When William turns, he is the boy who gave me his first romantic gift—a fancy pen and inkwell, engraved with my name—with a hopeful smile fluttering on his lips, his eyes glittering with expectation, praying he’s done the right thing and I will throw my arms around his neck in joy.
I did exactly that then. This time, he sees my expression, and his smile fades. He rubs a hand over his face, beard shadow skitching beneath callused fingers.
“I am moving too quickly,” he says. “Presuming too much.”
“I . . .” I swallow and set Enigma down. Then I step toward him. “I want to be with you, William. Desperately. But there isn’t a permanent place for me in your world.”
Horror dawns on his face. “You think . . .” He looks around and curses. “Of course you do. You think this is me rearranging my home to welcome you permanently. A place for you to work, pursuing your passions like August giving Rosalind a pretty kitchen to bake his bread, as if that would be sufficient substitute for her livelihood.”
He looks at me. “No, Bronwyn. A thousand times, no. You are a historian who studies my world. I don’t even know how you’d pursue such a profession while living in that world. This isn’t meant to replace your career. It’s for you to pursue it here when the opportunity affords itself. You said you hope to spend your summers at Thorne Manor, pursing research. I simply thought if that is what you choose . . .” He waves around the room. “I would like to give you a place to do that here, when it is convenient for you to do so. Even when you are in Yorkshire, I do not expect you to spend every minute here. I just wanted to accommodate you when you do visit.”
I exhale. “Thank you.” Another deep breath, and the fear passes, and I can look around the room with fresh eyes. Then, I really do grin and throw my arms around his neck. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He holds me at arm’s length. “I said I wouldn’t ask or expect you to give up your life to be with me. Let me amend that, lest it seem as if I’m hoping you will. I will not allow you to give it up. I have seen how resentments can fester, bitterness eating away love, and we will not make that mistake. I would quite happily live in your world if that was a choice. Right now, it is not. So we will work out a solution to our rather unique problem, but it will never be one that sees you surrendering your life to share mine. Agreed?”
I entwine my hands in his hair and answer with my kiss.
32
I can’t sleep, and there’s no reason for it. No ghost whispers in my ear. My kitten is here, purring at the foot of the bed, finally allowed in after enthusiastic lovemaking that left me satiated and exhausted enough that I should be sound asleep. William certainly is. He’s dead to the world, a still-life portrait of a beautiful man in repose.
As perfect as his body is, tonight I’m watching his face by the glow of the almost-guttered fire. He looks so happy that my heart lifts. He is as happy as I am, in love, and my head swims with possibilities, possibilities we discussed into the night.
We’ll make this work. If Enigma can cross freely, then I can truly make a home on his side when I’m in Yorkshire. And I’ll be in Yorkshire whenever possible. Summer term, from May through August. Thanksgiving week in October. Nearly a month over the holidays at Christmas. Reading week in February. I’ll stay in my version of Thorne Manor when William is busy, and I’ll become part of the community. When he’s here, I will be, too. That will be our life together, and I couldn’t be happier.
So why am I awake? Something gnaws at my gut, and I want to dismiss it as my worrywart ways, as Michael called them. I could never receive good news without a tiny part of me tensing for trouble.
Something’s not right.
Something doesn’t fit.
About the ghosts? When I ask the question, a ping in my brain says yes. The theory I’ve concocted doesn’t quite work.
I rise and pad across the room to Lady Thorne’s dressing table, again without knowing why. Then, as my fingers touch the cool wood, I remember the engagement notice inside for August and Cordelia.
I slide open the drawer. At the creak, Enigma wakes with a mew and dashes over. I freeze, but William keeps sleeping.
As I lift Cordelia and August’s announcement, I see the other picture frame beneath it, the one I’d noticed before August’s arrival pulled me away. The photo is upside down with the newspaper clipping stuck to the back. It’s another engagement announcement, this one for the impending nuptials of Elizabeth (Eliza) Stanbury . . . and William Thorne.
