Jo had left the door open, and Wynne ducked his head and entered. She was glad. She needed his strength, his astuteness.
"If I may ask, how was Josephine Sellar related to you?"
"A cousin, twice removed. Not close enough to warrant guardianship when she became an orphan, nor close enough to inherit when she died."
Her mother was an orphan. Of course, Jo thought, understanding the poverty she'd been enduring those last days of her life. She was grateful when Wynne asked about the parents and how they'd died.
"I was a soldier, off fighting in America back then, so I wasn't here to know or help," he said, staring at a streak of light illuminating the stone floor. "What I heard after, though, was that fever ran through the village. It took some lives, including Josephine's parents."
"And what happened to her after the parents died?" Wynne asked.
"She was left no pauper, certainly," Sellar said, his gaze swinging around to them. "She had land and a great house, and once she came of the age, it would have been hers to keep. And it should have been, with Ainsley her guardian."
"Ainsley?" she asked.
"Ainsley Barton. A great, kind-hearted man, bless his soul. He was brother to Josephine's mother. A tragedy, it was, that he died a year later."
Barton. Jo met Wynne's gaze. There was a family connection.
"Do you know a Charles Barton?" Wynne asked.
"Of course, Charles was Ainsley's son. Another good man, cut from the same cloth as the father."
Cousins, Jo thought, emotions welling up in her. They were cousins. Charles's sketches of her mother. They had to know each other for all of their lives.
Her mind returned to Mrs. Barton's denials. And to Graham's response. They said Jo resembled no one they knew. But Ainsley Barton was her mother's guardian and uncle. She must have been well known to them.
"Did Charles become Josephine's guardian when his father died?" Wynne asked.
He shook his head and his expression showed his disappointment. "No, that couldn't have happened. Charles was close in age to Josephine. Maybe two or three years older. No, Graham became her guardian after his brother passed. He's the one who has made all the decisions about Tilmory Castle since. He was the one I bought the Sellar property from when I came back from the war."
Jo tried to speak, but her voice couldn't push past the knot in her throat.
"Why Graham?" Wynne asked. "How could he sell you her property?"
The old gentleman looked at Jo. "We were told . . . I was told . . . Josephine drowned in the big flood. I don't know why or how she came to be in Garloch. But a gravestone is sitting out there in the kirkyard with her name on it. I can show you, if you care to see it."
Chapter 20
They found the gravestone marking the final resting place of Josephine Sellar near the wall along the river path. It was plain and similar to a score of others around it, but Wynne watched as Jo studied the markings. A name. A birth. A death.
He wondered what poor soul had been buried there in the place of her mother, and as they stood there, Jo murmured a quiet prayer. As he listened, the thought crossed his mind that someone else may have gone on living, never knowing what had become of their daughter or sister or wife . . . or mother.
In the curate's cottage, Jo had not mentioned what she suspected to be her connection with the Sellar family. When she said nothing to the old gentleman, Wynne had followed her lead and remained silent. He knew as it stood, she had no proof of anything, only a handful of drawings and a series of possible coincidences. Still, he guessed that Mr. Sellar knew the truth.
Back in the village, she visited with Mrs. Clark while Wynne searched out the curate and compensated him for his time and efforts.
They left Garloch at noon and for a long time Jo sat quietly beside him, her head resting against his shoulder and their fingers entwined. He knew she had a great deal to think about. This journey had been an emotional whirlwind, and they both were feeling its profound effect.
"Did Mrs. Clark tell you more?" he asked. "Anything that you didn't know?"
"She told me she was living in the village at the time of the flood. She was newly married then," Jo told him. "It was an awful time, she said. The town was full of folk passing through, seeking some place after being turned out of their homes by the landlords. There was a large encampment along the river. As Mr. Kealy told us, when the flood came, so many people were caught in it and carried off by the waters. It took weeks to find some of them and many were beyond recognition. Families were forced to guess at the identities of the bodies."
"That doesn't excuse Graham's false identification of your mother."
"No, it doesn't. Nothing does," she said, her words tinged with anger. "My mother was his ward. She was his kin, his own sister's daughter. But he failed her. Perhaps worse than failed her. When she showed up a month later in the Borders, she was frightened. She would not even tell anyone the name of her family in the Highlands. She gave me to a stranger rather than asking her to send me back to her own people."
Pregnant and alone. Even now, debilitated by a head injury, Charles Barton appeared to care deeply for the young woman he'd lost. But from what Wynne knew of the older man's history, during that time he'd had a commission in the navy. Questions rose in his mind as to the nature of Barton's relationship with Josephine Sellar. More to the point, who fathered the woman sitting beside him now? The woman he loved.
"Last week, Graham and Mrs. Barton saw me in that ward, and they both denied any kinship vehemently. Why?" she asked, frustration and ire evident in her voice. "All they needed to say was the same thing I heard from Mrs. Clark and Mr. Seller-that I resemble someone they'd once known. It would have been enough to put me off and bury the truth. So why reject me?"
Because they had something to hide, Wynne thought.
"Men do vile things for money," he replied. "Graham saw to it years ago that Josephine Sellar was declared dead. In doing so, he took possession of her property and sold it. Right now, he controls the estate at Tilmory Castle. With Charles Barton in an asylum-or dead, as he nearly was when they dumped him at the Abbey-Graham continues to reap the benefits. And then you arrive. What if Charles and Josephine were more than cousins? They were both young when she became his father's ward. We have no proof that they were married, but what if they were and Graham knows it? You would be the heir to everything."
"We have no proof of anything," she said, not denying his assertion. "But what man draws the same woman's face, day after day after day?"
A man in love, Wynne thought. "According to Mr. Sellar back in Garloch, the farm was to be inherited by your mother. The estate was provisioned to allow for a female heir. Perhaps the same condition exists for Tilmory Castle. Why would Graham worry unless he thought you would inherit once Charles is gone? He has a great deal to lose unless you go back to your life in the south."
"But I don't care about Tilmory Castle!" Jo burst out. "Or the money, or any of that. I . . . I'm only trying to find out the truth of what happened to my mother."
Wynne drew Jo closer to his chest and pressed a kiss on her brow. "I know that, but Graham doesn't. And I don't think he'd believe you if you told him."
They rode in silence for a few moments until she spoke, calm again. "You believe it's a possibility that Charles Barton and my mother were married."
"We found nothing in Garloch, but if she married in any of these parishes, we might find some record of it in the offices of the bishop in Aberdeen."
"Married or not, my mother suffered," she said fretfully. "What would drive her to leave the Highlands?"
"I think Graham and Mrs. Barton need to answer that. She was in their care. But Charles Barton may know something, as well, if he ever improves enough to share it."
She nestled closer and tucked her head beneath his chin. "Charles Barton. Could he really be my father? And will I ever know for certain?"
Jo's hand wandered innocently down the front of his coat, and his loins tightened.
"Whatever answers present themselves, you will learn them with me at your side. For that is where I vow to remain . . . except at this particular moment."