Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
CHAPTER 47
“I know—it’s rather a lot to take in, isn’t it?”
Eliza gave a nervous laugh. “I’m at a loss for words, my la . . .”
“It’s Matthew, m’lady. Just Matthew.”
Eliza laughed again and ran her hands over the slippery borrowed taffeta covering her arms, not sure where to look. “Ah. The mysterious Matthew.”
“So you’ve heard of me, then.” He peered at her through dark lashes, fringing a pair of violently green eyes. “I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions, darling, so we’ll get on with it. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Of course not.”
He sat next to Gabriel’s cot and took a pipe out of his striped waistcoat, packed it with tobacco, and lit it with a match, drawing air into the bowl through his lips. There were a few lines around the edges of his otherwise youthful face, and his dark hair was streaked with shimmering lines of gray, but he was so much like Malcolm and Gabriel in manner it was uncanny. He even crossed his legs in the same way Malcolm had, placing right over left as he slouched in the chair by Gabriel’s bed.
Eliza drew up another chair. “I can ask you anything? Even the tricky things?”
“Don’t be bashful.” He gestured toward the window. “I’m used to questions and I’ve heard all their rumors already, I assure you.”
“I’ll start with the worst, then. People implied incest—that you became Malcolm’s lover.”
Matthew smiled wistfully. “People being Una?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, that girl is a fair piece of work. I promise you, my lady, I never took carnal liberties with my own sons. The very thought disgusts me.”
“I didn’t think you would. But why would she say such a thing?”
“She was always jealous of how close we were. One evening when old Havenwood was away, I meant to dress up in Malcolm’s clothes to meet my lover in Winchester. It was a pleasant game for me to play at being the average, middle-class bloke out at the pubs with my lady paramour. Such reckless freedom for a lesbian, you can only imagine. At first it was a way to avoid salacious talk, but then it became more natural. I felt more and more myself as Matthew, eventually. At any rate, on that particular day, when Una saw us, I had taken my overdress off and Malcolm was helping me tighten my binding corset over my shift. He was only doing up the laces at the back. Una walked by the door and thought she’d caught us in the middle of a tryst.”
“I see. Was it Beatrice your secret letters were meant for, then? I decoded them.”
“Clever thing, aren’t you? I may well blush.”
“They were beautiful. I’m so sorry I read them, but I’ve become rather obsessed with you. I found your journal as well. Duncan said Beatrice went back to Guernsey, but I knew she was lying.”
“Yes, that’s the story, isn’t it? So many of them, one loses track.” Matthew bit his lip and turned to the window. “Beatrice and I were merely companions at first—until I realized my feelings for her ran much deeper than friendship. I kissed her in the gardens one afternoon. When she returned my ardor, I knew I’d found my truest love. Our housekeeper orchestrated our downfall when she discovered our affair.” He gave a distasteful snarl. “Galbraith. How I hated that woman. She thought she deserved to be Lady Havenwood. She was incredibly cruel to me, from the first moment I set foot in that house, a scared and pregnant girl of sixteen.”
“She also found out about Beatrice’s spying, correct? From the dumbwaiter.”
The color flared in Matthew’s cheeks. “Oh, my. You really do know everything about us, don’t you? Yes. Bea and I had planned to run away together. Galbraith found out our game and confiscated our letters and Bea’s journal. Bea threatened old Lord H with going to the papers. She would have ruined Thomas and Eastleigh for my sake, so they murdered her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right, love. You weren’t meant to know all our secrets. It was imperative you didn’t, in fact.”
“Why?”
“Because my son’s life depended on it. He was the only witness. Malcolm was away, taking his final term at Eton, and I was in Winchester, waiting for Bea at the hotel where we had our trysts. Gabriel had come home early from the pub and heard strange sounds from belowstairs. He went to investigate and caught them in the act of dismembering her body.” Matthew’s eyes hardened. “They made him help with their gruesome business, then had Gabriel bury her body in the birch grove, so that he would be culpable. An accessory to murder. Eastleigh stalked him mercilessly afterward. It became too much. It’s the main reason they pretended to be the same person after the fire. Had nothing at all to do with fighting over who would claim the title or any of that nonsense. Gabriel couldn’t have cared less about being a country lord. It was always going to be Malcolm.”
“How did you convince everyone he was dead?”
“Malcolm gave him a heavy sleeping draught before the wake. It slowed his heartbeat so he would appear dead, even to a coroner.”
“Like Romeo and Juliet?”
“The very same. Belladonna. It was so effective it was terrifying. We went to the crypt that night to revive him, then I left. I’ve lived as Matthew MacCulloch ever since.”
