He could barely look at Jeremy. He had never felt more of a coward. All it would take was a direct question to his brother. One question as to whether he was responsible and he’d know the answer. Whether or not Jeremy would tell him the truth, it would be apparent by the look on his face, the tone, the feel of his voice.
He’d never wanted to know an answer less. Jeremy’s whereabouts were unaccounted for during the last two murders. He hadn’t wanted to check the rest, the fear choking him. He hadn’t tasted real fear in years, and yet here it was like an old friend come to call and deciding to stay for an extended visit.
His brother was what had kept him going. The person he was trying to save all those years ago. To lose him now was unacceptable.
“She always wore pink, but I didn’t realize it was quite this level of obsession,” Marietta said as she sorted through Anastasia’s things.
He took a closer look. “What are you looking through?”
Marietta shrugged. “Her undergarments.”
Women were strange.
“Why?”
“Some women hide things where they think men won’t look. I’m hoping to find something here. What are we looking for, anyway?”
“Something to connect her to Jacob Worley. Anything unusual. Other than her overabundance of pink.”
They spent another ten minutes searching when Marietta exclaimed. “I found a journal.”
Cold seeped down his spine. “Let me have a look.”
She clutched the book to her chest. “No. This time you can’t use the excuse that she was a wretched woman.”
He could definitely use that excuse, but his lips wouldn’t form the words to connect her to him. He watched Marietta flip the first page. “Eighteen ten. She started her journal much sooner than Abigail, not that that has any relevance. ‘It has come to my attention that it would be to my advantage to join a group of women led by Celeste F—’”
A crash downstairs swiveled both their heads.
“Stay here,” he said, his heart drumming both from the words she read and the unexpected noise. Would this nightmare never end?
Marietta watched him leave. It was probably a servant returning. How they were going to explain their presence, she didn’t know. Gabriel had assured her he would take care of any servants, and if there was one thing Gabriel could do better than anyone else she knew, it was to charm someone to his way of thinking.
She looked down at the book in her hands. A group of women forming a group. A chill slid through her. She flipped the journal open to a random page toward the end.
Jane and I don’t hold with this new addition. Mr. Moreton knows the boy, and should anything be said we will all be in dire straits. There are too many ties. Dangerous ties. I wonder if we’ve become too arrogant, too complacent. But it titillates Amanda—the thoughts of what we could do. To see him with our avenger.
Dear God. The journals were connected.
To see our avenger’s extraordinary eyes darken to—
A hand covered her mouth and she was pulled back against a tall, hard body. “If you will kindly hand over the book?” a voice whispered against her ear.
Everything in front of her turned crystal and cold. The image of a man with a scar under his chin ran through her brain, colliding with the man gripping her, though she couldn’t see his face. Brisk fingers pried the journal from her fingers. “Thank you, Miss Winters. You’ve been a great help in recovering this.”
She stood as still as she could, not knowing if there was a knife near her throat or a gun at her side. The hand around her mouth pulled her face to the side. “There is a lot you don’t know about yourloyalguardian. And what he will do. I’ll be interested to see his choice in the end.”
He shoved her and she fell face first on the bed. Complete terror raced through her and she pushed forward, throwing her body over the other side, falling onto her shoulder, scrambling to her knees to defend herself. There was no one there. The dark edge of a trouser leg disappeared through the connecting door. Faint footsteps treaded down the back stairs. She clutched the horrid pink coverlet, twisting it in her hands.
“Marietta? What are you doing?”
She whipped around to see Gabriel in the bedroom doorway, looking winded.
“There was a man. He grabbed me. Took the journal. Said—”
But Gabriel was already running past her, through the connecting door. Footsteps pounded down the back stairs. Surreptitiously, she looked around and backed herself into a corner to wait, staring at the rumpled covers, the divots and valleys in the clutched fabric.
He reappeared a few minutes later, disheveled and irritated. “He was already gone.”
