“I wanted her to receive the best care.”
“Do you remember, I volunteered to come with you? But you said there was no need to drag me away from my home, you’d hire someone else. I would have gone to the ends of the earth if it meant being with Katharine.”
Helplessly, Rafe’s eyes sought Thea. Their gazes wove together, and it was all he could do not to cross the room and lay his head in her lap. But when she half rose, as if to come to him, as if he were calling to her, he swung away to face the window. He watched her reflection, the shadowy movement as she resumed her seat.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea. If I’d known how you felt,” he said to the window, to his ghostly reflection, to the lawn and lake beyond.
“Yes, if you’d known.” Bitterness soured Sally’s tone. “For all I knew, you would have dismissed me, had you known. My father would have put me in an asylum, had he known. And if you’d known what Ventnor was attempting, you would definitely have taken Katharine away. It was selfish of me, but I was so sure I could protect her.”
“You did save her,” came Thea’s voice.
“But the shock, the fright, what it did to her mind…”
On the lawn, a large black bird landed and fluttered its glossy wings. A second bird joined it.
“The crows,” Rafe said.
“The crows,” Sally confirmed. “The day after the kidnapping attempt, Katharine saw them: a dozen crows, gathering in the tree outside her window.”
Rafe pressed his fingers to the glass, hardly seeing the sunny scene through the memory of the storm clouds rumbling over Katharine’s head that long-past afternoon. You are as dark and silent as the crow, and with just as evil intent.
Sally’s words washed over him. “She became convinced the crows were coming for her, to do her harm. Her conviction grew, and sentences in that Gothic novel confirmed it, and she came to believe the kidnappers were from you. I hid the book, but she found it. I put laudanum in her drink, but she must have tricked me and not taken it.”
“Then she saw a crow kill a sparrow,” Rafe finished, “and the coming of the storm.”
He turned back around. With great effort, as though her eyeballs weighed a ton, Sally looked at him. “My error in judgment will haunt me forever. I loved her, and I killed her. If I had told you, if I had not been so selfish…”
If, if, if, if, if.
“The kidnapping attempt,” Rafe said. “She must have been terrified.”
Sally smiled wanly. “You would have been proud of her, the way she fought. One of those men wears my bullet hole, but the other will carry Katharine’s tooth marks till the end of his days.”
The image of Katharine fighting off one of Ventnor’s ruffians swelled in Rafe’s mind. He thumped the window frame, the sting in his knuckles driving the picture away.
“We tried so bloody hard to keep her calm,” he said. “That’s what they recommend. Calm. Routine. Sympathy. Sunlight. And she went months without an episode, living a normal life. Then blasted Ventnor sends his blasted ruffians…”
“It was all Ventnor’s doing, then,” Thea broke in. “Neither of you is responsible for her death. Ventnor’s actions led to his daughter’s death, and he probably doesn’t even care.”
“He doesn’t,” Sally spat with loathing. “He even said her death solved his problem.” With another deep breath, she stood. “Master Rafe—I mean, my lord. I have so many regrets. I have tried to do right by you, since you came back. I have kept this house in readiness for the day you brought home another bride, to house a new, happy family. But perhaps my reasons for that were selfish too: Because if you could free yourself of the past, maybe I could too. I shall leave, now.”
Rafe shook his head. Free himself of the past? He had lost himself in the selva for that, yet still the past pursued him. Once again, his gaze strayed back toward Thea, but this time, he could not bear looking at her. This time, the walls began to close in, air became short, his legs grew heavy. Nicholas was rising to his feet, Martha was frowning at him, Thea was saying his name in an echo that shuddered through his suddenly empty skull.
“I need to think,” he managed to say, eyes on the door, forcing his legs to carry him away. Something in Sally’s face stopped him as he reached her side. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You loved her. I am glad of it. She deserved to be loved.”
Then his legs propelled him forward again, to make his escape.
In the oppressive foyer, Rafe headed numbly for the front door, but Thea’s voice, calling his name, coiled around him like a rope. If only the whole blasted world would disappear, leaving nothing but him and Thea. She would chase away his shadows, and he would chase away hers.