“I knew Mal . . . I mean, Gabriel, was keeping something from me—something to do with Bea—but I was looking at the wrong things. And all this time I’ve been searching for you, you’ve been right here.”
“Not exactly. I live in Oban now—where I’m from. I’d only come back to Hampshire or London to see my sons, then go home to Blanche. That’s my lady companion. My wife.” His voice fell into the lilting, northern cadence she’d often imagined while reading Ada’s journal. “My boys made a pact, after we started the fire. They swore to protect one another, and me, at all costs. Malcolm took it too far. He’s always been a wee bit rigid. Gabriel wrote to me—he was upset over the way Malcolm had been treating you. He intended to bring you to Scotland over the holidays and have you meet me. Together, we were going to tell you everything. Malcolm got wind of it, and in his state of illness, well. Logic was no longer his ally.”
Eliza remembered the day on the train when Malcolm had gone into his demented fit after Eastleigh’s funeral. She’d unwittingly given the game away when she’d asked about their Scottish holiday. It’s likely he’d imprisoned Gabriel upon their return. Eliza looked over to her sleeping husband. His once strong arms were so pale and thin, and his hollow cheeks skeletal. “Malcolm was envious of Gabriel, wasn’t he?”
Matthew’s lips curved in a sad smile, and he took a pull on his pipe. “Aye. But Gabriel was envious of him as well. They were so different for looking just the same. My Colm was a bit awkward round the edges. Easier for his father to break. Gabe is more like me, you ken? That’s why I was harder on him. Always getting into scrapes and falling out of trees.” He paused, worrying with his cuff links. “He didn’t deal well with the duality of my nature, I’m afraid—how one body could contain two spirits and shift between them.”
“I’m only relieved he took his temperament from you, and not his father.”
Matthew gave the wide grin Eliza knew so well. “As am I, but since we’re at the business of laying secrets out on tables, I must make a confession—old Havenwood wasn’t their true father. He’d been sterile since he was a boy. Mumps and fevers.”
“I’d wondered,” Eliza said. “The dates in your journal didn’t line up with your confinement.”
“You should go to work for Scotland Yard, you know.” Matthew took a drag off his pipe, the red glow illuminating his face. “I didn’t know myself when I was young—wasn’t ready to know myself. I’d dressed up as a page for our ghillies ball—Cherubino—which should’ve been a hint. It was such fun. A beautiful lad I’d never seen before turned me round and round in the reels, then took me out for a little walk around Brynmoor. He spread his jacket on a stone slab and proceeded to show me, definitively, that I didn’t enjoy sexual congress with men. You could say he gave me three gifts that night—one of them the relief of my naïveté.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
“Never. He was ethereal. Tall and slender, with the queerest eyes—like whisky held up to the sun. Perhaps not even of this world. I suppose I like to imagine it, at least. We Scots are superstitious, and my boys were rather uncommon.
“As soon as my condition was discovered, instead of being angry, old Havenwood was overjoyed, and we married within the month. He got part and parcel—an heir and a spare and a young wife who didn’t mind his sterility. You’ll know the rest about our marriage from my journal—how it ended too, I’d imagine, canny as you are.” He leaned forward and tapped the spent embers from his pipe into the narrow grate. “When Gabriel finally told me what they’d done to Beatrice, I crept into Galbraith’s quarters and smothered her in her sleep. Then I shot Thomas in his bed with Gabriel’s service pistol. The twins and I started the fire to cover things up.”
Eliza’s mouth went dry, remembering the séance and how old Havenwood’s spirit had spelled out the word shot. She searched for the right words and found none.
“It was ghastly and terrible. But I don’t regret it. Every time I saw that bastard beat my bairns or felt the stinging slap of his hand across my face, I murdered him in my mind. That night was simply the following through.”
“I can’t say I blame you.” She’d done the same, after all. Eliza’s head spun, remembering the manic look in Malcolm’s eyes, the sharpness of his fingers closing on her throat. There was no doubt that Thomas’s spirit had somehow influenced Malcolm in his weakness of mind.
“Was his ghost still knocking around the house?” Matthew asked. “Old Havenwood? The twins saw him, several times.”
“Yes, unfortunately. I’ve had my encounters. He was violent. He pulled one of our workers off a scaffold.”
“I daresay. That sounds just like him. And my Beatrice? Did she ever visit you? She certainly visited me. Only—I didn’t know it was her at the time. She would sit on the edge of my bed and stroke my hair, smelling of birch leaves.”
Eliza smiled, remembering the tapping in her room, the wavery writing on the fog of the window, and the apparition she’d seen in the south wing, pointing her to the truth. “Yes, she did the very same with me. I rather thought she was my friend.”
“Well, she would have liked you. I hope she’s found peace at last.” Matthew’s voice cracked. “That’s what she deserves, my sweet Bea.”
