Chapter 24
Waverly
Traeger Hall
The disbelief on Titus’s face was perhaps more frightening, considering she still had to traverse through the night and return to Traeger Hall.
Return to her uncle’s marauding ghost, Preston’s lascivious ways, and Aveline’s frantic scurrying about.
Not to mention the bodies. Oh, the bodies!
Waverly would be so happy when Titus came with the horse-drawn hearse to wheel them away.
She would be even happier once the mausoleum was shut and sealed, their spirits locked inside.
Titus was pacing the room.
It was his turn to pace now, and it wasn’t helping matters at all.
“Please sit down,” Waverly advised.
“Sit down?” Titus gave her such a look of sheer incredulity that Waverly wondered if she might have lost him—and his friendship—forever. “How could you keep such a thing a secret?” he demanded.
She had told him everything.
She’d had little choice really, yet she now regretted it. Perhaps a night in her room at Traeger Hall, with a glass of warm milk, a sense of reason, time to think instead of reacting on impulse . . . and she could have come up with another plan.
“How?” Titus stopped in front of her and looked down with such condemnation that it stupefied her.
“You cannot see why?” she challenged.
“You conspired with the illegitimate daughter of Leopold Traeger!” Titus threw his hands in the air.
“Not to have Uncle Leopold assassinated!” Waverly jumped to her feet. “To have Louisa protected from Uncle Leopold!”
Titus gave her such a look of doubt, she knew she had much ground to make up and quickly. He backed away from her and marched to the fireplace before whirling around again. “How do you know, Waverly?”
“What do you mean?” Confusion was often a preferred emotion to fear, she supposed, but right now Waverly almost preferred to tussle with Uncle Leopold’s ghost.
“How do you know that this Louisa is your uncle’s illegitimate daughter and that he wanted her dead?” Titus shook his head at her supposed ignorance. He leaned forward and gestured with his hands to emphasize his point. “You hired a bodyguard using money you stole from your uncle’s safe!”
“Yes, again to protect Louisa. For heaven’s sake, Titus, I’d heard Uncle Leopold in discussion one night behind a closed door.
I assumed he was speaking with Aunt Cornelia.
Or maybe it was Preston. How am I to know!
But he said that Louisa needed to be cut off, and all ties severed.
She was my best friend in boarding school, Titus, and I wasn’t going to let her become one of Uncle’s disposable pawns. ”
“I understand that,” he growled, “but there were other, safer ways to handle such things.”
“Were there?” Waverly had to get the man to see reason.
Titus was a bit naive regarding Uncle Leopold and the power he wielded.
It probably came from working with dead people.
Titus probably had no idea what it was like to carry secrets for others or to fear for one’s own life.
“I knew how to get into my uncle’s safe.
I wrote a letter to the Pinkerton detective agency, and your unidentified man met with me the night Uncle was murdered to discuss making sure Louisa was protected. ”
Titus was quiet for a long moment. Waverly could hear him breathing and trying to sift through other options, just as she had before finally settling on hiring a bodyguard for her friend.
He tried again. “Perhaps you could have gone to the constable when you realized that your uncle was threatening Louisa.”
“Constable Morgan? The man who already suspects me?”
Titus’s eyes widened. “You were seen with an unidentified man, and you were tight-lipped about your relationship with him.”
“I don’t have a relationship with the Pinkerton agent—I have a business arrangement.”
“To outsmart your uncle,” Titus added.
“You have to understand,” Waverly went on, “I couldn’t go to anyone for help because no one knew of Louisa’s illegitimacy but Louisa!
And she never told me until we came face-to-face with Uncle Leopold at the boarding school on one of his rare visits.
Even then, he didn’t know who I was until I came to live at Traeger Hall.
I was just a nameless person he’d met at the boarding school, not the niece of his new wife. ”
“You do realize how dangerous your subterfuge was—is. Could still be! Where is this agent now?”
“The unidentified man? He is watching over Louisa per our agreement. But still, I cannot divulge this to Constable Morgan or to anyone else. I shouldn’t have even told you.
