by Candace Camp
“She did?” Con glanced over, his heart suddenly lighter in his chest. “How did Sabrina know? Did Lilah tell her?”
“I don’t think they talked about it. You know how women are. Sabrina just knew.”
“I’m pathetic, aren’t I? Sometimes I wish Lilah was pregnant because I know she’d marry me then. That’s an awful way to think, isn’t it? Wanting to force her into marriage. Mother would be appalled.”
“You are no worse than every other man in love. I suspect at some point we’ve all wished to tie a woman to us any way possible.” Alex clapped his brother on the shoulder. “You said you intended to marry her, and I’ve never known you not to get what you went after. How do you plan to win her over?”
“I have to prove that I can give her the life she’s dreamed of. That I can be the kind of man she wants. I must be patient. Steady. Show her that I’m not rash, that I won’t be running off to Cornwall or Scotland to follow an investigation. That I won’t cause a scandal. Proving that takes time. I can’t just say, ‘I’m going to be different,’ and expect her to believe me.”
“You sound like a knight on a quest.”
Con laughed. “Maybe I am. I have to slay a dragon. Only the dragon I need to slay is me.”
“Con...” Alex frowned. “You shouldn’t have to change yourself to win her love. If she truly loves you...”
“One does have to change. It’s inevitable. Are you the same man you were before you met Sabrina? You needn’t answer because I can assure you that you are not. You’re stronger, more mature. You’ve accepted your ability, even come to value it. But you also have a new vulnerability—you have worry and fear for someone else, the desire to make Sabrina happy, the need to protect her. Love always changes a person. The only question is whether it’s for good or ill.”
His twin stared at him, stricken. “How can Lilah not realize that you already are serious and thoughtful? Con...talk to Lilah. Tell her all this. What you feel for her, what you think. Ask her to marry you. A traditional proposal might go a long way toward making her believe you know what’s proper.”
“I can’t. Not yet.” Con’s chest tightened. “What if she says no? It would be over. We couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. I can’t risk that. I have to wait until I’m sure.”
“Since when have you ever been afraid of a risk? You’re the boy who went after that thug with your cricket bat. I’m the one who lost my lunch when we found a dead body. You went for help. You’re the lad who took on a dray driver even though he was twice your size and had a whip in his hand.”
“He was beating his horse!” Fire flared in Con’s eyes at the memory. “What else could I do? As I remember, you ran to join me. Anyway, that was different.” Con sighed. “All I risked then was a beating. This is a different matter altogether. If I lose Lilah, I’ll lose everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LILAH LOITERED IN the entryway, waiting for Con. They had planned to go to the village to track down her father’s lawyer, but after Alex and Sabrina left, Con had disappeared into the garden. After a moment, she wandered down the hall. Her aunt was in the sitting room, her hands in her lap, staring off into nothing. Her face was wan, and her eyes suspiciously puffy. Had she been crying?
Vesta looked up and smiled. “Hello, dear. Come and sit with me.” She patted the sofa beside her. “I’m quite lazy this morning. I had trouble sleeping last night.” As Lilah sat down, Vesta went on, “It’s because the Sanctuary is calling to me. We must find that key. If we could release the Goddess...”
“Well, freeing it is what we don’t want to do,” Lilah pointed out.
“Yes, of course, dear. What I mean is binding the Sanctuary to us.” Vesta fell silent, absently running her finger over the arm of her chair. Not looking up, she said quietly, “The power went to you, didn’t it? I felt it. It was much more powerful when you joined me.”
“I’m not sure,” Lilah demurred. She told herself it was silly to feel guilty for being the recipient of the Sanctuary’s power. She would gladly have given it over to Aunt Vesta if she could. Still, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her aunt.
“I always believed it favored me. Fed me. I thought if I came back, my power would return.” Vesta’s face was sad, something Lilah had rarely seen on her aunt.
“Give it time, Aunt Vesta.”
