Sam had never spent much time ruminating on the nature of heaven and hell before today, either, but it occurred to him there were some people for whom eternal torture was a fitting end.

He paused in the doorway and watched her, the graceful arch of her neck, head bent over the book. A rush of emotion, of love, tore through him. She’d walked through her own hell and escaped it … not unscathed, but tempered, like a metal alloy toughened in the heat. She could bend, but she wouldn’t ever break.

“Find anything?” he asked, sliding the tray onto the table and placing a sandwich in front of her.

“Mmm,” she said. “The locals really didn’t like the de Boers, even back when they were building the place. Mrs. Clarke says here that ‘while the people of the town and the people of the city have never mingled particularly well, local ire was especially enflamed around the building of the monstrously named Liefdehuis, meaning “Love House,” in the late part of the last century. It appears that when Mr. de Boer was busy building his fortune on the stock exchange he was routinely underpaying the men who were building his mansion on the Hudson, men who included my own grandfather.…’”

“Charming. Anything about the offspring?”

“Oh yes. Edward died of a fever. Mrs. Clarke doesn’t have much to say about him, except he had a bit of a reputation amongst the local girls and they didn’t miss him much after he was gone.”

“Doesn’t feel like our ghost,” Sam said. “But the dates fit, so we should keep him on the list.”

“There’s also a bit about the de Boers selling up, but that’s about when the book was written, so not much more.” She closed it and put it gently back on the table while eyeing the sandwich. “That’s enormous.”

“It was constructed to my exact specifications,” he said. “I’ll be very wounded if you don’t enjoy it.”

“Hmm,” she said, but she took a bite. “What next? Do you have any other research materials we can look at?”

“I can do one better,” he said. “I have a source—Mrs. Kay, the former scullery maid. But I’ll have to head back into the city for a couple days.”

“I’ll ask Liza to pack my bags,” she said. “We can leave in the morning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The city was black and grim underneath the remnants of a late-winter storm—the dark stone of the buildings and statues dusted lightly with bright crunchy snow. The cab they’d hailed at the train station was cold inside, making Alva particularly aware of the warmth radiating from the man next to her.