Everything was falling apart. The day had started out with so much promise.
Now Lucien was threatening to marry her, whether she accepted or not.
Brandon was telling her that he would do all he could, but that the duke was well within his rights.
Ellie understood Meg’s desire to bolt and steadfastly vowed to assist her in any possible way—as long as it didn’t involve ladders or standing in precariously high places—but she also advised her to give it time and to consider the proposal with a cooler head and a clearer heart.
Aunt Sylvia reminded her that love was forgiving.
Maeve and Myrtle were upset that no one had bothered to taste the canelés.
Guinevere was crying over her new tooth and wanting Wooshan.
And if that weren’t enough, Meg also had a splitting headache.
The trying events of the day left her enervated and in need of respite and sustenance. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
Sinking down on the settee in the library, she thanked Becca for the overladen tea tray and told her that she would ring when she finished. The maid had brought an ample number of cups and saucers for anyone who might happen by, but—given Meg’s popularity at the moment—she doubted she would require more than one.
“Ah. There you are,” Morgan said from the doorway. “The house is in quite an uproar. I thought, perhaps, you could use a friend.”
Looking over the scalloped back of the settee, Meg watched her saunter into the room, graceful as a cat on the prowl, the hems of her deep burgundy skirts fluid and soundless with each step. “I would appreciate a friend. Though, I should have thought that you would surely be cross with me, too.”
“I have a different perspective on things, you might say.” Morgan perched on the edge of one of the upholstered chairs. “Shall I pour?”
“That would be lovely, thank you. But I need to tell you that I did not take your family’s book. I realize that we aren’t well acquainted and there is no reason for you to trust—”
“I know,” Morgan offered with an unconcerned flit of her fingers as she carefully arranged the cups. “If you had taken it, my investigator would have informed me.”
Meg shook her head in bewilderment. “Both you and your brother employ investigators?”
“The same one, actually. It’s only that I’ve known Mr. Richards much longer, and because of that his allegiance tends to favor me. So he’ll often send my brother’s reports to me first. That’s how I know about the book.”
“Oh.” Meg supposed that cleared up matters. It did seem odd, though—keeping an investigator in the family as if they were always anticipating a deception of some kind.
She remembered that her father had often said, If you expect to see butterflies wherever you turn, that’s what you’ll find. But just remember, the same is true if you expect to see wilted flowers.
In other words, those who look for the worst will always find it.
Hearing the shush of steaming liquid fill the porcelain cup, she realized she was woolgathering, her gaze on the low flickering flames in the hearth.
“Milk and sugar?”
“Yes, please,” Meg said, turning her attention back to Morgan as she stirred the tea with methodical clockwise precision, much like her brother might have done. “I wish Lucien was as convinced of my innocence as you are.”
She hated the way they’d left things. If only he had listened.
“Once my brother settles his mind on something, he doesn’t divert from his chosen path. Well, not until you came along. Before then, he spent his time studying the book, day after day, night after night.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a life,” Meg said, her heart bending a bit. But only by the smallest degree.
Accepting the cup, she sipped gratefully. The brew was strong, however. Bitter, too, but the sweetness from the sugar helped her take another swallow before she rested it on the saucer.
Morgan sat back and drummed her fingers against the arm of the chair. “Lucien is a lot like our father. He was also driven to the point of obsession. Oh, the hours—days, months and years—he spent poring over the pages, searching for a cure for my mother’s illness, a wasting disease that weakened her blood. Father was forever locked away, trying new experiments. I thought his sacrifice was noble, heroic even. We both wanted the same thing, after all: for Mother to be well again. Alas, his efforts came to nothing.”
“I’m so sorry,” Meg said. She knew how devastating it was to lose one’s mother.
Morgan shrugged in an offhand fashion. “After she died, I thought Father would stop. I thought he would sit with me in his study and talk about all sorts of things, the way he used to do . . . before.” She expelled a sigh. “But his obsession never ceased. He stayed in that little cupboard of a room, searching tirelessly while I wept alone, missing my mother. Yet, even then, I saw his pain and thought him stalwart and brave. I looked up to him.”
