The Worthington Wife Read online

  “But it could explain lights being seen here. Headlights,” Cal murmured.

  He stopped the car as close to the large rocks as he could get. He got out, opened up the trunk and got out his shovel. He started walking around. Smaller stones were piled up—obviously by human hands. Behind those piles he scraped fallen leaves aside and discovered the ground was lumpier. The area had been dug up before.

  He started to dig. Julia was getting out of the car. He called, “Don’t come over here, Julia. I don’t want you to see this. If I find what I’m looking for—it’s going to haunt you forever.”

  The summer morning was cool, with gray clouds overhead—but he was digging hard and started to sweat. In the War, he’d dug graves for bodies—especially the bodies of pilots, if there was anything left to bury. He stopped digging, wiped his face. He was actually wiping his eyes, because he damn well felt like he could cry.

  “Are you all right?” Julia called. “Oh, I’m sorry—what a foolish thing to ask.”

  “I appreciate you asking. I thought I’d learned to be tough when I was growing up. But when I think about what it is that I’m doing right now, I want to be sick. Stay by the car.”

  The earth was compacted, which made it hard to shovel with care. He pushed the shovel in and went deeper than he’d expected. And hit something.

  He uncovered more and his gut clenched. He was looking down at the head that had almost decomposed to a skeleton, still with some black hair. He dropped down on one knee. Around the skeletal neck was a tiny silver locket. “Sarah” was engraved on the front. With initials upon the back. “J.C.”

  John Carstairs? Cal carefully prized open the locket. A lock of black hair was inside.

  He found another two piles of pebbles and figured that they probably marked the graves of the other girls who had vanished—Eileen Kilkenny and Gladys Burrows.

  Julia walked toward him but he stopped her. “I’m taking you back home.”

  “I saw your face, Cal. I saw the horror and torment in your eyes. You found one of them.”

  He let the shovel fall. He went to Julia, wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. The wave of grief was staggering. “I found Sarah.”

  “Oh—oh no. Poor, poor girl.” She let out a sob, then took a deep breath. “Is there any clue to who did it? Don’t spare me if you believe you know.”

  “I don’t know yet, angel. But there’s a locket around Sarah’s neck with some black hair in it, and the initials J.C. It must be John Carstairs. God, there’s been so much tragedy here. Maybe they’re right and this place was cursed.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Go to the police.”

  “But we—I would like to go to the dowager countess first. I would like her to know, before the police come.”

  “Why?” he asked, confused.

  She touched his arm with that gentle, elegant way she had. “Plans must be made, because once the police constables know, there will be gossip. It can’t be stemmed.” She stroked down his arm, clasped his dirt-covered hand. “This has been awful for you. We will see the dowager and we will get you a cup of tea. That is the best thing for a bad shock.”

  He couldn’t understand how Julia could be so cool and collected. His heart hammered and his eyes burned with tears of grief—even though he’d never met these girls—and his blood burned with outrage. John Carstairs would have thought of him as nothing—Cal knew that—and all along, he’d been a sick, vicious killer.

  Then he looked at Julia and saw the tears streaking down her cheeks.

  She wiped them away. “Falling apart does nothing. But I—” Tears came and he held her until they stopped. Then he took her back to the car. He drove to the dower house, a two-story brick building that looked huge for one woman. The countess was the only one who had gone to live there—he’d found it odd, but the countess told him the girls were to stay in the mansion until they married. They weren’t to go with their mother. Cal found this world strange.

  He walked up to the front door and knocked on it, Julia following him. Upstairs, a curtain moved. He saw the countess’s frightened white face through the panes of glass. She let the curtain drop hurriedly.

  He knocked on the door. Kept knocking. Finally it was pulled open. An elderly butler blinked at him. Cal didn’t know the man—he’d let the countess hire whatever servants she’d wanted. “My lord?”

  “I have to talk to the dowager countess.”

  “My lord, her ladyship attended a late party last night. I do not believe the dowager is awake.”

  “She is. I saw her at her window.”

  “I do not believe she is receiving. If you will kindly wait one moment, my lord...” The butler drifted away up the stairs, like a disembodied spirit. When the man returned, Cal could tell what he was going to say. “The countess is not well. She is not—”

  “She had better see me. If she doesn’t, I’m driving right to the police station. I think she’ll know why.”

  “Cal, what are you talking about?” Julia breathed.

  When the butler hesitated, Cal pushed past him. He stalked up the stairs. Felt that graceful touch—Julia’s hand on his arm. “Cal, stop.”

  “She saw me coming and she looked terrified. Why else would she be scared of me?” The burned picture. The car under wraps, the shovel, the scarf hidden there. She knew he was looking for the killer of Sarah Brand. “I think she knew, Julia. That’s why she’s been afraid of me.” He didn’t have proof of that, but instinct had kept him alive in New York and in the skies over France.

  “She couldn’t—”

  “I think she knew and she kept the truth hidden.”

  “But—” Julia gasped. “Once I overheard her say that John had taken his own life. She believed—or knew—it wasn’t an accident. Oh, heavens, perhaps it meant...a guilty conscience.”

