Oh, Elise. You do not need to be so afraid of me.
Miles stood facing her. She studied her clasped fingers. He could hear her take several slow breaths.
“I am in trouble, Miles,” she whispered.
Again Miles was struck by a sense that he had lived this moment before.
“And . . . I need your help.” She looked up at him. Her eyes were troubled, her expression anxious.
“Tell me what it is,” he said. “I’ll do anything I can.”
Elise reached into a cleverly hidden pocket of her dress and pulled out a short stack of folded parchment—the letters she’d been hiding from him, no doubt.
“You want me to read them?”
Elise nodded.
He accepted the pile, his thoughts swimming. He’d sensed there was something unsettling about her correspondence but had given up hope that she would share it with him.
“Shall we sit, then?” He motioned to a short sofa not far from where they stood.
In a moment, they were seated side by side. He opened the first letter.
“I received that one the day Mrs. Ash arrived,” Elise whispered. “It was the first.”
The letter bore no return address. He read, Should your memory improve, so shall my aim.
Miles breathed out a mild oath. He read it again to confirm he’d not been mistaken at the implied threat.
“The next one arrived the next day,” Elise said, her voice no louder than before, still without emotion.
Miles opened it. You have been warned.
“The next is the letter that came during our meeting with Mr. Cane.”
“Good day, Elise.” An odd thing to write.
“I believe that was meant to be taunting,” she said.
Every letter was more of the same. Either innocuous greetings that felt somehow sinister or words that were clearly threats, pointed enough to be taken seriously but too vague to identify the issuer.
“Upon my soul, Elise.” Miles stared at the papers in shock.
“I know.” A detectable quiver of fear shook her words. “Some are posted, some are not. So I have no idea how near or far the writer might be from Tafford.”
“And the handwriting changes.” Miles flipped back through the letters.
“This one came this afternoon.” Elise handed him one more letter. “I was reading it when you came upon me in the garden.”
Miles looked at her as she sat. Her eyes were focused on this last letter, her face paler. Miles slowly opened it. She will not hear me coming.
“Anne,” Miles said in a breath, shocked.
“Yes.” Elise abruptly rose. “Whoever is sending me these letters is now threatening Anne or at least mentioning her. That frightens me most of all. This person knows about my daughter. Is willing to threaten her, to use her that way.”
“Do you have any idea who might be sending these?” He wondered if his suspicion matched hers.
Elise turned back to look at him. She nodded slowly. “The man who killed our fathers.”
Chapter Twenty
The murderer. Miles had suspected that from the very first letter.
“He fears you can identify him,” Miles said.
“I couldn’t four years ago,” Elise said. “I certainly cannot now.”
“It seems he doesn’t want to take that risk.” Miles scanned the single-sentence letters again.
“But why send the letters in the first place?” Elise rose from the couch, pacing away. “If not for these letters, I would have given very little thought, if any, to his identity. Sending these has increased the chance of my thinking on his identity, not decreased it.”
There was no arguing that. “He must think the chance of your remembering high enough, even without the topic being forced, that forewarning you is necessary.”
“I think he must be nearby,” Elise said, her voice far less steady. “Some of these were hand delivered. And he knows Anne doesn’t hear well.” She wrung her hands. “I didn’t want to bother you with this, but I don’t know what to do. I—”
“Elise.” He jumped across her unnecessary justification, rising and standing beside her. “Elise.”
She looked up at him, and a tear rolled from her eye. Elise had never been the sort of female who could or would employ emotional trickery for the sake of gaining sympathy. Her emotions, which were as plentiful as they were varied, had always been genuine. He’d been waiting for weeks to see them. That single tear was like a brick knocked out of the wall she’d erected.
Miles tentatively reached out to her. His fingers brushed away her tear, a light and fragile connection.
“I am afraid,” she whispered. “I know what this man is capable of, but I have no idea who he is. He could be the gardener. Or one of your tenants. Anyone except for you.”
“I was exonerated by the inquiry,” Miles acknowledged.
Elise shook her head. “I never suspected you, Miles.” Her fingers slipped into his. She had reached for him. “You could never do what that man did.”
“No. I couldn’t. And I think we can safely remove Langley from your list of possible murderers. Not only is he one of the most even-tempered and upright gentlemen I have ever known, but he too was cleared in the inquiry.”
“Everyone was cleared in the inquiry, Miles,” Elise whispered. “The inquiry didn’t answer anything.”
Miles rubbed her hand between his, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms. She was opening up, a little bit. Her trust was so fragile; he didn’t dare risk breaking it. Yet her anguish cut at him.
“I still have the inquiry papers,” Miles said, thinking aloud. “We could look through them again to see if there is anything we missed.”
Elise pulled back instantly. “But that is just what he warned me not to do. If we start trying to identify him, he might . . . he would—”
“I would never place you in danger, Elise.” When she didn’t look back up at him, Miles laid his hands on her shoulders. “Never. The papers are here in the Tafford safe. No one would even know we were looking at them. Not even Beth and Langley, if that is what you wish. But I cannot simply stand by and let this man threaten you.”
Elise looked at him then. He still saw uncertainty in her eyes. “You would truly help me?”
