“They raped you.”
I hated that word. The harsh sound of the long “a.” The way the “p” formed between puckered lips.
“Debatable, as I said before.” I kept my voice light, to fight the emptiness in my head, my chest, my gut.
“Not debatable. Not from Octavia Winstead’s own hand.”
“A madwoman’s rambles?”
“Mad? Quite possibly. Rambles? I think not.”
“You put too much stock in that book. Obsessed by it.”
“Little wonder, when the object of it was with me all the time. Sleeping at my side.”
“I seem to recall it beingmybed we shared, not yours.”
Her color deepened. “I knew there was something about the book that called to me. Something in it I needed to read.”
I buried horror and anger beneath shallow disinterest. “I didn’t realize you were into the perverse.”
She reached out a hand to me and withdrew it just as quickly. Comfort automatically given, then consciously taken away.
“Believe me, I don’t need your comfort.” The pain and self-hatred were too difficult to fully hide.
She took a deep breath. “What they did was wrong.”
“Spare me your pity. I hardly need it, any more than I need anything else from you.” The tragedy of spite.
She looked down, clasped shaking hands together, then straightened her shoulders. “Very well.”
“Yourquestion, Lady Winters?” I bit out.
Her eyes connected with mine. “Did you murder those women?”
I waited a few beats. “If not me, then who else?”
Her lips disappeared in a thin straight line. “That is not an answer.”
“But if I give you an answer in the negative, that leaves you without a scapegrace. If I give you an answer in the positive, what will you do about it?”
“You were the one pushing for me to ask the question. Nowanswerit.”
“Tell me, when would I have been able to murder the last two?”
She looked at the scattered papers. “You could have sneaked out to murder Anastasia Rasen while I slept.”
“So stealthy, am I?”
“Yes, you are incredibly stealthy. Your upbringing explains that completely.”
“The lowly servant that I am.”
She gripped the table. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I think it is exactly what you meant.”
“By my words, I meant that you have the stealth of someone used to moving soundlessly so as not to bother others.”
