by Bobbi Smith
“That’s true enough,” she agreed.
Even as she acknowledged that Elizabeth always confided in them, Angel couldn’t help but wonder if it were possible that she’d harbored some secrets too terrible to share. Coupled with what she’d learned from George Martin, Angel knew she was going to have to pay Mr. Hayden a visit as soon as possible.
It was almost nine o’clock that evening when the last of the grievers departed and the family was finally alone. Unable to sleep, Christopher had come back downstairs about an hour before. He’d sought out Angel and had stayed with her the whole time.
“I suppose we’d better be going,” Aunt Blanche said wearily.
“Please don’t go!” Christopher blurted out. Almost in a panic, he threw his arms around Angel and hung on tight.
“Sweetheart, we’ll be back early in the morning,” Angel tried to explain in a soothing tone, but he just tightened his grip.
“Don’t leave me. Not tonight,” he begged. “Please.”
His whining annoyed Michael. He almost wished the women would take the miserable brat with them and get him out of his sight, but he didn’t want to sound heartless. No loving father would send his child away on a night like this.
“Why don’t you ladies spend the night here? There’s plenty of room.”
“Oh, no ...” Aunt Blanche began, but Michael refused to take “no” for an answer.
“Christopher obviously needs you and wants you here. I really would appreciate it.” He sounded humble, but the truth was he would have appreciated anything that would shut the boy up.
Angel and Sarah needed no further encouragement. Christopher had been traumatized enough. Angel’s arms tightened around him. “All right. We’ll stay. Won’t we, Aunt Blanche? Christopher needs us.”
“All right,” the old woman agreed. “But we’ll need to send one of the servants to get some of our things.”
“That’s no problem,” Michael responded, satisfied that his whimpering offspring would be out of sight and out of mind for at least the rest of the night. The thought of Angel sleeping under his roof pleased him, too.
“Thank you.”
“Oh, good,” he sighed, reassured.
As soon as the servant returned with their clothes and necessities, the women and Christopher retired for the night.
Christopher had begged for Angel to sleep with him in his room, and so she had, gathering his sweet little body close to hers as they curled up together in his bed. She was surprised when he’d quickly fallen asleep in her arms. She’d expected him to be restless. The emotional strain of the day had obviously taken its toll on him, and he slept soundly, an innocent babe.
Once she was sure Christopher was asleep, Angel inched away, moving to her own side of the bed without disturbing him. She lay awake long into the night. Her emotions were in turmoil as she tried to decide what to do. Why had Elizabeth made that appointment with the lawyer? Were the bruises George Martin had mentioned related to the fall or had they been caused by something or someone else? It didn’t take Angel long to make a decision about what she needed to do, but she knew she couldn’t act upon it until Michael had come upstairs for the night.
It was the wee morning hours before Angel finally heard her brother-in-law ascend the staircase and enter his own bedroom down the hall. She waited until she was sure he’d retired, then rose from Christopher’s bed with steely determination. Drawing on her wrapper, she lit a lamp; and, keeping it turned down low, she crept from the room.
The house was quiet and dark. Even the servants had gone to their quarters. Angel was relieved for she needed privacy. Reaching the top of the steps, she paused. The flickering lamplight cast shadows and added a ghostly feel to the oppressive stillness.
Angel trembled as she tried to imagine what had happened there at the top of the steps the night Elizabeth fell. Had she been sleepy and just lost her footing on the steep staircase or had something else caused her to take that deadly tumble? Clutching the bannister, Angel bravely descended, the need to find the answers to her questions driving her ever onward.
She reached the foyer, then silently entered the parlor. After placing the lamp on a table near the coffin, she moved nearer to gaze down at her sister. In life, Elizabeth had been a vibrant, loving woman. In death she looked pallid and grim. The lips that had laughed and smiled so often were dour and sullen. While Angel knew it was her sister, the dead woman bore little real resemblance to the delightful woman Elizabeth had really been.
Sorrow filled Angel, but it was soon thrust aside by the barely contained rage that threatened to overwhelm her. She had to know the truth about what had happened. She had to!
Angel stared at her sister for a moment longer, searching her memory for any indication Elizabeth might have given, however subtly, that her life had been less than perfect after she’d married. Their times together had always been happy ones, though, and Angel could not recall any instance where her sister had been unusually worried about anything. She wondered if her oldest sibling had been that good an actress or if Elizabeth really had been content. Angel wondered briefly, too, if she were just letting her hatred of Michael cloud her thinking; and she knew at that moment that she had to discover the truth.
Girding herself, Angel reached out with unsteady hands and unbuttoned the cuff on the sleeve of Elizabeth’s dress. After one last nervous glance back over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, she carefully began to push the material up her sister’s arm.
Angel was glad the garment was loose-fitting as she slipped the sleeve slowly upward, looking for the bruises George Martin had mentioned. There were no marks on Elizabeth’s forearm, but Angel kept going. When she checked up higher, past her elbow on her upper arm, the sight of the ugly discolorations caused her to gasp out loud.
“Oh my God!!” The words were torn from her as she realized what she’d discovered.
