“What?” The wind screamed in Eliza’s ears and the tombstones around her seemed to wheel in a careening circle.
“I saw them. Together.” Una laughed. “I’ll never forget the day. I’d gone out to the rear gardens to gather a posy. When I came back through the south wing, I heard laughter coming from Ada’s room. I crept up the stairs and opened the door, only a crack. I saw them there, together.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“Old Havenwood even caught them in the act once. Cuckolded by his own son!”
“No! I found her diary. He’d only had a nightmare. Ada wrote about it. The old man beat him to a bloody pulp after.”
Una cackled. “Are youreallythat daft?”
“I ... I saw letters ... Ada’s lover was another man. I found his portrait, in a locket ...” Eliza shook her head. “No, you’re wrong about him ... you ...” Eliza’s words died on her tongue and she sat hard on the stone bench at her back.
Una smirked. “Oh, you reallyaretoo much. You still want to believe the best about him, even though he’s proven himself a liar, time and again. You little fool! He killed his own father so he could freely have his pretty mother. And here you are, right in the middle of it all!”
CHAPTER 40
Eliza cut the leaves of her new book with her sewing scissors and cracked open the spine. Malcolm fidgeted in the seat next to her as the train sped back to Hampshire, checking his watch and returning it to his waistcoat pocket over and over.
He’d been in a cycle of moods since the funeral, his tempers vacillating like a gyroscope. During their two days in London, he’d harangued her about everything from the manner in which she dressed to the way her shoes clicked on the floor of their hotel room, only to praise her moments later for her wit. She’d bitten her tongue so many times she was surprised she still had one.
“What are you reading, darling?” Malcolm asked.
“It’s a book of poetry. Walt Whitman.”
He gave a disdainful sniff and toyed with his cuff links. “Silly things, poems.”
Eliza rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so at all. Verse is one of the loveliest modes of expression.”
“Always the dreamer, aren’t you, pet? Your frivolity is endearing.” Malcolm pinched her chin and Eliza flinched away. She could no longer abide his touch.
“Say,” he continued, “what did you and Una speak about after the funeral? You’ve been out of sorts ever since.”
Oh, I’ve been out of sorts, all right.Eliza closed her book and sighed. “She was upset. People in mourning sometimes say unkind things.”
Malcolm gritted his teeth. “But I askedwhatshe said.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, especially right now.”
Malcolm huffed, his breath fogging on the glass window.
The truth was, Eliza couldn’t bear to speak the abominable things Una had said. Nor could she look upon Malcolm’s long-fingered hands without imagining them caressing Ada, their bodies wrapped in an infernal embrace.Hadhe shot his own father to have her, then started the fire to hide the evidence, perhaps killing his brother and Mrs.Galbraith by accident? After all, the author of the sordid love letters she’d found had only signed them with a singularM.Was thatMfor Malcolm?
She wanted to believe that Una’s words had been a vindictive lie. The thought of Malcolm lying with his mother was so abhorrent it physically sickened her. There was a visceral part of her that refused it.
They were crossing the Thames, the red-sailed barges spilling black clouds of smoke. The skies over London were in a near-constant haze from the unpleasant fug. She hadn’t been fond of the city. Her soul was most anxious to be back in the countryside, with its fresh air and open landscape. The one thing she had to look forward to in the coming weeks was their Scottish holiday. She had a feeling the Highlands would suit her spirit, and perhaps give her time to be alone in the wild, away from Malcolm. “When are we leaving for Scotland?” she asked. “I was wondering what I should pack. I’d reckon it’s much colder there than it is in Hampshire.”
Malcolm turned his head slowly. “What did you say?”
“Scotland. You said we’d go to Oban to see your hunting lodge. Brynmoor. We talked about it on the day you brought me back from the hospital. At great length.”
A low growl came from the back of Malcolm’s throat. His eyes narrowed to slits. “I most certainly did not. Travel in your condition over such a long distance would be anything but prudent.”
Eliza sat back against the train car’s seat, her mouth falling open. What on earth was wrong with him? He’d been acting increasingly queer. Well, he wasn’t going to turn her own mind against her again. If she were to be trapped in this marriage, she would not play a willing sycophant to his delusions. “Malcolm, wedidspeak of it! I remember it well. Are you becoming ill?”
“I am notill!” A sudden roar erupted from his mouth and he stood, rocking back and forth as the train rumbled through the Battersea docks.
The other first-class passengers, startled by his outburst, put aside their papers and sewing to look. Embarrassment flooded Eliza’s face with heat. She tugged on the hem of Malcolm’s coat. “Darling, sit down. You’re causing a scene.”
