House of Salt and Sorrows(15)

“Don’t be absurd.” I hastily untied my rope from the dock and pushed off. “He was nothing more than a skilled flirt, and you have bigger things to worry about.”

Out of the harbor, I paused to splash a handful of water over my heated face. There were bigger things to worry about.

What had the inscription in the locket meant? Eulalie, a blushing bride?

It didn’t make any sense. Though she’d had many suitors, none of them had ever proposed.

Had they?

Frowning, I set the oars against the waves. There were only two reasons Eulalie wouldn’t have told us about a fiancé.

It was either someone Papa would never have approved of…

Or someone Eulalie didn’t.

My imagination pounced then, conjuring up Eulalie’s fateful last night. She must have been meeting this would-be suitor, rebuffing his advances, telling him they could never be together. They quarreled and tempers rose, flaring to a feverish pitch, until he shoved her from the cliffs. Had he thrown the locket after her to erase the evidence of his unrequited desire? I pictured her falling through the air, the look of confusion on her face turning to horror as she realized there was no escaping this, no way to go back and make it right. Had she screamed before smashing into the rocks?

A wave struck the side of my dinghy, slapping me back to the present with a gasp. Though it was all conjecture, I felt I was on the right path.

My sister’s death had not been an accident. It had not been part of some dark curse.

She was murdered.

And I was going to prove it.





Creak.

Creak.

Creeeeeeeak.

My fingers were on the handle of Eulalie’s desk drawer when I heard the floorboard in the hallway and froze, my heart high in my throat, certain I was about to be caught. While there was no actual rule about not entering our departed sisters’ rooms, it didn’t feel like the kind of thing I wanted anyone to know about. A flood of possible excuses crashed into my head like a tidal wave to the shore, each sounding weak and unbelievable.

When no one raced into the room and accused me of trespassing, I tiptoed to the door and peered out into the hallway.

It was empty.

With a sigh of relief, I quietly shut the door and studied Eulalie’s room, wondering where to look next.

When I returned from Selkirk, I found a nearly empty house. Morella had taken the triplets to Astrea again, and the Graces were still at their lessons with Berta. A series of erroneous notes clunked loudly from the Blue Room’s piano as Camille practiced a new solo. With everyone preoccupied, it was the perfect time to slip into Eulalie’s room and search for something to prove my theory of a scorned lover.

In her absence, everything had straightened into an orderly neatness she would have hated in life. Books were stacked into tidy towers on her writing desk, not strewn about at the end of her chaise. The floor was remarkably free of clothes, and white drop cloths covered most of the furniture.

I wandered around the room, unsure what to look for until I spotted the tall pedestal near the window. A maidenhair fern, now wilting and in desperate need of attention, languished on it, concealing a hidden drawer I remembered Ava once mentioning. Eulalie kept her most beloved treasures within it.

After several moments of poking and prodding, I discovered a lever and released it to reveal a cache of objects. I pulled out three slim volumes, hoping they were diaries filled with accounts of her days and secrets. Skimming the first few pages, I saw they were novels Papa had forbidden her to read, citing passages too graphic for young ladies’ eyes. I set the books aside, oddly pleased she had read them anyway.

At the bottom of the drawer was an assortment of hair ribbons, jewelry, and a pretty little pocket watch. I opened it and found a lock of hair tied together with a bit of copper wire. Twisting it between my fingers, I wondered at its color. When Mama and our sisters died, we all received snips of their hair to keep in memory books or braid into mourning jewelry, but this lock was a pale blond, almost white, far too light to have come from a Thaumas head. I slipped it into my pocket to mull over later.

There was also a vial of perfume and a handkerchief too devoid of embroidery and lace to have come from Eulalie’s collection. It singed my nostrils, reeking of a particularly strong pipe smoke.

“What are you doing?” a voice called out, startling me.

I jumped, dropping the handkerchief. It fluttered to the floor like a butterfly at first frost. Heart pounding, I snapped my head toward the doorway, where Verity stood, sketchbook in hand. Her short chestnut curls were swept back with a large bow, and her pinafore was already dusty with pastels. I let out a sigh of relief, grateful I’d not been caught by Papa.

“Nothing. Aren’t you supposed to be in the classroom?”

She shrugged. “Honor and Mercy are helping Cook with petits fours for the ball. Berta didn’t want to teach just me.” She nodded toward the triplets’ room across the hall. “I wanted to see if Lenore would sit for a portrait.”

“They’re out with Morella. Final fittings on their dresses.” I shifted, letting my back close the pedestal’s door.

Her mouth pursed into a rosebud as she studied me. “I don’t think Eulalie will like you being in there.”

“Eulalie isn’t here anymore, Verity.”

She blinked once.

“Why don’t you go see if Cook needs more help?” I suggested. “I bet she’ll let you taste the icing.”