The bruises marring the soft flesh of her sister’s upper arm were in the form of a perfect hand print. It was obvious to Angel that someone had grabbed her there and with a great deal of force. There was no way that that particular bruise could have been made in a fall down the stairs.
Angel staggered backward a step, her hand at her throat as she swallowed reflexively in revulsion. All her doubts were gone, washed away in her sister’s blood. Angel knew what had happened.
Leaving the lamp in the parlor, Angel hurried back upstairs and slipped into the room where Sarah was sleeping. She shook her sister awake.
“Sarah.” Her whisper was urgent.
“Angel?” Sarah asked sleepily. “What’s the matter?”
“Shhh.... keep your voice down.”
“Why?” She was only barely awake, staring at Angel in confusion.
“I need you to come with me. There’s something you have to see.”
“See? In the middle of the night?” Sarah protested, but did manage to keep her voice hushed.
“Here, put on your wrapper and I’ll show you!” Angel had no time for arguing as she shoved the robe at her.
Sarah was fully awake now, and she quickly donned the wrapper. “Where are you taking me?”
“Just downstairs. Now, be quiet. We can’t let anybody know what we’re doing.”
Sarah followed her downstairs and into the parlor. She was surprised that there was a lamp already burning there.
“What are you doing?” she asked, hanging back when Angel went straight to the coffin.
“Look at this.” Angel demanded.
“Look at what?” Sarah edged forward, trying to ignore the shivers that were skittering up and down her spine. At the sight of the black and blue marks on Elizabeth’s arm, she too was shocked.
“But what? How?” She lifted horror-filled dark eyes to Angel’s emerald ones, and she saw the truth reflected in her sister’s hard, accusing expression. “You think that . . . no.” Sarah shook her head, trying to deny that which couldn’t be denied.
“Sarah, listen to me! Georg
e Martin told me earlier this evening that there had been some unusual bruises on her body. I just had to see for myself. I couldn’t believe that she’d just fallen like that.”
“And you think Michael? ...”
Angel’s gaze didn’t waver. “You told me yourself that Elizabeth had made an appointment with a lawyer. Why do you suppose she did that?”
Their gazes met and locked in nervous understanding of what they’d just discovered.
“What are we going to do?” Sarah asked, stricken. Between the two of them, Sarah had always been the calming, more mature influence, but now she was at a loss to deal with their gruesome discovery. She had trusted Michael.
Before Angel could reply, Christopher’s soft voice sliced through the silence of the night like a scream, startling both women.
“Aunt Angel? Aunt Sarah?”
They turned to see the solitary little figure of their nephew standing in the doorway, his hair mussed from sleep, his loose-fitting pajamas making him look even more pitifully waif-like.
“Christopher! What are you doing up at this hour?” Angel was worried. The last thing they needed was for Michael to hear them and come downstairs and find them.
“I woke up, Aunt Angel, and you were gone. I was lonely, so I came down to see my mother again,” he said in a tortured voice, lifting his brown eyes to hers.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you by leaving you alone.” Angel could see the pain in his gaze, and she held out her arms to him.
Christopher went into her arms and accepted her hug. He then moved to look at his mother and saw that her sleeve had been pushed up and the bruises exposed.
“You weren’t supposed to know,” he mumbled sadly, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Know what?”
The boy looked nervous and upset. He shifted his gaze guiltily away. “Mother told me not to tell anybody, ever, especially not you.” He bit his lip as he realized that the truth was now out.
“Why not?”
“Mama didn’t want you to know that Papa hit her sometimes—and me, too—when we didn’t make him happy,” he blurted out miserably, believing he’d broken his mother’s trust.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Sarah embraced the child, holding him to her bosom as she exchanged horrified looks with Angel over the top of his head.
“How long ago did you make that promise to your mother?” Angel prompted.
“A long time ago,” he confessed. “She said it had to be our secret, but now that she’s dead I don’t want to stay here any more. Please don’t make me stay here.”
At his words, Angel knew pain so vicious that it might as well have been a knife in her heart. She’d been right all along! Michael was a fiend! He had killed her sister and beaten his son!
“Don’t worry, Christopher. We’ll take care of you, but you mustn’t say a word about tonight to anyone else. All right?”
He nodded.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Sarah asked in a trembling voice.
“Right now, nothing. Tomorrow, after the funeral, we’ll make sure Christopher comes home with us for a visit, and then I’m going to pay Mr. Hayden a visit,” Angel told her with conviction. She knew they had to take quick action if they were to save Christopher.
“I’m going with you,” Sarah declared staunchly. Though she was a gentle person, she would not tolerate anyone hurting her loved ones. Now that she knew the whole, terrible truth, she was filled with as much spirit and determination as Angel was.
“Thanks.” Angel felt better knowing Sarah would be at her side.
Angel adjusted Elizabeth’s sleeve once more so no one would learn of their horrible discovery. Picking up the lamp, she led the way back up to their bedrooms. Angel was firmly resolved that she was going to see Michael pay for what he’d done and make certain that he would never have the opportunity to lay a hand on Christopher again. As long as she had a breath in her body, Angel was going to insure no harm ever came to her nephew.
