Secret Reflection (26 page)

Yet, as her spurt of shock subsided, she was thankful for his presence. Mathieson seemed to take umbrage that Tom insisted on accompanying her throughout the investigation and barred him from joining in their little excursion, instead ordering that both he and Nancy wait within the library until they were done.

Once she’d led Mathieson past the window embrasure, she saw how the brick hidey-holes had crumbled when Tom had pushed out the bookcases. It was a good thing she’d found John’s journal when she did … if she hadn’t, she would never have learned about the true man, nor would she have allowed herself to acknowledge the feelings growing inside her. Her one regret was that any other treasures to be found amongst the rubble would now, no doubt, be in the hands of the police.

‘I don’t suppose your constables found any books or journals amongst that lot?’ she asked, gesturing at the scattered pile of broken bricks.

‘Not as far as I am aware, Ms Reid,’ he said, turning to look closely at her face. ‘I do wonder why this journal is so important to you, though.’

‘That is just it, Inspector, I don’t know if it is important or not. All I know is that it is missing and could shed light on the disappearance of one of the manor’s owners during the Victorian era.’

His eyes narrowed speculatively but he didn’t comment.

‘So what happened once you reached this spot, Ms Reid?’

With a swallow, she described how she’d placed the candle and mirror down beside her so she could prise away some of the bricks to search inside the cavities. ‘Then a gust of wind blew out the candle. As I was trying to light another, I heard the noise from down that way,’ she pointed to the far end of the passage. ‘By the time I got the match to strike, whoever hit me had come up beside me. I didn’t actually see who it was but when I finally got the candle lit, all I saw was a black object coming straight at my head.’ Raising her hand to her bruised forehead, she winced at the memory. ‘After that it is all a blank. That’s all I can tell you, Inspector Mathieson.’

The frown that had accompanied the inspector since he’d returned to the manor furrowed his brow more deeply. ‘And you say you did not see Deanna Montgomery at all on Friday?’

‘No, Inspector. Apart from Tom and Nancy, the only person I saw all day was Richard Ditchley.’

Watching the inspector’s passing expressions, she would have said that for the most part, he believed her story. But he also seemed to sense that she hadn’t told him everything. But then she knew he hid things too. She had desperately wanted to ask about Deanna’s autopsy, hoping something in it might steer the inspector away from suspecting her. So far he hadn’t said a word and the journalist in her seethed with questions.

‘The bicycle pump was found over there,’ he said, indicating the same area she said the first sound came from.

‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t see it there. It was very dark and I couldn’t see the end of the passage. I just heard a sound. If it is the same pump I picked up outside earlier—’

‘About what time was that?’ he asked, cutting her off.

She shrugged slightly. ‘I’m not really sure … around nine maybe?’ she replied. The uncertainty of her answer echoed in her voice.

‘That was quite early if you were on a dinner date, wasn’t it, Ms Reid? From what Tom Wentworth tells me, you didn’t leave here till well after seven.’

Kelly nodded. ‘We had a pleasant dinner, and that was that.’

‘Didn’t the viscount receive a visitor during that time?’

Kelly’s eyes darted up in surprise. He must have spoken to Richard already. ‘Someone came to the door and he and Richard had what you might call “a heated exhange”. I don’t know the other man’s identity. Richard said he was just a local who’d had too much to drink.’

‘That man came forward this afternoon, Ms Reid, and made some nasty accusations about Richard Ditchley.’

‘Oh?’ Her journalistic antenna suddenly jumped to high alert.

‘Nothing I can discuss at this point, Ms Reid. We are investigating the allegations. However, if you can recall any details of the argument that night?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t hear anything of what they said.’

The sideways look the inspector threw her suggested that he didn’t believe her but she couldn’t do a thing about that. In this instance she was telling him the whole truth.

He motioned that she precede him into the library where Tom and Nancy sat, both wearing slightly nervous expressions. She tried to give both a reassuring smile but her own uncertainty made it feel more like a grimace. John materialised in the larger mirror just as she stepped from the tunnel into the room. The inspector followed close behind her and gave the hand mirror, matchbox and candle to a constable who returned the items to their respective plastic bags and set them aside.

