Page 23 of The Secret of the Three Fates
Ruan rubbed at his dark brown whiskers and shook his head. “Not much. There was fear there—but that’s to be expected as there is a killer on the grounds.”
I waved off that thought. “Or if they’re afraid of discovery.”
Ruan arched a brow. “You cannot possibly suspect two women because they areafraid. That’s not evidence. Half the people on the bloody estate are afraid.”
No. No, it wasn’t.Evidence.The word settled uncomfortably in my head as I recalled precisely what the inspector had unwittingly revealed to me in the interrogation closet.There was no evidence.
“You didn’t tell me that before,” Ruan murmured, evidently having overheard my thoughts. I shook my head and started off toward the bridge. I had to see for myself what remained. While the inspector didn’t find evidence, maybe I could.
The night I found Lucy’s body remained stubbornly in my mind. Perhaps Ruan could make sense of it. I hurried on across the pasture toward the bridge, which was just peeking out over the horizon. The trees in the distance had begun to change their colors. Greens mixed through with umbers, yellows, and oranges. Sheep dotted the landscape, grazing beneath trees. Fleece thick and white, bleating out at my approach. The splinters in my hand long forgotten and replaced by curiosity at what we might find there.Or what we didn’t find. Either could be telling.
Ruan and I paused at the foot of the bridge. There were voices ahead. One male, the other female. It appeared to be the elusive Mr. Sharpe and the youngest medium. I held a hand out behind me to still Ruan as I drew nearer, not certain what we were interrupting.
“—You are going to get yourself in trouble if you aren’t more careful—” Sharpe said coldly.
The young medium placed a finger in the center of his chestwhich he snatched away, holding it in his left hand. She said something low and soft that I couldn’t make out from this distance.
Whatever it was, his expression softened as he looked down at her, still clasping her wrist in his hand. I couldn’t decide if I’d interrupted a lovers’ quarrel or something more sinister.
Mr. Sharpe’s voice dropped as he purred. “Do you now? Because I—” But the rest of his sentence died away when he saw me standing there. The impervious mask I’d once known so well in New York slipped back over his elegant features and for the briefest of moments Mr. Sharpe became Elijah Keene again. It wasn’t my imagination at all. I might have even convinced myself again that it wasn’t him, had he not betrayed the truth with the myriad emotions crossing his face: surprise, fear, and finally settling into anger.
As if he had any right to those sentiments after what he did back then. I was going to be sick. My stomach churned and I reached out, laying my hand on the solidness of the bridge rail, as if grounding myself would make the truth more palatable.
The medium took advantage of his distraction and jerked her hand from Sharpe before slapping him across the face. Not a lovers’ quarrel then. She darted past me on the bridge, with the scent of rose water trailing in her wake.
Mr. Sharpe drew nearer to me, achingly familiar. Elijah had been a beautiful man when I’d last seen him in New York, but this man no longer possessed that boyish softness, making him even more arresting than he had been in his youth.
The wound in my chest fresh and raw as I whispered his name. “Elijah…”
He turned to me and the same pale blue eyes that my younger sister mooned over, looked back at me. It had to be him. Ithadto be. “I am afraid you are mistaken, Miss Vaughn. Now if you’d excuse me.” He took off at a more leisurely pace, but following in the exact same path as the youngest medium.
I didn’t hear Ruan approach until he settled his hip on the railing of the bridge beside me. “Who is Elijah Keene?”
“How much of that did you hear?”
He cocked his head to one side with a frown. “More than you likely intended me to. He hurt you. Badly.”
“Ah. Yes. Well. I cannot be certain, Mr. Sharpe looks so like Elijah that I cannot make sense of it. The resemblance is uncanny.”
Ruan shifted where he stood, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Was he your… ah…” The tips of his ears turned an endearing shade of pink as he flushed.
“Lover?” I looked up at him through my lashes with a grin. It never ceased to amuse me how shy he could be about physical congress. For a man who has delivered more babies than I could count, he certainly couldn’t speak of the act of begetting one without turning an adorable shade of pink. I cast my gaze back down to the ground and shook my head. I’d been scarcely sixteen years old when Christopher came to my father’s attention. A promising young alderman with a head for politics. Daddy thought it would be an advantageous marriage—uniting our family with the man promised to be the rising star of New York politics. I’d been a girl, smitten by the idea of love and Christopher had noticed that naiveté a mile away. He and Elijah were always together—thick as thieves my mother had said—always attending the same dinner parties, the same plays, they even were in business together. It was only natural that I’d befriend Elijah if I planned to marry his best friend. Elijah had even been there the night of the Vanderbilts’ ball—when Christopher had convinced me that we did not need to wait until marriage. What was a wedding when two people loved one another as we did? Granted, Christopher already had a wife that no one knew of. I still don’t understand what he thought he would gain from his web of lies. Could one truly get away with bigamy in the modern age?
“Ruby.” Ruan reached out and wrapped me into his arms. “It’s all right. They cannot harm you now. Either of them.”
I rested my forehead against his chest, breathing in the green scent of him and feeling my anxieties slowly start to melt away. His right hand stroked the back of my head, with each touch drawing out the bone-deep ache inside. “I know,” I whispered. “But it doesn’t make the memories hurt any less.”
“No. It doesn’t, but you really ought to have told me.” He ran his hand soothingly down my back.
I wriggled out of his embrace, leaning back and raking my hands through my hair. “What difference does it make? I cannot even be certain itishim. It’s been thirteen years, Ruan. And even if it was him, what does it matter? The Elijah I knew was not the sort of man that would murder a medium. Could you sense what they were arguing about?”
He shook his head. “Only emotion.”
“This Pellar business of yours is not very helpful, you know.”
He grinned, before turning to the water behind me. His smile faded. “This is where she died?”
“I don’t suppose there are any chatty ghosts around who want to tell you what happened.” My gaze dropped to his lips for a half second before I looked away. “Right. Not that kind of witch either. Pity.” I slipped away from him, explaining exactly what I’d found here the night that Lucy was killed. I moved to where the salt circle had once been and bent down on my hands and knees, looking carefully along the gravelly surface. The inspector was right. Even the charcoal flowers that had been on each column had been dutifully removed in the hours following Lucy’s death.