Louisa’s future is at stake! She’s been employed as a teacher in the boarding school neighboring the one we attended as girls.
If her true identity was to be uncovered, she would be left destitute. ”
“That could very well be your future as well,” Titus said.
“Well, that is neither here nor there. Uncle Leopold being killed changes nothing for Louisa. The facts surrounding her birth remain the same.”
“And that is why your uncle said Traeger Estate was not to be opened until all remaining heirs were gone—he has a daughter. She would be named his direct heir.” Titus pondered this for a minute before adding, “And yet he could have specifically written any Traeger heirs out of his will without requiring Traeger Hall to be sealed. That part still makes no sense.”
Waverly plopped onto a chair as Titus’s logic sank in. “I’ve not been able to make sense of any of this. If Uncle Leopold wanted to end Louisa, then who wanted to end him?”
“And you trust that Louisa would not—”
“No!” Waverly cried on behalf of her friend. “She would never conspire to commit murder—not to mention how would she pay for it?”
“Constable Morgan could make the argument that you and she were in cahoots this entire time.”
“But, Titus, we were not!”
“When did you finally put the pieces together that Leopold was Louisa’s father?” he asked.
“The first time I met Uncle Leopold was at the boarding school. He greeted me and Louisa very coldly and continued on. He would have had no idea I was Aunt Cornelia’s ward.
A year later, after my aunt had married Leopold, as I was passing by the headmistress’s office, I saw him standing inside.
Louisa was also in the room. By then, I knew his name and heard it spoken and was curious to meet my new uncle.
When I spotted Louisa in the office, I realized my uncle wasn’t there on my behalf, but on hers.
They never saw me—except for Louisa. Later, Louisa took me into her confidence and told me that Leopold Traeger was her father.
Aunt Cornelia didn’t even know she existed, and that was how Uncle Leopold wanted it. ”
“And now your uncle and aunt are dead, and Louisa is a teacher?”
“Yes, Titus. Teaching is all she can do. Uncle Leopold released her from his guardianship on her eighteenth birthday.”
“Such a generous man,” Titus retorted wryly. “Does Preston know of Louisa’s existence?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I understand now the reason for your deceit. But I still don’t get why precisely your uncle was killed.”
“Perhaps that is why he haunts Traeger Hall,” said Waverly. “He wishes to avenge his enemies.” Her eyes widened. “Or what if he isn’t dead?”
Titus let out a laugh. “I believe you’re letting all this go to your head.
Don’t forget—you’ve been keeping vigil over his corpse, and he has not moved one millimeter.
I myself injected an arsenic-based solution into his body.
Therefore, in my professional opinion, your uncle is most certainly dead. ”
“Yes,” Waverly conceded, looking down at her hands. “You are right, I suppose.”
“Now, one may make an argument for your uncle’s ghost, but that’s a different matter altogether. There is still Louisa and your uncle and aunt’s killer to work out. How do we truly know she isn’t behind his murder?”
“I told you!” Waverly popped her head up so fast she heard her neck crack. “She wouldn’t.”
“No?”
“No.”
“And what of her mother?”
“Her mother?”
“Yes.” Titus shot her a nonplussed look.
“Who is Louisa’s mother? It’s not your aunt, we know that.
Given how important your uncle was to the community, it is quite hard to believe he had a daughter with no one the wiser.
Does the mother live elsewhere? Did Leopold travel anywhere in particular that would allow him the opportunity to father a child? Where was Louisa born?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I don’t believe even Louisa does.” Waverly wished Titus would stop probing her with questions she had no answers for.
Titus strode over and crouched before her so that they were at eye level. “My dear, dear Waverly, you have only succeeded in adding to the list of possible killers while implicating yourself in a serious crime, one punishable by law.”
“What?” she gasped.
“Without more evidence, we can hardly go to the constable with any of this. He will conclude that you and Louisa hired the agent, the unidentified man, to have your uncle killed. Not to mention the funds you stole from your uncle’s safe!”
“What do we do then?” she breathed.
“Do you wish for me to solve this for you?” He goaded her with a smile that both irritated her and gave her shivers.