This is William’s engagement announcement.
I chide myself for a dart of jealousy. I did more than get engaged after I left William. I married—very happily. While I’m very glad he isn’t married now, I can hardly be jealous of an engagement that never even reached the wedding ceremony.
I read the full announcement. Then, I cautiously turn over the frame, bracing, and rebuking myself again. Can’t be jealous of his engagement, and certainly can’t be jealous of his fiancé, a girl he didn’t love.
Eliza Stanbury isn’t my competition. She never was. After that flicker of jealousy, I flinch on her behalf, thinking of what she might have endured after a broken engagement. I feel pity and outrage, too, at the thought of a young woman forced to marry a man who didn’t love her, didn’t want her, and could say nothing more than that he’d hoped she’d find satisfaction as a mother because he couldn’t provide it as a husband.
Eliza is no longer the young woman I’ll see in this photo. She’ll be middle-aged, like me, married and likely a mother. Yet I still brace for envy, knowing I’ll compare myself to this fresh-faced girl and see every deepening line in my own face the next time I look in the mirror. But that’s my problem, and I still want to see her. I want to see him even more—my William at twenty-three, midway between the boy I knew and the man sleeping across the room.
I reach for my phone to take a photograph of this picture, the substitute for a memory I missed. I turn the frame over, and my gaze shoots to the top. As in the photo of August and Cordelia, William stands slightly behind a chair. His face is rigid and unreadable. Resolute. He may not be thrilled with the marriage to come, but he wants to please his mother, and his lack of enthusiasm for the match has nothing to do with his intended bride.
I touch the line of his jaw, and the curl of his hair, and I smile. It’s William exactly as I’d have imagined him at this age, hardening into the man he’d become, but still clinging to the softer boy I remember.
As my gaze slides to Eliza, I struggle to keep that smile in place even as my insides twist. Then I see her face, and a fist hits me square in the gut, air knocked out of me as I jerk back.
It’s the woman from the moors.
The woman who died in the moors.
Not Rosalind Courtenay. Eliza Stanbury. William’s fiancé.
I wander blindly back to William’s old room, Enigma at my heels, and then, somehow, I’m on my own bedroom floor, still clutching the photograph, as if by looking at it long enough, I’ll realize my mistake.
I must be wrong. The woman in the moors has to be Rosalind. It fits.
No, I can make it fit. Use the shaky testimony of three drunken youths to tie Rosalind to Thorne Manor and the moors, so she becomes the woman I saw, when it makes far more logical sense that she died with her horse, plunging off the cliff.
The most basic description of Rosalind matches the woman in the moors—light haired and slight of build. But Eliza Stanbury is also light haired and slender.
Then there is her face.
I’ve never seen a clear image of the moors woman’s face, but I’ve seen enough to leave an impression in my mind. That’s why I wanted a photograph of Rosalind. Now, it’s a photo that confirms instead that the woman in the moors is Eliza Stanbury.
I struggle to remember William’s exact words about his fiancé. I can’t because there weren’t any. He only said that no marriage came of the engagement. I’d seen pain in his eyes, and I hadn’t prodded.
She’s dead, Wi
lliam. How did you fail to mention that?
Excuses bubble up, frantic excuses to explain away his omission.
Weak excuses, every last one of them.
He didn’t just “not get around” to telling me his fiancé died in the moors. He deliberately omitted that information when it should have naturally arisen.
He murdered his own bride on their wedding night. They say you can still see the blood at night when the moon hits it.
I balk at the memory of the day laborer’s words, yet cradled in this twisted legend is a grain of truth.
William’s fiancé died, and people thought he did it. When he first told the story of his scandal, I’d been outraged. How could such a ridiculous story arise when there was clear proof to the contrary?
Every story begins with a grain of truth.
