Midnight Secrets (2 page)

We returned home to find several crates filling the drawing room. I settled on the sofa with my correspondence for “Cassiopeia’s Corner” and let Andromeda and Gemini unpack the artifacts. Our house would never be the model of sophisticated style I’d seen in the Eversmores’ gilded and white décor with everything properly perfect and in its place. We had too many stuffed animals and partial skeletons in the corners of our rooms. Not to mention a shrunken head or two displayed with the china. Anyone coming to our home surely left questioning our sanity. It occurred to me that one way to solve Gemini’s problem with Lord Percy was to invite him to tea and serve the shrunken heads on a platter with the scones. But then my sterling reputation for being perfectly proper would go up in flames, and that was something I wasn’t willing to risk.

Gemini pulled a broken vase from the crate and looked at me, her eyes shining with hope. “Father is going to find gold this time and our dearest wishes will come true. We’ll all have the biggest, most beautiful weddings ever.”
 

Andromeda met my gaze over the top of Gemini’s head. How much of Gemini’s heart was set on Lord Percy? And had Gemini herself given Lord Percy his fortune-hunting ideas?

“Gemmi, in thirty years of excavations, Father hasn’t found more than what you have in your hand, so don’t hold your breath or count on some grand dream.”

“Do you always have to be so practical, Cassie?”

“Yes.”

She pouted. “Well, you’re wrong. Things are about to be hugely different for us. I know it.” She set the vase on the floor, and I frowned at her, finding her choice of words disturbing. What was Gemini not saying?

“Don’t put that treasure there!” Andromeda picked up the broken vase as if it were a crown jewel. She moved to the next room, setting it on the dining room table. Gemini and I both rolled our eyes at that because we knew what was next.

Andromeda would cover every flat surface in the house as she extensively studied and catalogued each item before sending them on to the archeological department at the University. We’d be lucky to find a place to eat even in the tiny breakfast nook for months to come now.

To be fair, if the treasures had come from the Celts, then I’d be the one sighing with pleasure over broken pottery. The legends and heroes of that time in history had burrowed in my heart ever since hearing stories of dragons and fairies and merrows and selkies on my grandfather’s lap. His deep voice and soothing Irish lilt had made the stories magical for me, all of which was completely impractical to be thinking about now. I had work to do. I forced the memories to the back of my mind as I always did and I focused on the task at hand, despite my sisters’ chatter.

I knew the answers to the questions in the letters before me by heart.

“A decorous and practical lady never acts in haste or takes any action which might impugn her reputation. She must always keep in mind her deportment and her attention to proper etiquette and dress.”

“A decorous and practical lady would never, on any occasion, be alone with a gentleman.”

“In the matter of love at first sight, a decorous and practical lady judiciously bides her time for at least a year before acknowledging her affection. This allows the gentleman in question ample time to prove himself worthy and shows him she has the patience and discretion needed to make a proper wife.”

“Cassie! Oh, Cassie!” Looking up at my sisters’ horrified cries I saw a telegram in Andromeda’s hands. I was so focused I must have missed the knock at the door. Standing, I clasped the pheasant shell in my pocket tightly, making my palm sting. I knew what had happened. I didn’t know how, or when, but I knew what. Joining my sisters, I read the telegram, my hands shaking.

Dear Ones,

Mary has supposedly drowned, her body swept out to sea. I am at Seafarer’s Inn, Dartmoor’s End, waiting for the sea to return her to me.

Sorrowfully,

Aunt Lavinia

My body went numb and my heart hurt with every beat. I’d known from the moment I’d awakened that Mary was lost and I hated the part of me that dreamed of death always too late for me to change anything. They were the most painful moments of my life.

“How could she?” I blinked back my tears and startled everyone when I threw the letter down. I paced across the room, anger and doubt staving off my grief. “How could she possibly have drowned? She hasn’t gone into the sea in years.”

“She knew something bad would happen in the sea and now it has,” Gemini cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.

All I could see in my mind was Mary running into the water to save me. “I’m going. I don’t know what I can do about this, but I’m going to Cornwall. I have to know why she went into the sea.”

