Chapter 24 #2
“I found Miss Kavanagh in your wife’s writing room,” Verity began with a hiss. “I was walking by when I heard a commotion, so I rushed in, only to see with my own eyes that woman! She had the dog set upon Crispin, encouraging it to tear him apart.”
“No …” Alaric winced and leaned back. “That cannot be true.”
“Crispin’s wounds will prove my words correct,” Verity said. “And it is lucky that I came along when I did. My arrival was enough to distract Miss Kavanagh – she and that dog appeared as one mind, as if she were in control of it.”
A creeping sickness spread across Alaric’s body and curled his insides. He could not believe it … there was just no way …
“Crispin ran as soon as he could, at which point Miss Kavanagh turned the dog on me,” Verity continued.
“I backed away, toward the window, unaware that it was open. And Miss Kavanagh …” His sister shuddered.
“She laughed as she cornered me, deranged and gone mad. Once I was at the window, she called back her mutt and approached me, demanding that I not tell you what I saw.”
“And then?” Alaric’s voice was a whisper.
“She pushed me, Alaric,” Verity said. “She shoved me in the chest and sent me from that window. She tried to kill me!”
By that point, Alaric had suspected his sister’s accusation. He had seen it coming like the rising sun. But the effect was not nearly so warm as that sun might have been, and the coldness in his blood speared through Alaric’s chest like a blade made of ice.
He looked away from his sister, unable to bear the accusation on her face and the hate in her eyes.
He clutched his chest, hardly able to breathe, with the sense that the room was collapsing around him so that he might be left buried in the rubble.
He tried to search his sister’s claim for a lie …
an exaggeration … anything that would tell him the truth of it.
How could Miss Kavanagh have done such a thing?
It was not like her. In his mind, she had always been so kind, so compassionate and caring.
She was his light, which found him as few others did, and when she and Alaric were together, the world felt like a brighter and better place because of her and her alone.
I cannot believe it. How can this be … no. My sister must be mistaken.
He turned back to confront his sister, but when he met her eyes, the truth was laid bare behind them. If she was lying, it was a lie that she believed with all her heart. And in that, Alaric had no choice but to believe her.
“I warned you about her,” she said. Not with venom. Not with judgment. She almost sounded sad. “From the beginning, Alaric, I told you what she was.”
“But why?” he asked desperately. “Why would she do this?”
“Why do we do anything?” Verity sighed. “She is trying to control you, Alaric. She wishes to manipulate you. She has her sights set on this place, on all that you own, and I fear that if you do not see the truth, she might win. She will take it all from you, and in her wake will be left ash and death.”
Verity’s warning settled upon the room like a shadow. The light was gone. Night had come. And Alaric, as he was so used to by now, found himself lost in the darkness, from which he did not know if he would ever escape.
***
Alaric spent all afternoon preparing himself mentally for this moment.
He did not want to do it. He did not wish the confrontation about to arrive – for the truth to come out. Most of all, he did not want to deal with that truth, its consequences, and what they were sure to do to him.
His sister had accused Miss Kavanagh of a most heinous crime, and while Alaric struggled to accept the truth of her claims, he knew, too, that he could not ignore them.
Something had happened in that room, a reason that his sister had fallen from the window, and while he had been given one side of the tale, he needed the other before he could make up his mind and determine where to go from there.
From the moment he had met Miss Kavanagh, Alaric knew she was different. She saw him for who he was. She accepted him. And she pulled him from his depression and guided him down a path that promised better things to come.
And then there was that near kiss … proof, as he had seen it, that his feelings for her were returned. More than that, proof that whatever they were, it was only the beginning.
Was it all a lie? A trick to lure me into false complacency? Has she been playing me all along?
Alaric was trapped in a spell, unable to see Miss Kavanagh as anything other than a pure soul who he connected with and who he wanted to better know because he liked how she made him feel. But if his sister was right …
So it was that he arrived at Miss Kavanagh’s room early that same evening, knocked once on her door, and stepped inside.
She sat on the end of her bed as if waiting for him. When Alaric closed the door and turned to her, she did not smile, nor did she appear anything other than crestfallen.
Guilt surrounded her like a swarm of locusts. Head bowed, shoulders withdrawn, she had never looked more alone and afraid. And while Alaric wanted nothing more than to go to her in comfort, he fought that urge. He had to.
“Verity will be fine, in case you are wondering,” he said simply as he remained back across the room. “She is lucky to be, but her fall was not nearly as bad as it might have been.”
“Good, I am glad to hear it.” She continued to look down at her lap.
“Are you?”
Her head snapped up, and the pain in her eyes was felt in Alaric’s chest. “Of course, I am. How could you … when she fell, you have no idea how terrified I was. I thought …” She looked away again.
“I have some questions, Miss Kavanagh, and I need you to answer them honestly. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you do.”
“Questions?”