Chapter Ten. Lady Detectiving

C HAPTER T EN

Lady Detectiving

IT took only twenty minutes of wandering the halls of Manhurst before I found Ruan in the courtyard. He was sitting alone at a marble-topped table near the edge of the slate flags with a pot of tea and his head in a book. In the hours since we’d seen each other this morning he must have secured a room—or Mr. Owen secured one for him—as he’d managed to both bathe and change from his rumpled suit into a smart pair of gray trousers and an improbably green cardigan. His shorter curls were rebelling against whatever he’d used to slick them back, and I could not help but smile at the sight of them. I hesitated, drinking in the entirely un-Ruan-like sight. When I’d first met him at the seaside, with his trousers rolled up and knee-deep in the water he’d seemed free from the world around him, yet here in this place he appeared utterly confined by it. Bound by the rules of polite society. I missed it a bit—that untamed Ruan—but I supposed I could appreciate this version as well.

I cleared my throat as I approached the table.

He didn’t look up at all, simply folded the corner of his page and closed the book before setting it down. “What’s your plan?”

I ignored his question, staring at the desecrated medical text he’d been reading. The horror evident on my face. “I cannot believe you just did that.”

He arched a brow in challenge. “It’s a book, Ruby. They are meant to be used. Surely, you’ve seen worse than this living with Owen. Now, are you going to tell me what brought you out here or do I have to start guessing?”

The courtyard was relatively empty with the exception of the duke’s wife, Catherine, I think Mr. Owen said her name was. She and Lady Morton were deep in conversation, having not taken any notice of me. Odd, as Lady Morton rarely wasted the opportunity to stare disapproving daggers at me whenever I entered a room.

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Can we go somewhere?” Private.

He must have heard me, because he nodded, gathering up the misused text and tucking it into the large pocket on his cardigan. He took a sip of the tea before placing the cup back on the saucer. “Shall we?”

Ruan matched me stride for stride as we walked out across the pasture with no real direction in mind. The speed at which we fell back into that easy companionship we’d had in Cornwall both surprised and comforted me. He didn’t interrupt me once as I told him what I’d learned from Lady Amelia in the orangery followed by my unpleasant encounter with the inspector and how determined the authorities were that I’d had something to do with Lucy’s death.

The cool autumn wind whipped at my hair as I paused, pushing it back from my face, and I looked up at him. “What do you think?”

He huffed out a breath, stuffing his hands into his pockets. His green eyes cast toward the sky as he weighed his thoughts. “What am I not thinking?”

“That’s not very helpful. I wish we still had her body. The inspector indicated that they removed it from the estate early this morning.”

Ruan gave me a puzzled look. “Why in the gods’ names do you want her body?”

I poked him in the ribs. “I have a dead medium. Maybe a Pellar would be useful in this instance.”

“Doubtful. My head is a disaster. I’m afraid I’m less than useful at present. I thought tea and quiet would help matters but it only grows worse by the moment. The noise in the courtyard was worse than inside the castle.”

“How is that possible—you were alone—” but the word died on my lips. “Ruan, those women out there with you. Did you hear them?”

“It doesn’t work that way—not usually. As I told you—most times when I can hear a person’s thoughts it’s a word here or there. A general sense or feeling of something. Dread. Fear. You though…” He hesitated, studying my face, then let out a strange laugh before shaking his head. “You are entirely different and I do not understand that at all.”

Because you hear me.

He nodded again, his lower lip caught in his teeth. “It’s better all the way out here. At the house you’re scarcely louder than anyone else—imagine a whisper competing with the roar of an engine. It worries me.”

“Do you have any idea why that would be?” I took a moment to orient myself. Manhurst was far in the distance. We’d nearly wandered onto Hawick lands again—probably a mile or more from the house. “Or do you think it’s because we’re standing in the middle of a field up to our knees in mud with only sheep to compete for your attention?” As if prompted, a particularly fluffy sheep bleated out in agreement.

He sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky. “You are maddening.”

“Yes, yes. One of my numerous good qualities I’m sure. But back to the point at hand. Those women in the courtyard—did you sense anything from them? Overhear even a whisper of their conversation?”

Ruan rubbed at his dark brown whiskers and shook his head. “Not much. There was fear there—but that’s to be expected as there is a killer on the grounds.”

I waved off that thought. “Or if they’re afraid of discovery.”

Ruan arched a brow. “You cannot possibly suspect two women because they are afraid . That’s not evidence. Half the people on the bloody estate are afraid.”

No. No, it wasn’t. Evidence. The word settled uncomfortably in my head as I recalled precisely what the inspector had unwittingly revealed to me in the interrogation closet. There was no evidence.

“You didn’t tell me that before,” Ruan murmured, evidently having overheard my thoughts. I shook my head and started off toward the bridge. I had to see for myself what remained. While the inspector didn’t find evidence, maybe I could.

The night I found Lucy’s body remained stubbornly in my mind. Perhaps Ruan could make sense of it. I hurried on across the pasture toward the bridge, which was just peeking out over the horizon. The trees in the distance had begun to change their colors. Greens mixed through with umbers, yellows, and oranges. Sheep dotted the landscape, grazing beneath trees. Fleece thick and white, bleating out at my approach. The splinters in my hand long forgotten and replaced by curiosity at what we might find there. Or what we didn’t find . Either could be telling.

