He wanted to believe that they would always find a way to build that bridge, that no matter how many times they argued, or walked away, they would always succeed in finding each other again. But there were times, like now, when he feared the worlds of a lawman and a Walker might be too far apart.
Because the words he needed eluded him, he settled for rubbing his thumb once over her knuckles before releasing her hand. “I’ll be here, Lottie. I am here.”
Twenty
A terrible silence fell over the room after Owen’s departure.
Peter stood hunched by the fireplace, while Esther propped a hip on the arm of the wing chair. Both of them looked to her expectantly.
They were waiting for her to speak, Lottie realized. Even now, when it was clear she’d made a mess of things, they expected her to lead.
She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Do you understand how foolish and dangerous it was to draw a weapon on another human being, Peter?”
He curled his lip in disdain but wouldn’t look her in the eye. “If it is your intention to deliver a lecture, I’ll leave.”
“You’ll stay where you are. Whatever you overheard tonight, however angry you might be, it was no excuse for what you did. You will apologize to Renderwell.”
“The hell I will,” Peter snarled. “I’m leaving.”
“Don’t you have questions?” Esther asked quietly as he moved past her. “You must want answers.”
He stopped, turned, and glowered at her and then at Lottie. “Will I get them or just more lies? God, Lottie. Everything you’ve told me, everything about my life, all of our lives, has been a lie.”
And everything, she realized with a rising panic, must have been what Peter had heard tonight. He’d not stumbled on a bit of the argument. He’d been eavesdropping.
“No,” she said with a calm she didn’t feel. “It is true that pieces of our history have been altered, but only pieces—”
“The important pieces,” Peter cut in. “Who was William Bales? Was he really our father?”
“Yes, he was. I swear it.” She swallowed around a lump in her throat. “His name, however, was William Walker.”
“Walker,” he breathed, as if testing the name. “Is that who we are? The Walker family?”
“We were, yes.”
“And he was a criminal, our father?”
“For a time, yes. But he changed—”
“Into what?” Injury apparently forgotten, he gestured angrily at the door. “To hear Renderwell tell it, he was as much a blackguard at the end as he had been at the start.”
“He is wrong. Our father started a new life, became a new man.”
“You think he redeemed himself.”
“He was on the path to redemption, yes.”
“And that’s why we are here,” he scoffed, “in the wilds of Norfolk living under assumed names? Is that why there’s a madman in our woods? Because of our father’s great journey toward atonement?”
Esther made an impatient noise. “Norfolk is hardly a great wilderness.”
Lottie shot her a quelling glance. “He was not given the credit he should have received. He saved a woman’s life. He—” She cut herself off before she told Peter of their father’s connection to Lady Strale. He didn’t need another reason to hate Owen just now. She would explain it to him later, when he had calmed down a little. “He died saving a woman.”
“I’m delighted for him. And her. How many lives did he destroy?”
“I don’t know.” She dug her fingers into the material of her skirts. “I don’t know. Too many.”
“And you?” Peter asked, his tone lowering. “Were you a part of it? Did you help him?”
Esther rose from her seat. “Peter. Don’t.”
Ignoring her, Peter kept his focus on Lottie. “That’s what you were arguing about, wasn’t it? Whether Father used you. Whether you helped him.”
So he hadn’t heard everything. Maybe their voices had been muffled through the wood of the door, or maybe he’d come late to the argument. Whatever the case, it gave her the opportunity to save some portion of the story he knew. It gave her the chance to keep some measure of his trust.
All she had to do was lie.
Yes, they’d been arguing about her. No, she had not helped their father. It would be so easy, so simple.
But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bear to tell him one more lie.
She opened her mouth to admit to everything, but Peter answered for her.
“You did, didn’t you?” His young face contorted with disgust. “My own sister, a filthy criminal.”
“Well,” Esther drawled before Lottie could respond, “I was a criminal, anyway. I wouldn’t say filthy.”
“Esther, please don’t,” Lottie pleaded. “You’ll only make this more difficult.”
“It was never going to be easy,” Esther returned. “Besides, it was me you were arguing about with Renderwell, was it not?”
“Yes, but—”
“There you have it,” she told Peter. “It was me. I helped Father.” She stepped forward from the chair, her demeanor suddenly hard. “But if you think for one moment, child, that you may now speak to me as if I’m shite you’ve wiped off your boots, you will think again.”
“Stop it, Esther,” Lottie snapped. This was not what they needed. “I will handle this.”
“Then handle it.” She waved a hand dismissively at Peter. “I’ll not stand for the boy’s insults.”
“You’ll not stand for it?” Peter echoed incredulously. “You fabricated an entire life. All of our lives.”
“We did the best we could,” Lottie said quietly. “What we thought was best.”
“That is a pretty way of saying you failed.”
The words cut quick and true. “Be that as it may—”
“You’ve not failed him,” Esther bit off impatiently. “And neither have I.” She pointed at Peter. “You’ve been sheltered, and cared for, and treated like a princeling since the day you were born. And not by our sainted mother or father, but by us. We’ve given you every privilege, every opportunity.”
