Hope Everlastin' Book 4 (25 page)

Again the wink of darkness
occurred. He experienced an internal
pop,
and was released from the
clutches of the spell.

"Lachlan!"

He was startled to see
Laura holding Broc. The babies were crying, squirming within the
confines of their blankets. He stared down at his empty arms while
he tried to release the information nibbling to escape his
subconscious.

"Lachlan, you're scaring
me," said Beth, her tone husky with concern.

Remember....

He looked up, startled at
the sound of his mother's voice caressing the inside of his
skull.

"Remember wha'?"

"Hey, Lachlan," said Laura,
"What's wrong with you?"

"Ma mither," he murmured.
He scowled and gave a forceful shake of his head, as if to clear
his boggy mind. "She wants me to remember somethin’. Wha', I dinna
know."

"Your mother's trying to
contact you?"

"No, Beth." He sighed
wearily. "I think a memory from the itherworld was tryin’ to
surface. Tis gone, though."

The sound of a car coming
up the driveway drew their attention away from their immediate
concerns. Winston's dark blue Audi parked in front of the carriage
house. He climbed out of the car and opened the door for Deliah,
then waved to the trio sitting in the gazebo.

Lachlan gestured for the
couple to join them. The babies, now quiet, squinted into the
shaded light. By the time Deliah and Winston stepped onto the
planks of the gazebo, Broc and Ciarda were again sleep. Deliah, her
smile as bright as the sunshine when she spied the infants, reached
for Ciarda. Beth passed her into Deliah's arms, planting a kiss on
the infant's brow before releasing her.

"It has turned ou’ to be a
beautiful day, hasn't it?" Winston commented.

Both Beth and Lachlan saw
through his guarded front, and Lachlan asked, "Wha' did you
find?"

Winston focused on Beth,
whose eagerness to hear what he had uncovered was deeply etched in
her face. "There isn't a death certificate for Beth on
file."

A breath gushed from Beth,
and Lachlan grinned with immense relief.

"But how's that possible?"
asked Beth. "There was an autopsy performed on me."

"Aye," said Lachlan. "Miss
Cooke showed me the report—no' tha' I understood any o' it. She
said Beth died o' a cerebral hemorrhage."

"There was never an autopsy
done on Beth," Winston said. "Nor could I find a single legal
document pertaining to her death."

Bewildered, Beth glanced at
Lachlan, who met her gaze then looked at Winston with his eyebrows
scrinched down in a scowl. "Beth was in the coffin, and I was there
when she was put in the ground."

Laura shuddered. "This
conversation goes beyond weird and morbid."

"So Deliah and I paid a
visit to Phineas Stratton," Winston went on, a rueful glint in his
eyes. "Now there's a character straight from the imagination o'
Edgar Allen Poe." He sat on the bench across from the others and
braced his forearms atop his thighs.

"He be the mortician," said
Deliah.

Winston nodded. "And the
only one who could have supplied the coffin for Beth."

"Which he denied," Deliah
said.

Beth asked,
"Why?"

Winston briefly massaged
the nape of his neck before replying, "At first, I thought he was
trying to cover his tracks, wha' wi' burying someone wi’ou' going
through the proper legalities. Needless to say, he was no' only
reluctant to talk to us but resentful. Borderline belligerent.
However, Stratton is a mon wi' a burdened conscience, and his mind
was very receptive to ma scanning it."

He sighed like a man too
weary to go on, his gaze flitting between Lachlan and Beth before
settling on Lachlan. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. He linked his
fingers and absently rotated the thumbs for a time.

He cleared his throat and
asked Lachlan, "Where were you when Beth died?"

Stricken by the question,
Lachlan paled significantly. It was a time he would give anything
to forget, and it pained him now as much as it had when it had
happened last July.

"Earlier," Lachlan began,
his voice hoarse with emotion, "Beth collapsed from one o' her
headaches."

"The migraines," Winston
said.

