Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maggie
Maggie had known chaos in her life. The New York subway at rush hour. San Diego Comic-Con. The signing tents at MurderFest
when word broke that Ethan Wyatt got a new leather jacket and was willing to sign bras. Still, nothing compared to the absolute
bedlam that was a house full of weapons in the middle of a blizzard with four children under six in residence.
“We’re just blowing off some steam!” Kitty called over the shouts that filled the long, narrow sitting room on the second
floor.
The shelves had been stripped bare and all the couch cushions were piled on the floor. The children were playing a game that
was evidently called Crash Bang where the objective was to Crash and also occasionally Bang, and Maggie had never felt sorrier for anyone than she did for
Kitty, who was standing there, bouncing a crying baby on her shoulder and forcing a smile while Nanny Davis dozed peacefully
in the corner.
“Before Cece found Sir Jasper? Oh. Rupert and I were in our room. Nanny Davis had just brought the baby down,” Kitty shouted
over a particularly loud crash. “Little Ellie here needed a nap, but...” At the sound of her name, the baby began to wail,
fat tears streaking down chubby cheeks. “Shh, sweetheart,” Kitty cooed, then turned back to Maggie and Ethan. “I’m sorry.
She’s teething and—”
Bang!
More crying filled the air. The baby’s face was so red it was practically purple, and Maggie felt her heart break a little.
Poor Kitty looked on the verge of crying too.
“I can’t believe this is happening. All I wanted was for us to have the perfect Christmas. Aunt Eleanor was recovering nicely
from her fall, and she and Rupert had finally sorted out that mix-up with the accounts, and—”
Crash!
Kitty glanced over Maggie’s shoulder and screamed, “Eloise, where did you get that gong?”
But Maggie just shared a look with Ethan. “Ooh, what mix-up?” she asked as innocently as possible.
“Just something with her bank.” Kitty tried to wave it off because Kitty, frankly, had more pressing worries. Bang! “Aunt Eleanor thought her royalty checks were getting deposited into one account, but they were actually going somewhere
else. Rupert had told her all about it, of course, but she forgot. Dear girl. Getting older, you know. It was nothing, just—
Eli, do not cut your sister’s hair!” Then she looked back at Maggie. “What was I saying?”
The baby’s cries turned into wails and Maggie began to worry little Ellie might pass out because how was she possibly breathing?
Kitty paced and patted and looked like she might pass out, too, but then Ethan stepped forward.
“May I?” He held up his hands.
“Oh. You don’t have to...” But she trailed off as the baby practically hurled herself into Ethan’s arms.
“Oh. Well... Support her bottom...” But Ethan was already tucking little Ellie against his shoulder with one hand and
supporting her bottom with the other as the wails grew softer and softer, like a siren disappearing in the distance until
the only sound was Maggie’s heart pounding and Kitty’s chin hitting the floor.
Well, it is a girl , Maggie remembered. She reminded herself that it wasn’t the first time a willing female had launched herself at Ethan Wyatt
and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“I... uh... what was the question?” Kitty asked.
“I have no idea.”
They watched him walk to the end of the room, calling, “Hey, RJ, bring me that box of dominoes, I want to show you a trick.”
And then he sank to the floor and the other children hovered around him, and Maggie felt an odd flutter in her chest.
“He is...” Kitty started.
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t expecting...”
“Me either.”
“How long have you and he been...”
And something in the words broke through Maggie’s trance. “Oh no! He and I don’t... We aren’t... We hate each other,” Maggie said, but the words felt hollow somehow—like a dress that no longer fit, but it was her favorite and
she was going to wear it anyway.
“Really?” Kitty gave her a look that was somewhere between knowing and mischievous. “Because he seems smitten.”
“Well,” Maggie conceded, “she is a very cute baby.”
But Kitty’s grin turned sly. “I mean, with you .”
“Me? No. He hates me. And I hate him.” She had to laugh. “It’s the one thing we can agree on.”
But Kitty didn’t look so certain.
Twenty minutes later, Maggie and Ethan were walking down a long, empty hallway. A damp chill clung to the air, and she half
expected her breath to turn to crystals as she looked at him.
“Okay.” Ethan rubbed his hands together like he was working on some evil plan. “Let’s say Rupert’s little ‘miscommunication’
with the accounts wasn’t so little...”
“And Eleanor caught his hand in the cookie jar...” Maggie filled in.
“That gives him motive. Not to mention...”
“If James was right, and Eleanor was changing her will...” Maggie prompted.
“Then a lot of people have a lot of motive...” Ethan raised an eyebrow.
“But only if they knew about it,” Maggie said.
“Which the duke and duchess obviously do.”
Ethan gave a grin like that was fun , but Maggie... All Maggie could think about was spring break of her freshman year. She’d decided she wanted to write her
first novel and Colin had decided he’d help. They’d spent a whole week lying side by side on the pier at the beach house,
ideas bouncing back and forth like Ping-Pong, chasing the plot like tag. They’d taken turns writing longhand in a notebook
because that was the way Eleanor Ashley did it. His handwriting was terrible, and his ideas were worse, but it was the closest
Maggie had felt to another person, maybe ever, so she’d smiled and laughed and gotten a sunburn on her shoulders.
She didn’t do what she should have done, which was throw that notebook in the sea.
“Maggie?”
It had been a long time since she’d felt that kind of back-and-forth. The parry and thrust of possibilities. Her thoughts
swirled like the chilly air and blowing snow, but one thought felt real and tangible and right there in the palm of her hand:
he’s not Colin .
“Hey...” It was a face she’d seen on the back of a million dust jackets, but the expression was one she didn’t recognize.
It was like she was looking at a stranger and an old friend at the same time when he asked, “Where’d you go?”
There was a gilt-framed mirror behind Maggie, and her first thought was that she almost didn’t recognize what she saw in it:
a woman who looked eager and excited and... hopeful? And a man who was leaning toward her like a flower leans toward the
sun.
“Ethan?”
But then she saw something else in that mirror: Rupert, walking down the hall while glancing over his shoulder, looking very
much like a man who hoped he wasn’t being followed.
So Maggie did the only thing she could do. She followed him.