Echoes in the Mist (Kingsleys in Love 1)

Baxter didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“How could you?” Her voice shook.

“As I’ve said before, I knew you’d be safe.”

“You knew I’d be safe? How in the name of heaven could you know that?”

Guilt flashed briefly in Baxter’s eyes, ugly memories rearing their heads. “I gave you that answer the day Kingsley brandished his royal decree at Winsham. No one has forgotten the unresolved tragedy of Vanessa’s death … and suspicion has resurfaced along with Kingsley’s re-emergence from the Isle of Wight. All eyes are upon him, and he knows it. No, Ariana, Kingsley wouldn’t dare harm you.”

Ariana dashed bitter tears from her cheeks. “I want to see the journal,” she demanded, needing something more tangible than Baxter’s accusations to strip away her last filaments of intuition and faith.

“I don’t have it.”

“Who does?”

“Kingsley.”

Weakly, she sank into a chair, her eyes widening with shock. “You’d better explain.”

With a defeated sigh, Baxter nodded. “At this point I might as well tell you everything.” He clasped his hands behind his back, studying Ariana’s face to monitor her mental state. “As I said, I discovered the journal beneath Vanessa’s pillow. On her nightstand was a letter she’d written to me the day before she died. It was heartbreaking, filled with torment. … And its message was painfully clear.” He paused to compose himself. “Our sister was saying good-bye.”

Ariana dug her fingers into the arms of the chair. “A suicide note?”

“Seemingly so … yes.”

Baxter’s dubious tone found its mark. “You still believe she was murdered … why?”

“Because Vanessa’s final journal entry, penned the same day as her letter, revealed far more than her note.” Baxter shuddered, remembering. “I had gone out that evening. Apparently, sometime during my absence, Kingsley delivered a message commanding Vanessa to meet him at once. Whatever his words, the tone was obviously far beyond reason or sanity. Vanessa’s terrified state of mind was chillingly evident in her writing. Her references to Kingsley were sinister, ominous. She was obviously petrified about what Kingsley planned to do to her.” Baxter’s jaw clenched. “I’ll never forgive myself for being away when Vanessa needed me.”

“What did you do once you’d read the letter and the journal?” Ariana prompted, a hairsbreadth away from collapse.

“Do?” He leveled his gaze on hers. “Right after Vanessa’s mutilated gown was found washed up on shore, I ordered Kingsley to Winsham. I confronted him with both documents.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He coerced me into giving him the journal.”

Ariana shot up like an arrow. “Coerced you? How did he coerce you?”

Bitterness twisted Baxter’s features into a mask of hatred. “He threatened me, swore he’d strip me of everything I had left if I didn’t turn the journal over to him. I knew by the burning lunacy in his eyes that he was capable of anything … even murder. I had you to consider, sprite. You were my responsibility … and all I had left. He’d already robbed me of Vanessa. So I gave him the journal.”

“But if you’d delivered it to the authorities—”

“They’d say it was the unstable ramblings of a suicidal woman,” Baxter cut in. “The journal was rife with implications, Ariana, but no concrete proof.”

“Yet Trenton insisted on having it.”

“Of course he did! There wasn’t enough evidence to convict the bastard, but there was certainly enough to destroy his name and ruin his family. Society is not nearly so discerning as the courts: They would condemn him on Vanessa’s words alone.”

Ariana nodded numbly. “So you gave him the journal.”

“Yes. All I wanted was to expel Trenton Kingsley from our lives forever.”

The irony of the situation was almost too much for Ariana to bear. The man Baxter had sought to banish from their lives was now her husband.

“I never expected him to return, Ariana,” Baxter said softly, reading her mind. “Even though no one ever saw the journal, news of Vanessa’s probable suicide quickly spread … along with speculation about its cause. The combination of Kingsley’s own guilt and public pressure was too much for him. He fled to Wight six years ago and hasn’t returned … until now.”

Baxter’s words triggered a thought in Ariana’s mind. “Where is Vanessa’s suicide note?”