AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Catherine wished she’d hung on to the frying pan, and was debating whether to go in search of a weapon or just boldly walk into the bedroom when she saw a figure come out of the room and softly close the door behind her. Catherine didn’t move a muscle as the figure walked from the gloom at the end of the hall across the gallery, toward her, stopping short upon seeing her standing at the top step.
“Ophelia,” Catherine said.
She was holding a leather box in her hands. Mary’s or her own, Catherine couldn’t tell.
Ophelia didn’t say a word as she held out the box to Catherine. Catherine took it silently, a thousand questions racing through her brain as she gazed at her niece. Ophelia was in her late twenties, and her hair was the blondest of Mary’s girls. She was the one who’d wielded the cast-iron pan against Justice, driving him away from Ravinia, saving her sister’s life. Of all of them, Ophelia had the tendency to stay silent and observe, and sometimes Catherine felt she was the niece she knew the least.
“Is this mine?” Catherine asked as she took it.
“It’s the one you were looking for.”
“Mary’s? Where was it?”
“In her room. Behind a panel in the wall.” Catherine stared at her, and Ophelia added, “I used to play in her room. She was nice to me. As soon as I saw you looking for it, I remembered where it was.”
“You knew I was looking for it?”
Ophelia nodded. “You told me you wanted it.”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Didn’t you?”
Catherine wagged her head slowly from side to side, and Ophelia seemed suddenly embarrassed. “You read minds,” Catherine said.
“Only some,” Ophelia said, disabusing Catherine of that notion. “Only when you’re desperate.”
Catherine absorbed that, wondering how many thoughts of hers Ophelia had read over the years. Until this moment, she’d had no inkling of Ophelia’s particular gift; the girl had hidden her abilities well.
Lifting the box, Catherine asked, “Do you know what’s in it?”
“Her special things . . . There was a pin . . . and some coins . . . and a book.”
In her mind’s eye Catherine saw the pearl brooch and the coins from another century, gifts from their ancestors. They were extremely valuable, but it was the book she wanted. Mary’s journal.
“Are you afraid to open the book in front of me?” Ophelia asked.
“You haven’t looked in it?”
She shook her head.
“Were there any . . . papers with the journal?” Catherine asked diffidently.
“No. Should there have been?”
Catherine had believed the boys’ adoption papers were tucked inside the journal, but before she could respond, quick footsteps sounded below them, coming up the first flight of stairs. Ravinia’s. “Can we talk about this later?” Catherine asked.
Ophelia nodded, and Catherine moved quickly down the third-floor steps, tucking the box under her arm as she passed Ravinia and headed to her own room, where she shut her door behind her and threw the bolt. Then she pulled up the curtains and let the sunlight stream in.
She sat the leather box on her nightstand and carefully opened the lid. The brooch gleamed lustrously, and the coins were scattered along the faded velvet lining on the bottom of the box. There was a hairpin with a line of emeralds, as well, and some earrings that were not heirlooms, just Mary’s favorites. But it was the journal that she wanted. A small booklet with a spiral binder, it was tucked beneath another book, a copy of A Short History of the Colony, a gift to Mary from that lovesick dope Herman Smythe.
Now she slid the journal from beneath Smythe’s chronicle. Gingerly, she opened it to the first page, and a loose folded paper fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, unfolded it, and a chill slid down her spine.
C. If you’ve gotten this far, you must really be worried, but the secret’s still safe. If you let him go, I’ll never tell. He’s mine. For now and for always. But if you try to keep him, you know I’ll make him suffer. M.
Her mouth went dry. She had a momentary vision of Mary writhing atop the one man Catherine had ever cared about, and she forcibly stamped it out. It wasn’t the truth. It was only her fear. Mary hadn’t been with him.
But Mary had been pregnant shortly thereafter, and the gleam in her eye had begged Catherine to ask her, just ask her, but Catherine hadn’t had the nerve.
