Page 65 of The Secret of the Three Fates
I seriously doubted it would bring me peace, but if it could bring me Lucy’s killer, that would be the next best thing.
“OVER MY DEADbody!” Ruan growled as he shrugged away from my hands and began prowling about his bedchamber, incensed by my idea of creating a trap with the ring. He was remarkably hale considering he’d been barely able to keep his eyes open when I left him in this room a few hours before.
“Thatcanbe arranged if you don’t hold still,” I growled, holding the clean dressings in my hands. “Now get back here.”
He grumbled, sinking down on the mattress. I grabbed a little jar of salve that he’d made earlier and unscrewed the lid. The herbal scent was overpowering. I dabbed my fingers in it, and gently began rubbing it over his stitches as he’d instructed.
Ruan winced, his beautiful eyes closed. “Ruby…” His voice was gentler this time. “The idea is reckless. We’ve already been shot once.”
I caught my lower lip beneath my teeth as I wiped the remnants of the sticky medicine from my fingers onto his unmarred other shoulder. “We don’t know for certain that it was the same person.”
He held a clean dressing to his chest as I unraveled the long bandage, preparing to wrap him up again. “And you think someone else here would decide to use you for target practice?”
“How do you know they weren’t aiming for you?”I certainly would be right now.
He sighed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling.
I finished wrapping the long cloth around his shoulder, securing the bandage, careful not to let my hands linger too much on his bare skin. The man was temptation, even in this sorry state. “Ruan—we are out of ideas. And there’s something else…” I sank down onto the dresser, pulling my left leg up under my rump, my right dangling loosely.
He watched me, clutching his clean shirt to his chest. “I can’t hear you, Ruby, you’re going to have to tell me.”
I nodded with a frown and proceeded to tell him what I’d overheard at Hawick House between Andrew and his father, what Mr. Owen had told me earlier that morning about the last time he saw his wife, his oddly convenient lapse in memory—his brother’s recollection of the same events and my own growing suspicions about Mr. Owen. “Oh… and we were right. Mr. Sharpe is Elijah Keene.”
He stared at me, his eyes dark with emotion. “Have I missed anything else while I’ve been napping?”
I let out a startled laugh and shook my head. “What do you make of it?”
“It sounds to me like Owen killed his wife.”
“I know—but I refuse to believe it. Besides, I know he didn’t kill Lucy, and he certainly wouldn’t have harmed us.”
He raised his brows.
My stomach knotted. “Even if itwasMr. Owen, it doesn’t explain the photographs. The mediums were afraid of something—afraid enough they sent for him. They had to believe he could help them. Besides, I learned one other thing at Rivenly. Lady Morton? Her husband was one of the Eurydiceans. A particularly nasty one, if what Mr. Owen said holds any weight.”
“It comes back to the ring again,” Ruan murmured.
I swung my leg aimlessly, bare heel gently thumping against the wood of his dresser. “I can’t help but think he’s right. Mariah knew something. She had some proof—some evidence—and the ring is the key to all of it.”
Ruan exhaled loudly, drumming the fingers of his good hand on his blanket. “Is she still here?”
I blinked. “Who?”
“Lady Morton?”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe so. I was told she was leaving before we got shot. I cannot fathom she’d remain.”
“Are you sure you want to do this second séance?”
“I’m out of other ideas.”
Ruan remained silent for several seconds before he stood and started struggling to pull his shirt over his wounded shoulder. “Very well. We’ll do this your way. I don’t like the idea of another séance. But remember, I cannot hear you anymore, Ruby—andthatfrightens me a good deal. I could not bear it if something happened to you.”
Nor I you.I straightened my spine and turned to the door. “Tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVENA Twist of Fate