Meg recalled her own experiences. When her mother was gone, she’d had both her brother and father for a time. And yes, she saw her father’s pain, but she was fortunate that he hadn’t sequestered himself. Instead, he’d treasured his children all the more, spending as much time with them as he could, teaching them and telling them stories about their mother. And that was how they’d healed, through love.
She thought about Lucien and Guinevere. It would be unfair to keep them apart and she couldn’t be that cruel to either of them. But that didn’t mean she would marry him. She still needed to honor her own legacy and her own heart.
These musings were making her head ache again. So she picked up the cup and drank more, hoping it would help to clear her thoughts.
After another sip, Meg said, “It was only natural that you would look up to your father.”
“And I did, for a time. Then, a few months later, he went away to find Tintagel—King Arthur’s castle,” she clarified, and Meg nodded, remembering the legend. “He went to find answers, but he came home with a new bride instead. My brother followed shortly thereafter. And with his birth something changed in my father. He seemed to forget all about the book and all about my mother. Those years he’d spent locked in that room poring over the pages meant nothing any longer. And I hated him for it. Oh, how I hated him and his new wife and Lucien.”
At the noticeable bitterness in Morgan’s voice, Meg frowned. Her first inclination was to defend Lucien. None of it had been his fault. He deserved no hatred. And neither did his father and mother, for that matter. They had found love, and it was the most precious gift that anyone could hold.
However, she tried to think about those events from a child’s perspective. “It’s understandable that you would have felt hurt and even betrayed at that age.”
“You’re quite right,” Morgan agreed. “And it might have faded in time. However, when Father told my little brother about our family legacy and also that protecting the book was up to him—not me—my hatred returned and festered.”
There was something unsettling in her vehemence, in the way her green eyes flashed. Her mouth was drawn tight, white-edged and surrounded by a spray of wrinkles. It was the first time that Morgan actually looked like Lucien’s older sister. Much older, in fact. And yet, as she sat with her hands balled into fists, she seemed almost petulant. Childlike. It was as if she was still trapped in that time of her life, refusing to move beyond it.
But even a child shouldn’t have been filled with hate. Jealousy, perhaps, but not hatred for her own family. It was unthinkable to Meg.
A sudden wave of dizziness assailed her and her head spun.
Realizing she should have eaten something earlier, she closed her eyes briefly and rested against the back of the settee. She knew she would feel more like herself once the milk and tea were settled in her stomach.
“Are you unwell, Meg? You look rather pale.”
“Just a bit tired, I think. It’s been a rather long day. Perhaps I should go to my bedchamber.”
“That isn’t necessary. Just keep your eyes closed and rest for a spell. I don’t mind,” she said soothingly, and Meg felt the cup at her lips. “Here, drink some more.”
How odd. Motherly was not a characteristic she would have attributed to Morgan. But Meg swallowed nonetheless. She noticed that her tongue felt oddly thick.
Another chill stole through her. Even though there was a fire in the grate, she couldn’t feel the warmth from it. She should add another log, but found that she was too fatigued to move. And when she felt her legs being lifted onto the other cushion of the settee, with her body naturally reclining and her head sinking to an embroidered pillow, she didn’t object.
“I’m sure your father loved you. And the love you learned from him, you gave to your brother,” Meg offered groggily, sensing that it needed to be acknowledged. “Lucien told me about that night and how you saved his life.”
When only silence greeted her, Meg wondered if it was a mistake to bring up such a painful memory.
But then Morgan expelled a heavy sigh. “No one else was supposed to be in the vault that night. And I was livid when I saw what those two thieves had done. They were only supposed to take the book.”
Meg felt the flesh of her brow pucker. She’d heard this story before, from Lucien. And yet, something wasn’t right. The version she’d been told didn’t match this one. According to him, they had died protecting the book from men who were obsessed with the old legend. But what if that wasn’t the truth, after all?
“You hired the men who killed your parents?” she asked, her voice sounding far away to her own ears, a sick churning in the pit of her stomach.
