The Lightkeeper's Ball (41 page)

He reached a hand toward her, then dropped it when she flinched. “No, Olivia. It’s not what you think. I found that at my father’s house. See the pencil rubbing? I did that trying to figure it out. When I saw what he’d done, I confronted him about it. There’s more I need to tell you about all of this, but not until you calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm, thank you.” Her gaze searched his. “I want to believe you, Harrison.” Her voice broke off in a sob.

“I had nothing to do with any of this, Olivia.”

She passed her hand over her forehead. “I’m so tired I can’t even think. I’m going home now. We’ll talk about it later.” She lifted her gaze and studied his face. “Can we get past this, Harrison? I want to. If you could understand how devastated I was by Eleanor’s death, perhaps you could understand my determination to know the truth.”

He thought about telling her he loved her, but he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was a Stewart. He let her turn and rush from the room. Moments later the door slammed.

Tears poured down Olivia’s cheeks as she rushed back to the manor. Harrison had shown no willingness to forgive her for hiding her identity. And heaven help her, she still loved him. What a pathetic fool she was.

The manor was dark as she made her way to her room. She closed the door behind her and fell onto her bed before she let out the sobs crowding her throat. Her life was in ruins.

She lay on her back and watched the stars through the window. Her fingers crept to her lips and she remembered the night he’d kissed her for the first time while stars fell from the sky. Burying her face in her pillow, she wished that day back again.

“Olivia.” The words echoed from the speaking tube. “I need to talk to you.”

She bolted upright. Her father’s voice. She grabbed the speaking tube. “I’m on to you, Richard. I won’t be taken in again.”

Ghostly laughter floated up the tube, then the voice faded away. How dare he come here and taunt her? He knew she wouldn’t fall for his ruse now. He’d done it to torment her. How had Harrison let such a viper into his household?

Tiger curled up against her and she caressed his soft fur. He was a comfort tonight. His ears flickered and he looked toward the door. Her skin prickled when he tensed. Was someone listening outside her door? She bolted upright.

A board creaked and she struggled to see her door in the moonlight. Was the knob turning, or was it a trick of the light? Before she could decide, the door eased open and a figure stepped inside. A woman’s figure.

Olivia relaxed. “Goldia, what are you doing up at this hour?”

The light came on, half blinding her. She put up her hand to shield her eyes and realized it was her housekeeper. The door shut behind Mrs. Bagley. Swiping at the moisture on her cheeks, Olivia sat up.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes, miss, we have a crisis. Could you come with me?”

Olivia swung her legs to the floor. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

The housekeeper put her fingers to her lips. “It’s your mother. Quietly, Miss Olivia. Your mother was most adamant that I didn’t rouse the Jespersons.”

Just like her mother to want to smother any gossip. “Is she ill?” Olivia rushed toward the door and followed the housekeeper into the hall. Instead of turning toward her mother’s room, Mrs. Bagley turned left toward the stairs. Olivia followed Mrs. Bagley down the staircase to the first floor. She started past her to the parlor, but the older woman grabbed her arm.

“She’s not there, Miss Olivia. This way.” She beckoned for Olivia to come with her to the back of the house toward the kitchen.

What was her mother doing in the kitchen? But when they reached it, the woman continued out the back door toward the carriage house. Were they leaving the premises?

“Mrs. Bagley, where are we going?”

“She’s in the carriage house, miss. She’s had an accident.”

An accident? What would her mother be doing wandering around the carriage house? Olivia darted past Mrs. Bagley and ran across the backyard. The carriage house was across the driveway and at the back of the property. What could her mother have been doing all the way out here where only servants went?

She reached the structure and stepped into the dusty space smelling of gasoline and oil. “Mother?” Straining to see in the dark, she could only make out the shrouded shapes of the automobiles.

The door slammed behind her, and a man’s hard hands grabbed her. A rag was thrust into her mouth, then he wrenched her arms behind her back. The man propelled her toward the smaller automobile.

She worked her tongue around the rag. It wasn’t stuck in very far and she managed to get it out of her mouth. It fell to the ground in the dark as he shoved her forward.

A scream tore out of her throat, and he clapped his hand over her mouth. “If you make another sound, your mother is dead. Understand?”

She nodded, and he took his hand away. “Richard?” she gasped. “What do you want? Where is my mother?”

“Get that rag back in her mouth, Jerry.”

Jerry?
Olivia strained to see the man’s face. The sliver of moonlight through the window showed a slimmer, shorter man than Harrison’s valet. Jerry and Mrs. Bagley were in on this too?

“I can’t find the rag,” he muttered. “You have a hanky?”

“No,” Mrs. Bagley growled.

Olivia heard a woman moan. The sound came from behind her. “Mother?”

“She’s here and if you scream, I’ll kill her first,” Jerry said.

“Whatever Richard is paying you to help him, I’ll pay you more if you let us go,” Olivia said. “I promise you won’t go to jail.”

“Richard?” Mrs. Bagley laughed and shoved Olivia. “That milquetoast nephew of mine has nothing to do with this. He’s much too
forgiving
to mete out justice where it’s due.”

