“I’ve never lied to you,” he protested.
“There are lies of omission,” she reminded him sternly.
“You are a hard woman,” he said. “I wonder if even a policeman could tame you.”
“All right.” He lifted his white-gloved hand in mock surrender. “I was hoping that… that you could help me understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Hazel. My wife. She… Oh, God.” His voice broke, and Sarah was instantly contrite.
“I’m sorry, Richard! I can be so stupid sometimes. I warned you that I have bad qualities. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to – ”
“No, stop,” he said, clearing the emotion out of his voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Just like it’s my fault that Hazel is dead.”
Sarah wasn’t sure she’d understood him. “Do you feel responsible for your wife’s death?”
“Of course I do.”
Now Sarah understood. “We always feel responsible when a loved one dies,” she assured him. “We blame ourselves for not loving them enough when they were with us, and we feel guilty for being the one still alive and – ”
“But do you feel
“I’ve wished a thousand times I’d stopped him from going out that night,” she admitted.
“But are you
Sarah felt herself grow cold beneath the many layers of her fancy dress clothing. “Did you… Did you cause your wife’s death, Richard?”
“As surely as if I’d plunged a knife into her heart!”
Sarah gasped, instinctively recoiling from him. Over the past few months, she’d heard several confessions of murder, but she’d never expected to hear one riding in a luxurious carriage while returning from the opera.
He muttered something that might have been a curse and slapped his thigh in anger, making her jump. “That’s not how I meant to tell you,” he said. “Why does nothing ever go the way I plan?”
Now Sarah was sliding her gloved hand over the side wall of the carriage, trying to find the door handle. Even if she found it, would she be able to get the door open and escape, hampered as she was by her borrowed finery? Once on the street, where could she go? Would the carriage driver help her or be loyal to his master? And where were they? She might actually be in more danger outside the carriage than inside with a confessed killer, depending on the neighborhood.
“Sarah?”
She started, instantly alert and ready to scream bloody murder, if necessary. She waited, holding her breath beneath her tightly laced corset.
“Oh, God, I’ve frightened you,” he said in despair. “I didn’t mean… Please forgive me. I just… Sometimes I get so angry when I remember…”
He lifted a hand to his forehead, and his whole body seemed to sag in the shadowed darkness of the carriage.
Sarah forced herself to take a fortifying breath. “How did you kill her, Richard?” she asked softly, wary of angering him again.
“What?”
“If it was an accident, no one will blame – ”
He groaned, causing her to recoil again, but this time she had no farther to go because the carriage wall was against her back.
“How did I manage to make such a hash of this?” he asked of no one in particular. “Maybe I should let you think I killed her and turn myself in to your policeman. I’ve often thought I should be punished for what I did to her. Would your Mr. Malloy punish me, Sarah?”
“Richard, I don’t think – ”
“Enough of this,” he said, interrupting her. “I can’t allow you to be frightened anymore. I’m not a killer, Sarah. Not the way you think. But even still, I’m responsible for Hazel’s death.”
Sarah felt the knot in her stomach loosen just enough that she could breathe without conscious thought. “What do you mean?” she asked, glad that her voice sounded perfectly reasonable.
He sighed, and she heard the anguish that came straight from his soul. “I didn’t mean to make you think I’d taken her life,” he explained. “She did die of a fever. The doctors came, but they could do nothing for her. It was a fever she’d caught from those people.”
“What people?”
“The people she went to help. At the mission. You know what they’re like. Filthy and diseased, little more than vermin. All she wanted to do was help them, and they took her life instead.”
Sarah didn’t know how to reply. There was some truth to what he said. “How did she get involved with this place – what was it called?” she asked in hopes of finding a way to help him.
“It’s called the Prodigal Son Mission. A friend of hers had been approached for a donation. She and Hazel went down to see what kind of work they were doing. The next thing I know, she’s going down there every week to help.”
“I take it you didn’t approve.”
She expected an explosion of frustrated anger, caused by his guilt at having allowed his wife to do something of which he didn’t approve, but he made no response at all for a long moment.
“It’s worse than that,” he said at last. “I… I didn’t care.”
Now Sarah was thoroughly confused. “If you didn’t mind that she went, then you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
He sighed in the darkness. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not that I didn’t mind. I didn’t care. I didn’t care what she did or how she spent her time, just so long as she didn’t bother me.”
Sarah recoiled instinctively, this time out of aversion instead of fear.
“You see,” he accused. “You hate me from just hearing about my behavior. I’m despicable.”
“Oh, no!” she tried. “I don’t hate you.”
“Don’t try to spare my feelings. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself. I was a selfish cad. I didn’t know how fortunate I was to have the love of such a wonderful, selfless woman. I would have bought her anything she wanted, but all she wanted was a family – the one thing my money couldn’t buy. When the children she wanted didn’t come, she tried to find other things to fill her life.”
“That’s only natural,” Sarah assured him. “I know many people think women should be content with managing their households and visiting their friends, but that’s not enough for some of us.”
“It wasn’t enough for Hazel. She was too restless, too…”
“Intelligent?” Sarah supplied when he hesitated.
She could feel his sharp glance. Few men acknowledged that females could be intelligent.
“Yes,” he admitted after a moment. “I think that may have been it. She was bored with the things women usually do. After she… was gone, I remembered things she’d said. She’d tried to explain it to me, but I was too busy to listen. Too busy to care. And then it was too late.”
“Are you sure it’s too late?” Sarah asked softly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you admitted that you sought me out because you wanted me to help you understand her. That is what you were saying, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” he said wearily. “I had this insane notion that if I could figure out what drew her to that place, I might be able to understand…”
“Understand why she died?” Sarah guessed.
“I know it sounds foolish.”
“It doesn’t sound foolish at all.” Sarah had experienced the same need after Tom died. If only she’d known what he’d been doing the night he was killed, and who he’d seen, and who had killed him and why… It was foolish. Knowing all that wouldn’t bring Tom back. It might, however, bring her some measure of peace. “How can I help
