Chapter Thirty-Six. The Prodigal Daughter

C HAPTER T HIRTY-SIX

The Prodigal Daughter

I stared at the duke long after he quit breathing, unable to look away from him. I scarcely noticed that Ruan had moved Elijah from the hay, deeper into the croft and away from the elements. He was awake now, talking with Ruan, who was busy stitching his wounds and assessing the damage. The sling binding Ruan’s injured shoulder annoyed him, and he strained against it as he pulled a small brown bottle from Andrew’s bloodied medical kit.

Andrew.

Mr. Owen eased down in the mud beside me, his dressing gown brushing against my ruined clothes. He swept my filthy hair back from my brow with a shaking hand. “Andy is fine. Kivell got him to the house—a sight the pair of them making their way—Andy with a wounded leg and Ruan with a broken shoulder… The duchess and Lady Morton are taking care of him. The duchess sent her man to the mainland for the authorities.”

Cold dread clawed its way up my jaw. “Mr. Owen… that’s not a good idea. Lady Morton… Her husband was a Eurydicean.” I looked at the dead peer lying in the mud before me. “The duke was in league with Inspector Burnett; who knows who else is involved?”

“You have nothing to fear from Lady Morton. Nor is there any love lost between the duchess and that one—” He grumbled beneath his breath, reaching around and tucking me against his side. “She learned her husband was a monster not long after the wedding, but there was little she could do about it by then. She warned Kivell that he was armed as we left the house.”

I wrinkled my nose, looking at him. “And you still came out here, knowing he was a madman with a hunting rifle, and you in your nightclothes…” I looked down at the persimmon dressing gown.

He smiled at me, resting his temple against mine and drawing in a deep breath. “I could not leave you to the wolves, my lamb. It will be well. Trust in that. It will be well. I will not let you come to harm.”

Oh, how I wished that were so. A ball of emotion lodged itself in my throat. “Did you know what he’d done to Mariah?”

He pressed his lips tight, running his fingers over his white mustache before shaking his head. “No. I had no inkling the depths of his depravity. I—” Mr. Owen’s deep voice sounded small for once. Helpless. “I only wish Mariah had spoken to me, come to me…”

I pulled my knees up, hugging them to my chest as Mr. Owen glanced past me to Genevieve.

“I do not know how in the gods’ names that lass thinks she’s James’s git. Has she not a mirror to her name?” Mr. Owen studied her with that mercenary gaze he usually reserved for particularly valuable tomes. Assessing every flaw, every crease. It was evident that he was coming to a similar conclusion as I when it came to Genevieve Demidov, and I suspected that Andrew had the right of things. She was his cousin. Whether she knew it or not.

“I wonder if her mother told her…”

He let out a dark laugh. “Just look at her. That lass is no more James’s bastard than she is yours.”

I let out a strangled laugh—but even that hurt.

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and cleared his throat, clearly done with emotion for the moment. “Go talk her around, lass. You’ve a way with you. Besides, it’ll do you good to get away from this stench.” He toed the body of the duke with his slipper.

Here I was—having escaped a fire, an angry sea, and a murderous duke, and the old man wanted me to break the news to his long-lost daughter that she is not the illegitimate daughter of a dreadful duke but the prodigal one of an exceptionally eccentric viscount. “Mr. Owen, look at me! I’m in no condition to talk anyone anywhere.”

“I see you, lass. I’ve always seen you. Now go break the sorry news to my daughter that there are two of you instead of only the one.”

I blinked, not comprehending his words, but there was no time to question what he meant, as he’d already turned on his heels and started out of the croft, presumably back to the duchess and Lady Morton.

Ruan looked up from Elijah. His eyes bright—brighter than I’d seen them since we were shot.

I grabbed a nearby bucket and carried it over to Genevieve’s side and sat down. I’d had enough mud and blood for one day. “How are you?”

She looked up at me through her wet lashes. “Do you think Elijah will be—” Her voice trembled. “I did not mean for him to come to harm.”

I laid my palm on her shoulder. “Ruan will take care of him. I promise you that.”

She eased beneath my touch and looked up at me. “Thank you. For everything you have done.” Her gaze drifted to the duke’s lifeless body. “You did not have to help me and I would not blame you had you not, considering the secrets I kept from you. I put you in danger. I’d thought… I’d thought the fewer who knew the truth of him, the safer we’d all be.”

I looked into her dark eyes. Full of self-hatred, fear, and righ teous anger. Emotions likely echoed in my own. There was no doubt in my mind that she was Mr. Owen’s daughter. It was written in the proud set of her jaw, in the very way she carried herself. She might have never known the man in life, but she carried his blood in her veins. I would have bet everything I owned upon it. “You have his eyes.”

“I do not understand you.”

I stretched my neck from side to side, letting the sweet pull of my muscles ease the tension. “Why are you convinced the duke is your father? You have the look of Mr. Owen. You and Andrew—you have the same eyes.”

She lowered her lashes and fiddled with a piece of dry straw. “Brown eyes are common.”

