she stared at him incredulously. “Do you think her spirit is still here?” she said in a whisper, and Edmund shook his head – not because he didn’t want to scare her, but because he believed in what he said.
“No, she isn’t here,” he said, then regarded her for a moment, wondering if she could handle what he had begun to realize as the truth. “I think that’s the problem.”
Chapter 6
“The problem?”
Edmund nodded slowly at her words, and Hannah leaned in closer toward him, needing to know more.
“At times I sense… well, I sense that my great-uncle’s spirit does remain,” he said, before one side of his lips curled up into a self-deprecating smile. “Which is foolish, I know. There are no such things as spirits. And yet, I get the sense that someone remains here, waiting. I think he’s waiting for her.”
“Why did she marry his brother?” Hannah asked with a frown, and Edmund sighed.
“I don’t know if they fell in love before or after. They likely didn’t have much choice.”
“Oh.” A feeling of knowing settled over her. “I see.”
“I don’t know for certain that they ever acted on their feelings,” Edmund said, turning from her, “just family rumors.”
Hannah could sense he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and she opened the top drawer of the desk. “Is there anything else in here?”
Edmund was still staring out the window, his hands in his pockets, when she looked over at him.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve never looked. I didn’t know if it was my place.”
He was right. And yet Hannah had the strange idea that it was her right, that no one – spirits or otherwise – would mind if she opened this drawer to determine what was within.
She had to give it a hard tug to bring it out, and a musty odor wafted up from within, as well as the stale scent of dried roses.
“A rosary,” Hannah said, finding what had slid around when she had opened it. “One of them was Catholic.”
There wasn’t much else – a handkerchief, a watch fob, and a shaving set. She reached her hand in, her fingertips brushing against a stack of papers in the back. She pulled them out, finding them bound with a long blue ribbon.
“Letters,” she said, looking up and catching Edmund’s startled gaze. “Did you know they were here?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen them before.”
She unbound the ribbon, letting it flutter to the floor.
“Do you think it’s our place to read them?” he asked, and she met his eyes, taken off guard by their intensity.
“Whose place would it be?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“At least let’s see who wrote them,” she said, unbinding the first letter, slipping it out of the envelope, whose seal was already broken.
“My dearest love,” she read, adding, “It’s in a woman’s handwriting, I would think. The writing is soft, the letters slanted and looped.”
She walked over to the window for better light, her breath catching at Edmund’s nearness. His hands were balled into fists at his side, his forearms strong, muscular, his veins nearly popping out of them.
She cleared her throat, looked down at the paper in her hands, and began.
“It is getting worse. I find myself hiding when he returns home from wherever he goes until the wee hours of the morning. The bruises he leaves on the outside are not nearly as bad as those within. I wish I knew what happened to change him so. His anger is volatile, his temper unreasonable. I am trying to convince him that we should come visit you once more. I do long to see you again, though I fear that he will ascertain the feelings we hold for one another if we are all together. Oh, Andrew, I do not know what to do. Please, tell me? Always your love, Isabel.”
Hannah was silent for a moment, the pain of the woman’s words slicing through her.
“They were in love,” Hannah breathed, looking up at Edmund. “And she was in danger. Do you think they fell in love with one another before she married his brother, or afterward?”
“I don’t know,” Edmund said. “Perhaps the other letters will reveal it. Are they all from her, or are his replies included?”
Hannah shuffled through them. “They look to be all written by her. I wonder if his letters are here somewhere.”
“Perhaps,” Edmund said. “This house holds many secrets.”
“How did she die?” Hannah asked, needing to know.
“In a fire,” Edmund replied,