‘What happens now, Inspector Mathieson?’ Tom asked, rising from the chair with a reassuring pat on his wife’s hand.

The inspector looked away a second then muttered a few words to another officer before facing them.

‘For now, we have about all the evidence we need here, Mr Wentworth. The boys will begin clearing up soon and you should be able to start setting everything to rights by this evening. I will be keeping a man on the gates and outside the house.’ He turned to Kelly, a look of warning on his face. ‘Ms Reid, while you are not under arrest, I would advise that you do not leave the house until all this is cleared up. Tomorrow, I’ll expect you to come to CID headquarters in Oxford at ten to have your fingerprints taken and a formal statement recorded. An officer will escort you. If you have no objection, we’d like a DNA sample as well.’ His black caterpillar brows lifted in question.

Kelly nodded. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘Thank you, Ms Reid.’

By the time the inspector finally dismissed her, Kelly could have sworn she’d run a marathon. Never in her life had she been so tired. Even the emotional exhaustion she felt after the final day in court where her marriage had been officially dissolved, paled alongside this. Why, she didn’t quite know. Perhaps it was the strain of keeping part of the story a secret. Yet she knew in her heart that any mention of John would only make matters ten times worse. Nancy and Tom believed in him, she knew that for a certainty, but she was just as certain nobody else would without more solid evidence than a voice that emanated from a mirror.

‘You appear fatigued, Kelly,’ John’s deep voice was gentle and filled with compassion. ‘Should you not rest?’

Their eyes met and held fast. ‘That was the plan.’

No longer fearing that he would be misjudged, he stood before her in a loose-limbed, relaxed stance. She moved towards the mirror and placed a hand on the glass. ‘Until the police have gone I cannot search anyway. Maybe after dinner tonight?’

The blue of his eyes darkened to become a stormy grey. ‘It is already decided, Kelly. You are to cease the search for my cousin’s journal. Once my days of reprieve are ended, you will still hear my voice, somewhat faintly. And I shall still see you. That is enough.’

That thought brought a sharp stab of pain to her chest.

‘For you, but not for me,’ she sighed. ‘Nothing is certain until we find that journal. It could be that you will be released, unharmed. We must try.’

A mixture of hope and fear filled his strong face. How she wished she could, just once, raise her hand to know that strength, to touch the warmth of his jaw, his throat. She closed her eyes and imagined what his skin would feel like under her fingertips and her body responded by sending a bolt of fire downward.

‘Kelly,’ he whispered.

She lifted her lids and saw that he not only understood what her body was telling her, but that he felt it too. She had come to desire him on all levels despite the impossibility of such emotions, and from the yearning heat of his stare, she knew that he had as little control as she did.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning from the potency of his steady gaze. ‘I don’t mean to …’

‘It is …
okay
,’ he said the word as if tasting it for the first time. He cast her a rueful grin when she glanced back at him. ‘While it is agony not to be able to reach across the barrier and be close to you, simply to watch, to be near you, can and will suffice. It must. Why don’t you rest? I shall go to the various rooms and keep watch on the police until you awaken.’

Again she put her hand to the glass, but this time she didn’t flinch when he lifted his own to join it. Energy, an electrical charge so strong it almost burned, flew between their hands as if to bind them. She gasped.

The look of wonder on John’s face sent a dart of heat straight to her loins and her legs became so unsteady that she thought they might crumple beneath her. The temperature in the room seemed to rise by several degrees. Every nerve in her body began
to scream with want, and yet they had not even touched! Her pulse stuttered and her nipples tightened until they stood out against her blouse, and as she watched him watching her, she knew neither of them could withstand such unfulfilled passion and remain sane.

Backing away slowly, she let her gaze drop to the patterned carpet as the realisation hit her. If this was what it was like now, how would either of them cope in the coming days, let alone longer? For her it would be simple, whether on her own or by making use of someone like Richard, she, at least, could relieve her sexual tension if she became truly desperate. But finding relief for herself would be so unfair knowing that the man before her would never be able to achieve that same relief. And in all honesty she really didn’t believe she could bring herself to seek either of those solutions.