Bother. Waverly extended her hand to Titus.
She needed to stand. Sitting before him like this, she felt small and vulnerable.
He tugged her out of the chair with such unreasonable force that she catapulted forward and landed squarely by smacking her palms on his chest. She would have pulled away had he let her.
Instead, his arms tightened around her, and his face drew close.
So very close that Waverly wasn’t sure if she should close her eyes and prepare for her first kiss or keep them open in the event Titus decided to chastise her yet again.
“You, Miss Pembrooke, must not return to Traeger Hall.” His words took on a soothing but stern tone.
“I-I have to,” she whispered. She was quite overwhelmed. She might as well admit it. She had completely fallen for an undertaker, someone who was more accustomed to the company of the dead than to that of the living. “I certainly cannot stay here, can I?”
They had verbally sparred for the last thirty minutes of Waverly’s visit to the funeral parlor.
Titus had listed every female matron he could think of in Newton Creek whom they could approach to request lodging for Waverly.
She had a reason for why each of them would not agree to take her in.
The boardinghouse was the last option. When Waverly reminded Titus she had no access to monetary funds, he offered to pay for her.
She’d told him in no uncertain terms that his doing so would make her appear as though a kept woman, and she would rather be murdered in her bed.
The evening had turned out to be an utter waste of time.
Also, Waverly had betrayed herself and Louisa’s confidence by disclosing to Titus the fact of Louisa’s existence.
To make matters worse, she had simpered in Titus’s arms, expecting her first kiss, only to have him step away from her when she posed the question of where she would stay.
He had immediately seen fit to solve that conundrum, which doused any hopes she had of a romantic connection with him.
Now he walked beside her in the darkness, the outline of Traeger Hall stark against the moonlit sky.
“I don’t feel good about this,” he muttered.
“Neither do I, but what else is there for me to do?” Waverly hissed a reply as if someone were watching and bearing witness to their midnight tête-à-tête.
“If I wasn’t against marriage, I would give you my name for convenience’s sake,” Titus shot back, ducking under a branch.
The very suggestion shocked her. “Against marriage?” Waverly’s voice rose.
“Shh!”
“Against marriage?” she hissed again. “Whatever for? Not that I would have considered matrimony had it been proposed.” She would have, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I’m not against marriage per se.” Titus pushed through a thicket of bushes that bordered the Traeger property. “I’m against an institution that is too often used as a way for society to achieve its purposes, whether for status, monetary gain, or convenience.”
“Then what do you believe it is for?”
“Companionship.”
“Companionship?” Waverly repeated as quietly as she could. She pushed between the bushes, following Titus. “That is about as romantic as giving a lady a bouquet of grass for Valentine’s Day.”
“Marriage isn’t about romance. Or feelings. Or the ridiculous notion some women have who believe they need a man to think for them, which sometimes they do or they might just get themselves killed.”
“I have succeeded in avoiding death,” Waverly quipped in her defense, then added, “Although on occasion I will admit you have been helpful.”
“Keeping you alive, you mean?”
Waverly went to slap his arm, but Titus stopped her hand.
“Waverly . . .” Titus heaved a sigh as he looked up at the bell tower, which rose three stories above them. “You’re a remarkable woman. If I am called to Traeger Hall to prepare your corpse . . .” He fumbled for words.
“You said you would be there either way,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but—”
Waverly stepped closer and whispered in his ear to taunt him. “You could sleep in the kitchen.”
“Good heavens!” He snapped his fingers. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Think of what?”
“I can stay at the Hall in one of the guest rooms—under the guise of having to oversee the deceased’s remains due to the irregular terms of Leopold’s will. It’s a bit flimsy, but it will work. Then, should anything go amiss, I will be there to protect you.”
His idea was unexpected, and Waverly didn’t know how to respond. “I-I am quite capable of—”
Titus held up his hand. “I’m not here to bandy about who is stronger or smarter or what is most appropriate.
The fact of the matter is”—he leaned forward, and this time it was his lips that moved against the sensitive skin by her ear—“if something should happen to you, Waverly, I would be quite beside myself. Or have you not figured that out by now?”