“What color were your mother’s?”

“Blue.” The word more curse than anything else.

“As were the duke’s.” The edge of my mouth curved up into a lopsided smile. “That monster was not your father.”

“My mother could not be certain. She dared not hope. I did not even know she had been married until I met Aunt Lucy.”

“Did Lucy believe you were Mr.…” I corrected myself. “Hawick’s child?”

She shook her head. “She said it didn’t matter who my father was. That Hawick was a madman, chasing after his ghosts and fairy stories and that I was safer in the shadows with her.”

“Funny for a medium to be judgmental of the occult.”

Genevieve let out an amused sound. “I told her the same. We did not intend to summon Mariah’s spirit… Well, we did, but not at the séance. Lucy had hoped that if Hawick brought the ring, that Mariah would reveal where the photographs were hidden in private. We had been looking for weeks to no avail.”

“What about the others? Lady Morton… the duke… why bring them all together?”

“I did not invite the duke. Lady Morton, yes. I thought I could bend her to our will. Her husband had been a Eurydicean and rumor has it she loathed the man once she realized what a monster he was. I thought perhaps we could have used her anger to our advantage. If I had known that the duke would come to the séance… I… I truthfully don’t know what I would have done.”

“I found Abigail—the other medium. It was the night of the second séance. Someone had killed her and left her body in the ruins.”

Genevieve winced. “Elijah discovered her that same morning, along with the missing negatives. We’d hoped having them would be enough to prove the duke’s guilt. It was a vain hope.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “But your mother…”

Genevieve frowned, running her thumb along the inside of her manacle to relieve the raw flesh there. “She must be buried here somewhere. I know she came to confront the duke one last time. She had hidden all of the glass plates at Manhurst the night she fled—terrified if she traveled with them they would break. It was her insurance to protect her against him. Against all of them.”

“A clever woman. How many negatives were there in all?”

Genevieve smiled faintly. “I’m not certain. I believe there were over thirty hidden away at Manhurst. More than enough to implicate the duke. Aunt Lucy managed to find roughly half of them, before you arrived. The rest… Elijah found the rest, on Abigail’s body.”

The missing medium.

“Those were the most incriminating ones. I took the best ones and gave them to Elijah to turn over to the inspector, claiming he’d found them in the duke’s room after he left. A flimsy tale, but I was beside myself. The remaining negatives were left with my things.”

My head was beginning to ache.

She must have misunderstood my expression as she reached out and took my hand. “My mother was extraordinary, Miss Vaughn. You must know that. And he cut her life short. The last time I saw her I was ten years old. She’d left me in Paris with friends of hers. She was always frightened the duke would find us. And every time before when she’d leave me, she’d come back. But not that time.”

“This must have been after that photograph was taken of the two of you.”

She gasped. “You went through my things.”

“It was how we knew where to find you.”

Genevieve shifted, uncertain about my invasion of her privacy. “She told me in Cairo what he’d done to her, she said I was young but I needed to understand why we lived in the shadows. She said if she failed to return then I should go to Hawick. That she’d left him a ring that would be able to keep me safe, I only needed to tell him to look inside the ring. She never once said she was his wife, only that he was the best man she’d ever known, and that he would do what was right.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “Why did she not come back to Hawick House if she had such faith in him?”

Genevieve licked her teeth and shook her head in anger. “Mother blamed herself for what happened with the duke. Said if she’d not allowed herself to be alone with him, if she’d been more of a lady or not trusted in her friendship with the duke, that perhaps he would not have taken liberties with her. She could not forgive herself for forgetting that he was not the young boy she’d once known, that he’d grown into a man…”

“It is not her fault what happened. It’s his .” I pointed at the duke’s now lifeless body.

“I am glad you killed him. My mother was a strong woman, but strength can only go so far in a world that values a man over her. She had been taught from the cradle that her sole worth lay in her ability to make a man’s heirs, to remain virtuous to the world, and a good wife her husband.” The acid words dripped from Genevieve’s tongue. “It is the same world that made her that destroyed her, allowing a monster to prey upon her fears and get away with his crimes.”

Genevieve was not wrong, nor had the world changed much over the last forty years. I’d long fought against the same expectations of how a woman should be, but even still those claws remained snagged in my own flesh, refusing to let go.

“Aunt Lucy did what she could to make sure I was fed and clothed and cared for, but she was afraid if the duke learned of me that he would take me for his own.”

“A valid fear.”

“I am sorry I did not tell you more—I was not certain I could trust you and I thought—I hoped—that once we’d collected all of my mother’s missing negatives we’d be able to expose him once and for all.” She looked again to Elijah and Ruan.

“You care for him.”

Her expression softened. “We are alike, Elijah and I—becoming someone new because our old lives had failed us. I met him not long after he purchased Manhurst, I’d come to visit Aunt Lucy. He has kind eyes. I always liked that about him. I did not expect to fall in love with him.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It was a lovely thought. Starting over anew. But there would be no starting over, or starting at all until I found the keys to unlock her manacles and get us out of here.