As she drew a shuddering breath, she turned back to face him knowing deep in her heart that if she could not safely release him from his prison, she’d be duty bound to release him from whatever emotional hold she now had on him. She would have to leave and never come back. Even twenty years from now if they were to try again … she would have aged but he – he would be the same as ever, a virile man in his prime. No matter how much he thought he might feel for her, she could not in good conscience make him wait. He had waited too long for freedom already.

When she gazed into his face and saw the poignant sadness there, she wondered whether he had discovered how to read her thoughts as well. It was as if he could see the resolution she had just made, as if he had already resigned himself to the loss of what they were both beginning to feel.

‘Go and rest,’ he murmured with a calmness that belied all the tension that flowed between them. ‘The Fates shall decide as they will. I have learned that it is a waste of my strength to dream for more. Please do not waste yours by wishing on my behalf. I am content.’

Kelly wanted to rail against the mirror, wanted to smash the glass. How could he take all this so calmly? Deep within she knew that no man would ever again touch her soul as he was beginning to do. Could she spend her life without him?

Stepping back she swallowed down the sense of despair that seemed to be growing inside her. She had to find a way. Even if it meant seeking out a psychic or sorcerer or some other crackpot she would never, until now, have believed could be legitimate. She had to find a way.

‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ she stated as she dragged her gaze from his and released her hair from the band that held it. ‘I’m all dusty from crawling around in the passage. Afterward, I’ll try to nap until the police have cleared out, and then we are going to find that damn journal!’

She ignored the narrowed glare he sent her.

‘While I cannot stop you, I beg that you will take extra care. I cannot enter the hand mirror now it has been removed from the estate, so I am unable to escort you. Perhaps you can ask your Tom to help if you insist on continuing the search?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘We’ll see.’

Bowing, he favoured her with one of his devilish half-smiles. ‘I go to investigate the investigators.’ An instant later, he was gone.

As she ran the bath she allowed some of the tension to drain from her shoulders. Her body still hummed with need but that too would die down once she had bathed. After dinner she planned to go over every inch of the library and if took all night, or many, then so be it.

‘What is the matter with you?’ Sonia complained, pouting her lower lip. It reminded him of a pair of juicy red cherries. A few minutes ago she’d shimmied down the bed to slip between his thighs and had been attempting to work her magic with her mouth. But he didn’t much feel like it. ‘You’ve never had a problem getting it up before.’

Narrowing his eyes he took in her tousled hair and her smeared lipstick, and decided he was bored. She again put her mouth on him, her hot wet tongue swirling around the tip of his penis and though a momentary surge of desire shot through his gut, the thought that he needed to get Kelly tied to him, and fast, still distracted him. While he was laying here being serviced by Sonia, he could be back at Stanthorpe seducing Kelly instead.

‘Fuck it!’ he exclaimed when his mobile phone went off again. He knew without looking at the display that it would be that cop. The man had left five messages already and Richard knew if he didn’t answer it soon, they’d think he’d done a runner – something that would undoubtedly make him look guilty. Right now, he needed to get his priorities straight.

With a sigh he realised there was nothing for it, he’d have to head back to Stanthorpe and get it all sorted otherwise he could lose everything.

Grabbing Sonia’s thick auburn hair, he pulled her head back. Her lips made a soft popping noise when she let go. ‘What the—?’ she began, but he flung her head back none too gently, then swung his leg over her and sat up.

‘I gotta go,’ he said, reaching for his briefs.

‘But you said you’d stay over!’ She sat up on her haunches and pouted again. ‘I had supper planned and everything.’ She reached out and attempted to wrap her arms around his neck. ‘C’mon, Ricky, you promised. I’ll even let you— owww!’ she yelped when he slapped her.

She drew her hand to her burning cheek. ‘What was that for?’

‘That was for whining. You know I hate whiny women.’ He stood and pulled his jeans up, buttoning the fly with brisk, practised movements. ‘I just remembered some business I forgot back at Stanthorpe.’