“Well?” Lord Willoughby demanded.
Sterling placed the ring on the table in front of him. There was a crack through the center of the diamond and its color had dulled. “It’s done. The spirit has been vanquished and the curse lifted, thanks to Miss Sheffield.”
Lord Willoughby recoiled. “Get that thing out of my sight.”
“You don’t wish to keep it, my lord?” Sterling asked.
Willoughby shook his head abruptly.
Edwina sighed and pocketed the ring. “We’ll get rid of it,” she promised.
Willoughby crossed himself.
Lady Willoughby clasped Edwina’s fingers. There was color in her olive skin again, and a vivacity in her eyes that had been missing the last they met. “Thank you ever so much, Miss Sheffield. It’s like some great weight has been lifted from me that I didn’t even know I was carrying.”
“You’re quite welcome,” Edwina said. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t curtsy…. The spirit was stronger than expected and took some encouragement to move on.”
Sterling pressed the tip of his tongue against his teeth. She was fine, of course. He’d checked her over most thoroughly, but she was having none of his “molly-coddling.”
Far be it from him to point out that she’d almost stopped bloody breathing.
But if there was one thing he knew about her, it was that insisting she rest when she had her mind set on finishing this case was akin to tossing a gauntlet down between them.
He was going to have to learn to pick his battles when they were married. It was the only thing keeping him from blurting out that she ought to bloody sit.
Lord Willoughby shuddered. “Who would have thought that I was the reason behind this?”
“Oh, Willoughby.” His wife touched his shoulder gently. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I thought I was honoring you with the family heirloom.” He closed his eyes as if seeing some truth he did not wish to peruse. “How on earth did grandmother manage to sidestep such a vengeful spirit? It only happened to her once.”
Sterling shared a look with Edwina. “True, my lord. But we did a little sleuthing at the inn the day we arrived. There was some mention that your grandfather suffered a fatal heart seizure three months before his son and heir was born. Perhaps… perhaps the spirit was sated with his death.”
“Sated? Then it bore him a grudge too?”
But it was Lady Willoughby who asked, “Who was she?”
“Her name was Clare Worthington,” Edwina said. “She was a local girl who believed herself in love with the original Lord Willoughby.”
“Clare Worthington?” Lord Willoughby frowned. “Why does that ring a bell?”
“Would she have been a past… relative of Sally’s?” Lady Willoughby said.
“Perhaps.” Lord Willoughby gave them a look. “The Worthington’s have served my family for years. Our undercook, Sally, is the only one currently in employ, but there’s always been a Worthington here at the manor.”
Edwina’s expression softened as she glanced at the ring. “I think… your grandfather may have seduced her and led her to believe he would marry her. He may have been untruthful to her, my lord. And when his engagement to Lady Annabelle was announced, she went to a witch for the means to bring him back to her. The witch asked her to steal the wedding ring so she could bind Clare to the ring, and thus win his heart back. Or so Clare believed.”
“That poor girl,” Lady Willoughby whispered.
“Poor girl?” Lord Willoughby gasped. “She nearly killed you.”
“It was not Clare, so much as an echo of her spirit,” Edwina corrected gently. “And she died in such circumstances—betrayed by the man who ruined her, betrayed by the witch who preyed upon her—that it is only natural that her psychic remnants fed upon the emotions of her last moments. Pain. Rage. Betrayal. Suffering. I don’t believe her intentions—or what was left of them—were to harm Lady Willoughby. She was merely a tool used by a malevolent witch.”
“A witch.” Willoughby looked like he wanted to sit down.
“Long gone,” Edwina assured him.
But Sterling cut her a look.
