“How ... would you know that?” he asked, his uncertainty now tinged with suspicion.
“I mean, these are not the first pages of a novel. These are just quick descriptions of several different ideas, and I’d wagernotthe one he’d missed dinner to write.” She read aloud, “The ghost of the abbess of a long-destroyed nunneryhaunts a modern day ‘Lady Abbess,’ the mistress of abrothel.Ugh.” She shuddered. “I am glad he did not live long enough to writethat.” Her gaze flew to his. “Forgive me. I suppose it is disrespectful to speak ill of the dead.”
“I am the last person to judge you for that, I assure you.”
———
Rebecca glimpsed a corner of paper sticking out from beneath the chaise and bent to retrieve it. She held up the page and saw written there,Ashes From the Fire by Ambrose Oliver.
She read the lines that followed, and her heart hitched.
In one of those beautiful valleys in which the Thames flows through lush green meadows and chalk hills stoodan isolated villa in the bosom of an old wood, the home of a respectable but reclusive widow....
Rebecca shook her head, not quite able to believe it. Here were her brother’s words in another hand—not Rose’s, buta man’s handwriting—although the title had been changed slightly, and the author’s name completely.
How could he? How dare he?
“Did you find something?” Sir Frederick asked.
“I did. I believe this is what he had been writing. Unless there are more pages somewhere, he did not get very far.” She looked around the room again. Where was John’s manuscript?
Sir Frederick squatted near the hearth. She walked over and lowered herself beside him. She saw the curled remnants of several pieces of paper among the ashes. An inferior draft used for kindling? Or destroyed evidence of plagiarism?
With careful fingers, he extracted a charred corner. It crumbled into dust.
He tried again, retrieving another fragment, and this time managed to lay the curled piece onto his palm. She peered over his shoulder. A few words were still discernible:After the Fire by R.J. Stephens.
The words were written in a hand she did recognize. Rose’s.
“After the Fire,” Sir Frederick read aloud. “Beyond the irony, the words mean nothing to me. Perhaps they would mean something to Mr. Edgecombe. And why would Mr. Oliver be using a pen name?”
“How many more pages are in there?” Rebecca asked, ignoring his question. “A whole book’s worth?”
He frowned into the rubble. “I don’t think so. Only a dozen or so, if I had to guess.”
Sir Frederick carefully tucked the remnant between two pages of his notebook, and took the full page from her as well.
Had Ambrose Oliver been burning John’s pages as he rewrote them? It certainly appeared that way.
Then where were the rest of them? Again she thought of John. Had he come to reclaim what was his?
Knuckles rapped and the door opened wider. Dr. Fox appeared in its threshold.
Sir Frederick said, “Thank you for coming.”
“Glad to.” The physician added wryly, “Jane won again, and I was not eager to start another match and suffer another defeat.”
Sir Frederick said, “You remember Miss Lane, I trust?”
“Indeed. Good evening.” The doctor bowed and Rebecca curtsied in reply.
Sir Frederick gestured to the shrouded figure. “Just wanted you to take one more look. Make sure we didn’t miss anything. The undertaker will be here in the morning.”
Dr. Fox nodded. He flipped back the sheet and studied the victim once more, starting with the back of his head. Rebecca was glad she would not be able to see the wound from where she stood.
“It’s clear Mr. Oliver was struck with enough force to cause a serious contusion.”
“Enough to kill him?”
