I thought she might simply turn and continue down the path, leaving me with my questions.
There was a part of me that wouldn’t have blamed her. There was that other part of me that was determined to find answers.
“Rory is safe?” she asked.
Of all the things I expected, she surprised me. I assured her that he was as we returned to the coaches.
She asked for her driver to wait for her at the entrance to the cemetery. She was uneasy and most anxious. I exchanged a look with Munro. He assisted her into our coach.
“I’ll be waitin’ at the caretaker’s cottage; the hound stays with ye,” he said, then set off afoot.
Mr. Hastings stepped down from his seat atop the coach with the excuse that he needed to quiet the team. Rupert lay at our feet and promptly went to sleep.
Mrs. Matthews stared out the window of the coach, her gaze drawn back to the path and that grave in the clearing beyond.
“Stephen did so like animals. Does Rory like them?”
I replied that I had not the chance to meet him, and didn’t know the answer to that.
She nodded and it was several moments before she continued. “That night Stephen left for the club, and my husband shortly thereafter. They’d had words, not for the first time. I knew that there was a young woman Stephen was quite taken with. He had met her at the club—not the usual place where a young man might meet anacceptablewoman.”
Something changed in her voice with that one word, a sad, bitter sound.
“He had spoken of marriage. I didn’t know then that she was going to have a child. I learned about Rory later from...information my husband received.”
I wanted to reach out at the broken sound of her voice and take her hands in mine to offer some comfort, but didn’t. Nor did I think she would have accepted it.
“That last night...It was very late when my husband returned alone,” she continued. “He didn’t say anything about what had happened.”
There were no tears now, only the sad expression on her face as she continued to stare out the window opening.
“It wasn’t unusual for Stephen to stay the night at the club. I didn’t learn what had happened until the next day, when Inspector Brodie came to our residence. He was...very kind. I learned afterward that Ellie apparently saw who killed Stephen and was forced to leave for her own safety. I wanted to find her…”
“But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t. Then just over a year ago, she reached out. She had returned to London after all these years...with her son.”
“Why couldn’t you look for her?” I asked.
It certainly seemed that the Matthews’ wealth would have protected Ellie and her son, perhaps even made it possible to find the man who had killed Stephen Matthews.
“I couldn’t because...my husband was not Stephen’s father.” She looked at me then. “He raised Stephen as his own, but there was always a...distance.
“I was not always old, and crippled. I was young once, like yourself, and in love,” she continued.
It was not difficult to know what had happened, much like her son’s situation.
“I didn’t tell anyone I was with child. My father thought that another arrangement was far more acceptable than a match with the man I loved. Edward had built Argosy Shipping into a very successful company. It was considered a brilliant match.”
And a very lucrative one, to be certain, I thought. One of those arranged situations for reasons that very often had nothing to do with a young woman’s feelings.
“I tried everything to persuade my father against it...There was a tragic accident.”
I was certain I knew the rest of it—the father of her child died.
“I was terrified of my father, of what would happen to my child. So, I accepted Edward’s marriage proposal. Stephen was born seven-and-a-half months later—early,Edward told everyone, and presented himself as the proud father. But he knew.
“He wanted a son of his own, and I was determined to protect Stephen.”
