“No, miss. I didn’t.”
“What did she look like?”
“She was very pretty. Tall. With dark hair. I’m sorry I can’t help you more. I must see to my work.”
It could have been Kate. Or it might have been someone else. When she left Angel’s Rest, she was dressed as Alex. I take some comfort in that knowledge. I sigh, my shoulders sagging. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“If you’ll leave your card, miss, I’ll tell him you called.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She nods and closes the door. I rush to Bay Street and hire a boat to take me back to the marshes, paying the oarsman handsomely for his efforts.
When I arrive at Angel’s Rest, it’s evening, and the house is lit up like Christmas, its windows blinking yellow through the oaks. Kate’s home. Relief floods through me. I race up the path and onto the piazza, calling her name.
But when I fling open the door, she doesn’t come to greet me. “Kate! I’m home!”
Nothing but silence. I walk into the parlor. A vase on the sideboard is tipped over, murky water spilled on the floor. I right it, and call for her again. I still, listening. Upstairs, I hear the floorboards creak. My skin prickles with wariness. Something isn’t right.
“Kate?”
I climb the stairs, slowly. Light bleeds into the hall from one of the second-story bedrooms—the one with the wallpaper birds where Kate nursed me when I first arrived. I push the door all the way open. Kate sits there, next to the bed, dressed in one of Varina’s gowns, working on a hoop of embroidery. She smiles at me, too wide. “Hello, sweetling,” she says, tilting her head. “I was wondering when you would come home.”
Something hits the back of my head, hard. Pain explodes inside my skull. I crumple to the floor. As my consciousness fades, I hear Kate’s voice: “There, I’ve done my part.”
When I come to, I’m tied to the bed, my wrists bound with scraps of fabric. I panic, crying out. A stinging slap lands across my face. Kate grasps my jaw, her thumb pressing against my pulse. Her eyes are cold. Vacant. Even though she’s wearing Varina’s clothes, she’s become Winthrop again. Heartless, reptilian Winthrop.
Rebecca’s voice rings in my ears.Do you trust her?
I strain against my bonds. Try to rise. My head spins, sickening me. “You’d better not struggle,” Kate scolds, pushing me back down. “You’ve taken a nasty blow to the head. Best to rest.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my voice tight as a bowstring.
“Money, sweetling. That’s the short answer. Although you’ve been a pleasant plaything. I’m going to miss you.” She drags her finger down my neck, scratching my skin with her fingernail. Goose bumps rise along my arms.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
She sighs. “We have to, I’m afraid.”
“We?” I become conscious of another presence in the room, lurking beyond my line of sight. I smell the faint scent of tobacco. “It’s him, isn’t it? Broadbent.”
“Hello, Miss Carmichael.” Broadbent emerges from the shadowed corner of the room and comes to my bedside, where he greets Kate with a lingering kiss. “I take it that this is a bit of a surprise to you,” he says, smiling down at me.
“Some of it,” I say. “But not all. Kate’s a liar, and I knewyouwere a snake.”
“You’ve always been a clever one. That’s the problem. You know too much. That’s why we’re at this unfortunate impasse.”
“Yes, Idoknow. I knew you were carrying on with my mother, and abusing my sister, even on her deathbed. You let Mama slowly poison Rebecca. But it was so easy to blame me for that, wasn’t it? You are foul. A charlatan.”
Broadbent’s lips thin. He pushes two fingers against the skin to the left of my sternum. “Here. Here’s where Katherine was supposed to place the stake, that night. But she lacked the courage. So now we’ve been forced to resort to other means.”
He withdraws a knife from his pocket and flicks it open, its point gleaming in the candlelight. With his other hand, he raises the hem of my thin shift, exposing me. Cold air hits my bare skin. “It won’thurt, not very much at all, Miss Carmichael. The femoral artery bleeds out quickly.”
I clamp my legs together tightly. I can’t do much to protect myself, or my modesty, bound as I am, but I will not submit easily. “You killed them all, didn’t you?”
“No. I didn’t. Not all of them, in the literal sense of the word. It became too messy after Marjorie, so I hired a lackey. One of my patients with a predilection for such things and a need for money. You saw him that night, with Arabella. I was mostly concerned with obtaining their blood. The rest was for theatrics. And a bit of fun.”
“It made for great theater, my love,” Kate says, her voice syrupy sweet. I shoot daggers at her with my eyes. My desire for her has swiftly transformed to loathing. I want to destroy her for betraying me. For manipulating me into trusting her.
