Midnight Secrets (37 page)

The constable narrowed his eyes. “My apologies, Mr. Killdaren, Miss Andrews. I didn’t mean to offend. What is it you wished to speak with me about? I’ve a number of details to attend in regards to settling your cousin’s case, and will also have to speak to your aunt about her wishes for Mary’s body.”

I only nodded my head, unable to verbally accept this man’s insincerity. I thought his handling of my cousin’s death criminally inept. “Thank you, but there is no need for you to speak to my aunt. I will. I’d much rather give her the news myself, and we’ll inform you of our plans for Mary’s burial soon. I assume you will have the local coroner examine Mary’s body and give a report?”

“Given her condition, I not sure exactly what that will accomplish,” the constable said. “I think I can handle the details of my job well enough, Miss Andrews.”

“Then you will see to a coroner’s report as Miss Andrews has requested, correct?” Sean’s tone brooked no argument.

“Of course, as I just said.” Constable Poole stiffened, agitated with what he clearly saw as interference into his realm. “Is that all Miss Andrews?”

I glanced at Sean and dug my nails into my palm. “No. I think there should be a reinvestigation into Lady Helen Kennedy’s murder.”

“No!” Sean’s voice cut so sharply I flinched.

The constable smirked and sent Sean an “I told you she was trying to harm you”.

I ignored them both and plunged ahead. “I believe a grave disservice was done to both Lady Helen and the Killdaren family, Constable Poole. And if you won’t investigate the matter further, then I have contacts in journalism that would be very interested in what I have to say.”

“If you won’t mind leaving us now, Constable, I’ll speak to you about this at another time.” Sean moved to the door, closer to me. The moment Constable Poole exited the room, Sean grasped my elbow. “Miss Andrews, I think you need to take a seat.”

“No, Mr. Killdaren. We’re well beyond a polite conversation. What are you so afraid of?”

He faced the fire. “I told you earlier. Only Alex and I had motive. I’ll not see him hanged.”

“But what if your brother is innocent as well? Not just your life is being ruined.”

“I have cause to believe Alex’s anger the night Helen died was beyond his control. I met with Helen last, and the way she described his reaction…Besides, our lives were ruined from conception. Nothing can change that.”
 

“Well, it certainly won’t change if you won’t ever allow yourself to see a different way,” I said, devastated by his blindness. I loved him, and he didn’t love me enough to see another way. The hopelessness of standing there in firelight with him, struggling in a churning sea of pain rather than holding him, cherishing that we both yet lived after coming so close to death, was more than I could bear. I had to leave Killdaren’s Castle, and I had to tell my family that I’d found Mary.

I went to the door and he didn’t stop me, didn’t call me back. I wanted his touch with every fiber of my being, couldn’t imagine never knowing its thrill again. I couldn’t imagine not hearing the timbre of his voice or facing the piercing green of his gaze. Tears fell. I turned to look at him one last time, feeling as if my insides were being twisted into knots. I wished that I could have spent one more night in his arms, loving him as woman to man, burying my hand in the silk of his hair, pressing against the heat of his body, breathing his scent, and feeling the fire of his passion.

He still faced the flames of the fire. “We’ll speak in the morning about taking you to your sisters and your aunt.” His voice was jagged with cutting pain. His hands were fisted at his side and I knew he hurt, that he wasn’t indifferent to me. But he didn’t love enough to let himself live.

I didn’t say anything more. I wouldn’t be here come morning, but I didn’t tell him that, because I didn’t have the words to say goodbye.

I entered the bedchamber I shared with Bridget, dashing at my tears. She, Prudence and Rebecca were there.

“Blimey, Cassie, what is it?”

“I…I have to go now,” I said, bolstering myself.

Prudence gasped, stricken. “Surely, the Killdaren isn’t asking you to leave?”

I shook my head. “He mustn’t know until after I’m gone, and I will leave a note explaining why I left for you to give to him in the morning. I have to go see my sisters and my aunt at Seafarer’s Inn. I have to tell them about Mary.” I couldn’t see Sean again and still hold onto my resolve not to beg him to love me.

But that wasn’t truly possible, and I’d always known it, though I’d forgotten it. Someday I would dream of death again, and what then? What if I dreamed of his death, or the death of our child? If my own mother could step away from me at a moment like that, how could I ask a man to share that burden?

