Page 30 of All of Us Murderers

“Someone dressed up as a ghost to frighten you,” Zeb said.

“Not just you, either, there’s a lot of it about.

People dressing up as monks to scare Jessamine, a lot of spiders put in my room, slander written on walls—” He saw her mouth tighten.

“Was there writing on your wall too? Did it disappear inexplicably?”

“Are you part of this bizarre practical joke?” she snapped. “Is Hawley behind this?”

“I had some on my wall too. It was on a piece of wallpaper, stuck over the actual paper, if you see what I mean: that’s how they took it away again.

I don’t think it’s Hawley, myself, because I don’t see where he’d find a spare roll of wallpaper, and also, he’s clearly going off his chump.

And Colonel Dash has disappeared. He’s not in his room and Wynn won’t say where he is. ”

“He’s unwell.”

“I don’t think he is,” Zeb said. “I think Wynn’s lying about that, as he’s lying about a lot of things.

I know he’s been misinterpreting what I’ve said, including about you.

He’s trying to set us all fighting over the inheritance, not to mention scaring everyone half to death with ghosts and footsteps and strange writing, and let’s be honest, it’s worked. ”

She was looking at him properly now, intent and unblinking.

Zeb ploughed on. “I don’t like this at all and I want to leave.

I think you should too, because the things he’s been saying about both of us are awful.

He’s been refusing to have me driven to the station because of the mist, but if you added your voice to mine and showed we won’t put up with this, we might be able to put enough pressure on him. ”

Elise’s face hadn’t changed. “You think I should leave. Why, exactly?”

“You were literally crying with fear the other night because of this business. And given the way Wynn has spoken to and about you—”

Her upper lip lifted into a touch of sneer. “Do you disagree?”

“Your personal affairs are none of my business.”

“Have you spoken to Bram?”

Zeb had no desire to repeat any of their recent conversations. “I can’t get much sense out of him. He feels unjustly done out of his inheritance.”

“And is blaming me, of course. My faults as a wife are legion. There is no need to consider Bram’s infidelities, his endless pawing of the maids.”

“Uh.” Zeb had no idea how to respond to that. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

She smiled like ice. “Rather them than me.”

“Well,” Zeb said uneasily. “The point is, I don’t trust Wynn’s behaviour or intentions, there’s a worrying amount of money at stake, and Bram and Hawley are being awfully odd. I’m fed up of it all, and I thought you might have had your fill too.”

She gave him a long, considering look. “You don’t trust Wynn’s intentions.”

“No. Not at all. I think, for whatever reason, he’s tried to stir up trouble between us all.”

“That’s not hard,” she pointed out.

“No, true, but why invite us in the first place? If he wants to leave Jessamine the house, why not just do that? He could ask her future husband to change his name to Wyckham, if that matters to him.”

Elise gave a little tinkling semi-laugh. It was the sort of noise elegant women made rather than snorting. “You believe in Jessamine?”

“Sorry?” Zeb said. “Of course I do, I’ve seen her—what do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “If that girl is seventeen, so am I. She’s unquestionably over twenty-one, and you may detect a resemblance to the Wyckhams in her face, but I don’t.”

Zeb’s jaw dropped. “You don’t think she’s really Jessamine Wyckham?”

“Is there a Jessamine Wyckham?” Elise asked. “Bram attended the funeral of precious Laura’s bastard to ingratiate himself with Wynn—”

“Her name was Georgina.”

“He saw no baby at the graveside and heard nothing of Wynn raising a child from that day until this visit. Are we really to accept Wynn never divulged the existence of his own granddaughter from birth to now? I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Jessamine’s not his granddaughter,” Zeb pointed out. “She’s, uh—well, she’s Laura’s granddaughter, and Laura was Wynn’s aunt—”

“And Laura’s child was Wynn’s,” Elise said. “Do pay attention.”

Zeb blinked at her. “You think Wynn and Laura—But she was his aunt. She was brought up as his sister.”

“And she got in the family way at sixteen, while living here with sixteen-year-old Wynn, and Wynn still seethes with hatred of the father who sent her away, and as soon as the old man was dead, Wynn brought her back and filled the house with very expensive portraits of her.”

“Well, if you put it like that,” Zeb said. “Right. Gosh. That’s sordid.”

Elise slanted a brow. “So why would Wynn not bring up his granddaughter, the last remnant of beloved Laura, here? Adopt her, even, and make her his heir?”

“He would, wouldn’t he? Oh God, you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. The little witch is a patent fraud.”

“So who is she if she’s not Jessamine? And why is Wynn pretending she is?”

Elise shrugged. “I expect she’s an actress or some such. Probably sleeping with Wynn by now; she’s clearly enterprising. As to why, are you aware Wynn’s dying?”

“He says he is.”

She paused for a second. “Have you reason to doubt it?”

“He’s lied about everything else. And it’s been a very useful way for him to get everyone worked up to fever pitch about the imminent inheritance.”

An expression of slight annoyance crossed her lovely face. “Well. In any case, my view is that Wynn doesn’t want to give his money away.”