“That’s sweet of you to say. You were always such a good little girl.” Vesta straightened her shoulders and pushed a smile onto her face. “It was much stronger, wasn’t it, when we were together?”
“Yes, it was.”
“That’s good. You’re right, I should give it more time.” Vesta’s smile turned more natural. “Now, what are you and that young man of yours doing today? Are you any further along in finding the key?”
Lilah was glad to change the subject. She launched into a description of their visit yesterday to her father’s valet, ending with his revelation that Sir Virgil had left her a letter with his lawyer.
“You think that Mr. Cunningham took the letter? Oh, my. He always seemed such a nice man.”
“I suppose it could have been a mistake. Con and I are going to his office this morning. His son has carried on with the firm, hasn’t he?”
“I believe so.”
“It might be that it simply slipped Mr. Cunningham’s mind. If not, Con plans to track him down in Bath and question him.”
“But there’s so little time...”
“I know. But surely Father must have told me the location of the key. He was more straightforward than my grandfather seems to have been.”
“That’s true. Virgil wouldn’t have been cryptic with you.” Aunt Vesta’s expression grew hopeful. “Perhaps our luck has turned. That letter will be sitting in his files, gathering dust.” She looked beyond Lilah. “Ah, there you are, dear boy. Lilah’s been telling me about your adventures.”
Lilah turned to see Con standing in the doorway. He made quick work of extricating them from Aunt Vesta’s conversational clutches—Lilah wished she was as adept as he—and they walked out to the carriage waiting for them in the courtyard.
Con seemed rather more quiet than usual, even pensive. When they were settled in the carriage, she reached out to lay her hand on his arm.
“Is something wrong?”
He looked at her, startled, then smiled, whatever shadows there might have been in his eyes fleeing. “No.” He laid his hand over hers. “I was just thinking—an odd occurrence, I know.”
She made a face, but settled back, feeling reassured.
“I talked to the head gardener this morning,” Con went on.
“The gardener? Whatever for? I hope you are not about to tell me that the garden has been left to run wild.”
He laughed. “No. Unlike Sir Jasper, I have few opinions on gardens. I was talking to Harvey because I’d asked him to keep his ear to the ground for me. His sister is married to the baker, and his cousin runs the tap in the tavern, so he is privy to all the news.”
“Con Moreland. How on earth do you know all this?”
He shrugged. “I chat with the servants. I like to know things.”
“So you’ve developed a ring of spies?”
“I wouldn’t say spies. It’s more like informants. I learned it from Megan. Knowing people—and being trusted by them—is very important in reporting.”
“Investigating, too, apparently.”
“Besides, I’m universally curious.”
“So what did your ‘informants’ tell you?”
“That Niles Dearborn was in the tavern.”
“He’s back?”
“It seems so. I’m not sure what he’s doing. He was asking questions about you and me. According to Harvey, everyone was very tight-lipped.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“I don’t know. But I’
ve set the gardeners and grooms on the alert for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes poking around the estate.”
It occurred to Lilah that Con was carrying on her business for her. It had been most annoying when Sir Jasper did so; with Con, she didn’t mind at all. In fact, strangely, it made her feel warm inside.
When they arrived in the village, they found that the law office had indeed remained in the hands of Mr. Cunningham’s son, who bustled out to greet them, smiling broadly. His good cheer fell away, however, when Lilah asked him about the letter that had never been delivered to her.
In shocked tones, Cunningham assured them that his father would never have been derelict in his duty. To prove it, he had his clerk haul out the boxes of his father’s old files and dig through them, finally coming up with a thick stack labeled “Holcutt.”
“Yes, here it is.” He pointed to a paper atop the file. It was a list of dates with notations beside each date. “You see? ‘Aug. 17, 1891 Ltr., priv., Sir V. Holcutt, del. Aug. 17, D. Holcutt.’ He entered his delivery of a private letter to D. Holcutt—that is you, miss—on that day last year. These are his initials, showing he had successfully completed the task.” He gave them a triumphant smile. “Father was always very careful with his files. As am I.”
