Page 36 of The Lover’s Eye

A muscle twitched in Giles’s neck. Was he a supporting juror in an inquest, or was he on trial?

He kept an even expression. “We did have a disagreement. That is not a secret. I do not know what the outcome of our engagement would have been, had things gone differently, but it was broken at the time she left my library.”

The coroner nodded. Giles hated the man’s cumbersome grey mustache; just the sight of it set his own chin to itching.

“Forgive my prying, Lord Trevelyan, but what was the nature of that disagreement?”

Giles’s pulse thudded in his ears, an entity separate from the cool facade he was cultivating. “It concerned the purchases she was making.”

The coroner’s brows rose. He clearly wanted more information. Damn him, thought Giles. How does this change anything?

“Our wedding was a week away,” he continued, staying to the narrow path of truth, “and I had given her a line of credit, with which to make purchases for her trousseau and the redecoration of her chambers, which were sorely out of date.”

“Ah. Very generous of you, Lord Trevelyan. Especially since the marriage-knell had yet to ring.”

Giles did not mirror the men’s amused smiles. “I wanted her to be comfortable, that is all. Her father would have provided the means had he been able.”

“And who, might I ask, put the engagement at an end that night?”

These details had to be unearthed. But it didn’t stop them from making his muscles clamp, his teeth clench. He wanted all the eyes to turn away from him. It didn’t matter that they were sedate and lolling, not accusatory in the least. He felt them with crushing pressure.

“She did.”

“And did this anger you?”

“No, sir, it did not.”

Even worse, it had felt like deliverance. Like being freed from a commitment that he had grown to regret shackling himself to. Though in the months since, the memory of his reaction had turned into more fodder for his guilt.

The coroner, seemingly mollified, began to recount the bodily evidence he had found upon closer examination the night before.

Giles would have accepted one of the copper mugs now, after such close questioning.

He was only relieved the coroner had stopped when he did.

If he had pressed, asked what the larger part of that argument had centered around, and who …

Some of Giles’s answers had sat a little left of the truth, not disclosing all. But he was not prepared to outright lie for anyone.

“The sea is a tricky beast. It makes it nigh impossible to determine how long a body has been submerged,” the coroner said. “But given the accounts from Reverend Gouldsmith and Lord Trevelyan, I think it most likely Miss Gouldsmith drowned the same day she went missing.”

“There was an awful lot of her left, to have been at sea more than eight months, no?” Bellows asked incredulously.

“The sea is cold enough to help preserve the tissues,” the coroner said. “And there was clear evidence of animal activity upon the body. Not much remains, aside from some flesh and scraps of dress.”

“Why’d she just now wash up?” Heppel asked, downing the last of his ale.

The coroner shrugged. “Another thing I cannot account for. She may have been trapped on the seabed, or even caught up against the cliffs, dislodged by the recent winds and currents.”

“So you don’t know anything,” Pemberton said, his voice flat as the horizon. He placed his palms on the table as if preparing to rise. “May we go?”

The coroner’s lips flattened. “I would be obliged if we all remained awhile longer, until the matter is settled. Does anyone object to my findings? Did any of you see something additional?”

All four pairs of jurors’ eyes fixed on the table in thought before they shook their heads.

“Does anyone have reason to believe this was not an accidental death?”

Giles’s heart, which was already racing uncomfortably, accelerated further. He was privy to the whisperings about himself, the unfounded speculation that he might have harmed Aurelia. Having revealed she ended their engagement that night might only bolster the rumors.

There was more shaking of heads.

“That begs the next question, then,” the coroner continued. “Is there a chance Miss Gouldsmith jumped from Ceto’s Hole?”

Mr. Heppel’s eyes grew massive. “Take her own life, you mean?”

The coroner’s face was unyielding. “Her father swears it impossible, but no parent wishes to believe their child capable of such an act. What do each of you think?”

Heppel and Burrows declined to answer, saying they did not know Aurelia well enough but had no reason to believe she wished harm to herself. Eyes travelled, curious and shy, to Giles.

“No,” he said, feeling his foot threaten to shake beneath the table. “I do not believe that possible. Miss Gouldsmith was reckless and spirited, perhaps, but would not have harmed herself with intention.”

“Ceto’s Hole is generally avoided,” Pemberton said, “but not so feared that she could have lain there unnoticed for nine odd months.”

“Now that’s true,” Mr. Heppel nodded vehemently. “Between children going on dares and men going on wagers, someone would’ve found ’er ’fore now. Or the sea would’ve pulled her out.”

The coroner nodded, removing a handkerchief from his pocket and blowing his nose. “Very well. So what of it? She went for a swim and got swept up by a current? I find it difficult to believe a petite young lady took a boat out and capsized it, especially as one hasn’t been reported missing.”

No one had an answer at first. Then Bellows scrunched his nose. “You don’t reckon she tried to walk out to the witch’s island, do ye? She’d sure enough crossed the channel before, with the reverend. Maybe she had want of some cure.”

The air seemed to vibrate around Giles. He knew what conclusion they were all silently reaching, too bent on propriety to voice:

Aureila was rumored to have been expecting his child, a tale everyone found easy to believe given their whirlwind engagement and public show of affection.

If she had ended their engagement, then she would have had need to end the pregnancy, too.

Women made the treacherous journey at low tide all the time for the same purpose.

Men, too, for their own myriad of reasons.

“What fudge!” Pemberton boomed, striking the table with his fist. His tan countenance was flushed dull red. “A young girl would never dare take on that journey by herself, much less a vicar’s girl.”

A series of nods came from the other men, though none of them met each other’s gaze.

With little else to go on, the conclusion was reached that Aurelia Gouldsmith had died an accidental death of unknown cause. Her father was at leave to give her a proper burial, and per the coroner, the incident ‘would not be drudged up again’.

Giles wished that were true. Longed for it with so much fervor, his chest could have caved in, for he knew it to be impossible. Perhaps it was that simple for the coroner, who would ride back to his own village, rest his head on his pillow, and view tomorrow as a new day.

But it could not be so for Giles, who had to live among the people that had known her, and who had a wife at home already fearing she lived in Aurelia’s shadow.

The coroner’s questioning of local people had stirred an already well-stocked pot.

Praise and speculation for Aurelia simmered in the village—and thanks to Giles’s connection, in higher society, too—like perpetual stew.

Morsels of gossip, added one by one in a collective effort, never allowing for conclusion, never running dry. Just cooking, and cooking …