A quick scan informed her there were three similar gaps, and metal rings affixed to the wall. She advanced to take a closer look at one.
The ring was hefty enough to secure an ox, but worn on the inside, as though something heavy and solid had repeatedly chafed it. A chain, perhaps. What raised the fine hairs along her nape, however, were the scratches in the stone around the ring, like something—or someone—had tried to claw it loose.
She straightened to stare at Mr. Banner.
“What in heaven was this room really used for?”
HER HANDS TREMBLED as she lifted the teacup to her mouth, but colour had returned to her cheeks—along with a glittering stony defiance in her gaze as she lowered the cup to the desk and looked at him.
“I want all the ledgers and journals taken to my chamber. I’ll review them there.” She stood, and crossed to pick up the jar containing the deformed infant.
“Careful,” he said, moving to help her. “It’s heavy.”
“I can manage,” she said primly, and transferred the jar from the shelf to desk with infinite care, as though afraid of waking the malformed inhabitant. Without taking her eyes off of it, she rounded the desk, lowered to the chair, and leaned in for closer examination. “It has eyelashes. Or rather, they have eyelashes.” She looked up. “Do you think had it—they—lived, they’d have been of two minds?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. My mother took me to Greece one year to visit her parents. I was quite young, but I remember my grandfather taking me to a neighbouring farm to see a two-headed lamb that had been born alive. I don’t remember details, but he swore each head behaved differently, despite being of one body. One fussed and bleated, while the other was quieter, more observant.”
“Really?” Pearl earbobs set in scalloped gold complimented a single pearl hung on a gold chain around her neck, its white opalescence shimmering like a full moon in a starless night sky against the front of her gown. She grasped the pearl, her small hand closing around it like she feared he planned to steal it. “Is everything all right, Mr. Banner?”
“Uh, yes.” He forced his gaze to hers. “I was...thinking about the lamb. About how its mother tried to stomp it to death, and how it had to be dragged from the pen before she could.”
“Poor thing. The lamb,” she clarified. “Not the ewe. I can’t fathom any mother trying to harm her child, especially a sheep. I thought they were gentle creatures.”
“They are. But even gentle creatures can turn violent when threatened. Conversely, what looks like cruelty can sometimes be kindness.”
“Kindness?”
She had the most expressive eyebrows—one moment slanted with annoyance, the next, like now, arced with incredulity. Repressing an urge to steeple his fingers on either side of her face and brush his thumbs slowly across them, he nodded.
“The lamb was too disformed to stand or to nurse, and so it faced a slow death by starvation if predators didn’t get it first. I like to hazard that its mother was motivated by love to spare it the horror of either fate.”
“By killing it?” she demanded.
“Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.”
She pursed her lips, before softly translating, “Mercy often inflicts death.” She frowned inquiringly. “You’re a scholar.”
“No. Just a man who likes to read.”
“Latin?” There was no incredulity, only interest, in her expression.
“Papou was the scholar. He liked to encourage me.”
“Papou?”
“Greek for Grandfather.”
She nodded, and the desirous intrigue he’d noted in her gaze whenever their eyes met returned, inspiring an instant craving to examine her with his mouth and hands the same way she was studying him with her eyes.
He stifled the urge by looking at the jar on the desk, which brought her attention back to it, too. A look of indelible sadness was etched into her features.
“Poor dear thing,” she whispered. “Perfectly formed in every other way. Ten fingers. Ten toes...”
He eased out his breath, grateful for her distraction, which afforded him opportunity to strangle the sexual hunger clawing him bloody inside just as he’d killed his curiosity where the jar and this whole damn room were concerned, years ago.
As soon as George had handed him the keys to Sugar Hill and left, he’d locked the archive and tossed its key in a drawer. He hadn’t been down here in a decade, and wished he wasn’t here now.
Except for her, he amended, admiring the red-gold glimmer of her hair reflecting in the pearl earrings edging her sculpted cheeks as she trailed her fingertips along the jar as though caressing the fragile skulls of the child within. She made being down here tolerable.