  He doubted it. A man like Carstairs likely believed he could do anything he wanted. What it meant was that the former Countess of Worthington had left Cal’s parents to die and David and him to starve, while she knew one of her sons was a rapist and a killer.

  He ran up the stairs.

  Heavy footsteps followed him. Cal jerked around at the top of the stairs. Julia was behind him and the dowager’s butler was behind her, already wheezing.

  “I’m not going to hurt her,” Cal said coldly. “Don’t give yourself a heart attack trying to stop me. I just want the truth. Finally, after all these years. I want her to admit that it’s her family that’s rotten to the core. And that she denied justice to innocent families.”

  Julia touched him in her gentle way. “Cal, we don’t know this for certain yet.”

  “We will soon.” It didn’t take long to figure out which room was the dowager’s. A door slammed down the hallway. He heard the click.

  Reaching the paneled door, he ran his hand over the doorknob. Locked. He took a step back, lifted his foot and kicked the door open. With a splintering shriek, it flew open.

  The dowager screamed. “Don’t kill me! You’ve come to destroy me!”

  When he’d come here weeks ago, this was what he’d wanted. The dowager cowering from him. But now, all his rage just kind of ran out. He felt like a sputtering engine, trying to keep going, but failing.

  She just looked like a terrified old woman. Not the devil he used to imagine in his head as a young starving boy. “Sit down,” he said gruffly. “I came here to talk about John. And Sarah Brand.”

  She seemed to get older in front of his eyes. “I see. What is it that you think you know about John?” She lifted her chin and her blue eyes glittered with defiance.

  For all the countess was no spring chicken, she dressed to the nines, even for bed. Her hair was bobbed, all silver waves. Her nightdress was embroidered silk, festooned with feathers and pearls. It s
creamed wealth. And she’d known her son had killed innocent women. He was sure of it now—sure she had known.

  “My lady, should I summon help?” It was the butler, staring from the shattered door at his mistress.

  “If you want to call the coppers, go ahead,” Cal said.

  “We do not have coppers. We have the police, but we do not need to bring them here. Please leave us.”

  “My lady, the American—I mean the earl—”

  “Leave us now, Montrose. I do not see how I have not made myself clear.”

  Montrose, the butler, left. The dowager gazed haughtily. “I should prefer we speak in my dressing room. The door there is intact. I do not want this spread as gossip.”

  “All right.” He would give her that. She swept on ahead of him.

  Julia clasped his arm. “Cal, you must calm down. You broke the door. You are rather terrifying.”

  He’d scared Julia. But what did she want of him? He couldn’t behave like an emotionless English earl. If the dowager had known the truth, she’d let three women’s deaths go unavenged. She’d subverted justice. Three families had lived a hell for years, with no idea whether their daughters were alive or dead. All to save the lily-white arse of her precious, evil son.

  Even now, what the dowager countess really cared about was the gossip. The scandal. The damn family.

  And that made him mad.

  She seated herself gracefully in a white chair in her dressing room. He took the one opposite.

  “What do you wish to tell me about John? I presume you have unearthed a pack of lies?”

  “I’ve found the truth. From your reaction, I’d say you know what he did. And you said nothing.”

  “What do you believe my son is responsible for?”

  “The rapes and murders of three young women.”

  She flinched. She paled even more. In her eyes was the terror of self-preservation. But she said, “What evidence do you have to support such a vile accusation?”

  “We both know it’s true,” he said softly. “In 1916, Sarah Brand disappeared. I found evidence she’d been in one of the older cars in the Worthington garage. I learned that a woman named Eileen Kilkenny also disappeared. And a maid named Gladys Burrows. Today I found Sarah’s body.”

  She gasped.

  “According to your former chauffeur, there weren’t many automobiles around here in 1916—but there was a red one at Worthington. Sarah had a crush on John’s older brother, and I figure John pursued her, taking his brother’s car. Maybe she was willing to go driving with John but I don’t think she was willing to sleep with him. So he drove her to a reasonably remote place, attacked her, killed her and buried the body.”

  The countess shuddered. “Stop...stop.”

  “Having an automobile made it easy for him, except he was careless. He left evidence in the car. Left the shovel in the trunk that he used to bury them. Left a woman’s scarf.”

  “How can you know it is John?”

  “I found evidence on Sarah’s body.”

  “Where is this evidence?”

  Her blunt, calculating question surprised him. “I’ve kept it somewhere safe.”

  “So you have not gone to the police yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” He leaned close, aware of Julia standing by the fireplace. “How did you know the truth? And how in hell could you keep such a secret? You let those families continue to suffer. Mrs. Brand wanders at night in her confused state, still searching for her daughter. She walked right in front of my car and I almost hit her.”

  Tears dripped to the countess’s cheeks. “What was I to do? He came to me and he confessed,” she whispered. “It was just before his accident.”

  “You could have spared those innocent families. You could have told the truth.”

