The Third heiress

by Brenda Joyce

  "Turn over," he demanded, pulling out and flipping her onto her knees.

  She wanted to kill him for leaving her but then he was back inside, his hands covering her crotch, opening her lips wide, and he was pumping and Jill fell, endlessly, hard, hearing her own cries with the back of her mind as he labored behind her, again and again, finally pushing her down and collapsing on top of her.

  He became very still. Jill listened to her thundering heartbeat, incapable of movement. Her mind came to life and her first thought was that his body was so warm covering hers.

  and he was holding her in an embrace with his hands on her breasts. She smiled as he rolled off of her.

  "Did I hurt you?" he whispered.

  "No," Jill whispered back.

  He glanced at her and she saw him smile, the smile of a sexually sated man. Then he flung out his arm and pulled her close. It was Jill who fell asleep first.

  Jill paused on the threshold of the breakfast room. She saw Alex before he saw her—he was immersed in the Sunday newspaper. She could not speak. She could only stare at him. Her heart was racing like the souped-up engine of a Ferrari, and she was a bundle of short-circuiting nerves.

  How could she have slept with him? She wasn't ready for any involvement, but by God, she was now involved. In fact, she was certain that she would never forget the night they had just spent together—and she still didn't understand it. He didn't love her and she didn't love him. How could two people have found such uninhibited and raw passion when they were practically strangers?

  Last night had been a huge mistake. Because it had been better than she could have imagined—and already a part of her was thinking about another night in Alex's arms. She should have realized that she couldn't jump into bed with him without becoming involved, on some level, and she was involved, against her will and better judgment. And now what was she going to do?

  Because making love with him didn't change anything at all. He was still a Sheldon, the truth about Kate was still out there, and eventually she was going to go home and pick up < the pieces of her life.

  He suddenly realized she was standing in the doorway, because his head popped up and he met her gaze, his eyes wide—and then he jumped to his feet, his chair scraping back loudly and almost turning over. His cup of coffee spilled all over the pristine white tablecloth.

  Jill hoped he was as nervous as she was. Did he also have regrets? And did he care about her, just a little?

  "Hi," she said nervously. She still coUldn't smile as she entered the room. Matters were even worse. In the light of day, Jill kept thinking about KC's warnings and the stolen letters. If Alex was that god-awful King of Swords, then she had just made a catastrophic mistake. "Good morning."

  "Good morning," he said, continuing to stand as she came forward. He was staring at her with such an intense scrutiny that Jill felt herself begin to blush.

  Jill watched him pour her a cup of coffee. The gesture suddenly took on a vast significance. How many men, in this day and age, actually did such a thing? His hands were lightly tanned and steady. Oh, God. If only last night hadn't happened. If only they were just friends. Alex had been right when he'd said an affair between them was too complicated.

  "Thank you," she said. Everything about last night now seemed wrong, except for the sex. He was a Sheldon, she was a nobody. Even if there were no other barriers between them, that single one would be enough.

  "Can you believe it? The sun is shining," Jill said far too brightly. Her cheeks felt like twin fireballs.

  He regarded her, his face a mask she could not read. It was as if she had spoken in Chinese. Finally he said, "Yeah."

  Jill drank her coffee, eyes downcast. She wondered if they should discuss what had happened last night, or if they should pretend nothing had happened at all. He made the decision for her, saying, "What's the agenda for today?" Digging into a plateful of fluffy scrambled eggs.

  Jill reached for a raisin muffin, less relieved than she was disappointed. He was going to pretend that last night hadn't happened. That was fine with her. She was not going to allow herself to feel hurt. "The chapel."

  "I thought so." He leaned back in his chair. An expression she could not read crossed his face. "Okay, I'll drive you over after we eat."

  "Thank you," Jill said slowly. She wished she had an inkling about how he was feeling. But she didn't. There was only this incredible tension between them. "I can drive myself, if you'd prefer." She told herself she would not be stricken if he told her to go her own way.