Lachlan nodded. "I knew she
didna have long. We'd argued on the tower, and I had spent maist o'
ma energy. When she collapsed in the hall, twas all I could do to
carry her to her bed. When she woke up hours later, I was still
unable to fully leave the grayness. She ate a sandwich then went
into the parlor, where I sensed she started to have anither
attack."

Through a thin mist of
tears, Lachlan painfully regarded the strain in Beth's taut
features. She couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze, instead,
stared down at her lap, where her hands were tightly clasped.
Lachlan closed his eyes a moment, gulped back his emotions and
looked at Winston.

"She was in so much pain, I
didna know wha' else to do except—"

"Please don't tell that
part," Beth murmured.

"All right, Beth." To
Winston, he said, "Again she collapsed, and I managed to get her to
her room. I dinna know how, but I knew she wouldna live till morn,
so I contacted Miss Cooke."

"How?" asked
Winston.

Lachlan frowned and gave a
light shrug. "I only had to call ou' to her and she always came.
Her mither was the same way."

"Go on."

"Weel, she lived in a wee
cottage along the loch, so it didna take her long to come to the
house. Mr. Stratton and anither mon came wi' her."

"Were you present when Mr.
Stratton examined Beth?"

"Winston, I couldna—"
Lachlan's voice broke. Willing back the emotionally knot in his
throat, he shook his head. "I shut maself off. It was the first
time I really understood how verra lonely was the grayness, but I
desperately needed the solitude."

"Go on," Winston said
again.

"I wanted to ask God to
please spare her for a wee time longer, but I couldna. I didna want
her sufferin’ no mair, so I didna pray. I didna think at all for a
time until Miss Cooke summoned me and told me it was over. Mr.
Stratton and his apprentice had taken Beth from the house. I was
no' to worry. She would see to it Beth had a proper
burial."

Lachlan frowned. Seconds
later, it darkened into another scowl. "Her reaction was strange,
now tha' I think abou' it," he said in a low voice, as if talking
to himself.

"Strange, how?" Winston
asked.

Lachlan looked hard at
Winston. "I insisted Beth be buried alongside me. Miss Cooke was
verra upset and tried to persuade me to reconsider. O' course I
wouldna. I was in Miss Cooke's debt. She, her mither and her
grandmither, had assisted me in payin’ the bills on the estate, and
twas Miss Cooke who had ma bones placed in a proper kist in the
early nineteen-sixties. But wha' she asked was beyond any debt o'
gratitude I felt I owed."

"So she respected your
wishes and buried Beth alongside you at the oak," said
Winston.

"Aye. Beth's spirit had
never left the house. She was in the grayness for abou' a week. I
figured she needed the aloneness to prepare for her new
existence."

"Understatement," Beth
muttered.

Lachlan nodded in agreement
and asked Winston, "But wha' has all this to do wi' Beth's death
no' bein’ on record?"

Beth stiffened her spine
and looked up. It was impossible not to notice Winston's reluctance
to go on, and Deliah's gaze was downcast, pointedly avoiding
Beth's.

"I need to know what you
found out," she said to Winston, her voice surprisingly calm yet
forceful.

"All tha' really matters is
tha' you're here, now," he said kindly, but she read torment in his
eyes, and it chilled her to the marrow of her bones.

"Winston, don't sugar the
truth," she demanded. "Nothing drives me crazier! Just tell me what
you found out, and don't omit any of the details."

As if he couldn't hold back
the information a moment longer, Winston braced himself and stated,
"You didn't die o' natural causes, Beth. Viola Cooke smothered you
wi' a pillow."

C
hapter 9

Deliah nudged Laura with a
knee, but the blonde was so stunned by Winston's revelation, it was
necessary for Deliah to place a hand on her shoulder and give a
firmer nudge. The green eyes swung to stare at Deliah with
horrified-incredulity.

"It be best if ye and I
take the babes into the house," said the Faerie
princess.