“You’ve given me lies,” Peter shot back. “Everything I knew of our father and you, and…” His eyes grew round in renewed horror. “Our mother. God, our mother. She would have known as well. She wasn’t the doting wife of a tradesman at all, was she? Who was she?”
“She was an unfaithful bitch,” Esther informed him. “Just like her daughter.”
“Esther.” Lottie rubbed her forehead where an ache was beginning to form. “You are not helping.”
“I won’t coddle the boy whilst he’s kicking at us. And I won’t give him the truth in fits and starts. You would drag this out for eternity.” She focused on Peter, her voice cold and matter-of-fact. “Mrs. Walker had the morals of a stable cat and the parental instincts of an adder. She knew exactly what our father was, and it bothered her not one jot. His crimes provided her with the funds to disappear for years at a time.”
“Disappear? For years?” The horror grew in Peter’s eyes. “Years? Was he even my father at all?”
Esther reached up to pointedly twirl a lock of her pale blond hair. “Oh, he’s yours.”
Oh, God. Oh, no. “Esther…”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself.” Esther waved away Lottie’s concern. “I’ve known for years. We can discuss it later. Will Walker was your father,” she told Peter. “Mother was home a full ten months before your birth and died from a fever six weeks after, as we said.”
“Generous of you,” Peter muttered. “To allow me that bit of truth.”
“That bit of truth wouldn’t hurt you,” Esther replied.
“We didn’t want to hurt you.” Lottie took a cautious step forward, desperate to close the distance between them in some tangible way. “We wa
nted to protect you.”
Peter stepped back. “Me? Or yourselves? I had nothing to hide. I was never a criminal.”
“We weren’t hiding from our crimes,” Esther returned. “We were hiding from Father’s enemies.”
“Men like the one in the woods? Is that why he’s here, because of our father?”
“It’s possible,” Lottie admitted. It was also possible the man had come because of her, but she couldn’t tell him that, she just couldn’t.
“And Renderwell?” His gaze shot to the door and back. “What is he? Another enemy? Or another fraud?”
“He is neither. He was a police inspector eight years ago when Father worked for him. He is a private investigator now. And he is a friend.”
“How am I to believe that?” Peter demanded, throwing up his hands. “How am I to believe anything you say?”
“We love you.” She could hear the desperation in her voice, made no effort to disguise it. “I know you believe that.” He had to believe it. “We only wanted to keep you safe. You were six. What were we to do?”
“I haven’t been six for a long time.”
“No, but you’ve been happy. We were scared, Peter. I was scared we would take that from you.”
“You have.” He backed away from her, shaking his head. “I don’t… I can’t look at you. Either of you. I have to go.”
Head down like a bull, he made a straight line for the door.
“Not everyone lies,” Lottie called out at his back.
He stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “What?”
“There are people in this world you can respect and trust. That hasn’t changed.”
That was her greatest fear, she realized, that the truth would warp and break the trust that was so fundamental to his nature. That it would strip away all that was good and generous in him. That he would become the angry young man she’d seen holding a gun in the doorway. That he would become a Walker.
Peter digested her words silently, shook his head once more, then left.
“Damn it.” Lottie scrubbed her hands over her face, wishing she could scrub away the entire, horrible day. “Damn it all. I thought you were going to help, Esther.”
“I did. You would have coddled him.”
“And what is wrong with that?” The boy’s world had been turned upside down. The life and family he had known had been all but ripped from him over the course of a quarter hour. “Where was the harm in trying to make this easier for him?”
“Aside from the fact that he was pointing a gun at you only minutes ago?” Esther shook her head, her shoulders sagging. “There was no harm in it and nothing at all wrong with wanting to coddle him. But it is not what he needed. Nor is it what he wanted. He’s angry, Lottie. He needed to kick at someone, and he wants to feel his behavior is justified.”
Suddenly, her sister’s purpose in antagonizing Peter became clear. “And you made yourself a target.” She sighed heavily. “You should not have done that, Esther.”
“He’ll feel the better for it.” She shrugged and offered a small smile devoid of real humor. “Or he’ll feel guilty. Either will work to our benefit.”
“It wasn’t fair to either of you.”
“Fair has nothing to do with it. It was the best thing for him. Let him fume at me today and burn away some of his anger. Then you can tell him the rest tomorrow when he has calmed down.”
Good Lord, the pair of them, Lottie thought. The incompetent leader and the sacrificial lamb. What a terrific disaster they had created. “I don’t know that this was the wisest course of action. It is but lies atop more lies.”
“Lies,” Esther repeated quietly. “Yes, there are always more lies, aren’t there?” She turned cautious, guarded eyes on Lottie. “I want to show you something.”
* * *
In Esther’s bedroom, Lottie watched with a sinking heart as her sister reached into her hope chest, shifted linens, and pulled out a single worn journal. “Here.”
