Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [41]
“Then I’ll marry,” she said with resignation. “I’ll make a home, give him a father!”
“You have no claim upon the boy. The law has its own views on the care of orphans.” He tried to keep his voice quiet, without condemnation.
Fiona bit her lip. “I don’t believe you!”
“Everything has changed, you see. When you first came to Duncarrick, you were thought to be a married woman, a widow. No one had any reason to question your right to the child. Now there is every reason.”
“No, I’m the only mother he’s known—!”
Changing his approach, Rutledge asked, “Did you write that letter to Mr. Elliot? The anonymous one mailed from Glasgow?”
Oliver stirred behind him. He hadn’t thought to ask that.
But the shock in Fiona MacDonald’s face answered any doubts Rutledge might have had.
“No!” There was passion in her voice, not mere certainty. Why? Then she added, as if to cover it, “The letter damned me.”
“You might have realized that those notes were bearing fruit. You might have wanted to protect yourself.”
“Then surely I’d have gone about it with more wisdom! I—I can’t—this letter is something I dream about in the night. It frightens me. I have been shown it and cannot recognize the handwriting. I have asked Mr. Elliot if he knew who had sent it, and he claims he doesn’t. But he tells me to throw myself on the mercy of the courts and save my immortal soul. I’ve asked the police if they’ve discovered the sender, and they tell me they don’t need to know who it is. But surely the author matters to them as much as it matters to me!”
“Do you suppose Eleanor Gray might have written it? With the best of intentions, unaware of the use to which it might be put?”
The name failed to register. “Why should a stranger defend me? I don’t know any Grays. Certainly not an Eleanor Gray. Ask her, not me.”
He hesitated. His head was aching so severely, he could hardly breathe, much less think clearly. “There’s very good reason for us to believe that Eleanor Gray gave birth to the child you have been raising and called your son.”
There was a flicker of something across her face, gone so quickly that Rutledge wasn’t sure he’d seen it. Humor? No, it was something else.
“What do you want from me? Lies? I don’t know this woman.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know her name. Was her death an accident? Or an illness—the result of childbirth?”
She smiled sadly. “If this Eleanor Gray is dead, how could she have written to Mr. Elliot or anyone else?”
Touché! “The Grays have money. They are able to give the boy far more than you ever can. It would be possible, I think, for arrangements to be made to visit him. You’d not lose touch entirely. In a crowded asylum for orphans he won’t receive the love and attention he needs. Surely that weighs with you?”
“It weighs with me, Inspector,” she said tiredly, “but not enough to lie to you. I don’t know Eleanor Gray. I know nothing about when or how she might have died, and I can’t tell you if she gave birth to a child. There is nothing I can do for her family except to tell the truth. And I have.” There was disappointment in her tone. “Is that what you wanted—what brought you here? The need of a comforting story to take to a grieving woman? I also grieve, and no one will tell me about my son. Whether he’s well or ill, whether he remembers me or has been made to forget me.” Her face nearly crumpled, but she fought for and won composure. He could see the tears in her eyes.
“He’s well,” he answered, ignoring the smothered protest behind him. She had a right to know. She might be a murderess—
The thought stopped him cold.
RUTLEDGE COULDN’T REMEMBER returning to the hotel and picking up the key to his room.
The woman at the desk, true to her word, had chosen well. Cream walls and white lace curtains were set off by the sea blue of the bedding, the patterned carpet, and the chintz-covered chairs. Stiff silk flowers stood in a blue-and-cream bowl, and there was a blue-trimmed cream shade over the single lamp on the corner table. He hardly noticed. But there was a pair of