The Secret Pearl(105)

Fleur laughed shakily and drew a handkerchief from a pocket to blow her nose. “I was frightened and foolish,” she said. “But it feels good to be back.”

She glanced across the room to the silent figure of the Reverend Daniel Booth.

“Why did you not come to me, Isabella?” he asked.

“I was frightened,” she said. “I had killed Hobson.”

“But it was an accident, surely,” he said. “You did not mean to kill him, did you?”

“Of course she did not mean to kill him,” Miriam said, putting a protective arm about her taller friend’s shoulders. “That was always the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. It was an accident. They were trying to stop you from coming to stay with me, weren’t they, Isabella?”

“Yes,” Fleur said. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them to look at the Reverend Booth.

“But by fleeing, you made yourself look guilty of murder,” he said. “I wish you had come to me.”

“You would have helped me?” she asked.

“It is my job to help people in trouble,” he said gravely. “In your case, Isabella, it would have been more than my job.”

“Oh,” she said. “I did not know. I thought you would have called me murderer and turned me over to Matthew.”

“The only sin you are guilty of, I believe, is uncontrolled passion,” the Reverend Booth said. “That is not quite murder.”

“Uncontrolled passion!” Miriam said scornfully. “What was she supposed to do, Daniel? It was most improper of Lord Brocklehurst to expect Isabella to stay in the house alone with him. If he had tried to detain me under such circumstances, I would probably have taken an ax to both him and his valet.”

“Miriam!” her brother said reproachfully.

“I did not steal any jewels,” Fleur said. “I did not even know I was accused of such a thing until Matthew told me so a couple of weeks ago. Do you believe me, Daniel?” She took a few steps toward him.

“Of course I believe you if you say so,” he said gently.

“Well, I believe you even without your saying so,” Miriam said hotly. “The very idea! You have seen Lord Brocklehurst, Isabella? And escaped from him again?”

“It is a long story,” Fleur said. She covered her face loosely with her hands. “Oh, how good it is to be with friends again and not have to hide the truth. I had to come back to see where it all happened again, to try to fill in some gaps of memory, to ask a few questions.”

Miriam patted her reassuringly on the back. “We will help you in any way we can,” she said. “We have been longing to do just that. Haven’t we, Daniel?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Fleur said. She looked up again at the Reverend Booth. “Will you do something for me first?”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I have to go back into the library,” she said. “I have to see where it happened. I am afraid to go in alone.”

Miriam’s arm came about her shoulders again. But the Reverend Booth had moved. He was beside her, his arm extended for hers. She slipped her own gratefully through it and looked up into his unsmiling face.

“You are to be greatly commended for your willingness to face your past,” he said. “Lean on me, Isabella. I will help you.”

The library was, of course, just the library, as it had always been. Nothing was different. There was no blood on the hearth, no signs of a struggle, no ghosts lingering behind the curtains or among the books. Just the library, a room of which she had always been fond.

It was there she had stood, she thought, abandoning the arms of both her friends, forgetting their very presence, a few feet in front of the fire, facing Matthew in anger and accusing him of being a gothic guardian who had done everything but lock her up in order to curtail her freedom.

And Matthew had been telling her that she would not demean herself by living with Miriam Booth and that she would not marry Daniel Booth by special license or elopement or any other means. She would not be leaving the house. She would be staying there, where she belonged.

Through her fury she had gradually seen and understood the look on his face. And she had understood what he meant when he said that no other man would ever want her by the time she next left the house.

Matthew had been troublesome for a few years and she had come thoroughly to dislike him for his unwanted attentions. But she had never been afraid of him. She had never been afraid for her virtue.

But the circumstances, she supposed, had inflamed him. Apart from the servants, he had her alone in the house. She had seen in his face that he had meant to have her—that night and in that very room.