 
“I’m going with you. Aunt Lavinia needs us.” Andromeda folded her arms and furrowed her brow.

“Me too,” Gemini added. They both glared at me ready for battle, for it would be no small expense.

“We will all go.” My agreement shocked them. Usually my sisters and I argued for hours when it came to making practical decisions and carting everyone to the wilds of Cornwall was utterly impractical.

They didn’t give me a second to change my mind. They immediately packed and we left for the Cornish coast within hours. I sent a note to our parents informing them Mary had drowned and we were going to be with Aunt Lavinia at Dartmoor’s End. Then I spent the entire journey focused on one question. How had Mary drowned?

Dartmoor’s End, England

“Miss Andrews, I don’t mean to be rude, but you have said all of this before.” Constable Poole slashed his dark brows at me from where he sat behind his desk. I didn’t have to see beneath his bushy mustache to know he frowned; indignant irritation had his back ramrod straight. He hadn’t bothered to stand when I entered his office for the third time today, but then, I hadn’t bothered to wait for his assistant to escort me in this time either.

“You may be hearing me, Constable, but you aren’t understanding me at all.” I paced toward him. “Mary was deathly afraid of the sea. She did not go swimming and drown.”

He stood, this time trying to quell my persistence with a disdainful stare. “Until I have specific evidence to prove otherwise, my conclusion of this matter remains as cited in my report.”

“What about her employer, Sean Killdaren? I’ve heard alarming stories about him and his brother, the Viscount of Blackmoor.”

Sean Killdaren had also snubbed Aunt Lavinia’s every attempt to speak with him, thus raising serious questions in my mind.

The constable flicked his hand as if I were a fly in his face. “Rumors only.”

“I’d hardly call one of them being suspect in the death of Lady Helen Kennedy a rumor,” I persisted. “What do you know of the case? Were you constable at the time?”

“Yes, an assistant. And there is nothing about the case that needs to concern you.”

“You don’t think it odd that while working for the Killdarens my cousin has suddenly disappeared?”

“Lady Helen died eight years ago. She did not die easy. I hardly see a connection with your cousin’s drowning.”

I threw my hands up. “You don’t know that she
did
drown! There is no body. And how can you expect to find a connection between Mary and Lady Helen if you aren’t investigating the matter?”

We glared at each other. After a week of hard travel and several days of searching, I knew little more about Mary’s death than I had upon receiving the telegram. Mary had supposedly drowned while swimming alone.

“Constable, you aren’t giving the facts of this case serious consideration. Apart from Mary’s fear of the sea, why would a woman go swimming alone in the chilly May water? Why has her body never washed ashore?”

“Since you’re asking me to spell it out for you, Miss Andrews, she may have deliberately drowned herself. And not all things the sea claims find their way to the shore. I can tell you this, though. After this long in the water, you don’t want her body to return to you. Now, I have a number of things left to do today. So unless you have evidence implicating someone in your cousin’s death, I suggest you refrain from wasting my time or spreading any more rumors. The Earl of Dartraven doesn’t take kindly to anyone who besmirches the reputations of his sons.”

Dizzied by anger, I grasped the edge of his desk. “So, their wealth rules the law here?”

His dark eyes glittered. “Woman, you try my patience. Shall I have you escorted out?”

“Unnecessary, sir. You’ll have your evidence.” I marched from his office, my heart and cheeks burning with ire. I didn’t know the least thing about investigating a crime, but I was certain something terrible had happened to Mary—and I refused to return to the inn where Andromeda and Gemini comforted Aunt Lavinia until I had more than Constable Poole’s obstinacy to report.

For the past six years as a journalist, I’d made it my business to read a great many newspapers, some concerning crime. With those in mind, I went directly to the mercantile store and perused the available publications.
The Police Chronicles
caught my gaze first. Glancing through the front page article, I found a detailed account of the investigation into the murder of a prominent business man in London. That should help me to investigate Mary’s death.

Noticing the clerk eye me with suspicion, I picked up
The Crime Gazette
and
The London Report
as well and made my way to the counter.