  "ril drive you." He was firm.

  "Why?" Jill knew her smile was sickly. "This is my quest. You're not very enthusiastic today. I don't mind if you stay behind."

  He stood. "I'm not unenthusiastic. I'm tired;" The look he gave her was pointed.

  Jill flushed. But at least he was referring to last night.

  "I'd still like you to hold off on this, Jill. For a while." He paused. "I don't like what happened to you in the tower."

  Jill hoped that he was trying to tell her that he cared. "I can't. I mean, at least not now. We're here, in Yorkshire ... who knows when I'll have a chance to come back?"

  He sighed and shrugged. He was so serious. "I have a ton of work to do this week, so I can't help you when we get back to town." He hesitated.

  "What?"

  "I'll admit it. I am curious, too, Jill, about what happened to your great-grandmother." Their gazes met. Alex was the first to look away. She could not understand why. He was not the kind of guy to be embarrassed by the kind of sexual encounter they had shared.

  And out of the blue, a thought she did not want struck her. He wasn't being honest with her. Something was wrong. He w^as lying to her. Jill could feel it.

  Alex and Jill stepped down from the Land Rover, approaching the small, old stone church. It was set just off of the road, behind a stone wall, surrounded by a pretty and lush green lawn, rose hedges, and old thick oak trees. A few steps farther away was the vicar's stone cottage, separated from the church by a stone path and more thick hedges. The church resembled thousands of other centuries-old chapels that Jill had seen both in tour guides and in movies. It was not much bigger than her studio back home.

  Stepping inside was like stepping through the window of time. The chapel was empty now and achingly silent, with that powerfully peaceful feeling Jill had encountered in churches before. They stood in the aisle, blinking, blinding

  sunlight pouring through the windows behind the knave. The pews hning up on either side of them were worn smooth from usage and the passage of so much time. The wood smelled sweet and well oiled.

  Incense also sweetened the air, Jill thought, either that or the wisteria blooming outside was extremely fragrant. As she stood there with Alex, their hips not quite touching, Jill glanced around and suddenly imagined what the church must have been like when Kate was alive. The pews would have been filled with the local villagers, the men clad in somber ill-fitting suits with high-collared shirts and fedoras, the women in long dark dresses and heavy black shoes, the boys in suspenders and knickers, the girls with their lacy drawers showing beneath wide knee-length dresses. She could almost hear horses wickering outside, and the occasional stomping of a hoof. Then she saw Kate, standing in the doorway, her face shockingly pale behind an opaque black veil, holding a swaddled infant to her bosom.

  Of course Kate would have come there to pray and to hope.

  Jill shivered, glancing cautiously around. The chapel was empty, but for one moment, she had glimpsed another place in time. It had almost felt as if she had been there.

  "May I help you?" The vicar was approaching them, clad in a dark suit and a white clerical collar.

  "Vicar Hewitt?" Alex asked, coming forward, his hand extended. "I'm Alex Preston, Lord Collins worth's nephew. I called a few minutes ago."

  The two men shook hands and Jill was introduced. Jill was surprised, for the vicar was very young—not much older than she was. Alex explained their business and Hewitt le
d them into a small, book-lined room behind the chapel where the church records were kept. He found the ledger they were looking for and laid it out on the old, scarred table in the center of the room. It was the size of an atlas, its dark maroon cover worn and faded with age, its pages yellowing and torn. "Anyone who died in 1909 and was buried here in our cemetery would be listed in this volume," he told them. "The listings are in chronological order, of course."

  Alex thanked him and as he and Jill bent over the volume, the vicar left the room. The two windows were open and birdsong filled the silence. Alex turned the pages, running his finger down date after date, finally pausing as May 17, 1908, appeared before their eyes.

  "One week after my grandfather was bom," Jill murmured. A man named George Thompson had died that day and been buried in the chapel cemetery.

  The ensuing date was for September 30, 1908. The next date was for December 3 of the same year. After that, the dates were for 1909.

