Katherine was glad someone was finding this situation amusing. “No discretion is needed. I am going to my room.” With a quick good night to her father, she fled.
Only to find Henry barring her way up the stairs. “What has happened between when we were last together and now? Why are you angry?”
She’d hoped to avoid this, but perhaps it was better to air everything out. Let her start fresh with no regrets. “After my interview with the magistrate, I came back to the sitting room. I heard you and Father on the terrace through the window.”
Henry rubbed his temple. “And? Shouldn’t you be happy? Your father gave his permission for us to marry.”
“You think that’s what I wanted?” Katherine made an effort to lower her voice. She’d thought he knew her better. Knew that she didn’t want a man who saw her as an acquisition. It seemed even the best of men, when presented with an opportunity for wealth, didn’t have the strength to refuse.
He slowly straightened, a mask dropping over his face. “Yes. When you let me inside your body, that was the impression I was under.” He stepped aside, and waved his arm toward the steps. “Forgive me for being but a roadblock in your path. I should have remembered my place.”
She clenched her fists. She wanted to pull out her hair, tear at his clothes. Why was he so frustrating? He was the one in the wrong. He knew she didn’t care about things like status. Was he trying to make her the villain in order to protect his own ego? Or had he actually been hurt by her words?
She blew out a breath. This was too important to run from. She needed to be explicit. “Did you, or did you not, negotiate with my father on what terms you would accept for marrying me?”
“I did.” A muscle ticced in his jaw. “Do you want to hear said terms?”
The backs of her eyes burned. At least he’d had the honesty to admit it. No, Henry wasn’t the sort of man to dance around the facts, to wheedle or whine when he was caught out. Even when he broke her heart, he made her fall for him a little bit more.
She blinked rapidly, not wanting to let him see her cry. “I do not. Goodbye, Henry.” She darted past him and raced up the steps. She waited for him to call out, chase after her, try to stop her in some way.
He did nothing.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lady Mary
Thehoot hootof the tawny owl jerked me back to wakefulness. Or perhaps it was a barn owl. I wasn’t an expert on bird calls. I was only certain it was an owl that had kept me company on my hours’ long vigil.
I checked the mantel clock. I had placed it on the table in front of me in the front sitting room so the light of the waxing moon illuminated its face. Only six minutes had passed since last I checked. Not enough time for my brief nap to allow anyone to escape this house unnoticed.
I pushed out of the settee and stretched. My back popped, making the tendrils of regret I’d had about forgoing my bed that night resurface. I shoved them down. I had a killer to catch. Any fatigue or minor aches and pains could hardly measure against that.
I dug my knuckles into a sore muscle in my lower back. And these aches and pains definitely didn’t need to be mentioned to Jane. Instead of supporting my idea, she’d had the temerity to laugh in my face as she’d made her way to her comfortable bed. Told me I’d regret it.
I sniffed. I might, but I’d never admit it.
The killer must have heard Katherine. Why wasn’t he running?
She and the owl watched black melt into Prussian blue and that turn into a mercury-gray morning. The house started toawaken with the sounds of the servants moving about. Southey hunted her down, seeming most excited to find her boot available for a good chew instead of locked behind her bedroom door. He was a warm lump on her lap until the first of the guests called their carriage to the front doors. Southey wasn’t overly fond of horses and carriages, apparently, so he opted for greener pastures. The kitchen I suspected, begging for a bigger breakfast.
The Havenstones seemed the most eager to leave. As they had the farthest distance to travel, their early start made sense. The sun had barely broken the horizon when their trunks were secured to the back of their carriage and Lord Havenstone was handing his wife into the conveyance.
She leaned forward from her seat and stared at Perrin Manor. “Good riddance to a house of sadness. I hope the new Lord Perrin can make a better go of it.”
As Perrin’s eldest son had taken on a profession that preferred to manage relationships with God instead of earldoms, I somehow doubted it. I expected the new earl to sort through his father’s matters and then turn the running of the estate over to his younger brother.
“Why do you call it a house of sadness?” I asked. “I’d always found gatherings here to be most merry.” Especially when Perrin absented himself from the group.
Lady Havenstone shrugged. “Just something Cook Clem said. About the manor ghost now having two more to keep her company.”
Lord Havenstone sighed. “Sarah….”
“My husband doesn’t believe in ghosts.” Lady Havenstone sniffed, her nose turning up. “I, however, have always enjoyed a good horror story.”
“Who is supposed to haunt these halls?” I, also, didn’t believe in ghosts. But there had been those shadows and that face in the window Katherine had seen. A shiver raced down my spine.
“The Lady Perrin.” Lord Havenstone trundled past me and climbed into the carriage, sitting across from his wife. He also leaned forward, both of their heads framed by the carriage doorway. “It’s a story the servants apparently use to scare the new hires. That Perrin killed his wife and now her spirit haunts the manor, getting up to mischief. Why any fool would believe that.” He shook his head.