She looked up and offered him a tremulous smile.
“I’d like to bury her,” she rasped. “A century is long enough to await proper burial, don’t you agree?”
Chapter 7
Ashes of a Ruined Heart
RAIN DRIPPED AND DRIBBLED from the oak’s leaves, a symphony of muted patters and plinks underscoring the solemn occasion, but beneath the tree’s expansive branches, it was surprisingly dry. Even if her eyes weren’t.
Dabbing them with her handkerchief, she stared into the square hole in the ground that was fast enlarging with each excavation of dark soil.
Mr. Banner, bless his soul, never questioned her request. Once he’d shuttered his initial surprise, he nodded and carried the jar upstairs for her.
By the time she’d been to her bedchamber to change shoes and grab a wrap in deference to the escalating wind and darkening sky, he was waiting out in front of the manor, shovel in hand. The jar, however, was nowhere in sight.
“The child?” she’d asked.
“Rufus will bring her along shortly.”
Her.
She’d welled up at that, his acknowledgement of the child not as a thing or an it, but as a tiny, mis-formed infant girl whose uncle had treated her with the same callous disregard he might an overseas artefact brought home and left on a windowsill as a memento of the trip.
She eased out her breath so as not to disturb the hush broken only by the steady thrum and plink of rain and Mr. Banner’s occasional soft grunt as he heaved a spade full of increasingly wet and heavy soil.
She supposed she ought to feel faintly embarrassed, or at least uncomfortable, asking him to dig a grave for a child born dead a century earlier, but all she felt was relief. And gratitude.
The secluded spot within the walled compound of the Sweeney family cemetery was far from the dungeon of curiosities where the poor child had been imprisoned so long, and it was sheltered by an ancient oak whose broad branches protected the earth from scorching sun and gouging rain.
Fisting her gloved hands, she resisted an urge to press them to her barren womb.
She would never know the exquisite pain of becoming a mother. Of bearing a beautiful, vulnerable infant. She’d never cup her newborn’s fragile skull in her palm or brush her lips across its sweet downy brow and marvel at its existence as it breathed its first breaths, uttered its first plaintive cries. Such tender joy was reserved for other women. But she could find solace in providing this child a safe and welcoming final resting place.
Mr. Banner straightened and leaned the shovel against the tree’s trunk.
The grave was small, but adequate for the jar, though deeper than she’d anticipated. And it was beginning to fill with water. She startled when something splatted on her shoulder.
The rain was falling harder and saturating the oak’s protective foliage. Steady drips, and in some places streaming dribbles, formed murky puddles around the edges of the displaced soil.
Rufus appeared in her peripheral vision, carrying a wooden box.
It its previous life, the box had been an apple crate. Now it served as a pink-satin lined coffin, the shiny fabric tufting from between narrow slats like candy floss. The lid was nailed on.
She hadn’t asked for any special preparations for the c
hild beyond having her buried. She certainly hadn’t considered interring her inside of anything other than the jar. But Mr. Banner—or Mr. Rufus—had gone beyond the practicalities of seeing the job done, to the compassion of seeing it done right. With care. With tenderness.
That was what the satin lining represented—tenderness. Caring. Something to protect the child from the crate’s rough wood, and something pink to reflect her femininity. Focussing on a tangled clutch of soggy leaves, she fought the sobs building within her.
The men had gone to considerable trouble on her and the child’s behalf. She’d not inconvenience them with an outburst of emotion.
Mr. Banner took the box from Mr. Rufus and knelt on one side of the open grave. With visible discomfort, Mr. Rufus knelt on the opposite side. She started forward.
“Let me—”
“It’s all right, missus.” Mr. Rufus raised a hand. “These ol’ bones might crick a little, but they’re strong as ever.”
