Page 36 of One Wicked Secret
Rothley gave an apologetic shrug. “I know it’s not what we agreed, but the devil needs to know you have friends in high places.”
Daniel planned to keep their search a secret for as long as possible. But Rothley had fired the starting pistol, and the race to find the journal had begun.
“I just pray the answers we seek are in my father’s diary.” Elsa sounded a little deflated. “If we knew what was at stake—or why killing Mr Carver seemed the easier option—it might help us find the culprit.”
“I trust you found nothing notable in here,” Rothley said.
On the contrary, he’d discovered his wife’s mouth was remarkable.
The same searing hunger, raw and inescapable, gripped him as it always had.
“Nothing to indicate where Father hid his book.” Elsa told Rothley about her father cutting a rose and placing it on the memorial stone. “He often avoided visiting the obelisk because the memories were too painful.”
“Is the obelisk far?” Rothley asked.
Elsa pointed into the darkness. “It’s a five-minute walk through the grounds. It was my mother’s rose garden. She spent hours reading, lost in tales of ruined abbeys and hidden pasts.The Romance of the Forestwas her favourite.”
“Who doesn’t love Ann Radcliffe?” Rothley mused. “I’ve always admired her ability to explore the darker recesses of the human mind.”
“My mother always said no one understands a woman’s fight for survival better than Mrs Radcliffe.”
How ironic that Elsa would suffer a fate similar to that ofa Gothic heroine—one filled with death, deception, and betrayal. In his attempt to protect her, he had stolen her independence and robbed her of the chance to prove her worth.
“What now, Elsa?” he said, keen to make amends.
He wanted her to regain her adventurous spirit. Strength and courage were once the fabric of her being, as clear as the defiance in her eyes and the determined set of her chin.
“We will follow your lead,” he added.
She nibbled her bottom lip as she thought.
He tried to focus on their next task, not his own need to slide his tongue over the seam of those luscious lips. Perhaps she should lead the entire investigation. Since kissing her, his mind was as useless as a chocolate teapot.
“My father did say something odd when we visited the memorial stone.” A curious frown marred her brow. “It might be nothing, but he knelt before the obelisk and said, ‘In death, the heart lays bare its deepest secrets, truths the living dare not speak’.”
They were not the heartfelt words one said to a loved one. Surely her father remembered how the light caught his wife’s hair or her smile upon smelling the first open buds of spring.
“Is that all he said?” Daniel asked.
Had he been in a similar position, he might have described the first time he saw Elsa thundering across the fields on his black stallion. The flush of freedom on her cheeks, the joy in her eyes, the unshackled spirit he had sworn never to tame.
“He spoke about my mother’s love of reading and said books contain the knowledge needed to combat the devil. They’re the key to magnifying society’s problems.”
“Knowledge is power,” he agreed.
Rothley couldn’t shake his obsession with the macabre. “I’m not an avid reader of fiction, but isn’t there a character inThe Romance of the Forestwho finds a hidden manuscript buried with a skeleton?”
Elsa shrugged. “I believe so, but I’ve not read that particular novel. My mother accidentally dropped it in the pond and died before purchasing another copy. My father said a lost book is like a buried past—one way or another, it will be found.”
Daniel met Rothley’s gaze. He knew what his friend was thinking. As someone who despised secrets, Rothley was desperate for answers, too.
“Could it have been a covert message?” Daniel wondered why her father hadn’t confided in her and spoken plainly. “Where is the pond?”
“Close to the memorial stone.”
“Then let’s fetch a lantern and a spade.”
Elsa faced him. “A spade? The pond isn’t that deep. With your long reach, you should be able to grab the book with your hands.”
