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied, reaching out to touch his arm. “But if they do have a lead on her killer, after all these months, why feel so discouraged?”
“Because for month after month after she had been killed, they spun the same tale to me and my hope mounted only to shatter when they could not follow through,” he replied. “It made me emptier than Claire’s murder.”
“Leo mentioned the grim details of her death,” she added.
“I do not want to be doing that waltz again,” he shook his head. “I still mourn for how she died, and we have not gotten an answer for it yet.”
Leaning into his side, she wrapped an arm around his waist. “I think this time will be different.”
While he stared out at the rolling lands beyond, his jaw firmed. “I hope so.”