“Ya asked about that teacher a day or two ago, didn’t ya?” The clerk surprised me, for I’d given up on finding out about Mary from the villagers. I’d asked a number of people who only said that Mary had rarely visited the town.

My pulse raced with hoped. “Yes. Did you learn more about her disappearance?”

Her gaze darted between me and the newspapers I clutched, then her eyes grew wider than a king’s gold piece. “Yar one of those fancy newspaper reporters, aren’t ya. Had a few of them around years ago when Lady Helen was murdered. They were men, though.” She spoke as if being a woman wasn’t proper then she lowered her voice. “It’s the maze, I tell ya. My bet is that teacher went in there and never was seen again and the Killdaren doesn’t want folks to know.”

“The Killdaren?” I wondered what sort of man could evoke such awe—or was it fear?

“Mister Sean Killdaren. He’s the second son of the Earl of Dartraven by only a blink of an eye. Ye’ll know why folks call him
the
Killdaren rather than mister iffen you ever catch a glimpse of him.”

“Did someone see Mary go into the maze?”

Shrugging hard enough to bounce her sausage ringlets, she leaned on the counter. “Well, not first hand that I’ve heard, mind ya. But that would be a place anyone could disappear from. Iffen the sea had taken her seems like she’d have washed ashore like most things.”

The shop bell clanged and two women dressed in simple worn muslins entered. “Wouldn’t you say so, Berta?” The clerk addressed one of the women.

“What’s that, Camile?”

“That teacher they say drowned up at the castle. I betcha she wandered into the maze, I do.”

“Don’t know if it were the maze or the sea, and I don’t care to know.” She nodded to the other woman who’d entered with her. “Betsy, here, says that ol’ hag housekeeper who’s always running off the help is now trying to hire a downstairs maid. Imagine that. As if anyone would want to work for her. I’d have to be starvin’ to take on that job. All that work and nothin’ for it. Yer practically invisible when it comes to gettin’ anythin’ extra by working downstairs, too. No cast off gowns or tips from gentry with that thankless job. Why it’s worse than a scullery maid, I tell ya.”

“Wouldn’t get no tips, no how. No one dares to visit the Killdarens. Now the Wellworths are where ya need to be getting a position. My cousin said he made handfuls of shillings a day during the last hunting party, he did.” The other woman continued on with more about the hunting party, but I wasn’t listening. One word had stuck in my mind and an entire plan revolved itself around it.

Maid.

Chapter Two

My heart raced as if I were off to commit a crime. The path leading from the village cut along the edge of the wild sand dunes where dark shadows from the maritime forest lurked and shifted with the inland breeze. A chill stole through the warmth of the late afternoon sun, promising there would be a cold bite to the coming night. I pulled the edges of a worn cloak closer to my breasts. Minutes after leaving the mercantile store, I’d bought it and a ragged potato sack from an elderly woman selling herbs at the end of the street. After mussing my neat chignon, I now looked like a woman desperately needing work.
 

The walk between Dartmoor’s End and Killdaren’s castle took longer than I thought it would and only added to my frustrations. The area was so isolated that my skin crawled.

How could Constable Poole ever believe a woman would go swimming alone on this empty stretch of sand and sea? But he didn’t believe that, did he? He believed Mary had taken her own life.
 

 
She would never have done that. I knew it as surely as I knew myself. So why had Mary’s shoes and basket been found on this stretch of beach? What had happened?

The castle loomed ahead as I crested the rise of a dune. Even with the sun shining upon it, the stone walls were dark and begged me to ask what sinister secrets lay hidden in the shadows.

Like some mythological creature the Killdaren’s home was half manor-like and half castle-like in appearance. From the moment I’d arrived in Dartmoor’s End days ago and had seen the castle from afar, it had captivated me, as did the stories about the castle’s rarely seen owner, Sean Killdaren and his brother, Alexander, the Viscount of Blackmoor—a man who resided farther down the coast in Dragon’s Cove.

The brothers had nearly killed each other the same night Lady Helen Kennedy had been murdered and they hadn’t spoken to each other since. There had also been mutterings about a Dragon’s Curse plaguing the family, but none of the villagers wanted to say what that meant.