Ruan and I paused at the foot of the bridge. There were voices ahead. One male, the other female. It appeared to be the elusive Mr. Sharpe and the youngest medium. I held a hand out behind me to still Ruan as I drew nearer, not certain what we were interrupting.

“—You are going to get yourself in trouble if you aren’t more careful—” Sharpe said coldly.

The young medium placed a finger in the center of his chest which he snatched away, holding it in his left hand. She said something low and soft that I couldn’t make out from this distance.

Whatever it was, his expression softened as he looked down at her, still clasping her wrist in his hand. I couldn’t decide if I’d interrupted a lovers’ quarrel or something more sinister.

Mr. Sharpe’s voice dropped as he purred. “Do you now? Because I—” But the rest of his sentence died away when he saw me standing there. The impervious mask I’d once known so well in New York slipped back over his elegant features and for the briefest of moments Mr. Sharpe became Elijah Keene again. It wasn’t my imagination at all. I might have even convinced myself again that it wasn’t him, had he not betrayed the truth with the myriad emotions crossing his face: surprise, fear, and finally settling into anger.

As if he had any right to those sentiments after what he did back then. I was going to be sick. My stomach churned and I reached out, laying my hand on the solidness of the bridge rail, as if grounding myself would make the truth more palatable.

The medium took advantage of his distraction and jerked her hand from Sharpe before slapping him across the face. Not a lovers’ quarrel then. She darted past me on the bridge, with the scent of rose water trailing in her wake.

Mr. Sharpe drew nearer to me, achingly familiar. Elijah had been a beautiful man when I’d last seen him in New York, but this man no longer possessed that boyish softness, making him even more arresting than he had been in his youth.

The wound in my chest fresh and raw as I whispered his name. “Elijah…”

He turned to me and the same pale blue eyes that my younger sister mooned over, looked back at me. It had to be him. It had to be. “I am afraid you are mistaken, Miss Vaughn. Now if you’d excuse me.” He took off at a more leisurely pace, but following in the exact same path as the youngest medium.

I didn’t hear Ruan approach until he settled his hip on the railing of the bridge beside me. “Who is Elijah Keene?”

“How much of that did you hear?”

He cocked his head to one side with a frown. “More than you likely intended me to. He hurt you. Badly.”

“Ah. Yes. Well. I cannot be certain, Mr. Sharpe looks so like Elijah that I cannot make sense of it. The resemblance is uncanny.”

Ruan shifted where he stood, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Was he your… ah…” The tips of his ears turned an endearing shade of pink as he flushed.

“Lover?” I looked up at him through my lashes with a grin. It never ceased to amuse me how shy he could be about physical congress. For a man who has delivered more babies than I could count, he certainly couldn’t speak of the act of begetting one without turning an adorable shade of pink. I cast my gaze back down to the ground and shook my head. I’d been scarcely sixteen years old when Christopher came to my father’s attention. A promising young alderman with a head for politics. Daddy thought it would be an advantageous marriage—uniting our family with the man promised to be the rising star of New York politics. I’d been a girl, smitten by the idea of love and Christopher had noticed that naiveté a mile away. He and Elijah were always together—thick as thieves my mother had said—always attending the same dinner parties, the same plays, they even were in business together. It was only natural that I’d befriend Elijah if I planned to marry his best friend. Elijah had even been there the night of the Vanderbilts’ ball—when Christopher had convinced me that we did not need to wait until marriage. What was a wedding when two people loved one another as we did? Granted, Christopher already had a wife that no one knew of. I still don’t understand what he thought he would gain from his web of lies. Could one truly get away with bigamy in the modern age?

“Ruby.” Ruan reached out and wrapped me into his arms. “It’s all right. They cannot harm you now. Either of them.”

I rested my forehead against his chest, breathing in the green scent of him and feeling my anxieties slowly start to melt away. His right hand stroked the back of my head, with each touch drawing out the bone-deep ache inside. “I know,” I whispered. “But it doesn’t make the memories hurt any less.”

“No. It doesn’t, but you really ought to have told me.” He ran his hand soothingly down my back.

I wriggled out of his embrace, leaning back and raking my hands through my hair. “What difference does it make? I cannot even be certain it is him. It’s been thirteen years, Ruan. And even if it was him, what does it matter? The Elijah I knew was not the sort of man that would murder a medium. Could you sense what they were arguing about?”

He shook his head. “Only emotion.”

“This Pellar business of yours is not very helpful, you know.”

He grinned, before turning to the water behind me. His smile faded. “This is where she died?”

“I don’t suppose there are any chatty ghosts around who want to tell you what happened.” My gaze dropped to his lips for a half second before I looked away. “Right. Not that kind of witch either. Pity.” I slipped away from him, explaining exactly what I’d found here the night that Lucy was killed. I moved to where the salt circle had once been and bent down on my hands and knees, looking carefully along the gravelly surface. The inspector was right. Even the charcoal flowers that had been on each column had been dutifully removed in the hours following Lucy’s death.

Between that and the true identity of Mr. Sharpe, it was enough to make me think I was going mad. Just as I was about to suggest we return to the house, a bit of color caught my attention. I bent down in the gravel and touched it with my thumbnail. Blackberry-colored candle wax. The same color as the wax that sealed Lucy’s note to me.

“What’s that?” Ruan joined me on the ground, his sleeve brushing against my arm.

I picked up the little piece of wax and held it in my palm, showing him. “A clue.”

I didn’t know what to make of it, but at least I could be reasonably assured that I wasn’t going mad.