Chapter 28
THE LETTERS
Battle and Hamish were out of their chairs like a shot.
The rest of us got up, even Bartholomew, and raced after them, even Bartholomew, and he did this barking.
Surprisingly, with Bartholmew’s bulk and Prue’s short legs, they took the lead, because I was mildly hobbling and Tempie was on high heels.
She eventually stopped, took them off, chucked them and sprinted up the stairs a lot faster than I’d ever guess she could move.
This meant I was the last one to get to Chassie’s room.
By the time I made it there, skidding to a halt beside Tempie, Christian, in nothing but boxers, was laying Chassie, in nothing but a cute, girlie but sexy nightie, on the bed.
Bartholomew was pacing beside it.
“We need ice,” Christian stated, thankfully moving to his jeans. “She turned her ankle.”
But one must say, it was interesting to know botanists worked out.
Chassie was scrambling to pull the covers over her, and her face was so red, it was gleaming.
Christian hefted his jeans up and prompted, “Ice?”
Prue squeaked then dashed from the room.
I turned to Battle, Tempie and Hamish.
Hamish was studying the ceiling.
Tempie was grinning broadly at her sister in the bed.
Battle looked homicidal again.
Though, I noted, even though Chassie seemed okay (outside the ankle) none of them appeared prepared to leave.
I shambled to my man, just in case I had to be close for a lockdown, asking Chassie, “What happened?”
Her eyes got big, and she pulled the covers up over her nose.
“She got out of bed and the floorboard went,” Christian answered, crouching down. “I was in bed, she was too far away, I couldn’t grab her.”
I looked down at the floor.
The rug was disturbed, pushed through a hole.
“Took a step, she went right through,” Christian finished.
“I must have walked on that spot on the floor a million times,” Chassie said from behind the covers. “It’s so crazy it went this morning. I didn’t even feel it was loose.”
First things first.
I looked up at Battle. “Why don’t you, um…”
He carefully guided me aside, and I thought he wanted me out of the way because he was going to bum rush Christian.
But he squatted down and slapped the rug back.
He then walked to Christian calmly, they both stared down at the displaced floorboard, then Battle squatted again, shoved it fully aside, reached into the floor and came out with a thick stack of letters bound in a faded green ribbon to what looked like four volumes of journals.
“Charlie’s letters, I presume?” he asked me when he straightened.
“Oh my God!” I cried just as Chassie cried, “Goodness!” and Tempie drawled, “Well, hell.”
I got grabby-hands and took the letters from Battle.
I looked at the address.
Lady Harmony Talyn
The Downs
Haverbourne, Devon
The return address was Great-Granddad Charlie.
I looked to Chassie. “These are them.”
She took the covers from her mouth. “You were right about them being in a bedroom,” she breathed.
“Go. Read, darling. Christian can look after Chassie,” Battle encouraged.
He so got me.
I was dying to dig in.
However.
I turned to Chassie. “You’re okay?”
“The scream was surprise. It’s not that bad. But Christian won’t let me move until it’s iced and he can have a look at it,” Chassie answered.
“Good man,” Hamish said while pushing Tempie out the door.
Battle took hold of me, but his attention was on Christian, “You have her?”
Christian nodded. “I’ve got her.”
I checked out Chassie through this. Her color was back to normal, but her eyes were bright and happy.
Seemed Christian wasn’t the only one who received a reward last night for being a hero.
Battle guided me down the hall, into our room, to one of the couches into which he pressed me. He went to the closet, came out with a snuggly, fluffy wool black throw and tossed it over me.
He then said, “I’ll go get you some more coffee. Did you get enough breakfast?”
No.
But I was not about to delay diving into these letters in order to eat.
“Yes,” I said.
He bent and touched his lips to mine.
When he pulled away, he said, “Weight off that knee as much as you can. Yes?”
I nodded.
He left the room.
And at long last, I pulled the ribbon off the letters.
* * *
Five hours later…
After a lot of reading.
After a spot of lunch brought up by Battle.
And after a quick, clandestine (I didn’t want Battle to catch me) totter out to the studio to retrieve Aileen’s diary and the clippings, I was back in Battle’s room with my now-fully-charged phone (I took care of that too, after going to get Aileen’s things).
I called him.
He picked up with, “Do you need something?”
“Can you come up here?”
“Of course. Be right there.”
He hung up, and he told no lies before he did. No matter how long a walk it was, he strolled into the room within minutes.