With a smile and a nod, she backed away as together the men lowered the box into the grave. Mr. Banner released his side and popped to his feet with the nimble strength of a man half Mr. Rufus’s age and twice his flexibility, while Mr. Rufus planted his hands on one bent knee and pushed himself up, lumbering to his feet. When he moved to stand behind her, she offered him a grateful smile before looking back at Mr. Banner, who’d removed his hat and was smoothing his dark, wavy hair with one broad, dirt-smudged hand.
Clearing his throat, he bowed his head. “Lord, we commend this child to you, and ask that you—”
“Rose.”
Mr. Banner looked at her.
“She can’t go without a name,” she said, “and I’ve always loved the name Rose.”
He held her gaze a moment, then nodded. When he spoke again, his voice was faintly gruffer than it had been a moment earlier. “God, we commend this infant child, Rose, to you...”
She held herself together through Mr. Banner’s brief eulogy and while he replaced the damp earth to the hole until it formed a small mound above the muddied grass. The moment he finished tapping the shovel along the edges of mounded earth to compact it, she rasped, “Thank you, gentleman, for all your help. But you needn’t stay. I’m sure you have other duties that require your attention.”
Mr. Rufus departed with barely a whisper of sound. Mr. Banner, however, remained, his preceptive—sympathetic—gaze on her.
Suppressing a shiver—it was the damp and cold and not the way he seemed to see right past her stoic façade through to her bruised heart—she raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“I mean it, Mr. Banner. You’ve done what you can here, and very thoughtfully, I might add, for which I’m grateful. But I won’t keep you.”
He frowned. “You’re not coming in?”
“I will. I want to pay my respects first. Alone,” she added quietly but firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Banner.”
He drew a breath and nodded, though with marked reluctance. “I’ll go and get those files moved upstairs to your chamber.”
Of course. The files.
“Is there no one else who can manage that task?”
“None willing to venture into the archive.”
Of course not. The people Terrence Sweeney had tortured in that chamber were the ancestors and relatives of many of those currently employed at Sugar Hill.
“Perhaps it’s best we just leave everything as is,” she said. Then she wouldn’t have to feel awkward knowing he was wandering in and out of her bedchamber. Which was silly. She should be pleased he took his responsibilities seriously enough to deliver sensitive documents himself. But something about the thought of him in her intimate space...A full-body flush warmed the chilly damp seeping through her clothes.
“You’re sure?” His tone bordered on paternal.
Which solidified her decision.
She lifted her chin. “Yes, Mr. Banner. I am certain.”
Retrieving the shovel, he paused to glance at the mound of muddy earth, then at her.
“Rose is a beautiful name,” he said. “It suits her.”
She waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps retreating across the spongy grass before allowing her tears to fall.
SHE’D CUT A SMALL AND forlorn figure out there under the old oak, her shawl hugged around her shoulders and veiled head bowed. He’d had to fight not to take her in his arms and comfort her.
That would have been a colossal mistake.
But maybe he should have at least stayed nearby, if not right with her?
No. She’d been clear about wanting solitude. Why she wished to grieve alone over the grave of a child born dead a century earlier, when she hadn’t bothered to show last year for her husband’s funeral—
“Joe?”
He jerked, and glanced over his shoulder. Then, sliding the account ledgers he and Mrs. Sweeney had been going over that morning inside the safe, he locked it and pushed to his feet.
“You’re back early,” he said facing around.
Maisie offered up no explanation, but Miss Lisette’s smile warned of impending trouble as she guided Maisie to the leather sofa facing the desk. Once Maisie was seated and Reba had flopped on the rug by her feet, Miss Lisette, with a promise she’d be in the kitchen with Miss Alma if needed, left, leaving the study door open. Joe contemplated Maisie’s slouched posture.
She spent most days at the neighbouring plantation—Lily Grove—owned by Norm and Else Guenther, where she played with their daughter Chloe as she had done since she was five years old. It was an arrangement that worked well for him and better for the Guenthers, who’d never fully recovered from Miss Chloe’s surprise arrival in their late forties, fifteen years after their fifth—and in their minds, final—child. But familiarity often bred contempt, and on occasion, the girls needed a brief, sometimes immediate, breather from each other. So unplanned early returns weren’t rare, and they almost always heralded an excited diatribe from Maisie over dinner about something unkind Miss Chloe had said or done to spark her premature departure.