The following morning found the skies leaden and a steady, miserable drizzle soaking the land and all who ventured out upon it. As Angel stood at Elizabeth’s gravesite listening to Reverend Jacob’s solemn prayers, she thought it almost seemed as if the heavens were weeping. Today, she could no longer hold back her tears. This was the end of it. She would never see Elizabeth again.
Sarah, too, was crying. The bruises on Elizabeth’s body had at first shocked, then sickened her. She glanced up, and through the veil of her tears she saw Michael, looking much the grieving husband as he stood nearby.
Sarah realized that she’d been under Michael’s spell from the start, but she would not let him affect her any longer. What troubled her was the knowledge that Elizabeth had stayed with him so long, even though he had treated her so brutally. Had she loved him so much that she would tolerate such cruelties from him? Sarah had always thought love was a kind and gentle thing. She’d thought it meant giving your mate all of yourself with nothing held back. She’d thought it meant sharing the good times and the bad times without recriminations and with the total trust that the other person would always be there for you no matter what. Her sister had supposedly married for love, and yet her life had ended in violence at her husband’s hand. Sarah’s troubled thoughts were interrupted as the minister completed his prayers.
“Amen,” Reverend Jacobs intoned, and those gathered in the cemetery responded in kind. He closed his Bible with a thump and moved through the small group of mourners, expressing his sympathies. He stopped to speak at length with Michael.
Angel and Sarah were filled with loathing as they watched them talk, but somehow, they managed to keep that telltale emotion from showing. It wouldn’t do to let on that they knew the truth about him. That would come later.
“What are we going to do now, Aunt Angel?” Christopher asked as he huddled near her. He had hardly ventured an inch from her side all morning.
“We’re going to see if your father will let you spend a few days with us.”
“Good.”
“Why don’t you take Aunt Blanche and go wait for us in the carriage? We’ll only be a few minutes,” Sarah suggested, and she was pleased when the boy complied, accompanying their elderly, weeping aunt to the shelter of the conveyance.
Michael looked up as Angel and Sarah joined him. “Well, it’s over.”
He sounded so sincerely upset that the women realized if they hadn’t known the truth about him, they would have been convinced that he was honestly grieving for his dead wife.
“Ladies, you have my deepest sympathies,” Reverend Jacobs told them as he prepared to leave. “Michael, I’ll stop by and see you later.”
“Thank you, Reverend Jacobs.”
When the preacher had gone, Angel spoke first.
“Michael, Christopher’s so upset we were wondering if you’d mind if he came to stay with us for a few days. It’s hard for him to be in your house right now after what happened.”
“Of course it’s all right. It will probably do him a world of good to get away for a while.”
“Good. We have been very worried about him.”
“I appreciate your concern.” He was glad they were taking the boy. He wanted to celebrate his newfound freedom. He didn’t want to be playing nanny to a crying nine-year-old.
“We love Christopher.”
“We all love Christopher.” Michael boldly moved to hug both Angel and Sarah.
Both women had to fight to keep their real emotions from showing when he embraced them. They bid him good-bye and promised that he would be hearing from them soon.
It was much later that afternoon when Angel and Sarah sat across the desk from John Hayden, the lawyer. Their faces reflected the outrage they were feeling over what he’d just told them.
“But Michael killed Elizabeth just as sure as if he’d taken a gun and shot her!” Angel insisted.
“Angela, you’ve known me for many years. You know I will always be completely honest
and forthright with you; and, while I agree that what you’ve told me is shocking, you still have no solid evidence to prove your case. No matter what you might think, Michael’s innocent unless you can prove otherwise. You have only bruises on your sister’s arm and a child’s word that his father occasionally hit his mother to back up your story. It’s not enough to convict him.”
“Why not? Why can’t we have him arrested?”
“As horrible as it is, I’m afraid it’s not against the law for a man to strike his wife. In the eyes of the law, she’s considered his property, you know.”
“You mean there really is nothing we can do?” They spoke in unison.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Hayden answered with finality. He felt deeply troubled denying them hope; but, without some tangible proof, a conviction would be impossible. “I wish there were something more positive I could tell you or something I could do to help you.”
“We’re sorry, too.” Angel and Sarah rose to go. They didn’t speak again until they were safely inside their carriage.
“Now what?” Sarah asked. “We can’t let Christopher go back home to Michael. We just can’t.”
“I know. If he killed Elizabeth, there’s no telling what he might do to Christopher, although I doubt he’d do him any serious harm before he claims his inheritance.”
“You’re right. The money . . .”
“I know. It could be that’s all he’s ever been after,” Angel remarked bitterly. She thought for a moment, then lifted her gaze to her sister’s. “There’s only one thing left for us to do.”
“What?”
“We’ve got to get Christopher as far away from Michael as possible.”
They looked at each other solemnly, understanding the danger they would face in such a risky venture. Still, there was no alternative. They loved their nephew and would do everything they could to protect him.
Chapter Four
St. Louis—Ten Days Later
Sarah opened the hotel room door to Angel’s soft call.
“Come on in,” Sarah urged, closing the door quickly behind her. “Is Christopher sleeping?”
