Vivian’s hopes came crashing back to earth. If that was true, it made all too much sense why Mrs. Buchanan had refused to tell the cops where she was. Was there any way to prove it?
“And oh, Henrietta.” Mrs. Buchanan was still talking, words coming out in a confessional torrent, as if now that she’d started she couldn’t stop. “Henrietta, you’ve no idea how I regret it. The whole thing, but that morning… If I had been at home, perhaps nothing would have happened. He would not have been alone with that girl… And now Huxley is gone, and I… I think I could have fallen in love with him if we’d had more time. If I had given us more of a chance…”
“I am certain you could have,” Hattie said. Vivian wondered ifMrs. Buchanan could hear the amused undercurrent to her words. “It must have been a terrible shock to discover how he left things in his will.”
That prompted a sad little laugh from Mrs. Buchanan. “His death was the shock. But I wasn’t… I knew how he was leaving things. I tried to persuade him so many times to change his mind, to leave more to me and not his bastard, but he was adamant.” Her voice dropped into a whimper. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“It’s not so hard to be a widow,” Mrs. Wilson said. Vivian could hear the smile in her voice.
Apparently, Mrs. Buchanan could too. “Maybe for someone like you, Henrietta. You have your whole life still ahead of you, and plenty of money with which to live it. But am I to find a third man to marry? At my age? Dear God, the prospect is terrifying.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Evangeline. You’re a beautiful woman still. And not yet that old. Uncle Huxley was hardly the only man north of fifty in New York looking for a wife.”
Mrs. Buchanan sniffed. “At least he remembered Corny somewhat. That’s a comfort to a mother. They did get on so well, you know. They shared a drink together nearly every night.”
Nearly every night. Vivian’s mind had begun to wander, but it latched onto those words like an alley cat pouncing. What better way to gradually poison someone than to share a nightly drink? And if Corny Buchanan had tried one way to get rid of his stepfather, but grown impatient with waiting…
The medical examiner had been right. The police weren’t looking into the poison at all, or, if they were, they were keeping it under wraps. Mrs. Buchanan would never have mentioned such a thing otherwise.
“Your idea, I presume?” Hattie asked. “Poor Corny would never have thought of something so sociable on his own.”
“It was good for them to get to know each other,” Mrs. Buchanansaid defensively. Vivian could hear the sound of a chair being pushed back, small things being gathered. “If you mean to be comforting, Henrietta, you are falling far short of the mark.”
“I often do, unfortunately,” Hattie said without much remorse. It sounded like she, too, was standing. “A defect of my character, whatever my intentions. But I am sorry for you, Evangeline. It’s plain you aren’t happy to have him gone.”
“Why would I be happy?” Mrs. Buchanan demanded through a sob. “Really, Henrietta, I don’t understand you sometimes.”
“I’ll see you at the funeral,” Hattie said. Vivian thought she could hear a pleased edge to her voice. “My sympathies, once again,” she added, accompanied by the sound of Mrs. Buchanan stalking out of the room. She shut the door so firmly behind her that the window in the room where Vivian sat rattled.
A moment later, the door between the two rooms swung open. Vivian sprang to her feet. But Mrs. Wilson only gave her a brief look before turning away. “You may come in now.”
They were in a beautiful sitting room, the ladies’ parlor, Vivian had once heard the Wilsons’ housekeeper call it. It had new paper on the walls since the last time Vivian had been there, a modern, geometric pattern of angles and lines. Her feet sank into the plush carpeting as she walked, and the velvet curtains that framed the windows were so thick and long that they puddled on the floor. Vivian felt sorry for the maids whose job it was to keep them clean. Every bookcase was filled with books—modern novels, the kind Vivian might actually like to read if she ever had the time for that sort of thing.
Hattie settled into one of the thickly upholstered couches with a sigh, the index finger of one hand tapping against her cheek as she surveyed Vivian.
Vivian set the delivery box on the table. She wanted to sit down, too, but she didn’t. She didn’t know what game Mrs. Wilson was playing, but she didn’t want to risk making her mad.
“Well?” Hattie asked at last. “Are you going to say thank you?”
“For what?” Vivian asked, her voice tight. “For showing me how likely it is that I’ll be arrested for murder? If she knew she wasn’t going to inherit much of anything, she had good reasonsnotto want him dead. That doesn’t help me.”
Hattie shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know what she was going to say,” she replied, not sounding concerned at all.
“Unless you think she had some other reason to want him gone?” Vivian asked, eyes narrowing. Mrs. Buchanan might have encouraged her husband and son to have nightly drinks because she was the one slipping poison into Huxley Buchanan’s glass. But that only made sense if she had something to gain from his death.
Mrs. Wilson shrugged again. “No, not a woman like Evangeline. All she wanted out of that marriage was better prospects for her son and a more secure life for herself. She got both, and a decent enough husband into the bargain. She’s lost most of that with his death.”
“Rokesby got something out of it,” Vivian pointed out. “Shares in the business, right? Same as you.”
Hattie’s eyes glittered behind her lashes. “Ten percent interest,” she said, her lips pursing in irritation. “Not much of anything at all, in the grand scheme of how these things work. But that’s a matter for the future,” she added, looking past the walls of the room they were in for a moment. Vivian had the sense that Hattie could see that future, that she had a plan for it. The thought made her shiver.
Hattie’s gaze snapped back. “But we were discussing the present moment, I believe.” She raised her eyebrows, waiting.
Vivian gritted her teeth. “Thank you,” she ground out.
“You’re welcome. And now, I believe—”
“I owe you another favor?” Vivian snapped, knowing it was unwise to interrupt but not stopping herself in time. “I thought I was here to make a delivery.”
