Page 62 of The Secret of the Three Fates
“Saw,lass? I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw Mariah on the bridge the night she disappeared. The same night my brother returned from London drunk enough he could hardly stand on his own two feet. Did he tell you that when you tookmy driverto see him today?” But Malachi didn’t want an answer; he carried on, his voice growing louder with each word. “Who knows what unnatural deeds she’d interrupted in London when she sent for him?”
Mr. Owen hadn’t mentioned being drunk. “He said she wanted to speak with him. Do you know why?” My palms grew damp as I flexed my fingers on the wood.
One of the dogs began scratching itself, paw thumping on the floor. “I don’t. She would not speak of it to me, but I know she was afraid. I found her weeping in the garden that very morning. She told me he would come. That he’d know how to fix things. How to make things right.”
Cold dread crawled up my neck. “And then what happened?”
He waved a meaty drumstick at me and my stomach roiled. “The servants heard them arguing that night in his room not long after he returned. A mighty stramash. I dinna ken what happenedinside,but I was thereoutsidewhen she left his room. Tears streaming down her face. She wouldn’t speak of it. Wouldn’t tell me what he did to her behind that door. But I could see plain as day that she was afraid. If I’d realized…” His own eyes grew misty as he took another bite of the bird, grunting in annoyance.
“What about your brother? Did you see him again after they argued?”
“Aye… we had words, he and I. I told him if he wouldn’t be a proper husband to her he ought to leave her be. That I’d take care of her. Owen was as drunk as I’d ever seen him, slurring his words.”
That didn’t sound like him at all. “What did he say to that?” I didn’t like the picture he was painting of his brother.
Malachi let out a dark laugh. “Told me to mind my own wife and stop bothering his.”
“Why are you convinced he killed her? Many men get roaring drunk and simply wake up with an aching head. They don’t kill their wives.”
His expression shuttered. “I followed her that night. Saw her go to him on the bridge. They argued. Then he took her into his arms. At the time I believed they were reconciling. I waited in the shadows then once I believed she was safe, I returned home.”
“You saw Mr. Owen on the bridge with Mariah the night she disappeared?” This was terrible, and pulled into question everything I’d learned. My heart sank. “You’re certain it was him?”
“It was dark but there’s no one else it could have been. Who else would Mariah have gone to? She loved my brother against all her better judgment. She’d not go willingly with another man. But my brother? He simply wanted her as another of his curiosities.”
“Did Mariah have any…giftsas Lucy did?”
“Aye, she thought she had the sight. A seer. It’s heathen nonsense, but she believed it. And my brother was intrigued by the idea. A medium and a seer in one family. He was giddy with what sort of child they might have. It sickened me.”
Mr. Owen told me that they’d tried for a child, but that it was Mariah who was desperate to have one, not he. Could he have been lying to me yet again? Or was he simply shifting the truthas he was fond of doing? No. I couldn’t countenance that. IknewMr. Owen. He was a good man, even if misguided at times. His brother must have misconstrued what he saw, looked at the facts, and miscalculated the sum.
“As I said, I returned to the house. The next morning, she was gone.”
I thought I might be sick.
“There was blood. A great deal of it on the bridge to Manhurst. Smeared across the stone rail and one of the columns. Along with bits of her fair hair.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “That bastard must have crushed her skull and killed her. I know it. And if I’d stayed—if I hadn’t been such a great heartsick fool…” His voice broke at last as his eyes grew glassy with tears.
There was no artifice here. Malachi too had loved Mariah. Where was the truth? Was it Mr. Owen’s or his brother’s or something in between? My throat constricted. “Mr. Owen said the body wasn’t found…”
He gripped the silver-handled table knife hard. “No. I had the lake drained. My brother refused to do it himself, told everyone that she couldn’t be dead, that he would find her and bring her back to Hawick House. It was all to cover his tracks, is what I say…”
My pulse thundered in my veins as I struggled to keep up.
Malachi waggled his gnarled forefinger in my direction. “Why else would he leave as he did after she died, never to show his face here again? Guilt. That’s why.” He grimaced at his plate, shoving it away, dishes clattering and scattering his supper across the tabletop. The dogs perked up at the sound, eager to snag a bit of discarded meat. “Damn you, you’ve put me off my food. This is why I wanted you gone. Gone!” His shout rattled around in my head.
Truth be told, Iwantedto be gone. Pack my bags and head back to Exeter—but I was in too deep now.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIXA Second-Chance Séance
MYconversation with Malachi rehashed all the small insecurities and fears I’d had about Mr. Owen since arriving in Scotland. Each lie and prevarication over the last handful of years, things I’d once deemed benign, suddenly took on a more malevolent tone. He’d hidden his entire identity from me, and yet here I was, willingly ready to believe yet another lie. I might not have shared the details of my past with him, but I never once pretended to be someone I was not. I’d always been Ruby Vaughn.
But could he be a killer?
I swallowed hard, not ready to answer that question.
The three-mile journey along the main road back to Manhurst exhausted Ruan enough that he went straight to bed and fell fast asleep before I managed to close the door behind me. A greedy part of me wanted to stay with him, to reassure myself he was safe here and that I hadn’t done him any lasting harm. But my mind was too cloudy for all that. Instead, I locked him in and made for the library to sort my thoughts.
The tale that Malachi Lennox wove was one of passion, betrayal, and murder. I twisted the ring in my pocket. His story alsoechoed what the spirit had announced at the very first séance. She too spoke of betrayal. Of greed. Of love.
