Chapter Eighteen #2
The pair started out of the room, when Miss Goodwin stopped and turned back to face Selena and the doctor.
“If you must know, the reason I get distraught about Clive is because he was the first boy for whom I had an infatuation. I was very young, but I fancied myself terribly in love with him. And when he died, it pained me deeply.” She turned and hurried from the room, with Mr. Davis at her side.
Selena and Dr. Scott sat in silence for a long moment as Selena contemplated all that they had just heard. Selena didn’t know what to think. Had Miss Goodwin been sincere? Or was that merely a clever lie?
“Did we just interview Miss Goodwin and Mr. Davis?” she asked under her breath. “Or Maisie and Joe Webster?”
“I wish I knew,” Dr. Scott responded, with a contemplative frown.
*
The grandfather clock in the hall rang out the hour of two A.M. Selena tossed and turned in her bed, going over all that had transpired the previous day.
It had been such an exhausting cavalcade of events, from Mrs. Whitlock’s untimely death to the many tense conversations that she and Dr. Scott had had amongst themselves and with others.
Were they right in their assumptions? Had Mrs. Whitlock indeed been the thief at the Worthing Seaside Hotel that summer four years ago?
Even if Mrs. Whitlock hadn’t been to blame for those thefts, they had heard such good reports about Clive Webster—that he had been a kind, sweet young man who would never have stolen anything.
Had Maisie and Joe Webster indeed come to Darkmoor Park seeking revenge for their brother’s unjust imprisonment and death? If so, who are they?
Selena and Dr. Scott had gone over the matter in detail before retiring for the night.
There were reasons to believe that any of the suspects they had so far interviewed—Miss Thompson, Miss Goodwin, and Mr. Davis—could be Maisie or Joe Webster in disguise.
Miss Thompson had admittedly once served as a chambermaid.
She had gone out of her way to seek a position with Mrs. Whitlock.
She had persuaded the older woman to come to Darkmoor Park.
And she had seemed nervous about something.
Miss Goodwin had claimed that, while growing up at the hotel, she had been obliged to make beds and undertake other chambermaids’ duties to help.
Was that true? Or had she in fact worked there as Maisie Wester?
On the other hand, she’d said she had learned to play billiards at the hotel—which seemed unlikely if she had worked there as a servant.
Most interesting was Miss Goodwin’s longsuffering reaction when she had spoken about Clive Webster.
She had shed tears for him—and had called him, familiarly, by his Christian name.
Had he been her first young love? Or her brother?
As for Mr. Davis, he had seemed fidgety and uncomfortable throughout the entire conversation.
Selena felt certain that he’d been hiding something.
Had he really grown up in an affluent neighborhood in London, the son of a banker who had moved to India?
Why had Mr. Davis blushed as red as a beet when Dr. Scott had asked him if he had once been a footman?
Could he be Joe Webster? If so, was Miss Goodwin his sister, Maisie, and a part of his plot?
Or was she merely an unwitting companion?
All these scenarios seemed plausible. But if one of them were true, how were Selena and Dr. Scott to prove it?
Thinking about Dr. Scott brought all these other contemplations to a standstill.
She recalled a moment, during their conversation in the schoolroom, when he had glanced her way with a spark in his blue eyes, as if to share his excitement about the missions they had embarked upon.
Solving these mysteries together was certainly one of the most thrilling things that had ever happened to Selena.
One of the most being the operative phrase. For the most thrilling thing of all had been the kiss they had shared. Selena still could not believe how brazen she had been, to shut herself in a linen closet with Dr. Scott! What had she been thinking?
She hadn’t been thinking, that was the problem.
Selena knew they lived and worked in different parts of the country and could never be together, but she couldn’t get that kiss out of her mind.
She went back to that delectable interval, allowing herself to revel in the memory, as she drifted off to sleep in a happy haze.
She was in the linen closet again, in Dr. Scott’s arms. His breath was sweet and warm against her cheek.
And then his lips followed where his breath had been.
A soft, delicious series of pecks that ran up and down her face and then captured her mouth in a wondrous, heart-stopping kiss.
Oh, if only the kiss could go on forever …
A gentle clicking sound came from somewhere in the distance.
Selena tried to ignore it and to concentrate on the joy of kissing Dr. Scott, but it sounded like a doorknob turning.
Was someone opening the door to the linen closet?
A hint of unease rippled through her. She couldn’t be found in here kissing Dr. Scott!
But when she opened her eyes, Selena wasn’t in the linen closet anymore. She was in her own room, alone in bed.
Selena knew she was still asleep, and this was just a dream. Or was it? The dark chamber was pierced by only a single point of distant light—the glow of embers in the fireplace. A new sound caught her attention. Footsteps creeping across her floor.
Was someone in her room?
The footfalls grew closer. Selena’s heart began to pound in fear. A dark shadow of a figure loomed over her now, holding something directly above her face. A pillow.
Selena screamed.