That scandal wouldn’t have begun unless there was one crime against which he had no clear defense. Not that he killed Eliza, of course. Harold Shaw did. But that’s where the story started—the mysterious disappearance of William Thorne’s bride-to-be. Then other disappearances piled on later, sticking to him because they suggested a pattern that made the story so much more delicious. Not merely the killer of his bride-to-be, but the killer of three additional women who’d been part of his life.
Yet one fact remains. William deliberately omitted Eliza from his tale, and I need to know why.
As I rise from the floor, Enigma yowls outside my bedroom door. In my fugue state, I hadn’t even noticed she’d crossed back with me, and now I absently open the door for her . . . and there’s the shrouded ghost.
I fall back with a yelp. Enigma leaps onto me, and her claws dig in as I scoop her up.
The ghost stays where she is. Eliza Stanbury wrapped in her death-shroud. William’s fiancé, murdered by Harold Shaw, carried into the moors, buried and forgotten. Pain and pity washes away my shock.
“I’m sorry, Eliza,” I say. “I know what happened to you, and I’m sorry.”
She only stands there, her shrouded face turned toward me, her figure wavering and indistinct.
“I will find you,” I say. “I’ll bury you properly and make sure others know what happened.”
She lifts a beckoning hand and begins to walk away. I know I’m meant to follow, but I hesitate, cuddling Enigma, our hearts both slamming in our chests.
Eliza turns to me. “Come,” she whispers.
“Just tell—”
“See.”
Each word is laborious, as if communication saps her energy. She wants me to see something because she cannot explain it in words.
I grab sweatpants, a shirt and sneakers from my room. Then I shut the door on Enigma. The kitten yowls with fury, and I whisper apologies while I hurry after Eliza.
As I step through the door, another figure materializes to my left. It’s the woman in black. She moves into my path. Two ghosts, both covered. I'd presume the woman in black was also the shrouded ghost. She is not. The shrouded ghost reaches out. Her fingers brush the woman’s veil, and the woman in black fades.
“Soon,” Eliza whispers as the other ghost disappears.
I follow Eliza down the hall. There’s a shimmer by the linen closet. The boy begins to step out. He’s halfway through, shadowed face looking my way. Then he retreats.
“Who are they?” I ask Eliza.
“His others,” she whispers.
“His other victims?” I say.
“Wait. Understand.”
It’s still dark outside. Four a.m. when I check my phone. The moon is bright enough to light my path, and I follow Eliza into the garage. She pauses by the tools and points at a shovel, and my stomach drops.
“You want me to find your body,” I say. “I will, but it’s still night and—”
The air electrifies in a flashbulb of frustration. She finally has the chance for peace, and I’m complaining about darkness and hard work.
I tuck my cell phone into my pocket and then pick up the shovel and follow Eliza into the moors. When she tries to veer off path, I firmly refuse. I will help without dangerous shortcuts.
Finally, we must leave the path to head into the bog. I pick my way through the night-dark wetland until I reach the spot she indicates. Then I dig.
Unearthing a corpse always seems so much easier in the movies. Of course, in the movies, it’s usually done by a fit young man, not a thirty-eight-year-old history professor who hasn’t lifted a dumbbell since grad school . . . and even then, only to keep her fiancé company.
The wet ground means it’s easy to break the surface. It also means the earth is as heavy as lead. Soon, I’m drenched in sweat. I’m about to take a third break when my shovel strikes down with a dull thump.
I kneel, cell phone propped to shine on the spot as I scoop dirt by hand. One nail breaks. Then another. I keep going. Soon I have uncovered fabric. Beneath that fabric lies the hard mummified flesh of a corpse buried in a bog.
The sheet is blackened with age, and it’s stiff around Eliza’s body, but it’s clearly the same one that shrouds her ghost. I keep clearing until I see blackened flesh. It’s the hand I saw when Harold had been carrying Eliza, that hand fallen partially loose from its bindings. Now, it’s almost entirely freed.
Eliza whispers behind me, and I give a start, having almost forgotten she’s there. What must it be like, seeing her blackened corpse uncovered?