  Jill's heart raced. She ran her finger down to May 21, the next entry for that year. And as abruptly, her heart dropped. January 12, 1909, was not listed. Katherine Adeline Gallagher was not listed.

  "There must be a mistake," Jill said, scanning the names of those who were buried and then dismissing them all, as Katherine Adeline Gallagher was not one of them. "Go back, Alex," she urged.

  He shot her a wry glance, turned back a page, but they were already in 1907. Then they went forward, flipping to the summer of 1909. Katherine Adeline Gallagher was not listed; clearly she had not had either a service or a formal burial at the Hinton Vale Chapel Cemetery.

  Jill stared at Alex as he shut the volume, the sound echoing in the stone room. "This is odd."

  He did not reply.

  "Someone buried her, Alex, but did so in great secrecy.*'

  'That would seem to be the case," he said.

  "What did they do, come here in the middle of the night with shovels and spades?"

  "I doubt she was buried in broad daylight. I didn't expect to find anything, Jill. The police never solved the case. Of course she was buried in secrecy. The question is, why? Someone took a great risk to bury her here."

  "Yes," Jill returned, clenching her fists. "Undoubtedly it was her killer who buried her—which would indicate some lingering fondness for her on his part."

  m

  Alex looked at her. "So who are you accusing?"

  Jill bit her lip. "Look, Edward was fooling around with Kate, but he married Anne. I imagine Kate caused him quite a bit of grief. I mean, I don't think she wished him well and politely walked away so he could marry her best friend."

  "Jill, hold your horses. What if she died in childbirth? Maybe she got pregnant again. That kind of scandal would also be covered up. You're going off the deep end."

  Jill looked at him, then looked out into the chapel and toward the doorway. "She came here to pray. To pray, and to hope for the solution to her dilemma."

  He studied her. "And how do you know that?"

  "Don't you think she stayed at Coke's Way? It's across the road, for godsakes! Why wouldn't she come here?"

  "Why are you shouting?"

  "I'm not." She took a breath. "I'm just upset." That was the truth. She was distressed, and not merely about Kate.

  He spoke very quietly. "If you're going to continue this quest of yours, so be it. But to make yourself sick is insane. She died ninety years ago, Jill. Nothing you find out wilj change what happened to her."

  He was right. Why was she so emotional? Jill pulled away. "I don't know why this whole thing is getting to me this way. I almost feel as if Kate is watching me, expecting me to solve this." She looked at him, but he did not respond. "I think your family knows a lot more than they've let on."

  His eyes widened. Then he resumed absolute control of his expression, and it became as flat as an overbeaten pancake. "Really."

  "Yes. Most families have all kinds of folklore that's passed down through the generations. Everyone seems totally ignorEint of even the existence of Kate. I don't buy it, not for a New York minute," Jill said. "You know, if Edward was the father of Kate's son, Peter, he was only twelve years older than William."

  He just looked at her. "Are you trying to make a point?"

  "How could William not have known about an older bastard brother?"

  Alex was silent. "Maybe there was no older bastard brother."

  "Maybe," Jill said, not believing it for an instant.

  "Do you intend to confront him?"

  Jill stared back at him. Suddenly he did not seem to be the man whose arms she had lain in last night. Suddenly it felt as if they were warily eyeing one another from opposite sides of the fence. And she could pretend all she wanted to, but that did hurt. "I did confront him—but mildly, when I first returned to London." Alex's expression did not chcuige. "He said he knew nothing. At the time, I believed him."

  "But now you do not."

  "No. Now I do not."

  "My uncle is an honest man. He's not a liar."

  "But I'm an outsider, and responsible for Hal's death. I'm sure he wouldn't want me to know the family dirt." Jill's mind was racing, and suddenly an idea occurred to her that she should have had before—could not believe she hadn't had before. "Let's go back to the house. Don't these old estates have ledgers that go back hundreds of years? Let's get Edward's signature. First thing Monday I'm going to have it compared to Barclay's. If they come up the same, Alex, then that is proof that Edward was Kate's lover and that he had her bastard."

