“You took favors from Ventnor,” Rafe said. “Did you do favors for him too?”
Pressing her lips together, Sally looked away.
“That man put my wife in an asylum, in appalling conditions. After I freed her, he wrote me weekly, insisting I do the same. That man preferred to spread lies about me than lift a finger for her care. That is the man you befriended?”
“We were never friends,” she snarled.
“Yet he rewarded you.” He advanced on her. “What the hell did you do to Katharine that Ventnor saw fit to reward you?”
Sally’s face twisted as she fought emotion, tears welling. Blood rushed in Rafe’s ears and through his limbs; over it came the sound of Thea calling his name.
He ignored her. Ignored them all. Ignored everything but Sally and the guilt written on her face.
Then with a shudder, Sally covered her face with her hands and breathed, deep, ragged breaths. When she finally looked up, her eyes were red. She laughed shakily, ruefully. “I always knew this day would come, the day my past would catch up with me, and bring with it my sorrow and shame.”
“You were a popular actress and well-known Sapphist, my dear,” Nicholas pointed out gently. “It’s sheer chance no one identified you sooner.”
Sally shook her head. “I am not ashamed of either of those things, even if the world wants me to be. What haunts me is what came before.”
She looked back at Rafe.
“What came before was Katharine,” he said.
“Yes. Katharine.”
“What did you do to her? What the hell did you do to her?”
A tiny smile touched Sally’s lips, though her expression was haunted by sorrow. “I loved her. That’s what I did. I loved Katharine, and that is why she is dead.”
Chapter 20
Rafe fell back against a wall, as if he needed it to hold him up. Sally was talking nonsense. Utter claptrap. He must tell her that, tell them all that. Yell it at Thea, gawping at them with caring concern. Shout it at Nicholas, sitting forward, compassion oozing from his pores. Bellow it at Martha, drumming her fingers on the crest of a chair.
Katharine was dead because Rafe had failed to care for her. Every day for years, he had failed her. Rage surged through him, rage at Sally for trying to steal his guilt.
But as she dropped into a chair and sat like a defeated penitent with her head bowed and hands clasped, his anger dissolved as swiftly as it had risen. Whether or not Sally was right, she believed it to be true.
“Katharine never knew how I loved her,” Sally said quietly. “Though love is not less real for remaining unspoken. Falling in love with someone one cannot have is a time-honored tradition; it is one thing we all have in common.”
“But Ventnor—”
“Ventnor gave me no rewards.” She looked up and heaved a weary sigh. “I blackmailed him.”
As abruptly as if the wall had given him a shove, Rafe started pacing, propelled across the floor. “About Katharine’s illness? If people didn’t believe me when I told the truth, why would he fear them believing you?”
“Not that. As you said: Ventnor was terrified the world would learn the truth of Katharine’s illness. Having her secluded in a country house did not ease his fears; he wanted her locked up in an asylum and forgotten.” She briefly closed her eyes. “He sent men to kidnap her.”
A chorus of gasps sounded through the room. Rafe stopped short, struck silent, staring at Sally.
“We were walking in the woods, and we became separated. I heard her scream, I ran and… She was fighting them off. I had a gun. I shot one, in the shoulder, and tried to shoot the other one. They ran away.”
“Why the hell did you not tell me?” Rafe demanded.
“I thought I could protect her myself. I did protect her. I did.”
“You should have told me.”
Sally didn’t reply. She was digging her thumb into her palm as she gazed into the distance. Into the past. The past that lived with them always. Even in this bright, airy room, the past cast its ugly shadow. This drawing room had been painted sage green in his mother’s day. He could still see it, see her, his vivacious mother. And his indulgent father, his rambunctious brothers, and their guests, the constant parade of guests. All the people who had passed through this room, all the stories that had been left untold, the words unspoken, the emotions buried.
“When we lived in the Dower House,” Sally finally said, “Katharine was calm and well. She was herself. Magnificent.”
“Like a wild horse,” Rafe said.
Sally’s face brightened. “Yes. That was her. Those were the happiest months of my life. But you were looking for more treatments. You talked of taking her to the Continent.”