“I’m not sure how you survived everything you’ve endured.”
“We’re often stronger than we think we can be, aren’t we? Especially for our children. My angels were the reason I fought to carry on through a wretched marriage. Otherwise, I’d have weighted my apron with stones and wandered into the Avon.” Matthew closed his eyes. “My sons protected me. I’ve a free life because of them. I’ll never be sure we went about things the right way. It was an awful burden on them both, keeping all of these secrets. And now, my Malcolm is dead.”
“I’m so sorry.” Once more, Eliza pushed back against the sharpness of her guilt. She’d killed Malcolm, as surely as Matthew had killed Thomas. Yet how could she confess it to the very person who had brought him life? No. This was one secret she’d have to keep. “I suppose none of us can know what twists and turns life will bring us through, can we? Or what we’ll do for the ones we love?”
“Indeed. But doesn’t it make for a queer tale, after all?”
Matthew and Eliza stood on the train platform in Winchester, their breath curling into the cold air.
“Will you tell Gabriel I was here when he wakes?”
“Of course. Perhaps when he’s recovered and my confinement is passed, we’ll pay you a visit with the baby. He promised me Scotland, after all.”
“I’d like that.” Matthew smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “The two of you have a right to be happy, you know. We do no service to our dead when we linger too long in our misery.” He pulled on his gloves and lifted the brim of his hat. “Write to me often, darling, and do take care of yourself and my naughty son.”
“I will, I promise. Godspeed, Matthew.”
“Godspeed, Lady Havenwood.”
Gabriel woke on Christmas morning.
The chapel chimes had just rung the hour of eight when Eliza heard a dry whisper of sound. She leapt up from her chair by the grate, the book she was reading falling to the floor and her heartbeat quickening as she rushed to her husband’s side.
He blinked, wincing at the sterile brightness of the ward. She touched his hand and he turned toward her. A weak smile tilted the corners of his mouth. “Am I really alive?”
Eliza’s tears rolled fast and hot down her cheeks. “You are.”
“I need water,” he rasped.
“I’ll fetch Dr. Fawcett straightaway!”
Eliza flew from the room, tearing down the hallway to Clarence’s office. She flung open the door. He looked up from his paperwork, startled at her sudden intrusion.
“Doctor, come quickly! My husband is awake!”
They moved into Sherbourne House on the first day of the new century—a morning so bright and full of sunshine it chased every shadow from the empty house as soon as Eliza pulled the drapes.
Lydia had left things immaculate, the furniture neatly covered with sailcloth, the dust on the trimwork barely perceptible. Gabriel sat warming by the fireplace in the parlor as she flurried around, fluffing pillows and tidying up the kitchen. Finally, she sat next to him, her face heated by her exertions. He pulled her close and kissed her temple. “My darling, you’ve done enough. There will be time for more adjustments once Turner and Duncan come home.”
Eliza thought of the ruins of Havenwood Manor, smoldering as the last of the fire spent itself on the cold ground. “They’ll be devastated, won’t they? It all seems like a nightmare. Did they know anything about your ruse? I have a feeling they did.”
“Yes, they were party to it. Malcolm and our mother had to tell them everything in order to keep me hidden away. It meant we couldn’t hire on more staff, and as Malcolm’s paranoia grew, he began to trust even their loyalty less.” Gabriel closed his eyes. “I wish you could have known him in the years before his illness took away what was left of his gentleness. He was troubled, tortured and shaped by our father’s cruelty. But he wasn’t evil.”
“I saw glimpses of his true nature, from time to time.” She pulled away from Gabriel and moved to the hearth. A log cracked, sending a flurry of sparks from the grate. She quickly stomped them out with her shoe. “I started the fire that destroyed your home and killed your only brother. How can you forgive me for that? And then there’s the matter of Eastleigh. What if someone finds out what you’ve done? I’m still not sure how we’re meant to move forward from all of this. How can I trust that you won’t go down the same path as Malcolm? That you won’t turn to murder and thievery ever again? I don’t even know who you are.”
“Eliza, look at me. Really look at me.”
She turned to study him. His cheeks were less gaunt than they’d been days before, the fiery spark in his viridian eyes returning. But for the first time, she noticed the subtle differences—the pale scar that marked his forehead like a shooting star, the mole beneath his left ear. How could she not have known?
“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you. There will be no more lies, at least between these walls. I’m sorry for the horrible things I’ve done. And as for Malcolm and the fire . . . you had no choice.” Gabriel stood and drew her to his chest, the subtle rattle of his breath rumbling between them. “Every moment from this day forward will be spent regaining your trust and love. We’ll raise our family, we’ll carry on, and we will be happy again, my darling. I can promise you that.”