"He saw you?"
Phyllida described what had happened.
Mary Anne bent a look of utter disbelief upon her. "He couldn't possibly tell from a touch. He's bamming you."
"That's what I thought at first. But he knows, Mary Anne-he knows and he wants to know what happened."
"Well, why not just tell him that yes, you were there, and tell him what happened and that you had to leave?"
Phyllida fixed her with a direct look. "I haven't admitted that I was there, because as soon as I do he's going to want to know why."
Mary Anne blanched. "You can't tell him that!"
"He's determined to find out what happened-he's investigating Horatio's murder. From his point of view, he needs to know everything that happened that morning."
"But he doesn't-he doesn't need to know about my letters." Mary Anne's lower lip protruded. "And he can't make you tell him."
"He can."
"Nonsense." Mary Ann tossed her head. "You're always the one in charge-you're Sir Jasper's daughter. You can just look at him haughtily and refuse to say anything. How can he force you to tell?"
"I can't explain it, but he will." She couldn't describe the sensation of being mentally stalked, trapped, and held, the pressure of knowing he was waiting, watching… patient now, but how long would that last? On top of that, she felt she should tell him, that he deserved to know. "He hasn't yet threatened to tell Papa that he knows I was there, but he could-he knows he could. It's like Damocles' sword hanging over my head."
"That's just melodramatic. He's pressuring you. He doesn't have any evidence you were there-why would Sir Jasper believe him?"
"How often do I succumb to sick headaches?"
Mary Anne pouted; her expression turned obstinate. "You can't tell him about my letters-you swore you'd tell no one."
"But this is murder. Horatio was killed. Mr. Cynster needs to know what happened and what I saw." She hadn't mentioned the brown hat; that would only distract Mary Anne, who was distracted enough as it was. "He needs to know about your letters so he can be sure they aren't anything to do with why Horatio was killed."
Mary Anne stared at her. "No! If you tell him about the letters, he'll think Robert killed Horatio."
"Don't be silly. Robert wasn't anywhere near…" Phyllida stared at Mary Anne. "Don't tell me Robert was here on Sunday morning."
"I walked home after church-it was a lovely sunny day." Mary Anne slid her eyes from Phyllida's. "We met in the Ballyclose wood."
"It's impossible that Robert killed Horatio and then made it there to meet you, so he can't be the murderer."
"But we can't tell anyone we met in the wood!"
Phyllida swallowed a groan. She wasn't getting anywhere; she tried another tack. "What is in these letters?" She hadn't asked before-before, it had only mattered that Mary Anne was hysterical and getting the letters back-an easy enough task, it had seemed-would calm her down. She'd given her oath not to reveal the existence of the letters to anyone without a second thought. But now Horatio's murder had turned her simple plan to retrieve Mary Anne's letters into a nightmare-and she was still bound by that oath.
Mary Anne picked at her skirt. "I told you-they're letters I sent Robert that he gave back, and some he sent to me."
Robert Collins was Mary Anne's intended, not her betrothed. Her parents had stood firm against the match since Mary Anne and Robert first met at the Exeter Assembly when Mary Anne was seventeen. Robert was an articled clerk in a solicitor's office in Exeter. His fortune was nonexistent, but once he took his final exams next year, he would be able to practice and thus support a wife. Through the years, Mary Anne's devotion to Robert and his to her had never wavered. Her parents had hoped the attachment would wane. However, they'd known better than to feed their daughter's stubbornness; assuming that with Robert in Exeter, physical meetings would be rare, they'd allowed the usual exchange of correspondence.
The existence of the letters would therefore surprise no one; it was the content that constituted the threat. Phyllida wasn't, however, convinced that the threat was all that serious-not compared with murder. "I can't see why telling Mr. Cynster that your letters were the reason I was in Horatio's house, searching for them because they'd been accidentally put in the writing desk and then forgotten, is going to cause a scandal."
"Because if you tell him that, he'll want to know why you-or, more to the point, I-didn't simply call and ask Horatio for them."
Phyllida grimaced. She'd asked precisely that question when Mary Anne, distraught and barely coherent, had come to her for help. The answer had been that Horatio might look at the letters before he handed them over-and then he might hand them to Mary Anne's parents instead.
"And," Mary Anne continued, her tone increasingly obstinate, "if Mr. Cynster is half as clever as you think him, he'll guess why I want them back so desperately. He's investigating-if he finds them, he'll read them."
"Even if he does, he wouldn't hand them to your parents." Phyllida glimpsed a way out. "Wait-what if I make him promise that if I tell him all and he finds the letters, he'll hand them to me without reading them?"
Mary Anne frowned. "Do you trust him?"