Page 46 of The Secret of the Three Fates
WITHnewfound resolve, I spent the rest of the morning packing Mr. Owen’s things. A stark reminder of my last trip back to New York. I’d returned after the war to deal with matters at our family townhome on Sutton Place. Worried about my state of mind, Hari had insisted on joining me. It would be good to have a friend, he said, when packing away the memories of my family—before selling the house for a fraction of its worth. We spent two weeks there, with the curtains closed up, hiding the fact the notorious Vaughn girl had returned. I spent two weeks drinking away the vestiges of the war, struggling to place the memories of my family into boxes and crates, to be stowed away and never thought upon again.
As I folded Mr. Owen’s dressing gowns, the earlier memory was close enough I might have touched it had I not hoped—no—knownthat I would help him. I might not have been able to keep my family from dying on that ship, but I could save Mr. Owen.
What had he been thinking, confessing to a crime like that? But deep down, I knew. He’d told me as much whether I wanted to believe it or not. That must have been what he’d been arguing with his brother about this morning. He wouldn’t allow me tocome to harm. Mr. Owen had known… he’d known the inspector had intended to arrest me and instead he gave his life for mine.
I slammed the trunk lid down and screamed. The sort of scream one would expect of an animal, frightened and wounded in the woods. A scream that brought back all the pain and ache of the last decade. He loved me. He all but told me so.
Once finished, I spoke with the man at the desk to arrange to have Mr. Owen’s things picked up by the duke’s man, and then I set off to find Ruan. Had he heard? He surely would have by now—but if he had, why had he not come for me? Unless he intended to leave now that he was free to go.
I wouldn’t blame him if he did, and I was more than capable of saving Mr. Owen on my own if I must. I just didn’t want to. I made it as far as the terrace when I spotted him. He was walking slowly across the field toward the bridge in the early evening fog. He was far away but I would have recognized the slope of his shoulders anywhere. My heart squeezed at the sight of him and I raced after him.
I was out of breath by the time I reached the bridge. Ruddy-headed wigeons made their way to way to shore, noisily abandoning the water as I approached him at long last.
Ruan stood against the rail, his palms flat as he stared into the water. The sun was setting behind us. It was quiet and for once we were truly alone. Even the sound was damped from the thick air.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” His voice was hoarse, but he did not turn to face me.
“Did you hear about Mr. Owen?”
He nodded with a frown. “I spoke to him as he was leaving. He wanted me to tell you not to blame yourself.”
I let out a strangled sob.Not blame myself—how could I not?
“None of this is your fault,” Ruan murmured into my hair as he scooped me into his arms, holding me tight against him.I let myself melt into his embrace. It was there, in the silence of the fog that I told him everything that I’d learned. Of what Lady Amelia revealed in the library, of my growing suspicion of both the youngest medium and Andrew Lennox, of how I’d failed Mr. Owen. All of the sentiment tumbled out of me and I was helpless to control it.
“Hush…” he murmured. “I hear you. I hear… all of it.”
And in that moment I knew he did. All the fear, all the sadness. He knew every crack, every crevice within my very heart. Whether it was because of being a Pellar, or the odd connection between the two of us, Ruan knew me inside and out.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, his beard scratching my skin. “We will help him, Ruby. I promise you. You are the cleverest person I’ve ever known. Together we can figure this out.”
I paused, looking up at him, his pale eyes full of emotion that I could not name if I tried. “We?”
He nodded. “We will save Owen from himself.”
I wiped at the wetness of my nose. It was terribly difficult to look dignified while weeping into a man’s chest. “But you are miserable here, you said it yourself this morning. Why would you stay?”
Ruan gaped. It was as if I’d suddenly sprouted wings before him. “Why would I stay? Ruby… I…”
It made no sense. He hated leaving Cornwall.Why would he stay in Scotland with no reason to—
“Because of you. Do you think so little of me that you’d believe I would turn my back on you and Owen now? Walk away and go back to my cottage and my garden and never once think on that remarkable woman who wandered into my village six weeks ago determined to prove me wrong in every conceivable way?”
I sniffled again, unable to look him in the eye. “I don’t remember her. Not now. I feel so… so…”
“Lost?” he supplied.
“It is truly unfair how you do that.”
He let out an amused sound beneath his breath. “It’s only reasonable. You love Owen, and he’s an infuriating old man but you are an infuriating young woman. It’s part of your appeal—the both of you.”
I sniffled again. “I don’t know what to do. I cannot see my way out of this.”
“We’ll figure it out, just as we did before. This may not be Cornwall but the mechanics are the same. A person killed someone, now we have to go dig around and ferret out the truth, mmm?”
“I do not understand how you can be calm about all this.”
“Don’t you?” He raised a brow. “Ruby, I…” He paused, shaking his head, and instead leaned down, tipping my chin up with his forefinger. The wind whipped around us and I unconsciously moved into his lee. He took me by the shoulders, gently rubbing the tight muscles there and taking away a bit of the ache inside my very soul. That familiar cold rush flooded through my veins until I no longer wept. The tears replaced by resolve I thought I’d lost. Wewouldsave him. Just as we’d found the killer in Lothlel Green.
