Chapter 16 #2
He found himself scrambling into the boat, hands shaking as he pulled back the gown.
That was when he saw the bones. If not for the gown, he would not have been able to guess who or what the bones had belonged to – they were few in number, most having been lost to the sea. But now, there could be no doubt.
“My thinking is it’s a blanket of some kind,” the fisherman said as he watched Alaric paw through the garment. “But I cannot be sure.”
He scanned the remains of his deceased wife. Searching …
There was a bottle further in the hull, one made of glass with a wax seal. His stomach twisted; he felt it rise, and the next thing he knew, he was over the side of the hull and emptying his guts all over the sandy shore of the lake.
“My Lord!”
“Wait!” Alaric stuck out a hand to stop the fisherman from touching him. “No …”
“What … what is it?”
Forcing strength through his body, Alaric stood and straightened. “Touch nothing, Mr. Creasly. I will send for the local magistrate, and he will decide what is to be done.”
“The magistrate!” Simon Creasly yelped, and his face paled. “Does that mean …”
“Yes,” Alaric said. “It does.”
Alaric left Simon Creasly by the boat, asking him to guard it until the magistrate arrived. He rode back to the castle, his mind turning, reaching for answers to questions he struggled to piece together.
It was almost two years to the day since Alaric’s wife had died.
Her body was never found, but eyewitnesses had seen her walking toward the lake.
They had scoured the lake in search, days spent trying to find proof of her demise.
But when nothing was found, and when she did not return, the inevitable truth was accepted.
She had drowned, likely from swimming. It was a hard truth to accept, but hanging onto the dim hope that she might be well was a pain too great to suffer.
It looked now that she had not drowned. Rather, she had become lost in the lake, unable to find her way back, a death caused by starvation, hunger, or exposure to the elements.
Such a way to die … Alaric felt sick with it, and the guilt he had worked so hard to move past came back upon him in droves.
There was anger there too, of course.
Alaric had wondered about Crispin and his wife’s relationship. Or rather, he had wondered why Crispin seemed so broken and shattered by her death, beyond what was normal. Just this morning, Alaric had dared to consider the possibility that they were involved in an affair. But now …
Is it possible that Crispin is to blame? Could he have … might he be responsible for this?
He arrived back at the castle shortly after.
From there, he stormed inside, set on confronting his cousin. Mr. Carrow waited for him, and he intercepted Alaric as soon as he was inside.
“My Lord! What was learned? The boat …”
“Mr. Carrow …” Alaric slowed down. “I need you to send for the local magistrate at once. Have him brought here to see me as soon as he arrives.”
“The magistrate?” Mr. Carrow’s eyes widened. “Does that mean …”
“Do as I say, Mr. Carrow.”
From there, Alaric stormed through the castle, and while he thought to ask where Crispin might be, somehow, he just knew.
Indeed, Crispin was in Alaric’s study, standing in the middle of the room, seemingly waiting for news of which he already knew the answer. And while Alaric expected rage to surge through his body, anger because his cousin was keeping secrets from him, what he found instead was something else.
His cousin looked deathly ill. He looked like a shadow of the man Alaric had once known. He did not look guilty, so much as he did aggrieved and broken. His eyes were empty pits, no life in them whatsoever, no sense at all that he meant to fight, deny, or refuse the blame that had found him.
“You knew?” Alaric asked, expecting the question to come out as a sharp accusation, but finding it a whimper instead. “All this time … you knew.”
Crispin bowed his head. “It is not what you think, Alaric. Please, do not … it is not that.”
“And what do I think, cousin?” Alaric asked. “Why not tell me and then clear it up?”
Crispin said nothing, and Alaric could feel the shame pouring from him.
“Answer me!”
Crispin winced. “I did not know. I … I suspected … assumed … but I could never be sure. I swear I had nought to do with it. Aisling …” He forced himself to look at Alaric, and the tears in his eyes were not those of guilt, but sadness and sorrow, the likes of which Alaric had never seen before.
“She did not tell me that … I had no chance to stop her from … it is not what you think.”
“I am thinking many things right now, cousin,” Alaric snarled. “And until you give me a clear answer, I see no reason than I ought to not. You knew that she had taken one of your boats?”
He nodded.
“You knew that she was likely stranded out there, alone, suffering!”
He nodded again, sniffed, and wiped his nose.
“All this time … why did you not tell me? Why keep it a secret? Why!” he cried, and the room shook as if thunder rolled through it.
“Many reasons, Alaric,” he said with a deep sigh. “But please, know that I had nothing to do with this. And please, know that I never meant you to … this was not how I wanted things to be.”
“What does that mean? What are you not telling me?”
His cousin looked pleadingly at him. It was not a look that spoke of guilt, and Alaric could not deny that he believed his cousin at that moment. But there was something he was not saying, another secret kept that Alaric sensed would break him.
Worst of all, the pain in his cousin’s eyes was beyond anything that Alaric had experienced when his wife had died. Crispin was a broken man, but it was not because this secret was learned, and that scared Alaric more than anything.
“Later …” Crispin walked past Alaric. “Please, Alaric. I need to … later, I promise.”
“Do not leave!” Alaric snarled. “I have not given you permission to walk away!”
Crispin did not stop, but Alaric did not try to stop him.
Perhaps he should have done. No doubt, Crispin was keeping something from him. But one great secret was learned today, and Alaric felt that a moment might be needed before the next was uncovered because, whatever it was, he knew that nothing would be the same after.
My wife … my cousin … how could I have been so blind?
Alone now, Alaric slunk to his chair and collapsed in it. He felt sick with guilt. Wretched with confusion. And most of all, he felt dread resting on his shoulders at what was to come.
.