Careful to keep his tone neutral, he said, “Your father continued his work after he began working with me, then.”
“He liked to dabble.”
With his young daughter at his side, apparently. “I see. I imagine you are divulging this particular secret for a reason?”
“I want you to understand that the Bales family might be respectable, but I remember being a Walker. I remember what I once was. Hurt my sister…” With a speed and dexterity that surprised even him, she hurled the knife at his chair. It landed with a thunk in the wooden leg, vibrating mere inches from his knee. “And I will gut you like a trout.”
“And pick my bones from your teeth with the same blade, no doubt.” He set down his drink. “You are good, Esther.” He glanced down at the knife and considered. “You are very, very good.”
“Good enough. That is all you need remember.”
“Possibly. You could use a spot of training, however.”
“I don’t need training from the likes of you.”
“I knew you were bluffing ten seconds into this conversation. Also”—he reached down and pried the knife free with a quick yank—“it was shortsighted to have thrown your only blade.” He offered her the knife, handle first. “Tell me, Esther. Do you think I kept up with your family for all these years for the purpose of one day hurting your sister?”
“I don’t know why you kept up with us.”
“Because I wanted to know you were safe and well.”
She hesitated, then rose to retrieve her blade before returning to her seat. “Or you were afraid we would divulge secrets Father might have told us. Or you thought you might have need of us in the future. Or—”
“Good God, this family. You would question the motives of a saint.”
“Anyone with an ounce of common sense would be suspicious of a man claiming to be a saint. Canonization requires that a man be dead first.” In the ensuing silence, she made a rather obvious effort not to squirm in her seat and then, at long last, slumped and made her first openly honest statement since she’d walked in the door. “We can’t help it.”
“I know.” And it broke his heart. “The last thing I want is for your sister to be hurt. For any of you to be hurt. Understood?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head to the side. “I will rain all manner of hell upon your head if I discover you’re lying. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Now, aren’t you the least bit curious to know where you went wrong?”
“No. I know where I went wrong.” She smiled a little. “Poor mark.”
“Well, we all stumble when we’re afraid. But there’s more to it than that. Keep your seat a moment longer, and I’ll explain. But first”—he sat back and subjected her to a cold stare of his own—“I want to know what you’ve done with the rest of your father’s journals.”
Her smile vanished. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sure you do. Will kept a record of everything. If he was still dabbling in crime after he began work with me, then there are journals somewhere detailing those activities.” He’d wondered before now if those journals might have existed at some point. He’d just assumed Will had hidden or destroyed them long ago. For the first time, Esther had presented a different possibility. “I think they’re in this house, and I think you know where they are.”
“That is quite an assumption.”
“If you were the only person who knew Will was working again, then you’re the only person to whom he could have entrusted the journals.”
“Maybe he hid them away himself in one of the old chests or trunks sitting in the attic.” Esther made a prompting motion toward the door. “Go search them, if you like.”
He didn’t bother with a reply. They both knew everything in the house had been searched years ago, and every hint of Will Walker’s past had been removed for Peter’s sake.
Esther dropped her hand and shrugged. “I daresay if there had been any journals and I’d found them, I would have burned them.”
“You wouldn’t have burned them.”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason you nearly killed yourself saving an old pony.” The same reason Lottie hadn’t burned the others.
“Mr. Nips is a living creature.”
“And a reminder of your father, of a day he finally loved you well enough to remember your birthday,” he said and fought back remorse when she blanched. “Those journals are a memento of a time he trusted you above all others. Even Lottie.”
It was difficult to watch her struggle to hide her emotions. Esther was a gifted actress, but there were some kinds of pain that were impossible to mask.
After a moment, she rose from her chair. “I have said what I came to say.” Her voice sounded small and oddly subdued. “This conversation is over.”
Nineteen
Twenty minutes later, Owen found Lottie in the study, hunched over the pile of papers on her desk.
“We need to talk,” he said softly.
She barely spared him a glance. “Just one moment. I’m almost done.”
He walked to the desk and stared at the top of her head. “Lottie, look at me.” He didn’t want to do this. He bloody well didn’t want to be, yet again, the man who leveled ugly accusations at someone Lottie loved.
Frowning, she pulled her attention from the desk, then set her pen down carefully. “My apologies, I didn’t realize you were upset. What’s happened?”
“Did you know your sister helped your father?” He knew she didn’t. But, somehow, asking the question felt like a gentler introduction to the topic than simply spitting out your sister was a criminal and your faith in your father is rubbish.
“I beg your pardon?” She shifted in her seat to face him fully. “Helped him with what? His work, do you mean?” She shook her head. “No, you’re mistaken.”
“I just finished speaking with her. She told me herself.”
“I see. And what did she tell you, precisely?”
He offered an abbreviated version of his conversation with Esther, leaving off the question of the missing journals for now. Lottie winced when he mentioned the knife but offered no other reaction until he was done, at which point she laughed lightly.
