Chapter Forty-Six
Maggie
It was a scene they all knew well by that point. The same library. The same crackling fire and falling snow. The same cast
of characters, with the hapless husband and tired wife, the snobby couple and bored physician. The overeager girl and the
lawyer still wet-behind-the-ears and asking, “Say, where did you get that sandwich?”
But it wasn’t the same. Not at all. Maggie and Ethan had spent all day poking and prodding and learning how very not-the-same it really was. So Maggie didn’t care that Dobson was standing in front of the fire, red-faced and livid.
“Where have you two been?” He looked a little like a rabid dog. “I told you to stay out of this! But then you disappear all
afternoon, and now I hear you’ve been asking questions—”
“Was that a piece of spit that flew out of his mouth?” Ethan whispered, but there wasn’t a doubt in Maggie’s mind that everybody
heard it. She was even more certain they were supposed to.
“If we weren’t stuck here, I’d have you both arrested for impeding an official investigation.” Dobson was choosing to ignore
the spit comment, evidently. “For contamination of evidence. For—”
“Did you know someone locked Eleanor in the greenhouse and set it on fire, Inspector?” Maggie didn’t recognize her own voice.
She didn’t smile or soften the words or do any of a million things she’d been trained to do to keep a man from feeling threatened.
No. She just stood there, feeling the heat from the fireplace and trying not to think about a room full of flames and smoky
poison.
“Did you?” Maggie asked again, louder now, and Dobson practically shivered. Guilty. He did know. Maggie could tell before he even opened his mouth.
“Of course Eleanor told me about the fire, but as I told her, those doors weren’t blocked intentionally—or very thoroughly—or
else she wouldn’t have gotten out, would she?”
“So you examined the scene, then?” Ethan asked with his most deceptive, don’t mind me, I’m just the eye candy drawl. “Conducted a thorough investigation?”
“Of course not!” Dobson looked ready to spit again. “It was a small fire in a room with its own sprinkler system, and no one
but some flowers got hurt.”
Dobson didn’t mention the poisonous plants or flammable chemicals or the bag full of fertilizer. Even under the best of circumstances,
it didn’t take a genius to figure out that flames and greenhouses shouldn’t mix.
“What about the stairs?” Maggie asked.
From the other side of the room, Rupert huffed. It was a sound Maggie knew well. She wasn’t born to their money or their mansions.
She wasn’t born with anything . But she’d earned plenty, and that gave her something the Ruperts of the world didn’t have. And that was why the Ruperts
feared her.
“My aunt slipped and fell because she’s a careless old woman,” Rupert declared.
“So careless and old that she wouldn’t notice if some money went missing? Is that what you’re saying?” Maggie asked.
“Rupert?” Kitty turned to him. “What’s she talking about?”
“I’ve had it up to here with the two of you,” Dobson snapped. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at—”
“Oh, we’re not playing.” Ethan leaned against the mantel, too calm, too cool, too competent to be real—but he was real. Maggie couldn’t believe it, but Ethan Wyatt was more than the sum of his parts. He was more than the sum of theirs,
too, and every last one of them knew it. “We’re not playing at all. No, we’re getting used for target practice. Sir Jasper
has already been poisoned. And Eleanor is still missing, not that any of you care.”
“Now see here,” the duke started, so Ethan glanced down at him. Smirked.
“How’s the will hunt going, Your Grace? Find out if she wrote you two out and put her in yet?” Ethan pointed at Cece, who
shifted on her chair, trying not to grin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The schoolgirl act was slipping.
“Oh, shove it, Cecilia,” the duchess snapped. “Everyone knows you’re trying to get your claws into her.”
“Aunt E asked me to come help—” Rupert and his sister both groaned, and Cece talked on. “We have a special bond—”
“She didn’t even know you existed until six months ago!” Rupert shouted.
Well, that was news, and Maggie couldn’t help herself—she looked at Ethan, who took a step closer to Cece. “What does he mean
by that?”
Cece looked down at her hands, a little sheepish when she said, “My father was Aunt Eleanor’s baby brother and, well, I guess
he was a little bit wild. And he... well... I guess you could say he...”
“ Ran away ,” Victoria said a little too precisely, like Cece was a moron who needed it all spelled out.
“He moved to the States and lived there for a long time and, well, eventually, he met my momma and she had me and...” This
time, Cece looked guilty as she trailed off. A little embarrassed or ashamed. It was the expression of someone who doesn’t
know where they stand or how they fit, but who has no other options. Maggie knew the feeling. “Then he ran away from us, too,
I guess. I don’t even remember him, but Momma told me he was from England and I got to researching and we found Eleanor and
wrote her a letter, and now I’m here.” She gave a sigh, like the story was a heavy weight and it felt good to put it down.
“That’s all true,” the lawyer chimed in. “Our firm did the DNA testing and verified Miss Honeychurch’s claim.”
But Rupert looked like his infant daughter at that moment; his face was so red it was practically purple and he was close
to tears. “Mark my word, Inspector, if what they’re saying is true and someone has been trying to kill my aunt for months,
there’s only one person that could be, and there she is!” Rupert pointed at Cece, who threw a hand to her chest.
“If Aunt E put me in the will—”
“Don’t use that ghastly nickname,” Rupert sneered and Cece gasped and it didn’t matter that the storm had started up again;
the blowing snow was nothing compared to the swirl of curses that filled the air. Accusations were flying.
But Ethan was suspiciously quiet as he stood by the fire. Maggie thought he’d be looking back at her, but his gaze was locked
on Dobson. And he wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Now tell me again, Inspector, how Maggie and I are the only people here with motive.” It was the low, solid voice of a man
who was far too dangerous for shouting, but Dobson wasn’t going down without a fight.
“I know someone has been in her office. And I know it was the two of you.”
“Why, Inspector...” Maggie gave him her big, innocent eyes. She sounded almost like Cece. “We’ve all been in her office.
That’s where we found Sir Jasper, remember?”
“I don’t know what the two of you are playing at—”
“ We’re not playing! ” Maggie never shouted. She’d been conditioned and trained and she knew better than to be loud because the loud girl doesn’t
get invited back. But the words were an avalanche that had started in the maze. They’d been chasing Maggie for two days, and
she was tired of trying to outrun them.
The room went silent, and all eyes turned to her, but Maggie didn’t care if they stared. Let them hear her voice crack. Let
them decide, right then and there, that she wouldn’t be invited to Easter. Maggie didn’t care about anything.
Except Eleanor.
And Ethan.
“We’re not playing, Inspector. We got on a jet with no idea where we were going or what was waiting for us when we got here.
We flew to another country because a stranger asked. We weren’t after her money. We weren’t trying to be her successors or
her saviors. We didn’t want anything from her. We just wanted... Christmas .”
Maggie felt her throat burn. She heard her voice crack. And she realized it was true. “We just wanted Christmas, and instead,
we got all of you. You’re Eleanor Ashley’s family— you’re her family! And not one of you cares that she’s missing. Not one of you is worried that she’s dead. Someone has been trying to kill Eleanor
for weeks . They’ve been trying to kill her, and she’s been telling you...” Maggie looked around at the faces that stared back. “And
not one of you believed her.”
It was like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place—the tumblers of a lock falling home—because, right then, Maggie
got it. For the first time, she understood. No one believed her, but Eleanor had never stopped believing in herself, and something
about it made Maggie smile. And sigh. Braver now for knowing—
“That’s not totally true. Of course one of you believed her. Because one of you has been trying to kill her.”
And then the lights went out.