Midnight Secrets Read Free

her reputation. She must always keep in mind her deportment and her attention to proper etiquette and dress.”
    “A decorous and practical lady would never, on any occasion, be alone with a gentleman.”
    “In the matter of love at first sight, a decorous and practical lady judiciously bides her time for at least a year before acknowledging her affection. This allows the gentleman in question ample time to prove himself worthy and shows him she has the patience and discretion needed to make a proper wife.”
    “Cassie! Oh, Cassie!” Looking up at my sisters’ horrified cries I saw a telegram in Andromeda’s hands. I was so focused I must have missed the knock at the door. Standing, I clasped the pheasant shell in my pocket tightly, making my palm sting. I knew what had happened. I didn’t know how, or when, but I knew what. Joining my sisters, I read the telegram, my hands shaking.
     
    Dear Ones,
    Mary has supposedly drowned, her body swept out to sea. I am at Seafarer’s Inn, Dartmoor’s End, waiting for the sea to return her to me.
    Sorrowfully,
    Aunt Lavinia
     
    My body went numb and my heart hurt with every beat. I’d known from the moment I’d awakened that Mary was lost and I hated the part of me that dreamed of death always too late for me to change anything. They were the most painful moments of my life.
    “How could she?” I blinked back my tears and startled everyone when I threw the letter down. I paced across the room, anger and doubt staving off my grief. “How could she possibly have drowned? She hasn’t gone into the sea in years.”
    “She knew something bad would happen in the sea and now it has,” Gemini cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
    All I could see in my mind was Mary running into the water to save me. “I’m going. I don’t know what I can do about this, but I’m going to Cornwall. I have to know why she went into the sea.”
      “I’m going with you. Aunt Lavinia needs us.” Andromeda folded her arms and furrowed her brow.
    “Me too,” Gemini added. They both glared at me ready for battle, for it would be no small expense.
    “We will all go.” My agreement shocked them. Usually my sisters and I argued for hours when it came to making practical decisions and carting everyone to the wilds of Cornwall was utterly impractical.
    They didn’t give me a second to change my mind. They immediately packed and we left for the Cornish coast within hours. I sent a note to our parents informing them Mary had drowned and we were going to be with Aunt Lavinia at Dartmoor’s End. Then I spent the entire journey focused on one question. How had Mary drowned?
     
     
    Dartmoor’s End, England
    “Miss Andrews, I don’t mean to be rude, but you have said all of this before.” Constable Poole slashed his dark brows at me from where he sat behind his desk. I didn’t have to see beneath his bushy mustache to know he frowned; indignant irritation had his back ramrod straight. He hadn’t bothered to stand when I entered his office for the third time today, but then, I hadn’t bothered to wait for his assistant to escort me in this time either.
    “You may be hearing me, Constable, but you aren’t understanding me at all.” I paced toward him. “Mary was deathly afraid of the sea. She did not go swimming and drown.”
    He stood, this time trying to quell my persistence with a disdainful stare. “Until I have specific evidence to prove otherwise, my conclusion of this matter remains as cited in my report.”
    “What about her employer, Sean Killdaren? I’ve heard alarming stories about him and his brother, the Viscount of Blackmoor.”
    Sean Killdaren had also snubbed Aunt Lavinia’s every attempt to speak with him, thus raising serious questions in my mind.
    The constable flicked his hand as if I were a fly in his face. “Rumors only.”
    “I’d hardly call one of them being suspect in the death of Lady Helen Kennedy a rumor,” I persisted. “What do you know of the