“I never asked her, sir! Come to that, I never knew until she’d died that she was a writer of poems or anything else. Mr. Nicholas must have known, he sat working on his ships in her study, or went to find books she wanted in the library, or talked to her long hours of the day and night. I’d hear their voices, quiet and steady, as I moved about doing my cleaning. I think she’d have told him, she told him most everything important to her.”

“Except the name of the man she was in love with?”

Her mouth fell open. “And who was that likely to be, I ask you! She never had suitors coming to the Hall, and she went out so little. No man was likely to stumble over her in Plymouth or London and sweep her off her feet! Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Stephen, they were her brothers. And old Wilkins couldn’t light a fire in a grate!”

“Cormac FitzHugh wasn’t her brother. He wasn’t related to her or to her mother. A stepbrother by courtesy alone.”

Mrs. Trepol gave Rutledge an odd look. “What makes you think Miss Marlowe was fond of Mr. Cormac? Or he of her?”

“Because she wrote of love in one of her books of poetry, and no woman—no man for that matter—could have written of love with such emotion if he or she had no knowledge of it.”

Mrs. Trepol laughed. “Oh, there was love enough in that house to write a dozen books of poetry! Miss Rosamund loved her husbands and her children and her father with a deep and abiding feeling. Just living there, as I did as a young housemaid, you could wrap yourself in it. And Miss Olivia, she was very fond of Mr. Stephen; he could brighten her day just like his mother did. Mr. Nicholas used to tease her that she’d spoil him—Mr. Stephen—and Miss Olivia would say, ‘He was born to spoil and love. Some people are.’ “

Which told Rutledge that Mrs. Trepol had never read the Wings of Fire poems . . .

“Mr. Cormac FitzHugh used to live in the household. Miss Marlowe might have loved him once.”

“But he never loved her, sir! I’d swear to that on a Bible, if I had to. He was close to her, in an odd way, Mr. Cormac was, like he knew her better even than Mr. Nicholas did. But it wasn’t love between them. At least not on his part.”

Because Cormac FitzHugh had recognized Olivia Marlowe for what she was, a murderer?

“Do you think that Miss Marlowe was capable of killing anyone? Besides herself?”