Lilah thought that a task checked off on a piece of paper was scarcely evidence of the truth of the statement. As they returned home, she said flatly, “It’s not true. He didn’t send it to me, let alone deliver it. I wouldn’t have forgotten.”
“Of course not. Something happened. Mr. Cunningham Senior was not as careful as his son would like us to believe—or he wasn’t as honest. Either the man read the letter himself or he gave it to someone other than you. Did you notice the entry in the ledger above yours?”
“No. What was it?”
“A meeting with Jasper Holcutt. Not only that, the date was the same as the supposed delivery to you.”
They discussed the topic the rest of the way home, but Aunt Vesta greeted them with eager questions, so Con and Lilah had to sit down with her and go over it all again.
“Sir Jasper?” Aunt Vesta said doubtfully when they had finished. “He seems far too dull, doesn’t he? It’s more likely Niles is playing a deep game, trying to get our key by making us believe he lost his.”
“It seems too coincidental that Cunningham met with Sir Jasper and delivered my letter on the same day,” Lilah pointed out. “I never got it, but Sir Jasper started courting me a few months later.”
“You think he paid Mr. Cunningham to give the letter to him instead?”
“I intend to find out,” Con replied. “It’s possible Sir Jasper might not have even had to pay him. Perhaps Sir Jasper offered to take the task off Cunningham’s hands and give the letter to Lilah himself. It would have been unethical of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time a lawyer handed over a woman’s business affairs to her closest male relative.”
“That’s true. Mr. Cunningham was rather old-fashioned.” Aunt Vesta shook her head in disapproval. She looked thoughtful. “And it would explain, I suppose, why Sir Jasper kept poking his nose in everywhere when he was here. He asked me a number of questions that I thought were quite rude, really.”
“What sort of questions?” Con asked, his gaze sharpening on Vesta’s face.
“Oh, I don’t remember exactly...things about Papa’s office. And the Clock Room of course. He was very interested in that. Why, once I walked out of my door and saw him standing in Virgil’s bedchamber—can you imagine the gall of the man? As if he were measuring the master bedroom for his possessions. He was even making a list.”
“A list?” Lilah asked, exchanging a glance with Con. “What sort of list?”
“He was writing things down?” Con added.
“Well...” Vesta said vaguely, turning her gaze upward, as if the answers were written on the ceiling. “I don’t know that it was a list, really. It was just a piece of paper.” She drew in a sharp breath and looked at Con. “Ohhh. You think it was the letter. He was using it to help him find the key!”
“I think it’s worth a look.”
Con stood up, holding out a hand to Lilah, and they left the room. Aunt Vesta trailed after them as they went up the stairs and down the hallway to the bedroom where Sir Jasper had slept during his brief stay. Their steps grew faster by the moment, and Lilah’s heart beat faster in anticipation.
“He wouldn’t just leave it here,” Lilah said, trying to temper her hopes.
Con opened the door and they surveyed the disappointingly tidy room. The linens had been removed; the dresser top stood empty; the floor had been swept. Lilah let out a sigh. If anything had been dropped here, it obviously had been picked up and thrown away.
Still, she began pulling out the drawers of the dresser and looking inside them. Con went to the wardrobe and opened the doors, moving next to the washstand and bed.
“Nothing,” Lilah said in disgust. She turned away from the dresser to see Con lying on the floor, peering under the bed.
“Wait.” Con’s voice was muffled, his head partly under the bed. He backed out quickly, scrambling to his feet. There was a streak of dust down the side of his face. “The maids, it seems, are less meticulous where it’s unseen.” He climbed onto the bed, reaching his hand through the spindles of the headboard and groping down. “There’s something here. Ha!” He pulled his hand out and turned to Lilah, a triumphant grin spreading across his face.