Rebecca ran up to me and I pulled her into my arms for a tight hug.

“Horseman gone. Mary’s in heaven,” she said.

“Yes.” I hugged her tighter, glancing at the surprise on both Prudence’s and Bridget’s faces.

Rebecca had made a huge step, but I had to ask just a little more. I brushed her cheek gently. “Can you tell us more about the horseman and Mary, Rebecca?”

She shook her head. “Horseman came from the sea and took Mary. She cried.” Tears filled her eyes then and I feared she would revert back to her hysteria. “Mum!” she called.

“I’m here, precious.” Prudence enveloped Rebecca in her arms. Rebecca sighed and placed her head on Prudence’s shoulder instead of screaming. We knew then that whatever trauma Rebecca had suffered that day, she was recovering well, though we might never know exactly what happened.

I looked at Bridget and Prudence and Rebecca and my heart squeezed painfully again. How could I leave them? They’d all become so dear. Seemingly reading my mind, Bridget’s eyes watered, and she started fussing with the furniture, speaking very fast, as if hurting and trying to cover it up. “I’ll be leaving here myself, sometime. As soon as we hear from Flora, I’m going to take my mum and my brother there and tend to my mum. The doctor’s still not sure what’s wrong. He doesn’t think it’s the consumption, but she isn’t improvin’ as well as she should. I think it’s because she’s not restin’ as she ought. Keeps taking sewing to help pay for things since Flora’s gone.”

“Well.” I swallowed hard. “You have to let me know where…Oh Bridget…You have to come to Oxford! You, your mum and your brother! You and he can…you both can get an education!”

“Real schooling? Blimey, Cassie.” Bridget’s eyes were brighter than stars. She shook her head, and tears filled her eyes again. “I can’t go. Not yet. I can’t leave Stuart to face the arrest of his mum and his brother alone. I have to help him. And I have to wait on word from Flora too.”

I nodded, understanding, but still feeling as something precious kept escaping me every attempt to hold on to it. “Then later. You must come as soon as you can.”

She nodded.

“And you too, Prudence. You must come to Oxford to visit me and my family. And there are teachers there that could teach Rebecca so many things that she could do.”

Prudence shook her head. “No, Cassie. This is our world. Rebecca and I would be outcasts anywhere else. I know who I am and I’ll not pretend to be different. Besides.” She brushed a loving hand over Rebecca’s head. “I don’t dare leave. As long as Rebecca and I are here, he can’t pretend we don’t exist. He can pretend we don’t matter, but he can’t forget us.”

I saw a sharp stab of pain in Prudence’s eyes before she buried her face against Rebecca’s soft hair. And I realized for the first time that all of her quiet ways, her dignity, and almost haunting beauty were because she loved a man who wouldn’t return her affection.

“The earl,” I whispered.

Prudence nodded.

“Casss, d-d-don’t go,” Rebecca cried, slipping back into her stutter.

“I have to, but I will see you again.” I was determined to keep them a part of my life somehow. All of Mary’s hopes for Rebecca had to come true and I wanted to see it happen, even if from afar. “I have a present for you,” I told Rebecca and reached into my pocket.
 

Heart squeezing, I dug the pheasant shell out of my pocket and ran my finger over the M carved into its smoothness.

“Here, poppet.” I took Rebecca’s hand and pressed the shell into her palm.

“This is my promise that I will see you again. It is a very precious treasure and I’m going to let you keep it for me. It is a beautiful shell from the sea. And every time I see you, I’ll give you another shell so that you can feel some of the wonders from the sea whenever you want to.”

Coming over, Bridget looked down at the shell. “May I see it?”

Rebecca handed it to her. “Your cousin had a shell just like this, she did. Only it had a…” She looked at me, her eyes misty with sadness. “It had a C carved in it.”

Bridget handed the shell back to Rebecca, who absorbed herself in running her tiny fingertips over it.

My smile trembled. “We found the shells while vacationing together when were ten and kept them all of these years to remind us of each other.”

“Thank you,” Prudence said. “I’ll make sure she cares for it and I’ll let her know how special it is when she is older.”
 

