“I didn’t know, when I got it, that he was going to die. I thought—I thought he was worried for me, Peter’s death, my—my own feelings towards him, my hopelessness about that. I did know—for some time—that Olivia was having trouble again, with the paralysis. I suppose I’d told myself that in a few years—five, perhaps—she might—something might happen. The doctors had never held out much hope of—of a long life for her! And if he was free—if I were free—if he wanted to come to me, he could. That for Olivia’s sake, all these years he’d lied to himself—lied to me—lied to her. About how he really cared for me. I told myself he’d let me marry Peter because he thought it was for the best. I told myself that he couldn’t leave Olivia alone in that house, with no one but the servants to look after her. That he’d stay with her—and I respected him for that!—until the end. That—Oh, damn, damn, damn! I told myself what I wanted to hear. But he didn’t want to go on living, did he? Or he would have!”

There were no tears on her cheeks when he finally looked at her, only a great sadness in her face that touched him deeply.

“And for weeks afterward I asked myself, What hold did she have over him? What was it that was stronger than anything he could have felt for me? Why couldn’t she let him live? What was it that Olivia knew and I didn’t?”

This time there was a fierce anger in her voice, a need that was so ferocious, so passionately real, that she had been driven to act. To send for the Yard.

Chapter 17

17

Rutledge didn’t know what to say, how to answer her.

Instead he got out and started the car again, and drove silently back to the village. In front of the cottage, as he pulled up the brake, he said, “You weren’t prepared for murder, were you?”

“No—I thought—I don’t know what I thought.” Her voice was still husky. “But I had to know why—And there wasn’t anyone else I could speak to. Most certainly not Peter’s brother in Whitehall! I told myself that Scotland Yard would be objective and quick, and I’d at least know why Nicholas died. That’s all I wanted to hear. And now, now you’ve dragged in Richard—and Anne—and Rosamund— and I’m so frightened I can’t sleep. I don’t want to know any more. I’d rather believe that Nicholas didn’t love me than discover something awful about him that I couldn’t bear to live with!”

“Will you come back to the Hall with me? I want to show you something.”