Lottie took the book slowly. It seemed such an innocuous little thing, no different than the stacks of books just like it sitting down the hall. But it was different. It changed everything.
“Oh, God.”
“I lied to Renderwell,” Esther said. “I told him there were no more journals. I thought to lie to you as well. Or continue to lie, really.”
Lottie tore her eyes from the book to look at her sister. “But that’s not what you’ve done.”
“I’ve been studying it since Renderwell arrived. I found nothing that would aid us,” Esther added quickly. “Nothing that would help us capture a crazed man in the woods. If I had, I’d have given it to you straightaway. I hope you believe that. But I found nothing. Initially.”
“Initially?”
“There is a small sketch of us inside. You and me, and Peter in your lap. I thought nothing of it, at first. I passed over it a dozen times. But last night I stopped to really look at it, just to remember, I suppose, how small Peter was, and what a terrible artist Father was. Then something about your dress caught my eye. Here, I marked the page…”
Esther took back the journal, opened it to the sketch in question, and returned it to Lottie. There they were, the three of them perched on what appeared to be a lopsided bench.
“Do you see?” Esther continued. “The ribbon along the hem of your skirts? I thought it decorated with flowers, but it isn’t.”
“They’re letters.” Tiny, perfectly formed letters hidden among some delicate, if poorly rendered, scrollwork. “A code.”
“Yes, but not the same as the letters Renderwell brought. I checked.”
“We can’t be certain.” But there were no numbers, and the text was broken into several short groups instead of written out in one long string. Esther was probably right. It would likely turn out to be nothing, merely a silly bit of nonsense their father had devised for his own amusement.
She closed the book and wished with all her heart she could toss it across the room. “It’s true, then. You worked with him.”
Esther took a small step toward the window, away from Lottie. “Yes.”
“When?”
“After Renderwell came and your focus turned to him.”
And I never noticed, Lottie thought. Distracted by the handsome prince, charmed by the promise of a new life, she’d never even suspected. “You said nothing. All these years, you said nothing. Why, Esther? Did you think I would judge?”
“No, of course not.” Esther winced, as if realizing her answer had come too quick. “Perhaps a little. It is different, what I did.”
It was violent. Their father had used her for violence. In that moment, for the first time in her life, Lottie well and truly hated William Walker. “You should have told me.”
“Like you should have told me of my real parentage?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Esther surprised her by huffing impatiently. “It was a rhetorical question, Lottie. No, you should not have told me.”
“What?”
“I learned the truth long ago. Well before we came to Norfolk. I knew you had to know, clever as you are. And I knew, as I have always known, that you would never tell me. Not because you wanted to lie to me, but because it would have been the best thing for me. And it was. I wish I’d never…” Esther shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is not every secret is selfish. Sometimes we keep them to protect the people we love.”
Lottie glanced down at the journal. “You lied to protect me?”
“I kept a secret. It’s different. And I’d keep it still, if I could. I should have burned that journal. There’s nothing inside that implicates me in a crime, but still…I should have burned it.” Stepping forward again, Esther tapped the cover of the journal. “This is my past, my mistakes. I’ve no business laying them at your feet. You’ll just pick them up
now and shoulder them with the rest of your burdens.”
“Esther, did you hurt anyone?”
Esther’s mouth twitched with sad humor. “No. Not seriously. I delivered a mild warning prick to one or two of Gage’s more unpredictable men, that’s all. I didn’t cause them real harm.”
“Gage’s men?” It couldn’t be. Gage was a common enough name. “You can’t mean Horatio Gage.”
Esther nodded. “I do. Father was working with him. He wanted to keep in the game, but he hadn’t the time to invest in it fully, not whilst Renderwell was breathing down his neck. Gage’s resources allowed Father to keep invested, as he put it.”
“He hated Gage.” In her father’s eyes, Gage had been little more than a glorified footpad.
“He did. And he feared him. That’s why he kept me about. He liked the idea of having a guardian, as it were, and thought my gender added a lovely element of surprise.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Esther.” What good was that, she wondered. What good did it do Esther now, for her sister to be sorry?
“If it’s empathy you keep offering, I’ll accept it, gladly. But if you are issuing some sort of apology, I don’t want it. None of this was your doing. Besides, you might want to wait until you’ve heard everything before you decide how sorry you are and why.”
“There’s more?” Good God, how could there possibly be more?
“Regrettably, yes.” Esther blew out a short breath. “The man I saw at the inn. The Ferret. I did not meet him as a child. I met him when I worked with Father.”
In her teen years, Lottie realized. Old enough for the Ferret to recognize her. “Was he one of Gage’s men?”
“Possibly. Gage had men who worked for him and men with whom he worked. From what I could ascertain, the Ferret fell into the latter category. Gage preferred that his men have a sharp mind and a bit of education, if possible. The Ferret had neither. But I can’t be certain of his relationship to Gage. We only dealt with him once.” Esther grimaced. “It did not go well.”
“What happened?”
A Talent for Trickery Page 25