Nodding dazedly, Laura rose
to her feet. For several moments, she was at a loss as to what to
do then focused on the sleeping bundle in Lachlan's arms and held
out her own. She realized he was in a state of shock, which helped
her to shake off the remains of her stupor. Tenderly, she kissed
him on the brow and eased Broc from his hold.

Her tear-filled eyes
studied Beth for a moment. She wanted to put her arms around Beth's
trembling shoulders and tell her she was there for her, but she
couldn't. Instead, she smoothed a hand over the crown of Beth's
head then followed Deliah out of the gazebo and toward the
house.

Winston started to get up,
stopped himself, rose to his feet and sat next to Beth. He heard
himself release a thready breath. It hadn't been his intention to
blurt the information.

On the way back from town,
he'd thought carefully about how he would tell the couple. Deliah
had told him to wait, and he'd responded by telling her he didn't
feel right about withholding the truth, even for a few
hours.

"I would have known," said
Lachlan miserably. Leaning forward, he looked at Winston as though
ready to explode with grief. "Dammit, mon, I would have known if
somethin’ like tha' happened beneath ma roof!"

"You were in the grayness,
grieving." Again Winston sighed, a sound that told of his
difficulty to continue. But he knew he had to. Despite the grimness
of Beth's actual death, it freed her in the present.

"Stratton examined Beth and
discovered she still had a pulse. Viola pretended to feel faint and
asked the apprentice to make her a cup o' tea. As soon as he was
ou' o' the room, she took the spare pillow alongside Beth's head
and held it over her face."

"Why?" Lachlan cried,
jumping to his feet, his hands clenched at his sides.

A mantle of numbness fell
over Beth as she looked into Winston's eyes. "She wanted me away
from Lachlan."

"Tha's ma guess," said
Winston. "She was willing to kill Agnes and sacrifice the boys to
win his love."

Lachlan's heart thundered
behind his breast as he walked in a circle in the center of the
gazebo. "But I brought ma Beth to Baird House because I knew she
was dyin’," he said, again as if talking to himself.

"You only knew she was
going to die," Winston corrected, softening his words as best he
could. "Lachlan, you couldn't know tha' bringing her here was wha'
would kill her."

"What about my headaches?"
Beth asked.

"I've no doubt the
migraines were excruciating. Beth, you were under a great deal o'
stress for years, and the migraines were the result."

"They got worse after I
fell down the stairs at my mother's house."

Winston nodded. "I'm sure
they did, but again, I believe the stress o' yer life brought them
on. You came to Scotland hoping a visit wi' Carlene would bring you
peace o' mind, but shortly after you arrived, she left. You were
worried about her. Right?"

Numb, Beth managed a weak
nod.

"And Beth," Winston went on
in a softer, more gentle tone, "at tha' time you were also keeping
the guilt o' yer mither's death locked inside you. You didn't allow
yerself to resent the years you had lost taking care o'
her."

Winston laid a hand on one
of her slumped shoulders. "Human beings are complex machines. Guilt
is one o' those emotions tha' erode our gears in such a way,
there's no telling there's damage till it's almost too
late."

"I'm as responsible as Miss
Cooke for killin’ her."

Beth's head shot up at
Lachlan's words. Standing, she went to him, wrapping her arms
tightly about his middle and laying a cheek against his chest. "You
weren't responsible. Lachlan, don't ever think that
again."

Looking upward with a mute
plea for strength, Lachlan wrapped his arms around her shoulders ad
held her against him. "Aye, I am. I as good as put tha' bloody
pillow in her hands!"

Beth began to weep against
him. Tears spilled down Lachlan's face and his lips compressed into
a fine, white line.

Winston stood, his face
pale and taut, his eyes dulled by the helplessness he felt. He was
restless, antsy. To still his hands, he slipped them into the
pockets of his black trench coat. He wanted to return to the house
and put off the rest of what he knew, but a little voice in his
head told him to be done with the matter. At the moment, he longed
to be in the security of Deliah's arms, in one of their beds, away
from the troubles of Baird House and the rest of the
world.