“If he’s not dying, he doesn’t have to.”

“Even when he’s dead,” Elise said. “I think he’s worked himself into a frenzy about any of you getting your hands on it, because I think he is exactly like Bram, and like his own father come to that, and the very idea of being obliged to part with his fortune puts him through the agonies of the damned. ”

“A bit harsh?” Zeb suggested. “I know Bram doesn’t like to share—”

“Wynn’s father falsely imprisoned a woman rather than give her her lawful inheritance.”

Zeb stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Laura’s mother. Walter’s last wife. Did you not know?”

“I thought she was unwell.”

Elise gave a mirthless smile. “Walter left her a very generous legacy, which Wynn’s father was disinclined to hand over.

He didn’t want her spending his money, you see, any more than Bram wanted you spending his.

So he kept her confined to the house after the child was born, and brought in a series of complaisant doctors to agree she was ill, then unfit, then mad.

I believe she lived some seven years in those conditions before she put an end to herself. ”

Zeb’s stomach lurched. “But—how do you know? I didn’t know anything about this!”

“Bram had it from your father. Oh yes, your father knew all about it, but he greatly disliked the idea of a housemaid running around calling herself Wyckham. It would have been so embarrassing, and your father did loathe embarrassment, didn’t he?”

“That’s not a reason to lock someone away!”

Elise didn’t answer. In particular, she didn’t say, Wouldn’t he have locked you away if he could? Maybe she didn’t even think it, but Zeb felt the words anyway, felt them heating his face, squirming in his stomach.

“If Wynn’s father did that to save money, he was a monster,” he said. “And if my father knew and could have stopped it and didn’t, then I am ashamed to be his son. But you said Wynn’s doing the same thing, and we’re talking about the disposition of money after his death.”

“Maybe he wants to take it with him,” Elise said. “There is an Egyptian pyramid in the grounds, after all. Or perhaps he has something else in mind. I am merely speculating, and it scarcely matters anyway.”

“It doesn’t?”

“You came here to tell me Wynn isn’t to be trusted, and I quite agree. I resent being made a part of this as much as you do. And? What’s your conclusion?”

Zeb opened his mouth and found he wasn’t sure what to say. “Um—well, it’s all awful?” he tried. “I want to go home, only Wynn’s refusing to let me have the motor or any sort of ride to town and one can’t leave terribly easily without that. And I’m afraid Bram is determined to stay—”

“He won’t leave while he thinks there’s money on the table.”

“No. But if you and I both insisted on going, we might force Wynn’s hand, and I could escort you back to London.”

Elise considered that. “You are offering to travel across the country with me, and without my husband?”

“I’m your brother-in-law. Nobody could think that inappropriate.”

“I feel quite sure a number of people would consider it highly inappropriate. In fact, if there is anything that would help your brother get his precious divorce—”

“That is absolutely not my intention.”

She folded her arms. “I dare say not. Whose intention was it?”

“Nobody’s!”

Elise looked him up and down. “Do you know, I almost believe you? Hawley did say that your naivety was astonishing.”

“I’m not naive,” Zeb said. “I simply don’t choose to think the worst of people all the time.”

“In this house?” Elise said with light astonishment.

“Good heavens. But notwithstanding your optimism, I can see the likely outcomes very well. So I will decline your kind offer to run away with you and thereby free Bram and remove an obstacle from Hawley’s path.

I don’t see any advantage for myself in that. ”

“You could stop caring what either of them think.”

That startled her, Zeb could see. He pressed on. “Hawley isn’t worth a snap of your fingers. Bram is clearly not much of a husband. They are greedy, tawdry men and you could stop having them in your life. You could be happy.”

“I don’t think Wyckhams are terribly good at happiness,” she said with a twist to her mouth. “That has certainly not been my experience.”

“Well, I am,” Zeb said. “Or, I have been, and I’m going to be again. And the reason is, I walked away from all this rather than sitting around thinking about how much people wronged me and trying to hurt them back.”

Her lips parted, then snapped tight. “Perhaps you are more forgiving than me. And rather more easily walked over.”

“Maybe. But I’m happier.”

They looked at one another. This was by far the longest conversation he’d ever had with Elise; in fact, it was probably their only exchange that could really be called a conversation. She must be desperately lonely to have talked to him.

“Please,” he said impulsively. “I don’t like this house, I don’t like Wynn, I don’t like any of it. Come away from it with me. Leave all this behind. I promise I’m not trying to seduce you.”

She gave him the look of a woman who didn’t need to be told that, and then she smiled.

It was a real smile, one that looked almost rueful, almost affectionate, and it took his breath away.

Zeb had always found her glacial beauty mildly intimidating, but he could imagine falling hopelessly in love with that smile.

Bram had probably fallen in love with it too, before he wiped it off her face.

“Well,” Elise said as he gazed speechlessly. “I will think about it. Thank you, Zeb. You intend to leave tomorrow?”

“I want to.”

She gave a decisive nod. “Talk to me in the morning.”

She shut the door. Zeb stood in the corridor, lost for words.