“He has nothing to hide.”
“Prove it.”
Her eyes held onto his and waited, as if by staring into him she might learn whether or not he might be trusted. He hardly knew himself what she’d find. After all, if there were any evidence linking Jasper Ellis to Lady Gillingham’s murder, Felton would have no hesitation in hunting the man down and praying for a hanging.
But Eliza must have believed in the old man greatly because she nodded. She sank into the damask chair and clasped her hands. “There was a Bible.”
Felton took the chair opposite her. “Yes?”
“He never spoke much about his past. He only ever told me stories…things that weren’t real, of course, but I loved them anyway.”
With nothing else to do in that forsaken forest, why wouldn’t she love the old man’s tales?
“But the Bible…well it always seemed strange to me. He read aloud from the pages every day, but sometimes at night, when he thought me to be asleep, I would see him open it again and cry over the pages.” She gripped her hands so tight her knuckles whitened. “One day I was curious, so I opened the Bible when he wasn’t looking and found the last page smeared with teardrops.”
“And?”
“Twenty-two names were written there.”
Names, names. What could that mean?
“I do not remember most of them, and some were so smeared from the tears I could not read them at all.”
“Who were they?”
“Dane Brough was one. And the other was something Gastrell…John or James, I think, but cannot be certain which.”
Felton stood. “’Tis a far cry from what I am looking for, but I shall look into it nonetheless.”
She too rose. “Captain is innocent of any suspicions you may have.”
“He is not innocent of hiding you all these years.”
“Perhaps he had a reason.”
“Perhaps he also had a reason for murdering your mother.”
The wide gray eyes turned upon him, now cold, half heartbreaking in the way they filled with tears. “You would not say such things if you knew him better. He could have never murdered my…this woman.”
“Would you have remembered if he had?”
The question went unanswered. Without a word more, Eliza Gillingham escaped the room and left him standing with more questions than he’d arrived with.
“Went to see the Gillingham child again, uh, didn’t you?”
Felton guided his chestnut mare closer to his father’s horse as they rode the animals along a quiet riding path, close enough to the ocean that the breeze was salty and strong. “I do not think I shall answer that on the grounds you shall relate the information to Mamma.”
“Tut, tut, I shall do no such thing.”
When the usual chuckle did not follow, Felton glanced at his father to see his lips pinched tight. “I say something wrong, sir?”
“No, no. I was only thinking.”
“Of?”
“Of what you must think of me—and what I would have thought of myself twenty years ago. You must see me as quite the ridiculous old fool, fussing over your mother the way I do, bending to her wishes, and all that sort of thing.”
“You only try to make her happy.”
