Page 54 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
He screamed again, stubbornly positioning himself between me and the wall.
My heart leapt to my throat. “Good God, cat.” I stepped closer to the area he was inspecting. It was a wall. Nothing else. I crept carefully around him, running my hand over the mahogany panel, tapping lightly with my fingers. It was solid. Wood. I breathed out a sigh of relief, not certain what I’d been expecting. “See? Just a wall.”
Fiachna flicked his tail, which I assumed was a sign he was satisfied. Caught up in my conversation with my meddlesome house cat, I didn’t hear the door open or Tamsyn quietly creep into the library.
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. For the things I said.”
I whipped around to face her. She was pale with dark circles beneath her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her lovely strawberry-hued hair was tied back into a stern knot at the nape of her neck. “Apologize?”
She nodded and gestured to the settee. “Would you sit?”
I shook my head, lips pressed tight. “I’d rather stand.”
The words hurt her, but I wasn’t certain how to go about asking what I needed to know. I wasn’t even certain what I needed to ask.Dr. Quick insinuated you had been involved inextramarital fornication.Right. That would go over like one of the kaiser’s zeppelins full of holes.
“As you wish.” She toyed with her fingers before continuing. “I… I didn’t think you’d come back after the things I said. I know you are never one to look back. It’s only… it seems to be all I can do now. And I apologize if it caused offense.”
“Tamsyn, it isn’t you who needs to beg forgiveness. I’d just nearly been stoned to death. I was not at my best. Besides, I’m afraid after I say what I’ve come to say, you might wish they’d succeeded in the task.”
A faint flicker of amusement flashed in her green eyes. “It can’t be that bad.”
I drew my brows up regardless of the pinch of my stitches. I would beg to differ. “It’s only… Tamsyn… it seems I’m going to go digging into the past after all.”
“Well, as the past is my forte, have at me.” Tamsyn mustered the smallest smile, and it made what I was going to say hurt all the worse.
Well… there was nothing for it. I sank down into an armchair, back decidedly to the door. “Tell me about you and George Martin.”
Her breath caught in her chest with his name. The denial was formed on her lips and then she snapped her mouth shut. “How did you know?”
The desolation on her face told me everything I needed to know. She was guilty. Of what, I didn’t quite know. Bitterness clawed its way up my throat, taking hold. “I stopped by to speak to Dr. Quick this morning. He seemed to think that George had some help in departing this mortal plane, and said that I ought to speak to you.”
Tamsyn studied the carpet, not speaking.
“Now, I can imagine all sorts of things, Tamsyn Turner—” I hadn’t used her maiden name in years and it felt good on mytongue. Erasing Edward Chenowyth bit by bit, though in truth it was far too late for that. “And I need to know everything. No lies. No omissions. There are now two dead men.” I held my fingers up in the air. “Both of them clearly had something to do with you. And considering someone tried to strangle me in my sleep here, I don’t relish the idea of being number three on the list of bodies at your feet. So if you would please start at the beginning and I’ll do my best to keep up.”
She jerked her head away, lit by the window. “I’d never hurt you. I thought you’d at least believe that.”
I didn’t know what to believe. In truth, I’d never given much thought to what she was capable of. To my mind Tamsyn had always been gentle and kind, but as the death toll linked to her rose, I began to ask that precise question of myself. Could she have killed them? I didn’t know. And that uncertainty frightened me more than it ought to. I cleared my throat, shaking that thought away, struggling to maintain the higher ground. “You did that job years ago. We’re both well past that now. I need the truth.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Now.”
“You were never cruel before, Ruby.”
Her eyes were damp and I couldn’t summon remorse for causing those tears. Not with the fresh ache of betrayal mingled with suspicion in my heart. No one would have blamed her for killing Edward. The man was a menace. “Before, I didn’t question whether my best friend, the woman I used to love more than anyone else, was capable of murder.”
She straightened, nostrils flaring. “I didn’t love Edward, but I didn’t kill him either. I want you to know that. And Ithoughtyou knew me well enough to believe that but evidently I was mistaken.”
“I still cannot understand it. Not a bit. Why would you marry someone you didn’t love when you had other options? I gave you a way out. A third choice. We could have run awayand lived in London as we’d planned. I had enough money for the both of us, with or without your father—”
She stood up, walking to the window and resting her forehead against the cool glass before answering. “Because you are you, Ruby. So brave and fearless. I’ve never had the luxury of courage, even before the war. I was born to marry well. To run a household. To bear children. That was my duty. And you—you made it all sound so easy. But some of us weren’t made to break the rules. Some of us must follow them.” She struggled for the words, folding her fists tight. Her even nails boring dents into the soft flesh of her palms. “During the war you hared off without a fear for your life. Do you know who feared? I did.” She pointed angrily at her chest then turned to face me. “I feared for you every single day and I couldn’t live that way any longer. That’s why. I don’t know how you bore it.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Because when your entire family has been wiped off the earth, there’s very little left to fear.”
“You might have claimed to love me once, Ruby, but you never allowed anyone to love you. How could you expect me to spend my entire life waiting for the day you didn’t come back? Because I knew that day would come. And I wanted a life, a life that Edward could give me. It might have been a mistake to marry him but it was my mistake to make.” She let out a strangled sound that echoed the emotion that was just beginning to rise in my chest.
Had I truly pushed her away? I tried to think back on those days. On the grief and anger that I carried with me in those years after my family died.
“You wear your pain like armor. Daring anyone to challenge you, and yet you never let anyone beneath it.” She paused and shook her head. “It was a lovely dream, Ruby, of being with you. But that’s all it was. We never suited each other, one day you’ll wake up and realize it too.”
I stared at her thunderstruck, her words breaking beneath that very same armor she spoke of and digging into my flesh. I had to change the subject, to move away from the thousands of ways I was wrong in my feelings for her. I folded my arms. “I ask again, tell me about George.”
