Chapter 21
“Have you lost your mind?” Titus, shirttails hanging around his trousers, sleep still present on his face, yanked Waverly into the funeral parlor with all the grace and gentility of a farmer tugging on an obstinate donkey.
Waverly stumbled into the parlor, the carpetbag banging against her leg and Foo releasing an offended wail from inside it.
Titus slammed the door behind her. Glaring at her with both incredulity and reproof, he stretched his arm toward the door.
“What if someone saw you? Haven’t you enough trouble at Traeger Hall than to add scandal to it? ”
“Scandal?” Waverly knew she had overstepped, but what could a desperate woman do when she had no family, no guardian, no one to step in and give her counsel?
“I can tell you about scandal.” She pushed past the undertaker, setting the bag on the floor and unbuckling it.
Foo popped his head out, blue eyes sparking.
“You brought your cat with you?” Titus exclaimed.
“I couldn’t very well leave him at home. Had you been at Traeger Hall today, you would know my dilemma.”
Titus moved to the windows, making sure the shutters were completely closed. Foo sprinted into the unfamiliar depths of the funeral parlor. Titus escorted Waverly into a side room, yanking the draperies shut and switching on all the lights for the sake of propriety.
She knew her coming here had been impulsive and foolhardy, but didn’t the sheer necessity of staying alive justify any missteps on her part? One could hardly pass judgment when circumstances called for such unusual behavior. However, she had put Titus’s reputation in danger of ruin . . .
“I’m so sorry!” Waverly popped up from the chair she had all but collapsed in. She made for the front door, her nerves completely frayed. Titus was right! She had lost her mind! She reached the door and began to open it, but it slammed shut as Titus reached over her shoulder and pushed on it.
Waverly whirled only to find herself nose to nose with him.
“You’ve created quite a pickle, Waverly.” Though his statement was correct, his blue eyes glinted with a bit of humor now that the shock of her arrival seemed to be wearing off. It startled her and made her stomach do silly twirls.
“I know.” Waverly swallowed, trying to produce a reasonable explanation for why she couldn’t wait until morning. “But I fear for my life.”
Titus stiffened. “Did something happen?”
“No, no! Not yet anyway.” Waverly placed her palm on his chest without thinking. “But today, with Preston and Aveline, it was shameful, and I—”
“Slow. Down.” Titus’s expression was stern.
But then she must appear an absolute mess to him, showing up at his home in such a state and in the middle of the night.
But what else was she to do? Huddle in her bed and watch the doorknob for the moment Preston twisted it and then came at her with a dagger? He would bring it down and stab—
“Waverly.” Titus’s calming voice brought her eyes up to meet his.
She snatched her hand off his chest, now very aware that her fingers had been splayed there. Tears popped unexpectedly into her eyes, unwanted little pools.
“Come.” Titus motioned for her to follow, and they returned to the room where the draperies had been pulled.
“Sit.” He pointed to a chair and then he sat opposite her, leaning forward with his arms on his knees.
“Let’s start again. Please explain to me why you came to my home at this hour, risking both of our reputations. ”
Waverly hesitated, looking around to gain her bearings. She was in a sitting room, likely to receive customers and not personal guests. It was good she wasn’t in his personal quarters. If called on to explain themselves, they could always say she’d found herself in immediate need of an undertaker.
“Preston and Aveline,” Waverly breathed. “I found them.”
“Found them?” Titus raised his brows. “Are they dead?”
She could see he was genuinely concerned. “No. No, but it is quite worse than that.”
“What is worse than being dead?”
“Being discovered in a compromising position,” Waverly retorted.
“Ah, and you just now realized this about them?”
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know with whom, but it was apparent to me that Preston is a cad. There is more than one reason I’ve been adamant that you should find a more secure place to live now your aunt and uncle are deceased.”
Waverly sagged in her seat. “Have I mishandled everything so terribly? I . . .” Oh, how she wanted to blurt it all out. To tell Titus everything—everything! But she couldn’t. And if she did, what would he say? There were reasons she’d remained at Traeger Hall. There were reasons she’d hid the—
Her face whitened at the realization.
“What?” Titus leaned forward.
Waverly shook her head, waving him away. “I-I just feel a bit weak.” And she did. She’d forgotten again to check the bell tower. To make sure it was in its place.
