Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [133]
Her hands were shaking, and she buried them in the folds of her sleeves, where he couldn’t reach them. “I don’t believe you!”
“It’s true,” he said softly. “Do you want to hear the name of the child’s mother? Shall I tell you the name of the clinic? Shall I give you the initials on his christening gown? MEMC. Are they yours?”
She began to cry and fished for a handkerchief in her pocket, then pressed it to her eyes. “I’m childless. I feel dreadfully for this dead mother. It’s nothing more than any woman would feel—”
He waited. She began, slowly, to find the steel she needed. “You’ve upset me, I’m afraid. I must apologize. It’s the weakness I’ve suffered since the spring. Perhaps you’d better leave after all. I hope you won’t speak of this to my husband. He will only be angry with me for letting you stay when I was feeling ill.”
He admired her courage. He admired her strength. But there were other lives hinging on the truth and what he had to do must be done now.
“You are Mrs. Cook, aren’t you? And the boy is yours. Are you Maude Cook—or Mary Cook—or both? Mrs. Kerr will recognize you, and so will Dr. Wilson.”
“No! No. No.”
“The child is yours,” he repeated. “But your husband believes it’s Eleanor Gray’s.”
She lifted her eyes to stare at him, startled eyes that were wide with shock. As he watched, she bit her lip, a thin line of blood marking the place.
Rutledge said, “And you’ve allowed him to think that’s true.”
Her hands reached for him, taking his arms just below his shoulders, holding him with a fierce grip that was a measure of her need. “No— you don’t understand. He knows it’s mine. Dear God, he knows. But he can’t—he hasn’t found out these things you’ve discovered. He isn’t the father, you see! He will never have children by me, I’m ruined, I can’t have more. And he hates me for that. He hates Fiona. And most of all, he hates my child. If I ever tell him the truth, even to save Fiona, he will see that the boy is given to us to raise, and then he will take the greatest pleasure in destroying him! My husband has powerful friends—the fiscal, the Chief Constable—Inspector Oliver— barristers in Jedburgh and Edinburgh. He can arrange it. He will even claim that he was Eleanor Gray’s lover if he has to! Alex will stand there in public and lie to them all, and in the end, they’ll let him have his way. The only way that Fiona and I can truly protect Ian is for her to die and the child to be left to the mercy of strangers.”
IT TOOK HIM a quarter of an hour to calm her down again. She was shaking so badly, Rutledge feared for her, but when he offered to summon Dr. Murchison, she refused to let him. Instead she asked for a sherry, and he found the decanter by the window, poured her a glass, and held it while she sipped it.
A little color came back into her face. The shaking stopped. But she was beginning to think clearly again too. Rutledge asked once more about the doctor.
“No, I mustn’t call him just now. He’ll see I’ve been crying and demand to know why I was so upset. He’ll tell Alex. And Alex will question Margaret—our maid. You must leave here and I shall say to my husband that you came to ask after my health because you’d found me ill by the pele tower and were concerned.”
“Will he believe you?”
“I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “Yes. I’ll make him believe me. I haven’t any choice. He has held this thing over my head for months now. Since he came home in the spring. And I take the greatest pleasure in not breaking. But sometimes—sometimes the strain is so great, I can hardly breathe. My chest hurts with it.”
“How could he have found out? About the boy?”
“When I had the influenza, the doctor must have told him I’d borne a child. Or when I had the chill, I might have said something in my sleep. I was feverish, I sometimes woke crying out for—for someone. Alex is very clever; he began to see that I had—that there