The ghosts could wait. They needed to focus on the facts.
“Are you in contact with other family members?”
Answers existed, and he would wrest them free.
She looked at him keenly. “I shall tell you, but when the time comes for me to question you about the past, please remember I have been forthcoming.”
He inclined his head in acquiescence.
“The answer to your questions is no. No solicitors. He was quite firm. No documents to trace.” Furrows lined her brow. Clearly, she had spent the last year as confused as he was now. “No trail to follow. Just a pouch of sovereigns, a handwritten poem and an old iron key.”
“A poem and a key,” he repeated, curiosity edging past his control. His gaze stayed on the iron clasp of her hands rather than her eyes. “Do you have them with you?”
“My lord, I came to you wearing little more than a nightgown,” she said, though he didn’t need reminding. “I was told to memorise the poem and burn it. The message hidden within it brought me here.”
He straightened. The urge to hear the poem was almost as compelling as the need to learn what she had hidden in the mausoleum.
“Here? Meaning London?”
“The poem is entitled World’s End.”
Written in the graveyard style, it was hardly surprising.
“I visited a place in Buckinghamshire first, a hamlet by the same name, and scoured every graveyard within five miles, convinced my father meant for me to find whatever the key unlocks.”
He was impressed. To destroy her only proof and sear it into memory took intelligence as well as courage. He understood the torment well enough, the burning need for answers, whatever the cost.
“And your search for World’s End led you here to London?”
She drew a slow breath. “Yes, but please don’t think ill of me when I recite a line or two of the poem.”
“Why would I think ill of you?” His admiration had reached new heights, though he knew disappointment would clatter in like a late stagecoach.
She composed herself, then recited with quiet grace:
“The air is thin, the light a grudging lure,
the burnished jade, a deathless dream still pure.”
Gabriel stilled. Symbolism he’d expected. But here, the message was plain. “You think your father meant for you to visit The Burnished Jade?” The words implied the club was not simply a destination—but the secret itself.
“I don’t know what my father’s motives were. But in leaving me with the valise, he placed me in grave danger.”
“Perhaps he knew it was your only security?” he said.
“Perhaps.” She gave no more and turned to the window as the carriage rolled to a stop outside her cottage. “I’ll need to visit Mrs Hodge while we’re here and offer some explanation for my leaving.”
“Tell her the truth.”
“Which is?”
“You’re marrying, and the proposal was unexpected.”
She worried her lip. “You may change your mind. I’m not sure you’ll even consider me a friend when all is said and done.”
There it was. The warning that should have chilled him, yet it only drew him closer. What was it about her thatfascinated him? Her clothes carried his scent, and that thought stirred something primal.
The carriage rocked as Kincaid climbed down from his box. They had come to World’s End in an unmarked vehicle, his man dressed for highway robbery. This was no time to look weak.
