Page 92 of The Secret of the Three Fates
I arched a brow in surprise. “This sudden sentimentality is very unlike you.”
He snorted, his mustache twitching. “Thatman did not have the week thatthisman had. I nearly lost you, Ruby—and all because I did not tell you the truth sooner. Had I done that, perhaps none of this would have happened.”
“And if you had, then the duke would have found some other girl to hurt. No. I do not regret that you brought me here. I only regret I wasn’t able to stop him sooner.”
Mr. Owen harrumphed. “Well. As long as you know what you’re in for. Let’s go home before the cold and damp finishes what the duke began.”
Nowthatsounded more like Mr. Owen. “Come now, it’s not eventhatcold out. It’s well above freezing.” I linked my arm into his and rested my head on his shoulder.
“Says the lass wearing my overcoat.”
“Shall we go home, then? For your delicate sensibilities?”
He nodded sadly as we began to walk down the pier. “Mrs. Penrose will never forgive me for allowing you to get shot.”
“You know, we don’t have to tell her that part.”
He scoffed as we followed the path into town and back to our old life. “As if you can hide the scar. Besides, you know as good as I, that woman is clairvoyant. Why don’t we skip Exeter?Go to the continent… or beyond? You know I’ve never been to America…”
“Mr. Owen, it would take nothing short of the second coming of Christ to get me on a boat again.”
The old man laughed, knowledge deep in his dark eyes, and I dreaded what that laugh meant.
EPILOGUE
ITwas late November. Nearly a month had passed since the tragedies at Manhurst, and I still had not written to Ruan. Nor had he written me, for that matter. He was right, of course—I was afraid. I had known that from the moment I sent him away. And no matter how much I tried to push thosefeelingsaway, the man remained stubbornly in my waking thoughts.
Of course, now the only trouble was I had to overcome my considerable pride to tell him as much. But there would be time for me to sort that out in the spring as Mr. Owen had plans for us to spend the entire month of December in Oxford while he attended some cabal of aging antiquarians.
Investigators still did not know what caused the blaze at Manhurst. They had checked all the wiring, the fireplaces, even the outside, tirelessly seeking a plausible explanation. But for all that, they came up short. Perhaps that was Mariah’s final act, destroying the castle that had caused her such pain in life. It would be a fitting end, but I had my suspicions that the inspector had a hand in the burning of the castle—even if such a thing could never be proven.
After all, there were no such things as coincidences.
I received a letter two weeks ago from the detectives investigating the duke’s affairs. They told me they’d found at least three bodies hidden on the Isle of May, high up in the cliffs overlooking the sea. All three tucked away into the stone, sheltered from the elements for all these years. At first, they believed they’d discovered an old ossuary tied to the abbey that had once been on the isle, but again it was Mariah that gave away the truth, as she’d tried desperately to do in life.
For on the day she died, Mariah had been wearing her wedding band. An innocuous gold ring that might have belonged to anyone, except inside bore the simple inscription:
NUNC SCIO QUID SIT AMOR—2ND OFMAY 1872
The very day that the Viscount of Hawick, one Owen Alexander Lennox married Miss Mariah Campbell.
Upon learning of the discovery, I immediately set about having her body moved back home to Hawick House, where she could rest in peace overlooking Manhurst in the grave that Mr. Owen had built for her decades before. It was a sad occasion to be sure, but Mr. Owen appeared oddly at peace with the fact.
We’d found Mariah at last.
Early snow drifted lazily from the clouds around us as we stood by the monument at Hawick House. Mr. Owen cleared his throat, a handful of hothouse blooms clutched in his hands, uncertain as a new suitor.
“We are not that different, you and I,” he said at last, his voice breaking.
“What do you mean?”
“For years I held on to the forlorn hope that she would return to me. Just as you did with your family. Clinging to that notion far past the time I ought to have given up. And hope. Oh, hope is a treacherous thing.”
“I don’t…”
He held up a hand, silencing me. “When someone is gone, and you know they will never return, there is no choice but to let them go. Oh, I certainly would have raged and blamed myself for her death. Drowned myself in drink and opium until inch by inch her memory hurt just a little bit less. Carrying on much as you did in that first year you spent with me in Exeter.”
I might have been offended were he not entirely correct.