“Fucking hell,” he said after he took one look at me and then moved quickly across the room to wedge his hip next to mine on the couch. “What’s in those letters?”
“Harmony killed Arthur Hughes-Davies.”
Battle reared back.
“With all the kerfuffle last night…” I began.
He gave me a warning look at describing it as a kerfuffle.
I ignored him and carried on, “I forgot all about finding some newspaper clippings in a diary Prue uncovered in the attic. Harry brought them out to the studio yesterday. Right before the whole…” I tried to find a word that wouldn’t tick him off.
I settled on, “Thing went down, I looked into the box and found a journal. It was Aileen Flannery’s.
The clippings were in that journal. And Aileen was Harmony and Unity’s maid.
Her entries around the date in question were also cryptic, but one thing wasn’t.
She recorded that Hughes-Davies invited himself to a house party at The Downs the weekend he went missing. ”
“Bloody hell,” he whispered.
I kept with the story.
“Aileen was under the impression that Marie was courting him to marry Harmony. However, Hughes-Davies wasn’t interested in Harmony. He liked them younger.”
His brows shot up. “Unity?”
I nodded.
“How old was she then?”
“Fifteen.”
“Jesus Christ,” he bit.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“How old was he?”
“Thirty-four.”
A smidge of his homicidal look came back, but since the homicide (as such) had already occurred, I reached to one of the journals.
Harmony’s journals.
Harmony’s journals that would, at the time, see her possibly hanged if anyone got to them, and she wasn’t able to prove what happened.
Self-defense.
So she hid them under the floorboards.
I waved it side to side before I set it down again.
“Harmony was onto his game. It was one of the reasons she was putting off Charlie. Hughes-Davies was sniffing around a lot, and that around would be around Unity, and Harmony was terrified he’d try something.”
“Fuck, Vivi.”
“I know,” I agreed, and kept going. “She fretted about telling Charlie, because she knew, if she did, he’d be on the next boat or plane to, as she noted, ‘take care of this nasty man.’ Apparently, Charlie liked Unity quite a bit.
As she did him, according to Unity’s journals.
Sadly, Harmony decided not to involve him.
Or any of her family, mostly due to the fact Marie was fond of Hughes-Davies, so Harmony thought her father was too.
Though, she knew Bishop thought he was a blackguard. ”
Battle’s mouth tightened.
“During that fateful house party,” I continued, “she got a bad feeling, and she switched rooms with Unity. Her feeling was correct. Hughes-Davies snuck in with malintent. Fortunately, Harmony was ready for him. Unfortunately, Hughes-Davies decided he’d take whatever he could get.
He assaulted Harmony. It was bad, but not as bad as it could be.
Still, it was bad. She did manage to get her hands on the letter opener she had waiting.
She also managed to plunge it into his neck. ”
His surprised eyes coasted to the letters and journals then back to me when I kept speaking.
“Saint, Bishop, and his younger brother Flint recruited two footmen to assist them in disposing of the body. Marie, her maid Beatrice and Aileen cleaned up the mess. Unity never learned of it. And Harmony doesn’t know where, but Arthur Hughes-Davies’s remains are buried somewhere on this property.”
“Christ,” he whispered.
He could say that again.
“Harmony was undone by the events,” I carried on.
“She understood Hughes-Davies was a rapist, pedophile and all-around creep. However, she was not at one with killing him, which was not her intent. Stopping him, yes. Stabbing him, if she had to. Killing him, no. This might have to do with how much he bled all over her. It was gruesome. And perhaps as an unknown-at-the-time but definitely therapeutic measure, she detailed precisely how gruesome it was in her journal. His attack on her didn’t help.
She felt unclean. And unworthy of a man as good as Charlie. ”
Understanding and compassion suffused his face.
“So she begged off,” he surmised.
“She did,” I confirmed. The tears hit my eyes, and I picked up the last letter in the stack.
“But apparently, she wrote him another letter, a few years after the trauma. However, by that time, he’d met and become engaged to my great-grandmother.
His response was loving and kind and of a sort, brokenhearted, even if he was in love again.
He’d moved on, and as such, with a good deal of agonized prose, he shared he couldn’t start things up again and why, and encouraged her to move on too, like he had.
Since he was with Great-Grandma, I can’t know for sure, but he’d probably tucked the other letters away, and when that one came, he possibly threw it away so she wouldn’t see it.
Whatever befell it, it wasn’t with her others. ”
“And the ring?” Battle queried.