“Nephew? You’re Lulu’s sister? The one she went to live with after leaving our house?” Olivia struggled to see the woman’s face in the dark. “What do you stand to gain if I’m dead?”

“If you’re all dead, Richard will get everything. He’ll share it with the aunt who raised him. But it’s not about the money. It was never about the money.”

“It’s just revenge then?” Jerry’s grip on her arms never slackened. The only way she would be free of him would be if he let go.

“Your father gave everything to you and your sister. He let his wife toss Lulu to the dirt. She went quite mad, you know.” Mrs. Bagley’s voice rose.

“Mother, don’t,” Jerry said. “Stay calm.”

“Calm?” Mrs. Bagley’s voice rose to a near shriek. “The Stewarts are to blame for everything. For the way we lived hand to mouth. For Lulu’s death by her own hand. They have to pay for their sins. I’ve waited and waited for God to do it, but he has let them prosper. So I have to do it.”

“But you’ll go to jail. No one will believe this was an accident. You’ll be found out.”

The woman’s smile was chilling. “Jerry will testify he saw Frederick Fosberg sabotage the plane. And we also have his gun in our possession. He’ll take the fall, not us.”

“Fosberg tried to kill us?”

“He tried to kill Harrison. He was convinced Eleanor killed herself because she was afraid of having her reputation besmirched. Of course, Harrison had nothing to do with it—Jerry threw her over the cliff—but Fosberg’s rage suited our purposes.”

“It was Jerry on the boat,” Olivia said. “He tried to kill me.”

Mrs. Bagley shoved her. “Enough talk. Let’s end it, Jerry.”

Jerry shoved Olivia toward the roadster. He wrapped a rope around her arms, then lifted her into the seat and tied the rope to something on the floor that she couldn’t see. She opened her mouth to scream, and he stuffed a vile-tasting rag into her throat. From the oily texture it must have been used to wipe grease off the cars.

She began to work the rope but it refused to loosen. Straining to see in the dark, she realized her mother was slumped unconscious against the other door. Olivia’s scream tried to work its way past the rag, but all that emerged was a choked gasp.

The next moment she heard something splash. The stench of gasoline choked her. They were going to set the carriage house on fire!

T
HIRTY-EIGHT

H
ARRISON SAT FOR
a long time just staring into the flickering fire. All his bright hopes for the future were gone. His father was a swindler, maybe worse. He still wasn’t convinced his father hadn’t orchestrated Mr. Stewart’s death. The man he would have trusted with his life had betrayed him. Worst of all, the woman he’d meant to spend the rest of his life with believed him capable of killing her sister and plotting her own death. And she’d deceived him.

“Sir.”

He looked up to see Eugene—Richard—in the doorway. The proper response would be to leap to his feet and restrain him until the constable could be summoned, but Harrison couldn’t dredge up the will to do it.

“Why, Eugene?” he asked simply. His valet would always be Eugene to him, not this Richard fellow.

Eugene stepped into the office. “I’m not behind Eleanor’s murder. I know that’s what Miss Stewart thinks. You believed her too. I saw it in your face. That’s why I ran.”

“The constable is looking for you. Why have you come back?”

“To make sure you know the truth. I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“Then who has?” Harrison asked.

Eugene hung his head. He went still, then picked up the forged signatures on Harrison’s desk. “What is this?”

“My father forged the paper giving him control of the mine.” Harrison rubbed his throbbing head. “If you didn’t kill Eleanor, then maybe he did.”

Eugene shook his head. “My cousin did this, not your father.”

“What? How do you know?”

“It’s known in town that if you want a well-done forgery, you go to Jerry.”

“Jerry? He’s your cousin?”

Eugene nodded. “Your father wouldn’t sully his hands by doing this himself.”

“And the one from Mr. Stewart to Eleanor? He would have done that one as well?”

“It would make sense.”

Harrison frowned. “What would be Jerry’s connection to this? Was he simply hired to do the forgery? Why would my father want Eleanor dead? Or Olivia? He forced Eleanor out here to marry me. He had much to lose by their deaths. But you didn’t.”

Eugene held his stare. “I would not take their money or their lives, sir.”

“Then who is behind this? Who else stands to gain from eliminating the Stewarts?” He saw Eugene pale and glance away. “Who, Eugene?”

Eugene put his hands in his pockets. “Jerry himself. When Mr. Fosberg told Eleanor about the new will, Jerry came to me chortling about how life would be different when I possessed all the Stewart money. That we could take over the estate and be as good as anyone else in town.”

“That’s not proof,” Harrison said.

“There’s more, sir. A few minutes ago I overheard Jerry in the Stewarts’ garden. He was talking in another voice.”

“Probably practicing for the vaudeville play he’ll be in. The same one he performed tonight at the ball.”

Eugene shook his head. “He sounded like my father. I heard him say, ‘Olivia, come down here.’”

“Why would he say that? You mean he was practicing to coax her from her room again?” The pencil in Harrison’s fingers snapped. “He was the one who lured her outside, then tried to kill her?”