“Henchman? Honestly. Never say you believed her?”
He did. Every word. But what concerned him more at the moment was that Lottie clearly did not. At a guess, she’d never even suspected Will had involved Esther in his work.
“Lottie, the truth is—”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Lottie cut in. “Esther never worked with my father. Why would I lie about that?”
Looking to put off the inevitable for a few moments, he grabbed a nearby chair and positioned it in front of Lottie’s so that their knees brushed when he sat. “I don’t know why you bother lying at all. I can always tell.”
“What rot.”
“You get the faintest wrinkle, just here.” He brushed the tip of his index finger just over her brow.
She lightly slapped his hand away. “I do not.”
“You do, and I know why. You don’t like lying.”
“Irrelevant. I’m good at it. There is no wrinkle.”
“Not this time.” Or ever. Reading her would never be so easy. He told himself that the purpose of the offhand, and entirely fabricated, comment had been to make her smile for a moment, but that was a lie. He was stalling, distracting, looking for a way out or around the impending argument. He didn’t want to be the accuser again. But there was nothing else for it. “I’m sorry you didn’t know about Esther.”
“There is nothing to know. Esther was never a part of our father’s work. I told you, he took less notice of her than he ought to have. He certainly never invited her to join him in his crimes.”
“That may have been true for a time.
When was it he bought her the pony? Her fifteenth birthday, did you say?”
A reward for her help, no doubt.
“Exactly so,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “He’d just started working for you. He’d stopped his criminal activities.”
“Your father worked for himself. That never changed.”
She sighed, a sound that was both annoyed and tired. “I don’t wish to have this argument with you now. Possibly ever. We’ll never agree about my father. Why bother?”
“This isn’t about your father. This is about Esther. You cannot help your sister by sticking your head in the sand.”
Temper flared in her eyes. “Do not presume to tell me how to handle my sister. I know her, Owen. You do not. She has played you for a fool.”
“Do you think I imagined a knife being hurled at my chair?”
“No. I think you believed a preposterous story she concocted to accompany what is, admittedly, an unusual talent.”
“A talent your father made certain was cultivated. For what purpose?”
“His own amusement,” she replied with impatience. “He thought it great fun to have a daughter with a penchant for hurling knives. Owen, I appreciate that you would come to me with your concern. But Esther…” She sighed heavily. “Esther is misguided in her motivations at times and a gifted storyteller. That doesn’t mean my father used her as a henchman, as you so ridiculously put it. He may not have been the best of fathers, or even a particularly good one, but he was not a monster. He cared for the safety of his children. Even you said so.”
“I assumed there was some degree of care, yes, but—”
“It was the correct assumption.”
“I am no longer certain,” he replied and swallowed an oath when she flinched. “I’m sorry. I am. But your father was unpredictable. More than I realized. His notion of what was safe and what was not may have been even more”—patently insane—“flexible than I assumed.”
“He was unpredictable,” she agreed in a tone that emphasized she was trying very, very hard to find some common ground between them. “And certainly he had rather unconventional, even poorly conceived, ideas on what sort of activities were appropriate for children. But neither of those facts has any bearing on the current discussion. My father did not involve Esther in his work before he met you, and he no longer continued his own work after he met you. Regardless of whether or not my father might have thought it safe for her to do so, Esther did not act as my father’s henchman.”
“Yes, she did.”
She made a sound that was half groan, half growl, and all aggravation. “This is absurd. You are asking me to believe—”
“I am asking you to consider the possibility that you were mistaken about this one aspect of your father’s life. I am asking you to approach this in a calm and objective manner for Esther’s sake.”
“You expect calm from me? You would turn my father into an ogre and my sister into a thug. And I am to be calm and objective?”
“For God’s sake, I’ve no intention of hauling your sister off in shackles, but—”
“I should hope not,” she cut in, “as she’s not committed any crime.”
“Esther admitted to helping your father.”
“Esther lies.”
“So did your father.”
“Yes,” she agreed with mounting heat. “Regularly. Brilliantly. Without remorse, often without care for the consequences, and sometimes for no other reason except that the lie was there and he liked the way it tripped off his tongue. You are not in a position to enlighten me on the nature of my father’s character. I know who he was. And I know who he became.”
“You would believe your father became an honest man but Esther is still a liar?” he asked, incredulous.
“Esther didn’t lie to me. She lied to you. That’s entirely different.”
“Only to a Walker,” he ground out. “Lottie, listen to me. If your father continued his activities with Esther—”
“He didn’t.”
“Hypothetically,” he pressed on, ignoring another growl of frustration from her. “If he did, he would have written about them. You said yourself he wrote about everything. There would be a journal or journals detailing his activities.”
“Yes, which only goes to prove those activities never occurred. I’ve seen all my father’s writings at some point or another, including the notes he kept during the years he worked for you. There is no hint of him running a scheme or confidence game during that time, and certainly no indication Esther was ever involved.”
