They were assuming Gideon could just leave along with Zeb, of course. Would that look odd? Did Gideon have to resign? Did he have a notice period, and was that enforceable when your employer was an unconscionable swine morally responsible for a death? Zeb had always been sacked, so the question of notice had never arisen.
Gideon would know his own situation and make his own plan. Zeb just had to make sure he was ready to go whenever the doctor got here. It couldn’t possibly be before noon, but heintended to be poised and waiting by eleven at the latest, in case.
As he was finishing his third cup of tea, reiteratingReady at elevenin his head to fix it there, Jessamine walked into the breakfast room. She wore a long black dress with an extravagant black lace shawl around her shoulders, like a dowager of the previous century.
“Good morning, Cousin Zeb,” she said in the hushed tones appropriate to a cathedral. “Oh, you have breakfasted. I don’t know how anybody could.”
“You’re in mourning,” Zeb said.
“Of course. Poor, poor Elise.” Her mouth worked, and she pulled out a black-edged handkerchief. Clearly, they had all the funereal trappings conveniently to hand.
“It’s very sad. I hear you’re going to marry Hawley.”
“He asked me to. And I said yes, if Wynn will give his permission—because I do need someone, one of you, but—but Zeb, oh, Cousin Zeb—” She gave him big liquid brown eyes in a pleading look. “I don’t know how to say this, with poor Elise lying dead, but I must. I could not bear it if I lost my chance at happiness, even if it costs my modesty. Zeb, will you hear me out?”
Zeb was absolutely not going to sit through a girlish proposal, and particularly not since everything about her was cementing his conviction that Elise had been right. There was something studied in her manner, something knowing or even mocking behind her eyes, and he felt a violent prickle of hostility. “Sorry, I don’t have time to talk now.”
“Why not? What else have you to do?”
Zeb grabbed at the first excuse that presented itself. “I have to pack,” he lied.
“Pack? You’re leaving?” Something in her face changed just a little. “But you promised to stay.”
“Well, I’m not going to,” Zeb said, and left the room because there was a limit to how much he could tolerate before ten in the morning. He headed for the library instead. A room full of books felt safe.
He walked in, took a long breath of relief, coughed at the taste of it, and realised Bram was in the most comfortable chair.
He looked appalling, hollow-eyed and pallid, sucking on one of Wynn’s vile cigarettes. There was a pall of smoke around him already; God knew how long he’d been here. He glanced round at Zeb as he came in, but said nothing.
“Bram,” Zeb said, and realised he had no idea how to proceed.I’m so sorry your wife’s dead, unless of course you murdered her. I’d offer my condolences but you raped the housemaid. I don’t know how to think about anything any more.
“Bram,” he said again. “Nice day. Er, I mean the mist. Lifted.” Bram didn’t respond to that hopeless display. Zeb could hardly blame him. “How are you?” he tried.
“She’s dead,” Bram said.
“Yes. Yes, she is.”
“They’re both dead.”
“Both—who?”
“The women. The women are dead.”
Zeb pulled over a chair and sat down. “Elise is dead, yes.What happened to her?”
Bram shook his head. He looked—Zeb was trying very hard not to thinkhaunted—dismayed. “I did as she asked. I tried to please her, but nothing was ever enough. I could have been better, more generous to you, ifshe—”
“Elise didn’t owe me anything,” Zeb said over him. “You set us against one another from the start, as if she and I were fighting over your money, but you made that happen. You broke your promise to me: nobody else. And I don’t know what you mean by ‘more’ generous,” he added, unable to stop himself. “You couldn’t have been less.”
“She was my wife!”
“You had a mistress!”
Bram didn’t respond with a jab of his own, for once. “I did,” he said. “And I repented. I pledged my fidelity to Elise. Iprovedit. You have no idea what I did for her.”
There was something in his voice as he said that. Zeb felt an unpleasant prickle down his spine. “What did you do?”
Bram sucked hard on the dog-end of his cigarette, stubbed it out, lit another in a puff of cloying smoke. Zeb said, “What, Bram?”