“She’ll have many more to her collection by then,” I said. Though little, the pheasant shell was a big promise not to forget everyone here that Mary, and now I, held dear.

Prudence nodded. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but I would prove her wrong. Maybe even one day convince her and Rebecca to come to Oxford for a visit.

“Do you need help getting your things together?” Bridget asked.

I shook my head. “I, uh, readied them earlier, after seeing the doctor. I don’t have much.” I was leaving with so much less than what I’d come to Killdaren’s Castle with. My heart. “I do need a few minutes to write Mr. Killdaren a letter.”

“And I need to get Rebecca to bed.” Prudence’s smile appeared forced.

“I made a promise.” I hugged her and Rebecca.

“A s-s-seashell pw-w-womis-se.” Rebecca held up the shell

“That’s right. A thousand-shell promise.”

Rebecca smiled. “T-h-h-housand.”

Just as soon as Prudence and Rebecca left, Bridget pulled on her blue shawl. “I’ll have Stuart ready the shopping buggy and I’ll ride with you to the inn, if it is all right. It’ll give me time to speak to him about his mum and his brother. I was wrong, you know, about him not knowing what it was like to have his mother and brother hurting and not be able to help. He’s lived his whole life that way, and I didn’t realize it. All I could see was the privileges he’d gotten in life.”

“I’m glad you can see differently now.”

“We’ve been good friends for each other.” Bridget was teary eyed again.

I gave her a big hug. “The best of friends. And I expect you to keep your promise to come to Oxford.”

“I will. In the meantime, I’m making Stuart continue with the classes we started. I want to learn and the others do too.”

“You will learn.” I drew a deep breath, realizing there were so many other things that I’d be leaving undone here. How could I bear it? It was almost as if my life in Oxford never existed. So much of my heart belonged here.

Bridget nodded and started to leave. At the door she turned back toward me. “If you love him, why are you leaving?”

“Sometimes loving means you have to leave. Both people have to want the same thing, and be willing to sacrifice for it, or they can never be together.”

“Like queen and Draco?”

“Yes.”

“I wish we could write this differently.”

“I do too.”

Bridget sighed then left, leaving me with no more excuses. I gathered the pen and paper and prayed for strength. I had to force myself to do the impossible, which was to tell Sean goodbye.
 

Dear Sean,

Forgive me for fleeing, for leaving this letter to say what I must. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye any other way. I came here looking for the truth behind Mary’s death and somehow found a different truth as well: the truth I’ve been hiding from in my own life. In coming here to Killdaren’s Castle and seeing the struggles of those who live in its shadowed walls, I learned that the advice I’d been giving to so many isn’t wholly true. There are more important things in life than etiquette and propriety, and they are not found in the dictates of society. Those things are compassion, love and hope, and are found within the heart. Knowing you has brought them painfully, and beautifully, into my life and into my heart.

I have compassion for your pain, and in the depths of the night my spirit will reach out to comfort you in your darkness. You’ll feel me in the wind rushing in from the sea.

My love for you will endure as long as the stars fill the heavens, for it is not bound by even the frailty of my own heart. Even though you do not hold the same depth of affection for me as I do for you, I know you felt the beauty of our union.

So this is my hope for you, which fills my heart. Don’t spend your life forever beneath the shadow of a curse. Find the courage and the strength to love and to dance beneath the stars.

Eternally yours,

Cassie
 

I slipped silently from Killdaren’s Castle, with my belongings and Mary’s letters in an old potato sack. It was an hour before midnight, and a light fog had eased in from the sea. Its misty fingers wrapped around me, tightening the pain in my heart.

The castle loomed behind me its gray walls dim and its corridors still haunted with silence, as if I’d never been there. The gardens and maze stood before me, dark reminders of things I didn’t want to remember, but would never forget. I didn’t dare look at the gargoyle guarded observatory or think of the stars and what had lain beyond them in Sean’s arms. The tangy salt of sea air mingled with my falling tears, and the moon, a big bright ball of it, shone brightly down, trying to show me that all was not dark with the world at the moment. I didn’t want to see. The stars would never the same as before, for in a twinkling, my life had changed and Sean would be forever imprinted in the heavens as surely as if he were a constellation as large as the universe.