“Not in the journals you’ve seen, no.”
“You think there are others? You think Esther has journals hidden away? Is that what she told you?”
“She denied it.”
“Because it isn’t true,” she all but shouted at him.
“Suddenly she’s telling the truth?” he snapped.
“Suddenly she’s a liar?” she shot back. Her hands curled into fists. “We’ll not agree on this. We will never agree. I am done speaking of it, and you are done with my sister.” She shoved her chair back from his and rose. “Stay away from her.”
Stay away? That cut it. He meant to keep his own calm, his own objectivity, but by God, the woman was infuriating. “The hell I will.” He rose from his chair. “Your father was a blackguard, through and through, Lottie. He used your sister and—” He swore when she spun away and headed for the door. He caught her in two steps, snagged her arm, and whirled her about to face him. “There is a murderer in your woods. If there is any chance, any chance at all, Esther’s journals can help us, I—”
“There are no other journals!” She yanked her arm. “Let go of me!”
He did, only to grab her again when the door flew open and Peter appeared, crimson-faced and trembling, with an old-fashioned dueling pistol at his side.
“Take your hands off my sister!” The hand holding the pistol shook as he lifted it to aim at Owen. “Now!”
“Peter. My God.” Lottie shifted to stand in front of Owen. “My God, what are you doing?”
Eyes trained on the weapon, Owen shoved Lottie behind him. “Stay back.”
She popped right back in front of him. “Stop it. He doesn’t want to shoot me.”
To avoid an extended shoving match, Owen caught Lottie around the waist with one arm, dragged her to his side, and angled his body to make himself the larger target. “He doesn’t want to shoot anyone.” But the boy was armed, angry, confused, and neck-deep in a dangerous bluff he couldn’t hope to pull off. All the necessary elements for tragedy were present.
“This,” Owen said grimly, “is how one kills people accidently.”
As if to prove the point, Peter waved the gun at him. “I said take your hands off her.”
“If I take my hands off, she’ll move to stand in front of me again. Is that what you want?”
Though it didn’t seem possible, Peter’s face turned a deeper scarlet. “Lottie, step away from him!”
“Absolutely not. Set that gun down this instant, or so help me God—”
“What’s all this?” Esther’s baffled voice arrived a moment before she appeared in the doorway beside Peter. In the space of two seconds, she took in the scene, snagged Peter’s wrist, twisted, and caught the gun before it dropped an inch from his hand.
“Ow! Bloody hell, Esther!”
“Idiot boy.” She inspected the gun while Peter cradled his arm. “It isn’t even loaded.”
“Of course it isn’t loaded. I wasn’t going to shoot him.” Peter gestured at Owen with his good hand. “I just wanted to scare him.”
“Into shooting you?”
“He’s not armed.”
“The devil he’s not.” Esther arched a brow at Owen.
Owen pulled back his coat to reveal the gun holstered at his side. He’d never had
any intention of drawing it, but he was willing to let Peter believe otherwise. It might frighten some sense into the boy.
Lottie spun on him. Horror flashed in her eyes, then disappeared just as quickly when he gave a quick, nearly imperceptible shake of his head. She offered a subtle nod of understanding in return, then yanked his coat closed again. “He is just a boy, Owen.”
“A boy pointing a gun at your head.”
“Your head, you bastard,” Peter snarled.
“You could have missed, lad.”
“It wasn’t loaded,” he ground out and winced. “God, Esther, you broke my wrist.”
“No, I didn’t. But I should have.” Moving past him into the room, she tossed the gun onto the nearby wing chair. “Renderwell didn’t know that was empty, you fool. Another minute, and he would have shot you dead.”
“Well, not dead,” Owen objected, willing to take the ruse only so far.
Lottie made a show of glaring at him. Then she glared in earnest at her brother. “What on earth were you thinking?”
“What was I…?” Peter’s expression went from pained to outraged in the space of a heartbeat. “What was I thinking? Someone broke into our house, then shot at you, then burned down our stables nearly killing both of you, then shot at all of us, and that man”—he used his good arm to stab a finger at Owen—“knows why. That man knows everything. Everything about us, about our father. Everything you’ve not seen fit to tell me. That’s what I was bloody thinking.”
Owen bit back an oath. The boy had heard their argument. “Peter, listen to me. Your sister is not to blame—”
“Sod off, Renderwell.”
“Stop it,” Lottie snapped at Peter. She turned to Owen. “I would like a word with my family, please.”
“Lottie, I…” With an oath, he reached out and snagged her hand. He didn’t know what to say to her. Surely, there was something he could do to make the coming scene easier for her. There had to be something he could say to set things right between them. Again. It seemed as if he was always searching for the right words to smooth over some new argument, constantly struggling to bridge some new gap between them.
A Talent for Trickery Page 24
