Alexander snarled. “She writes that she is with Bastian, right here in Wiltshire. But... It is not a letter.” He paused. “It is a ransom note for his life.”
CHAPTER 24
“Mr. Collins told me that I would find you here,” Margaret said from behind him.
Alexander didn’t turn, watching the sky turn from grey to black over the rise above the valley. It would not be long before the Avon River reflected the stars on that moonlit night. He noticed, for the first time, that old Pembroke Housewasvisible in the distance, and he focused his eyes there as his mind raced with predictions for the hours ahead.
“I honestly worried you had already left and that I was too late to stop you. Tell me you have reconsidered.”
Every word Margaret spoke lilted with unease. Alexander hated himself for worrying her. He clutched Isadore’s note in his hand, and the parchment creased, making the ink faint when he turned it to the last rays of light above. He remembered every letter on the accursed thing. The address Isadore had enclosed; the suggested meeting time that night. “These unpleasant measures pain me,” she had written, among other things. “You will bringthe aforementioned sum, divided into coins and notes, to ensure Mr. Hawthorne’s safe return.The inn is not far from the ruins, west toward the river until you reach the forest...”
“No one else can save him,” Alexander said. “It must be me. Were I to send anyone else to the meeting place—God forbid, some do-gooders from Salisbury—they would learn everything about his abduction, and my mistake. I cannot allow that to happen, and I will not allow Bastian to suffer for my... oversight.” He paused, thinking back to that church in Lover. “And I must hear the truth for myself, Margaret.”
“You may not learn anything. We do not know what awaits you there.” Margaret’s voice was closer now. “Please, won’t you listen to reason? Isadore may have laid a trap for you. Even if she is your sister?—”
“That seems unlikely now, would you not say? All this time, I have accused Carlisle of being the fool, but it was Iwho was the fool. Lured in by a fragile resemblance to my mother, a woman I can scarcely remember... Months ago, I visited her grave site. A small, ill-maintained headstone without a name. That’s how little they thought of her. And now I can never return there, for I have disgraced her memory as well. If my father were alive, he would curse me. You should curse me for bringing the threat of Isadore into our lives.”
“You speak as though you know everything,” Margaret argued. “But you know nothing for certain.”
“And I will continue to know nothing if I remain here tonight.” He took her shoulders so she would look at him, kept his touch light, but insisted she come close. “You must forgive me for this in time.”
“I will never forgive you. Not if you go alone.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Then, Margaret?—”
“No. There must be another way.” She pressed her lips together. They were chapped, bitten raw. “Miss Bell will not harm Mr. Hawthorne. He is so good. No one could harm him.”
“You are good too, the finest woman who ever lived, and yetyouwere harmed once. I am not willing to take that risk again.”
Margaret stared at her shoes, allowing herself to be taken into Alexander’s arms. He held her against him under the light shroud of darkness until she broke away. She took his hands in hers, removed the note, opened it, and returned it to him with a sigh, then kissed his knuckles.
“Nothing will happen to me,” he murmured, relishing her kiss. “I will pay the price for Bastian’s freedom and return to you with him at my side.”
“You have always been so cautious. I wish you were being cautious now.”
He tilted her chin up. “And here I thought my prudence irked you to no end.”
“It used to. Many things about you used to irk me. But now...” She slipped her chin out of his grip and let her sentence trail off. “What if Isadore asks for more money? What if she blackmails you months or years from now? There are no documents or clauses to protect you this time. It will not be simple like with my father.”
“Then the matter will be otherwise resolved... But for now, I must go to her. When I return, you and I can continue this life unburdened, and you can tell me how that sentence ends, how many things about me have ceased to irk you.”
Deep in the country, the lane past Old Sarum wound like a thread through overgrown fields. Alexander leaned over to adjust the lantern with one hand, the other leading Thalia through the thick night toward their destination. A small, illuminated cottage came into view, tucked down a thin forest road. It was crumbling, visibly uninhabited, except for the candlelight glowing in the windows. He had only known the place existed because of its proximity to Stonehenge. Carlisle had taken him here on field trips as a boy.
What would Carlisle say if he knew where I had gone?
A vain question. I know what he would say. He would say that he was right all along: Isadore was a fraud. But the documents Ripley provided line up with her story. How she came into possession of this information remains a mystery I will soon solve.
The leather saddle creaked beneath him as he commanded his horse to stop. He dismounted carefully, unlatching the lantern and bearing it toward the cottage. Shadows flickered around him as he walked toward the old wooden door.
Inside was a cavernous and cold room. Abandoned wooden tables were covered with dust. Stucco peeled away from the ceiling and fell to the floorboards below. A lonely stool had been positioned at the bar, not covered in dust and cobwebs like the rest of the room, a candle smoking in a holder nearby.
Someone has been sitting there and waiting for me,Alexander thought.But whoever it was is gone, waiting for me elsewhere.
His heart seized as a creaking sound came from above. A narrow staircase led up to the attic at the back of the room. He took the stairs gingerly, but they groaned beneath his weight, alerting whoever was upstairs to his approach.