Miles didn’t think he had ever felt such a sinking sense of disappointment. One careless moment he couldn’t even remember had undone what had once been complete confidence.
“I would do anything for you.” Miles held her gaze, hoping to communicate his sincerity, his determination. “I am sorry for what I said four years ago. I don’t even remember that conversation.” She seemed to wince at his admission. Miles grew even more frustrated with himself but continued on. She needed to understand. “I can only assume I was unbelievably tired or distracted or overwhelmed, though that is no excuse for having been so unfeeling. And though I cannot place that conversation, I have a horrible suspicion it occurred shortly before you left Epsworth.”
“The night before,” Elise answered in a pained whisper.
Miles closed his eyes against the guilt that swept over him at her admission. “Is it the reason you left?” Miles asked, unable to look at her as he did.
“It was the reason I couldn’t stay.”
There was a difference there, though Miles couldn’t exactly pinpoint it. Something had driven her from Epsworth. If Miles’s suspicions were correct, she was on the cusp of fleeing Tafford.
I am in trouble. Elise had told him she’d said those words years ago—in the Epsworth library, he suddenly realized. Precisely what she’d said only moments earlier in the library. Was there perhaps a connection? Had she come to him at Epsworth because she was being threatened? Had she fled out of fear for her safety, convinced Miles would not help her?
“We are going to fix this, Elise. Whoever is writing these letters will be found, and you and Anne will be safe. I assure you I will not rest until that happens.”
She appeared doubtful.
“I need you to trust me,” Miles said, praying that she did.
“I want to,” Elise answered. “But I don’t know how.”
“Give me a chance to prove myself to you. You’ve trusted me with these letters. Now you can see if I truly will help you.”
“Will you?” Elise asked bluntly.
“I solemnly swear to you that I will.”
Elise nodded, a movement of acceptance, if not confidence. “Thank you, Miles.”
“I’ll arrange for a groom or footman to accompany you when you walk over to visit Mama Jones,” he said. “And it would be wise to have one or the other with you whenever you are outside.”
She sighed, the sound of it conveying relief rather than frustration. “I will worry less if Anne and I are not alone.”
He would worry less as well. “Will you meet me in the library tomorrow afternoon after you have had lunch?”
Elise nodded.
Miles held out his hand. “Allow me to walk you to your bedchamber door.”
The tiniest of smiles spread fleetingly across her face. Elise laid her hand in his.
He used his free hand to pick up the letters he’d abandoned on the sofa. “May I keep these?”
“Yes.” She sounded relieved to have them out of her possession. “And any others that come?”
“I will take those as well, if you wish.”
It seemed but a minute later that they reached her bedchamber. Elise twisted the knob and opened the door but turned back at the last moment to look at him. “Strangely enough, I think I will sleep better tonight than I have in some time,” Elise said.
“I hope so.”
She offered only an enigmatic smile before slipping silently into her room and closing the door.
* * *
Miles didn’t used to smell so nice. Why that thought continually ran through her mind, Elise couldn’t say. They sat next to each other in the library, and Miles silently sorted a stack of papers while Elise tried to ignore the fact that he smelled rather wonderful. She couldn’t identify the scent, only that it was vaguely spicy and the slightest bit sweet.
He straightened a stack of papers. “Collins, the runner, was thorough; I’ll give him that.”
Elise remembered very little about the Bow Street Runner who had investigated the murders, beyond the fact that he’d had only a few strands of hair combed ineffectually across his very bare head and that he had constantly worn an expression that put her firmly in mind of her father’s basset hound. And he’d asked a great many questions she hadn’t wanted to answer.
Miles was creating stack after stack, spreading the piles across the desk.
“Is there a method to your madness here?” she asked.
“Believe it or not, there is.” He half laughed as he spoke. “Each stack represents a suspect.”
“There were this many?” He’d created at least two dozen piles already.
“Everyone was a suspect. Very nearly anyway. Some were eliminated quickly.”
She was relieved to know the field had been narrowed somewhat. “Like you?”
“Actually, no. I was not exonerated very easily.”
“But how could they believe you would murder your own father or mine or—” The words lumped in her throat.
“Or try to kill you?” Miles finished for her.
She nodded.
“I wouldn’t be the first son to murder his own father. Sadly, it was not my sterling character that proved my innocence but the fact that my valet, several of the footmen, and the housekeeper were all able to vouch for my whereabouts that night.”
“That must have been horrible.” How could anyone suspect Miles?
“The fact that Langley was also a suspect eased the sting a little. His character is far more impeccable than my own. He too had witnesses to confirm his alibi.”
“I don’t remember any of this.” Entire segments of her life seemed completely absent from her memory. She didn’t like the feeling at all.
“You had been through a harrowing ordeal, Elise.” Miles laid his hand on top of hers, where it rested on the desk.
Her heart flipped about in her chest. It was the oddest reaction to have to Miles, and yet it happened more and more often. He would look at her or touch her, even as lightly as he did then, and she would find herself turned about inside.
