Chapter Twenty-Five. Persephone Visited the Devil

C HAPTER T WENTY- F IVE

Persephone Visited the Devil

MALACHI Lennox sat in the family dining room as if he were holding court, though there were no courtiers around. That is, unless one counted Irish wolfhounds as part of a royal retinue. The man wasn’t even the viscount, and yet because of Mr. Owen’s misfortunes, Malachi had carried out the role for most of his life. He didn’t bother looking up from his supper to acknowledge my presence. Three dogs—brutish and hairy—lay lazily on the marble floor of the dining room, following me about with their dark eyes.

Malachi studied his supper plate with an expression torn between surprise and disgust at my sudden appearance in the dining room. He must have assumed I’d skulk away after receiving Andrew’s message. Clearly, he did not know me. Malachi gestured for me to enter, and for his servants to leave. Both of which happened immediately. He was a man used to being obeyed, and had grown far too comfortable filling Mr. Owen’s shoes as the head of the Lennox family.

My mind darted back to the state of our town house in Exeter when I first moved in. How it had been slowly decaying for years, while by all appearances Hawick House was in good order. More than that, it thrived. Had this man withheld funds from his own brother? Anger boiled beneath my skin.

“Say what you intend and be gone with you,” Malachi said, ripping apart a roasted game hen and biting a chunk of meat off the leg. Juices coated his lower lip and dripped down his jaw. My stomach turned at the sight of it. “I don’t have all day, girl. I presume my son delivered my message and that’s what brings you here.” He looked up then, pinning me with his cold stare. Eyes like Mr. Owen’s yet vastly different.

I held my ground, back straight. “We are leaving, Mr. Kivell and I, as you requested.”

“Weak boy. I told him not to give you excuses, to send you back to where you’ve come from.”

“It seems your son is in possession of the manners you lack,” I snapped back, unable to guard my own temper.

The old man’s stringy gray hair fell in his face. “Well, get on with it and be off with you.”

I stepped closer to the mahogany table, my hands curving around the back of a Victorian dining chair. “Why do you hate him so? I know about what happened with Mariah, but he is your brother. Why let him be punished when you know as well as I that he didn’t kill Lucy?”

Malachi blinked at me. “Innocent? Lass, I don’t know what fairy stories he’s beguiled you with, but my brother hasn’t an innocent bone in his body. He’s a wicked and cruel man, and it’s best you learn it now before any more harm befalls you.”

Cruel? I’d known him long enough to be fairly certain he was anything but.

“He neglected Mariah.” He mumbled between wet chews of the meat. “Ignored her. Stole her from the virtuous and righteous path and took her down to hell with him. She was my Persephone—light and beautiful and he stole her away. And once he had his prize, he used her and cast her aside like a broken plaything. Leaving her alone in Scotland while he did God only knows what down in London.”

My knuckles grew white on the chair back. The way Mr. Owen spoke of Mariah wasn’t that of a man who had cast aside his wife.

“Year after year she faded away, wilting under his pitiless care. There is no question that my brother killed her—if not by his hand then by his deeds.”

“Perhaps you were blinded by your jealousy. Saw only what you wanted to see,” I spat out.

“ 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 took my driver to 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 happened inside, but I was there outside when 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… gifts as 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 truth as he was fond of doing? No. I couldn’t countenance that. I knew Mr. 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, I wanted to be gone. Pack my bags and head back to Exeter—but I was in too deep now.