  “And my son would have been hanged! He didn’t mean to do it. He was always...not quite right. And the girls—they should have known better than to go out alone in a motorcar with a man. One of them gave him photographs of herself wearing nothing but her undergarments. They were no better than—”

  “Don’t,” Julia said fiercely. “Do not blame the girls.”

  “Your son was to blame, not them,” Cal snapped “I don’t care if Sarah paraded in front of him naked—he had no right to force himself on her. No right to kill her. Your son had every advantage—money, education, your precious bloodlines—and look what he was. He should have paid for what he did.”

  He spoke low, fighting to keep his voice controlled, but she had drawn back into the chair. “Now that he is dead,” the dowager whispered, “he’s answered for everything he did. He paid with his life.”

  “The families need to know—”

  The dowager jerked in the chair. “No! People cannot know!”

  “I don’t give a damn about protecting you from scandal. Not now.”

  “It’s not me,” she cried. “Think of my daughters. They are innocents in this, but they will be punished. What gentleman would marry them after such a scandal?”

  “Of course they’re innocent, so why shouldn’t someone marry them?”

  She sneered. “You have no idea how Society works.”

  “No. I can’t say I do. And I’m glad of it. It’s made me a hell of a better man.”

  “She is right, Cal,” Julia said. “Cassia, Diana, Thalia will all be hurt by this. It will ruin their lives. They will be ostracized.”

  “No man would want to tie himself to a family that is notorious,” the dowager countess cried. “The girls would be ruined by association. Spare them, at least. John is beyond punishment on this earth. He pays now in eternal damnation. I believe he took his own life. He deliberately drove off the ridge into the quarry.”

  “Cal, there is nothing to be served by destroying the family. It will even hurt us—and it will touch David, also. Everyone will be ruined,” Julia whispered.

  “There needs to be justice,” he growled. Then he realized...the countess had known he was looking for the truth. “Did you cut the brake lines of my car?”

  “What are those? What are you talking about?”

  He explained about the crash and she gasped. “I would never do such a thing.”

  He now had the ultimate power to hurt the dowager. To do the worst thing that she could imagine: making her the object of scandal. When his mother had died, he had promised to hurt them all. But now he kept thinking of the dowager’s daughters, who were innocent. How could he let them be hurt by his actions?

  “You won’t tell anyone about this,” the countess said quickly. “Or I’ll tell the world the truth about your mother.”

  “What?” he growled.

  “Do you know why I objected to your arrival so strongly?” she demanded.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” He spoke smoothly. But inside his gut churned.

  “We knew what your mother was. We had reports sent to us. She entertained men in her rooms—”

  “That’s a damned lie.” Cal rose from his seat.

  “You know it is quite true. Your mother was a prostitute. And she behaved scandalously before the marriage, having relations with your father and becoming preg—”

  “Goddamn you,” he barked. “Goddamn you to hell. You paid for an investigator and had him spy on us, but you wouldn’t send any money when she was sick. Money that would have paid for a doctor and medicine. Money that would have saved her life. She sold herself for money to feed David and I. You forced her to do it. I’ve got the power now. I could destroy you. I could let you watch while Worthington Park is sold around you—”

  He stopped, chest heaving. Julia had gone very, very white.

  “Then what—you’ll tell the world about John?” the countess said. “And I’ll make sure no one believes you. I know all about your past, W
orthington. I have been told about all of it. I am sure Julia knows nothing about—”

  “You can tell her whatever you want. I’m going to lose her anyway when I destroy this place. And I’m damn well going to the police. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t get justice. Maybe nothing can be proved now, after nine years, but I want them to damn well try.”

  Slowly, he met Julia’s eyes. He expected anger. Shock. She now knew one of the things he had been most ashamed of—that he hadn’t been able to prevent his mother from selling her body, doing something that tormented her to her soul.

  But Julia whirled on the dowager countess. “How could you threaten such a thing?” she demanded of the dowager. “It is true that if the truth about John gets out, the girls will suffer in the stead of their brother. I understand your fear and I don’t want my friends—my family now—to suffer. But you cannot be so heartless. You were never like this. You were always kind.”

  “I must protect the family I have left,” the dowager croaked. “Julia, this will touch you. If you have children, a scandal would hurt them. Is that what you want?”

  Cal felt Julia look to him. He said, “We could leave this place, get rid of this cursed estate, travel the world. Live anywhere we want, keeping our children away from here, so they’d never be hurt by it. We could go to South America. Santorini. Venice—”

  “I don’t want to run away, Cal, and leave everyone else to suffer. I won’t.”

  * * *

  With Cal she went to the police station. To Julia’s surprise, he did not tell them of John Carstairs’s confession to his mother. He told them he suspected John because of the car in the garage, the spade, the locket. After, as he drove them to Worthington, with rain pattering the windshield, she asked, “Why did you keep his confession a secret?”

  “He didn’t confess to me. I don’t know what exactly he said to his mother. If there’s evidence, they’ll find it. Maybe, if they can’t prove anything, I’ll tell them. But even then, it’s not cold, hard, irrefutable proof. I know this is going to hurt my cousins. But you understand, Julia, that I couldn’t keep the deaths secret?”