“Even Nate didn’t find any of this out . . . Merlin.”
Alex smiled. “Merlin. All that seems like a lifetime ago. I wish I could walk away from here today and go to Cay a free man, but it’s going to take me a long time to get all this settled legally. I’ve already told Cay that I need to go to Charleston with . . .” Alex looked down at his food. “Legal papers saying that I didn’t kill her aren’t enough for me. Does that make sense?”
“Perfectly. If I were in your situation . . . Actually, I can’t imagine what I’d do.”
“But then, you wouldn’t have to, would you?” Alex said quickly. “You have family and friends. I had only T.C.”
“I think you could add my sister and Nate to that list of people who’ve helped you and believed in you. And Tally and I have done a bit. By the way, Nate has already let me know that wherever you go, he’s going with you. My brother is a very loyal person.”
Smiling, Alex began to relax. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve had a harrowing day.”
“Take your time, I’m not going anywhere.”
Alex pushed his half-eaten plate away and stood up. “First, I need to go to Charleston to clear my name. I need to walk through the streets with . . .” He looked at Adam. “Her name isn’t Lilith Grey, it’s Margaret Miller. She was called Megs as a girl. You see, everything about her is a lie. Would you like to hear her story, the one that she seemed to think would make me forgive her for everything?”
“I can’t think of anything that I’d like more than to hear why she did such an abominable thing. We’ll have cigars and brandy.”
Adam pulled the cord on the wall, and the steward came so quickly that Alex was sure the man had been waiting outside. It wasn’t long before the table was cleared, and when he and Adam were alone again, Alex spoke.
“That kiss! What a great lot of trouble it caused! Megs thought that kiss meant I’d forgiven her, so she tried to flutter her lashes at me and lean over me in a way that used to drive me wild with desire. Now, it just repulsed me. It took hours to get the truth out of her, but she finally told me the whole story, and every word was told with loud sobs and pleas for sympathy.” Alex calmed himself. “It seems that she was raised in great poverty, with a father who beat her. Again, I apologize for my lack of sympathy, but after what the woman did to me, I can feel nothing for her.”
“I understand completely,” Adam said, smoking his cigar and watching Alex as he paced the floor. “What did she say when you asked her why she stayed hidden while you were on trial?”
“She swears that she didn’t know that I’d been accused of her murder, and she says that if she’d known she would have returned to Charleston immediately. I don’t believe her.” He paused. “After she found out that men were in town searching for her, she came up with her diabolical plan to make them think she was dead. She’d seen the way the doctor looked at her, so she cried and made up some sad, pathetic story. I don’t know what it was, but it must have been a good one, because the doctor agreed to do whatever she wanted him to. She said that if he hadn’t died, it would have worked perfectly, but . . .” Alex took a breath. “Anyway, after I was arrested and taken away to jail, the doctor had her ‘body’ taken to his office, where she washed the blood off her neck and got into a waiting carriage that was loaded with her luggage.”
“And what was her plan for you?”
Alex had to take a breath before he could speak. “Nate figured that one out, too. The doctor was to declare her death to be a suicide, and that would get me released from jail.”
“The town would have said that she killed herself rather than spend her life with you.” Adam’s voice showed his disgust.
“Aye, they would have. I think I might have preferred hanging. Even now, after people see that I didn’t murder my wife, what I can’t abide is if Cay’s name is associated with this ugly mess. If she’s there in Charleston with me—as she wants to be—people would say that she had something to do with all of it.”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“Exactly. That old adage. No,” Alex said with a grimace, “I want all the gossip put where it belongs: on to Megs’s head.”
“What did she do after she left the doctor’s?”
“She says she went to a tiny town in Georgia and stayed there. She even told me she did the best she could to look plain so no one would notice her.”
“And how’d that work?” Adam asked, taking a long draw on his cigar.
“As always, she had some trouble with men. She presented herself as a young, beautiful widow living alone in a small town, so of course she had problems.”
“Where’d she get the money to live?”
“She didn’t say and I didn’t ask, but I think she stole it from old lady Underwood. Do you know about her?”
“I don’t think there was anything Nate didn’t uncover about your trial, so, yes, we were told about the rich old woman. But since she lied under oath about
your wife being her niece, I don’t think she’s going to prosecute for thievery.”
“No. Lilith . . . Megs has a way of turning bad situations to her advantage.”
“I take it the ‘man problems’ were what sent her packing to New Orleans.”
“Aye, they did. She said she thought she could get lost in a city easier than in a small town. My opinion is that she was looking for her next husband to dupe. But who knows the truth? Maybe she just got bored and wanted excitement. If it hadn’t been for George Campbell seeing her . . .”