He reached out to Lilah, offering a folded piece of paper.
It felt as if every drop of blood in Lilah’s body had just drained down to her feet. “You found the letter.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
LILAH STARED AT the notepaper as if Con were handing her a snake.
“Go on.” Con waggled the note. When she still hesitated, he said, “Would you rather read it alone? I can leave.”
In the doorway, Aunt Vesta let out a little squeak of dismay. The sound seemed to break Lilah’s paralysis, and she shook her head, reaching out to take the letter from him.
“No, I’d rather you were here.” She smiled. “Though that was a handsome offer, I must say, given your curiosity.”
“Perhaps I’ve turned over a new leaf,” he replied lightly. “I’m glad you want me to stay.”
Lilah broke open the seal and began to read aloud.
“My dearest Lilah,
“I have never been the father I should have. I’ve come to realize how much of my life I wasted on things I couldn’t change instead of raising the wonderful being the Lord entrusted to me. I can only beg your pardon and pray that you will read this letter with an open mind and a forgiving heart.”
Lilah’s voice caught and she stopped, pressing her lips together for a moment.
“Little as you wish to acknowledge it, you hold great power within you.
“Many years ago, my father and his friends discovered a tunnel beneath the tower. It led them to an ancient cave of wondrous beauty, steeped in magical power. I do not know what force caused this or why it was revealed to my father, but he recognized it as a holy place. They turned it to their own advantage, receiving great blessings, and guarding it with great secrecy.
“The cornerstone of the Brotherhood is the eternal balance of the Three. The Sanctuary requires three keys to open it, and each of the Brothers holds one of the keys. I pass my key on to you, relying on your character to use it wisely. I have left the key in your house, where only you would look.”
“‘Left the key in your house’?” Lilah exclaimed, looking up from the letter in indignation. “That is all he tells me? He hid the key somewhere in the house?”
“Doesn’t narrow it down much,” Con admitted.
“It’s useless.” She waved the page. “If that isn’t just like Father.”
“You don’t know what he means?” Vesta looked crestfallen and eve
ry bit her age. “I thought—I hoped—” Turning, she left the room.
Lilah gazed after her. “Poor Aunt Vesta. I can’t help her.”
“Perhaps Sir Virgil said something more about it.” Con nodded toward the letter.
“Yes, you’re right.” Lilah took up her reading again.
“In each of the chosen Three, there must be a balance of good and bad. We were granted abilities in the areas most dear to us, but we were also given the counterparts of these qualities in equal magnitude.
“The Dearborns’ gift of wealth is countered by a rise in their greed. Hamilton’s wisdom was balanced by the terrible headaches that plagued him all his life. My father could not be pulled from his dreams and visions. I clung so tightly to my connection to the afterlife that I lost the love of the one closest to me.
“With Hamilton’s death, the sacred balance of the Three was destroyed. The abilities of those who remain have diminished. Niles has had the more visible decline in his talents, as he began to lose money at a rapid rate. But I, too, have begun to feel my connection to the Spirit fading, my ties to my beloved Eva and the Otherworld slipping away.
“Realizing the problem, I put away my key and refused to open the Sanctuary until such time as the Three can be restored.”
“The argument between him and Dearborn that Roberts overheard,” Con interjected.
“I imagine so.” Lilah nodded and went on.
“Since that time, however, I have meditated much on balance. Nothing we do comes without consequence, and nothing is given to us without a sacrifice in return. I have realized that a sacrifice was required from the Brotherhood. Though I believe they did it unknowingly, they took from their own life forces in order to bring life to the Sanctuary.
“The three original Brothers all came to untimely ends. Hamilton also left this life too early. Tellingly, the excess of their gifts has caused the manner of their deaths. I have little doubt that Niles and I will meet the same fate. I do not fear this, for I am eager to rejoin my beloved, but I fear for you, Delilah, and for Sabrina and Peter, whose lives may be cut short.