“You did not hold up well when the runner first questioned you,” Miles said. “We decided it would be best if you were left out of most of the rest of the investigation. He asked you questions only when he had to. He was none too pleased at first. But I managed to convince him that you had been through quite enough already without being hounded day and night.”
“You were my greatest advocate,” Elise said, feeling quite unaccountably nostalgic. “You always were.”
A certain sadness slipped into Miles’s smile. “Nearly always, it seems.”
“But you are helping me now,” Elise insisted, unsure why his self-castigation bothered her so much.
“An opportunity for which I am infinitely grateful.” He wrapped his fingers around her hand beneath his and raised it to his lips, placing a light kiss on her fingers. Suddenly, there was that look again, the one that made deciphering words difficult.
“Now, should we see what we have here?” He motioned to the piles of paper on the desk.
Elise nodded mechanically, very few lucid thoughts running through her brain other than the continuing awareness that Miles didn’t affect her in quite the same way he had when they were younger.
Miles laid her hand back on the desk, releasing his hold to sort through his piles. She pulled the hand he’d held into her lap, clasping it with her other hand as the sensation of his fingers on hers lingered. She had the strangest urge to lay her head on his shoulder as he continued organizing his paperwork, an inexplicable reaction to a man she wasn’t entirely sure she could even trust.
“Obviously, we cannot go through all of these this afternoon,” Miles said. “There are simply too many. We can begin at least.”
Elise couldn’t even nod. Miles no longer looked at her, so her lack of reaction didn’t register with him. He didn’t know she was staring at him. He had changed in the last four years. She had, of course, noticed it before, but the impact was somehow greater in that moment. He was taller, his face more defined. His hair was, thankfully, still red, even if it wasn’t quite so bright as it had once been. She’d always adored his red hair. His eyes were the chocolate brown she remembered.
Beside her, Miles took a long, deep breath. It had ever been a quirk of his to push out a breath longer than normal when he was working, as if slowly expelling all the air from his lungs was relaxing. The sound summoned an unbidden memory, and she was lost for a moment in the past.
A slow, deep breath. Miles had tensed. Elise had felt it. His arm around her had been rigid, his grip on the reins unusually tight. The thick mud and rain had kept them at a slow pace, so slow each step of the horse had been jarring. Elise had felt every movement vibrate in her aching body. The pain had been the worst in her shoulder, but everything had seemed to hurt.
She leaned against Miles, needing his strength. In her mind, she could still hear each gunshot: One the moment the carriage had stopped. One that had killed Papa. Another for Mr. Linwood. One for her as she’d tried to stagger away. She’d very nearly escaped.
And that laugh. She would never forget it. There was no humor in the sound but something like triumph, like maniacal glee. Gunshots and laughter bounced around in her brain until she couldn’t bear it any longer.
Elise pressed herself into Miles’s damp coat. The noises wouldn’t stop. Flashing images, moments from the nightmare she’d lived swam endlessly in her mind.
“I am sorry, Elise,” Miles whispered, his arm pulling her more firmly to him. “I am so sorry that this happened, that I wasn’t there. I might have—”
“He would have killed you.” Elise was certain of it.
“Perhaps n
ot,” Miles argued, a near panic in his tone. “It might have made a difference.”
She held more tightly to him. “He killed everyone.”
“He didn’t kill you.”
Elise couldn’t stop the sob that rose to her throat. “I wish he had.”
“Don’t say that, Elise.” Miles sounded as though his own emotions were barely in check. “Please don’t even think that.”
“It would be better to be dead.” Elise allowed her anguish to spill over. “I don’t want to remember any of this. I just want it to be over. To be gone. Done.”
Miles pulled the horse to a stop. “Please, Elise.” Emotion thickened his words. “Don’t say that. You are all I have.”
She wept, but crying didn’t lessen the pain. She’d lost her papa. She’d lost Mr. Linwood. She’d rather have died one hundred times over than endure what she had.
She felt Miles press a kiss to her rain-soaked forehead. She leaned against him. He held her as he always had. Miles would help. Somehow, he would find a way to help.
“Elise?”
She jumped back to the present.
“You are crying,” Miles said.
Crying? Elise wiped at her eyes. Tears were indeed spilling from her eyes. The pain she had felt at fifteen was raw and new again, as if that moment had only just happened.
“What is it?” Miles asked, his voice filled with concern.
“There are so many memories attached to all of this.” Elise shook her head. She couldn’t form the words to explain how heavy she felt, how broken.
“We’ll save this for another day.” He motioned to the piles of papers. “In fact, I’ll sort through them and see what I can find. Then, when you are feeling more equal to the task, we’ll go over it together.”
“Thank you, Miles,” she whispered, forcing steady breaths. He’d known precisely what she needed. How like the Miles she’d once known. “Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Miles sat in the library, horrified at reading about and reliving the terror of the night his father had been killed. The inquiry papers were detailed, almost too much for his peace of mind. The runner had assumed, as had Miles, that with an aim as good as the killer’s had been—Miles’s father had been shot directly through his heart, Mr. Furlong in the center of his forehead—Elise’s wound, several inches from her heart, had been intentionally nonfatal. But Miles kept returning to the first of the anonymous letters Elise had received at Tafford.
For Elise Page 14
