What Happened at Midnight(15)

Maybe that’s why nobody had bothered to cut down the little coppice of oaks. It was a wild, stony stretch of land, not quite an acre in size. The trees were stunted by the soil; their lowest branches scarcely topped John’s head. The ground underneath his boots was rough with assorted pebbles and carpeted with a thick blanket of granny’s nightcap.

Mary looked one way and then the other as she approached where he stood.

“Mary,” he said softly as she came to the trees.

Her eyes swiveled in his direction; she frowned until she made him out.

“Is this going to cause trouble if Sir Walter discovers your absence?”

She paused. Too long, as if she’d heard the question he hadn’t asked.

“He doesn’t look in on me at night,” she said. “He’s too busy watching his wife.”

There was something ugly there. He’d seen it the first day, even if he hadn’t untangled it. Even when all looked well on the surface, something about Sir Walter simply smelled wrong. But she held her head high and met his gaze, challenging him to ask for particulars.

“Come,” he said, holding out his arm. “Walk with me.”

She balked.

“We mustn’t be seen from the house. Or anywhere else.”

“We’ll walk amongst the trees,” he said. “It’s not a lot of space, but we could stroll back and forth.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t take his arm. But when he took a tentative step, she matched his pace.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask your questions. I suppose you deserve answers, if nothing else.”

He wanted answers. He didn’t think he was going to get them, though. Even if she’d wanted to explain everything, he could see the slight tremor in her shoulders. He could hear the uneasiness in her voice. Last night, he’d asked and she’d choked, unable to even get the words out.

There were, as he saw it, two possibilities. First, she’d been badly hurt—so badly that she could scarcely bring herself to speak about it. Second, she was lying to him with such brazen deceit that he could trust nothing out of her mouth. In either case, interrogation would get him nothing useful.

“The money is gone,” he said slowly. “Spent.”

“Yes.”

Perhaps it was not so. Perhaps she lied still. But if she did, he was willing to bet that she lied out of fear, not greed. If he wanted the truth, more threats would only heighten her fear.

He shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Then I don’t see the point of asking any further questions.”

He’d get his answers by a more indirect route.

A slice of moonlight drifted through the tree limbs, touching her lips with silver. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Opened it again, then shut it once more. “Then why did you insist on seeing me tonight?”

“Today, when I came by, Sir Walter said something that made me think.”

“Oh?” Her tone was flat.

“It made me think,” he said, “that you might be in need of a friend.”

“A friend,” she repeated.

“Yes, a friend. You had a good number of them once—you were always with the other young ladies, talking and laughing.”

She turned away and strode deeper into the windbreak. “Friends gossip and swap stories,” she tossed over her shoulder. “They don’t claim friendship just to get the other person to answer questions. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we not pretend.”

He felt a stab of guilt at that, but pressed on.

“We were friends once.”

“We were betrothed.”

“We were friends,” he snapped. “We talked of music and books and—” And a future that some part of him still wished they had together. “—And my ambitions,” he finished lamely. “Do you want me to beg? I’ve missed you.”

He had only thought to put her at ease, but those words came too easily to be entirely false. “I missed you,” he repeated, “and of all the things that most enraged me about your departure, that was the worst—all those moments when I made a note of something I had to tell you, only to remember seconds later that I couldn’t any longer.”

She looked up at him. “Oh, John,” she said, her voice weary. “I am sorry.”

Maybe she didn’t mean it. Maybe she was just trying to put him off. But no matter how he tried, he wanted to believe she’d meant those three simple words. Her apology caught at his heart.

Stupid, bloody heart.

This wasn’t about his feelings. It was about the truth—about convincing her to trust him with the full story. So that if her father had taken everything and abandoned her, John would know where to find his nephew’s money. This was about nothing more than that—letting her feel safe enough to finally tell him everything.

“So pretend,” he said, more gently than he felt, “that I’m one of your old girlfriends. What would we talk about? Novels? Horses?”

“In Vienna,” Mary said, “I would have complained about my piano master. He was a harsh, impossible man. I never could please him; he was constantly heaping abuse on my head. Obviously, that’s not a possibility now.”

He glanced over at her. “I thought you were happy in Vienna.”