Titus studied her as if to reassure himself that she was not going to faint. He must have felt relieved because he pressed forward. “Do you know if your uncle was aware of the relationship between Preston and your maid?”
“How am I to know that?” Waverly was embarrassed by how her question came out as a whimper.
Titus patted her knee and then quickly pulled his hand back, snapping his fingers to indicate his next thought.
“This is another motive for Preston to be rid of your uncle. If his indiscretions with Aveline had been found out, your uncle might have been threatening to remove Preston from his position in the company. If your uncle was worried that Preston’s scoundrel ways might be revealed, why .
. . No, that’s too obvious.” Titus slouched back in his chair and clicked his tongue.
“Now I wonder if Preston is innocent of your uncle’s murder. ”
“Innocent?” Waverly could hardly keep up with Titus.
He nodded. “Yes. Think about it. Leopold Traeger was a wealthy man. Many have questioned where all his wealth came from. Surely the sawmill and logging company are lucrative, but there have been rumors of other dealings for months now. If Preston was his right hand in those dealings, and your uncle was involved in such things under the table, so to speak, then I scarcely believe he would so much as blink an eye if Preston . . . well, relieved some of the anxieties of life with the housemaid.”
Waverly straightened. “There are rumors of other dealings?”
“It’s not uncommon, you know,” Titus said, “for a businessman to carry on his business under the table on occasion.”
“Yes!” Waverly leaped to her feet. “The paintings! I’ve been suspicious of them, yet I could not figure out why until now.”
Confusion marred Titus’s expression. “What paintings?”
“The paintings in Traeger Hall. The Vallée paintings especially. Have you heard of an artist by that name?”
Titus shook his head. “I haven’t,” he admitted.
Waverly paced the floor, wringing her hands and wishing she could pinpoint why the paintings gnawed at her. “If only I’d had the gumption to ask my uncle when I saw him in the garden tonight—”
“Did you say you saw Leopold in the garden?” Titus interrupted her, and Waverly was grateful he did. The more she voiced her thoughts, the more worried she became that she might say something she shouldn’t.
“Yes. I saw my uncle—his wraith—in the garden tonight.” Waverly avoided Titus’s eyes for fear he’d think she had lost her senses.
“And I thought I heard him whisper through my bedroom door’s keyhole the other night.
I disregarded that because of course it wasn’t him, but then after seeing him tonight, I wonder . . .”
“Your bedroom door?” Titus’s brows drew together in concern.
“Well, yes.” Waverly bit at her fingernail. “Before he died, he used to pace the halls at night. I quite thought he was losing his mind—”
“Waverly!” Titus shot to his feet. “Was he moving toward insanity?”
Realizing her blunder, she said, “I don’t know.
He would just . . . change suddenly. He was so domineering and forceful, and yet sometimes—at night especially—if I came upon him in the house, staring at one of the paintings, he acted differently.
” She hesitated as she remembered. “He would contradict himself sometimes.”
“What do you mean? How?” Titus reached out to halt her pacing, his hands gentle but firm on her upper arms.
“The strangest contradiction was when he told me not to ring the bell,” Waverly said.
“It made no sense. Isn’t that what the bell tower was built for?
To alert the town in the event of a life-threatening emergency?
To save him should someone come to attack him?
He also told me I was a problem he’d not taken into consideration.
At times I thought he wanted to die, that he hoped he would be murdered.
And other times it was as though death was the most abhorrent and frightening possibility.
He would often remind me and my aunt of ringing the bell should the need arise.
” Waverly looked up at Titus, aware of his thumbs caressing her arms where he held her.
Aware of the safety his presence provided.
“It is all quite a pickle, Titus.” Her watery voice broke, and her shoulders sagged.
“It is more than a pickle.” Titus eased her down onto the sofa and then sat beside her, his leg touching hers.
She found she liked the feeling of his closeness.
As she blabbered on, knowing she needed to stop, she couldn’t help but feel captivated by Titus Fitzgerald in this moment, imagining herself enveloped in the man’s arms. “The fact of the matter is,” she prattled, trying to determine what to do with her hands, “I’ve only a short time left before my uncle and aunt shall be buried.
That will put Uncle Leopold’s spirit to rest, I’m sure, and then I can finally be rid of him just as I’d hoped. ”
“As you hoped?” Titus prodded.