crosses his face, and I reach to grip his forearm. “I know the story, but I need to hear it from you, William. I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath. “So Eliza went into the moors . . .”
A moment’s hesitation. Then he lowers himself onto a chair near the stove. “Yes, she went into the moors with Cordelia. They became separated, and we launched a search. We did not find her. At the time, I thought she’d fled an unwelcome marriage. I was not the most ardent of suitors. To be blunt, it was like mating a stallion with a mare. A business arrangement. I tried to be kind to Eliza, but I had no interest in wooing her. She . . .”
He glances my way. “I wanted what I had with you—someone who could be not only my marital partner, but a true partner, a friend and a lover. Eliza was not you. There would be no friendship between us. Nor, to be indelicate, did I fancy her as a lover. I would do my duty and father children, but I expected I’d slake my appetites elsewhere as discreetly as possible. I realize that shows me in the worst possible light, my only excuse being that I was young and a selfish cad.”
“You believed that Eliza realized you would never love her, so she snuck off through the moors? Caught a train to some new life?”
“I hear the incredulity in your voice, Bronwyn, but I seem to recall we share an affinity for popular novels where such things happen with alarming frequency. I do not know what happened to Eliza, but yes, I have long realized she never left the moors. That she perished.”
“Like Teddy.”
He flinches and nods, his gaze down.
“And your sister? Did she disappear into the moors, too?”
His head jerks up, brows creasing. “Cordelia? No. My sister left.”
“Tell me more about that. Specifics, please.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair as he settles back. “Yet another story that shines an unflattering light on me, I’m afraid. Cordelia and I argued. A terrible row during which I told her to leave. She said she didn’t have any money. I emptied my safe—a small fortune—slammed it down in front of her and rode off into the moors. She took the money along with her things.”
“And someone saw her depart?”
“Half the village spotted our coach speeding away. Harold took her to the rail station himself.”
I pause. Then I steel myself and say, “Do you remember when I asked whether you thought I was a ghost? Your reaction suggested—very strongly—that you don’t believe in them.”
“I don’t. Tales for so-called spiritualists who bilk the grieving with ridiculous table tapping. August and I have argued on this point. He’s quite enraptured by the idea of spiritualism, but I have no patience with it. The dead are buried and . . .”
He slows as his gaze turns to me. I don’t speak. I can’t. I’m holding myself too tight, fingers digging into my knees, every muscle tensed.
He knows what’s coming. I see it in his face, dawning realization that this is no idle change of subject.
“I see ghosts,” I say flatly. “No table-tapping. No ectoplasm or spirit slates. I’ve studied Victorian spiritualism, and you are correct. Fakery, all of it. Preying on the grief stricken. But I have seen ghosts in this house. That’s why my mother took me away and had me committed. It wasn’t about you. I encountered a ghost, and my uncle came to my aid, and”—I swallow—“he died falling from the balcony.”
William reaches for my hands. As he grips them, they tremble.
“Since I’ve been back . . .” I inhale. “There is a boy. He’s about eight or nine. I never see his face, but he has dark hair with a cowlick, and he’s dressed in knickerbockers.”
Color drains from William’s face.
“That’s Teddy, isn’t it?” I say.
He nods.
I glance at the hole in the wall. Then I pull a stool over to sit before him. “Did August know about the passage?”
William’s gaze narrows, and I brace myself for what’s to come. I’m about to accuse his best friend of murder. Multiple murders.
I’d been so convinced Harold was the killer. But August fits better.
August.
My stomach twists just thinking about it. The man I met is charming and affable, and I genuinely like him. Yet I can’t help but remember how cold he went when talking about Rosalind. I remember, too, what William said about him loving her too much. Obsessive