  "All right," Alex finally said.

  Jill shrugged. "You are a spoilsport."

  He smiled then. "Someone has to keep a tight rein on you, kid, or God only knows where you'd be rocketing off to. Did anyone ever tell you that you could be termed a loose cannon?"

  She stopped smiling. There was affection in his tone. It was also teasing. But she did not like being called "kid" after last night. "Should I be flattered?"

  "Only if you like having someone looking out for you," he said, his own smile fading. "Let's go back to the house and find those ledgers you're talking about."

  Jill nodded. Excitement swept over her again. But with it came trepidation. She felt as if she was on the verge of find-

  n

  ing the answers she was looking for, but she also felt as if she were on the edge of a cliff, and that one misstep would send her plunging into an abyss.

  Alex carefully tore a page out of a huge ledger, a volume far bigger than the chapel's tome. He folded it and handed it to her.

  "I hope nobody notices that you did that," Jill said, glancing over her shoulder at the open doorway. They were in what Alex referred to as the study. It was not the same room as the library. This room was much smaller, it was dark and somber with wood paneling,' and had only one window, which looked out on the rocky cliffs and the sea. It had clearly once been used as a home office. Jill did not think it had been used in twenty or thirty years, if not more. It was too dark, too airless, and it smelled old and musty.

  "I doubt anyone comes in here, except for the odd maid to clean," Alex said, replacing the ledger onto a bookshelf filled with a dozen other ledgers. The estate records went back to 1495. Jill found that amazing.

  She was cheerful. "Ready for a tour of the attics?"

  He started. "You want to go up to the attics? Today?" The sun continued to shine so brightly that one might mistake their location for Florida. "You haven't been to Robin Hood Bay yet. We can have lunch at the pub."

  "How about a late lunch?" Jill smiled. "Alex, everyone shoves their old stuff in their attics. I can't even begin to imagine what's up there in your attic. We can't possibly leave tomorrow without checking it out."

  Alex sighed. "Follow me." As he led her through the house and upstairs, he told her that, as children, they had explored the attics at Stainesmore too many times to count. "When we were caught, we were always scolded," he said with a smile.

  They were on the uppermost floor where a few of the staff slept. A
t the end of the hallway was a narrow door, which Alex pushed open. Jill peered past his shoulder and saw very narrow stairs ascending into daricness. "Any lights?" she asked hopefully.

  "You've got to be kidding," he said. He pulled his pen-light out of his pocket. "But there are three windows, if I recall correctly, and the sun is bright today." He gave her a look that indicated he'd rather be out in the sun than inside, with her, going through a musty attic searching for clues about the fate of her supposed ancestor.

  Jill shoved past him, walking cautiously up the njirrow stairs, hoping there were no mice scurrying about. She paused on the landing, glancing around at a long space with slanting, low ceilings. It was filled with boxes and trunks, varying in size from the kind of cartons one would pack books in, to crates that could hold clothing or even linens. She sighed. "It would take a month to go through everything up here."

  "Robin Hood Bay?" Alex asked hopefully.

  Jill ignored him and stepped forward. He was right, they didn't need an interior light at this time of day, in spite of the clutter. She went to a stack of old leather traveling trunks, trimmed in brass, and began pulling the top one down.

  Alex immediately came forward. "Hold on before you break something—like your foot."

  She watched the muscles popping out of his arms as he hefted the trunk, grunting, and moved it to the floor. Jill saw that it had a small padlock on it. She knelt and jiggled it, "Do you think we can break this lock?" she asked.

  He knelt beside her. "It's been a while, but I'll try."

  Jill watched him extract a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, flip open a file, and fool with the padlock. Suddenly she found herself thinking about the intruder KC claimed to have seen leaving her studio in New York. Her sense of levity vanished. When he did not have success, she was oddly relieved. "I guess you're out of practice."