“Not to kill them,” Morgan said. “Just to take the book. I knew that if I could make it look as though Lucien was responsible for losing his key so that it found its way into the wrong hands, then Father would rely on me again. It was the perfect plan. But then those louts became greedy. They started rifling through the collection of ancient swords with bejeweled hilts. And it was likely the suit of armor crashing to the floor that had alerted Father.” She clucked her tongue. “I’d heard it, too. By the time I arrived, it was too late. The report of the pistols was still echoing in the antechamber, and the acrid char of gunpowder floated like a haze. And do you want to know something?”
Meg felt a rise of bile, burning the tender lining of her throat, and couldn’t answer.
However, Morgan didn’t need her to. “You can never forget the sharp, coppery scent of blood. Once it’s inside you, it stays there. And it lingers in places, seeping into the stones of the foundation. There are times when I stand in that room outside the vault and I can still smell it.”
Lucien believed their deaths had been his fault. It haunted him to this day. He needed to know the truth.
She had to tell him. But when she tried to sit up, her head was too heavy, her limbs curiously weak. She was starting to wonder about the bitter taste at the back of her mouth. “Did you . . . did you put something in the tea?”
She tsked. “Meg, really. Would I do something like that? When my brother is so determined to have you, no matter the consequence?”
The acrimony dripping from every word did nothing to ease Meg’s swiftly climbing fears. She tried again to get up, to move, to do something to escape the nightmarish images inside her head. But she couldn’t. Morgan had done something to her. She was sure of it.
“Have to . . . tell . . . Lu . . . cien.”
“He’d never believe you. I did save his life, after all. I’m the ideal elder sister.” She snickered. “Those idiots would have likely tried to shoot him, too. But then the little towheaded genius informed them that their flintlock pistols were only equipped to fire one shot without reloading. The men laughed. Then one of them had the audacity to stroll up to me and say, ‘Couldn’t help it, love,’ as if that excused their stupidity. So I stabbed him with one of the swords.
“It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be—killing a man,” she continued with a flippant air. “The second man escaped with one of the bejeweled daggers before the servants rushed in. And that’s when I first hired Mr. Richards. I had to find that thief and teach him a lesson. It took planning, but I had a natural aptitude for it. And I must say, watching Lucien’s lifelong efforts to prove that his parents didn’t die in vain has given me a strange sort of satisfaction.”
In that instant, it all clicked into place at once.
“You stole the book,” Meg slurred. “You are Lady Avalon.”
“She was my invention. Pretty clever, hmm? I’d been planning it for years. Of course, I had to make a name for myself with a handful of affairs and acquisitions. All in good fun. After that, a few discreet rumors to the right people carried the stories onward. You might say I became my own legend.” She laughed. “It worked out better than even I could have imagined. All I needed was a way to make her real enough to convince my ever-logical brother. And then you came along.
“For a time, you were the perfect distraction, and I made you the perfect criminal. Until Italy.” She huffed. “Then you had to ruin everything by giving him the book that Nina had hidden in your trunk, instead of letting him discover it for himself. So I had to resort to other means.”
This all seemed like a dream to Meg. A bizarre and gruesome dream. She kept fighting to stay awake so that she wouldn’t be trapped in it. And she wished her eyes would open, but her lids were weighted down.
“In Italy,” she rasped, her throat dry. “But you were gravely ill.”
Morgan patted her cheek, leaning over her like an auburn-haired wraith. “A carefully administered poison did the trick. My own recipe. I gave you a bit more. Had to be thorough, you know. After all, I can’t have Lucien giving up his pursuit to take a wife, like Father did. Then it would all have been for nothing.”
Meg moaned. This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t dying, surely. “No.”
“Don’t worry. Lucien will find your note of remorse along with the name of the mysterious man you’ve been working for. He’ll be sure to hate you forever.”
“Guinevere . . .”
“Oh, she’ll stay here with your family. I certainly don’t want her. And I doubt my brother would want any reminder of you.”
A tear slipped from the corner of Meg’s eye and drifted down into the whorls of her ear. Vaguely, she felt the weight of the cushion rise and surmised that Morgan had left her alone. And with the settee facing away from the door, no one would find her until it was too late.
If it wasn’t already too late.