Only a handful of times in the last five years had she returned from Lily Grove and immediately sought him out instead of saving her discourse for the end of his workday. Each time had resulted in a tentative query about her mother, usually about what she’d looked like, or whether she’d liked certain things like tart apples or crusts on her bread. He’d given her the same answer each time: “She was beautiful, and funny, and smart, and daring, just like you. And she liked everything. Tart apples, crusts on her bread, sunny days, and rainy days, too. What she liked most—what she really, really loved, Maisie Marie Antoinette—was you.”
And each time, she had skipped away smiling, content in knowing her mother had loved her. But she hadn’t asked about her mother in a long time. A year, maybe two. Of course, that didn’t mean she’d stopped wondering about her mother—only that she’d stopped asking about her.
Easing out a slow breath, he said, “I don’t know what brought you home early, Maise, but I do know it’s almost lunchtime. Let’s—”
“No.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
She crossed her slender arms and pressed against the sofa. “You can’t make me forget that easy. Not anymore.”
He swallowed an instinctive rebuke.
She was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a wilting wallflower. Nor was she prone to disrespectful outbursts, however. So whatever had her tail in a knot was serious and needed untangling sooner rather than later.
The short hallway leading out of the study and larger cross hall beyond appeared empty, and he heard nothing to indicate anyone was lurking within earshot. Still, he crouched next to her and kept his voice low.
“I know you’re not a baby, Maisie. You’re almost ten. Half-grown, even. And, as someone who’s half-grown, I expect you understand there’s a time and a place for private discussion—”
“This is private. No one else is here.” She uncrossed her arms to grip the sofa arm with one hand.
He stared in consternation at the freckled knobs of her wrist, exposed only because the sleeve’s cuff could no longer reach to cover them. Worse still was the bodice’s fit. White linen with a dark blue yoke and matching ruffles cascading down the skirt, the dress had been a Christmas gift to her from his mother. Six months ago, when she’d first tried it on, it had fit a little loose. Now it was so snug he could discern the sharp crescents of her ribs beneath the thin fabric.
She really was half-grown.
And would be full-grown in no time.
Swallowing a rise of regret he didn’t care to examine too carefully, he said, “This is Mrs. Sweeney’s house. We need to take our conversation to our home—”
“If I go, will you tell me?”
“Tell you...?”
“What really happened to my mama.”
He compressed his lips.
He wasn’t wrong about the knot in her tail. Just its configuration. It wasn’t a simple half hitch loosened with a quick tug but a goddamn Gordian knot that, judging from the pain in his chest, affixed a length of invisible rope to his spine at one end before the rope passed clear through his chest to tie securely around the invisible hundred-pound boulder he’d carried around on his back for years—a heavy burden that had just slipped off and plummeted out over the side of a steep and dangerous chasm, forcing him to teeter precariously on the edge or follow it down to what he suspected was a painful end.
Fortunately, the immediate area outside the study was still empty and silent, so he took a moment to rebalance himself before replying. “I told you what happened—”
“You told me she died when I was a baby. But you never said how she died. And Chloe...” Her chin quivered as she swallowed. “Chloe told me she heard—”
“Whatever she heard, Maisie, it’s not true.”
“But you don’t know—”
“I do know. And I’m telling you, it’s not true.” He didn’t need to hear what Miss Chloe had said. And he couldn’t waste time finessing the knot.
The tears glittering in Maisie’s sightless eyes, the trepidation wavering her voice...Somehow the decade-old rumour dreamed up by some callous coward about Joe killing Simone and burying her in the swamp—a vicious falsehood he’d thought dead years ago—had floated up out of the past like a ghoul from a grave to haunt him and terrorise Maisie.
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