Page 61 of The Secret of the Three Fates
I didn’t know. Perhaps the ring was not a clue at all and Mariah had left it with Mr. Owen for some entirely unrelated reason. A token to say she loved him and wanted him to be brave. My throat constricted. It was all utterly hopeless. Mr. Owen would be convicted and Lucy’s killer would be free and I—
“Miss Vaughn?”
Andrew Lennox was standing in the doorway looking grimmerthan I’d ever seen him. I had no idea how long he’d been there, or how much he’d overheard of our conversation.
“May I speak with you in the hall?”
I nodded, tucking the ring into my pocket and followed him out. He pulled the door closed behind me.
“I must apologize in advance for what I am about to do, and I want to make abundantly clear that if this weremyhome, and at all within in my power, I would not do this thing, but my father is most adamant on the matter.”
His expression was pained and earnest and yet I did not quite believe his words. I’d known Mr. Owen too long to judge a book on the basis of its cover, no matter how fine the lettering.
“My father… he’s set in his ways and he has… a certain way of doing things…” Andrew hemmed, leaning against the wall, waiting until a pair of maids passed by and were out of earshot.
“Spit it out, Andrew.”
“My father wishes you and Mr. Kivell to return to Manhurst at once. He believes that… that you are a danger to us.”
“He’s not the first to think that,” I grumbled.
Andrew furrowed his brow.
“It’s quite all right. We’ll go. But first, I want to speak with your father. There are quite a few questions I have for him.”
Some questions more pointed than others—but I had a sense he wouldn’t answer them. At least not to my satisfaction.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVEPersephone Visited the Devil
MALACHILennox sat in the family dining room as if he were holding court, though there were no courtiers around. That is, unless one counted Irish wolfhounds as part of a royal retinue. The man wasn’t even the viscount, and yet because of Mr. Owen’s misfortunes, Malachi had carried out the role for most of his life. He didn’t bother looking up from his supper to acknowledge my presence. Three dogs—brutish and hairy—lay lazily on the marble floor of the dining room, following me about with their dark eyes.
Malachi studied his supper plate with an expression torn between surprise and disgust at my sudden appearance in the dining room. He must have assumed I’d skulk away after receiving Andrew’s message. Clearly, he did not know me. Malachi gestured for me to enter, and for his servants to leave. Both of which happened immediately. He was a man used to being obeyed, and had grown far too comfortable filling Mr. Owen’s shoes as the head of the Lennox family.
My mind darted back to the state of our town house in Exeter when I first moved in. How it had been slowly decaying for years, while by all appearances Hawick House was in good order. Morethan that, it thrived. Had this man withheld funds from his own brother? Anger boiled beneath my skin.
“Say what you intend and be gone with you,” Malachi said, ripping apart a roasted game hen and biting a chunk of meat off the leg. Juices coated his lower lip and dripped down his jaw. My stomach turned at the sight of it. “I don’t have all day, girl. I presume my son delivered my message and that’s what brings you here.” He looked up then, pinning me with his cold stare. Eyes like Mr. Owen’s yet vastly different.
I held my ground, back straight. “We are leaving, Mr. Kivell and I, as you requested.”
“Weak boy. I told him not to give you excuses, to send you back to where you’ve come from.”
“It seems your son is in possession of the manners you lack,” I snapped back, unable to guard my own temper.
The old man’s stringy gray hair fell in his face. “Well, get on with it and be off with you.”
I stepped closer to the mahogany table, my hands curving around the back of a Victorian dining chair. “Why do you hate him so? I know about what happened with Mariah, but he is yourbrother.Why let him be punished when you know as well as I that he didn’t kill Lucy?”
Malachi blinked at me. “Innocent? Lass, I don’t know what fairy stories he’s beguiled you with, but my brother hasn’t an innocent bone in his body. He’s a wicked and cruel man, and it’s best you learn it now before any more harm befalls you.”
Cruel? I’d known him long enough to be fairly certain he was anything but.
“He neglected Mariah.” He mumbled between wet chews of the meat. “Ignored her. Stole her from the virtuous and righteous path and took her down to hell with him. She was my Persephone—light and beautiful and he stole her away. And once he had his prize, he used her and cast her aside like a brokenplaything. Leaving her alone in Scotland while he did God only knows what down in London.”
My knuckles grew white on the chair back. The way Mr. Owen spoke of Mariah wasn’t that of a man who had cast aside his wife.
“Year after year she faded away, wilting under his pitiless care. There is no question that my brother killed her—if not by his hand then by his deeds.”
“Perhaps you were blinded by your jealousy. Saw only what you wanted to see,” I spat out.