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I don’t mean to disturb—”
“Truth,” she says. “Only truth.”
All that matters is the truth. I nod. I keep clearing, and she whispers, “The ring.”
I look down at the blackened hand. There’s no sign of a ring on those wizened fingers, but they’re still partly covered by the sheet. I prod it back even as my brain warns I’m disturbing a crime scene. I only need to move it a little, though, before I see a gold ring inlaid with a huge sapphire and flanked by diamonds.
My fingers move to my throat, to touch a necklace that’s not there. Yet I can still picture it. Sapphires and diamonds, the setting a perfect match to this ring.
William must have given the ring to Eliza. It’s part of a set. My stomach twists at the thought, but once again, I chide myself for my jealousy. He gave his grandmother’s ring to his fiancé, probably on their engagement. He might also have planned to give her the necklace on their wedding day. If I’m uncomfortable receiving a gift meant for his future bride, I can broach the subject with him later. This is about Eliza.
“The ring,” she says.
I nod. “This proves who you are. It’ll help.”
“My grandmother’s ring.”
I turn to look at her. My grandmother? She must mean it would have been her grandmother by marriage.
I nod. “I’m sorry, El . . .”
I trail off. Freya speculated that once I named the ghosts, they’d come clear and could communicate clearly. Yet I’ve been calling this ghost Eliza, and she can still barely utter a word.
Is that because I need to say her full name? If so, wouldn’t she have told me that?
Name me.
A shiver runs down my spine. I open my mouth to say her full name, and then I stop, remembering Freya’s other theory—that I might only ever have one chance.
I’m sure, though, aren’t I? Certain this is Eliza?
No. No, I’m not.
I look down at the ring.
My grandmother’s ring.
My heart pounds as I claw dirt from the body, exposing the shroud. Near the head, a piece has fallen away, showing hair beneath it. One dark curl of hair. The world tilts and fades, and I see two women walking out my front door, arm in arm.
I look up at the ghost. I can’t judge her height or size—she wavers too much for that. But this shroud beneath my fingers doesn’t cover a short, slender woman. She’s tall and sturdy . . . like the dark-haired figure in the vision. Like the dark-haired young woman in a photograph, sitting beside August.
“Cordelia,” I whisper. “I name you Cordelia
Thorne.”
33
The shrouded ghost sighs and sinks with relief, the steel melting from her spine. As it does, she shimmers, and her shroud falls free. Beneath it is the young woman from her engagement portrait, wearing a pale blue dress with delicate white flowers.
Her eyes glisten, bright blue eyes, so like her brother’s. Her chin dips, and her voice is tear-choked as she says, “Thank you.”
“I’m going to figure this out. I know he killed you. I know someone killed Eliza, too, and I’m not sure—”
“Him. It was all him,” she says, her voice coming clear. “He killed us. Teddy, Eliza, me and . . .” Her eyes glisten with fresh tears. “That is why I appeared to you. To show you. To warn you.”
I don’t tell Cordelia that her killer is long dead. She must not realize how long it’s been. Instead, I say, “Teddy?” as the name tickles a memory.
She nods. “The boy in the knickerbockers, you called him. He was the first. I have told myself it was an accident, but I fear . . .” An audible swallow. “I fear that even after all he has done, I still love him too much to accept the truth.”
Those moths gnaw at my insides. I force myself to remain calm. “Yes, I understand he was part of your household. You knew him a long time and doubtless had formed an attachment.”
Her brow furrows.
“I’ve seen him,” I say. “A ghostly image of him. Harold Shaw. Your head groom.”
She stares at me. “Harold? Harold didn’t murder us.” She meets my eyes. “It was my brother.”
“W-William?” I say.
Cordelia moves toward me, her hands outstretched. “I’m so sorry. When I was a child, I saw you with him. I did not understand how that was possible. I still don’t quite understand. Time . . . shifts. I am there, and I see you with him, and then I am here, and he is not.”
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