Page 86 of The Secret of the Three Fates
Think, Ruby, think.
“You were the one arguing with her on the bridge the night she disappeared, weren’t you?”
The duke turned with a serpentine smile. “Ah, Malachi did see us that night. I wondered. He always was sniffing around her skirts to the point he even came to one of the Eurydicean meetings looking for her. Nowthatwas entertaining, Malachi Lennox full to burst with fire and brimstone, thinking himself so morally superior to the rest of us… Owen was the better of the two brothers. More interesting, more intelligent. Malachi had been a jealous zealot his whole life, just like his mother before him. Theman was sick with lust for his brother’s wife. A far greater sin, I’d wager, than any of mine.”
My stomach roiled at the dismissive way he spoke of Mariah. I could hear the clanking of Genevieve’s restraints behind me. His words affecting her as well.
“How could you betray them like that? Mr. Owen took you under his wing, he was kind to you. You said yourself you could never repay the debt you owed him and yet you harmed his wife!”
The duke shrugged with the ease of a man who had never faced a single consequence for his actions in all his days. There was rustling of an animal from the bushes behind the croft, drawing my attention for a half second before the duke spoke again. “What is a woman, to a man? He should be grateful that I rid him of her.”
“You killed her…”
He turned the rifle toward me and took a step closer, the ground wet beneath his feet. “I did what had to be done. I’d not meant to do it at all—but she wouldn’t stop talking. Idiotic woman nattering on about how she would expose me for what happened that night if I did not confess. It wasn’t my fault she slipped from the cliff.” He rubbed his temple, his signet ring catching the light breaking through the clouds. “It was a relief after all that time to be done with it. At least she ceased endlessly going on about what happened with that girl.”
Girl?My mind reeled as the duke kept unfurling more and more of this twisted tale.
“She would have brought down all of the Eurydiceans with the scandal. Of course none of it would have mattered had I not allowed her to bring her camera to the island. It would have been her words against ours.”
And who would believe a woman against the might of a duke…
Genevieve’s attention moved to Elijah. He was waking up. Good God, this was bad. I had to keep the duke looking at me. Especially as I doubted Elijah was restrained.
“And whatdidMariah know?” I took a step closer to the duke in challenge. “What did she see that she wasn’t supposed to?”
Now what, Ruby? What are you going to do when the man has a rifle aimed at you?
He started to deny it, I could see it on his face before he flashed me another of those sickening smiles. “I suppose it doesn’t matter as you won’t be leaving the island. Pity the inspector was such a poor shot. I gave explicit instructions to deal with you, but he couldn’t even accomplish that task. It would have been a great deal easier to clear Hawick’s name after his foolish confession without you nosing about.”
He told me nothing I had not already guessed. I was not leaving this island alive, but I could buy Ruan and Andrew a little more time. I wet my lips. “I ask again. What did Mariah know?”
The duke took a step closer, cutting the distance between the end of his rifle and me, a ghost of a memory crossing his expression. “There was a particular girl there at that final meeting of the Eurydiceans. Lord Morton brought her as a gift for me. I got carried away… as one will…” That oily self-satisfied smile spread across his face and I longed to rip the expression from him. To drive the shears into his face and ruin it forever, damn the consequences. “Needless to say, she did not wake up the next morning. All the world was told she caught a fever while visiting the island. No one wanted the truth of it brought out in the open. Scandal would be the least of our problems. For a wellborn girl to have died during one of the rites? Unthinkable. We would all be ruined. Morton. Myself. I could not allow it to happen.”
“Does Lady Morton know what a monster her husband was?” I asked softly.
The duke shrugged. “Why should I care? The foolish woman only cares for her laces and ribbons. Do you think she would mind what her husband was up to?”
“How many girls have you killed?”
“That was an accident. I’d have never intentionally killed one of our kind.”
“How many girls…” I gritted out, not giving a damn about his misguided moral relativity.
The duke drew nearer, jamming the muzzle into my chest.
My pulse thundered in my veins. The bastard would kill me, kill me and get away with all of it. My grip slipped on the shears from sweat and rain, but I pressed myself harder into the stone wall behind me.
Suddenly I recalled the photographs from Lucy’s room. The one of the girl in the middle of what I’d thought to be some sort of ritual. I could only see her back in that image but I was certain that was the poor murdered girl he spoke of. “And Mariah had photographs of her on the island. She had photographs of all of you,” I breathed out. I was either foolish or brave, but had to keep him talking, because if he was talking, he wasn’t shooting.
He nodded and took a step back, the muzzle now gently resting on my breast. “At first, I did not know that Mariah had witnessed what happened—let alone had captured images of the ritual—but when she fled the island that very night, I knew that she had to be kept quiet one way or the other.”
“Mariah was running away from the Eurydiceans…”
The duke yawned. “This is growing tedious. I have never understood the appeal of stubborn women. Owen seems downright captivated by your kind, but you’re all too much trouble if you ask me.” He gave me a considering look.
“No… you never did understand anything, did you, James?” I turned to the sound of Mr. Owen’s rich voice, echoing in the roofless walls of the croft. I’d never seen him this angry and for the first time since the duke arrived, a brief bubble of hope for myself rose in my chest. A hope that drowned the instant I spotted Ruan, coming up the hill behind him.
Stubborn, foolish man. Why can’t he let me get killed on my own?
