Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] by What a Lady Needs Page B

suspect, so they don’t know what Trixie told you that day. I’m a stranger, easier to confide in, aren’t I? How long have you been worrying about this? Ever since your grandmother told you about these people, or did it all only begin to make some macabre sense in these past weeks, when everything changed, when your sainted grandfather and murdered father were exposed as past leaders of the Society?”
    Her eyes went wide. “You’re wrong. I’ve never sus— I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “And if I suggested we share your thoughts with Valentine?”
    “Why? You’re the one saying these horrible things, not me.” Again she tugged at his hands, but Simon held fast. “Let me go.”
    “Horrible, yes, but logical, once we understand the man. They’d have to be punished, wouldn’t they? For nearly losing his wife and son, for robbing him of the chance for more sons. And then there was the happy coincidence of being able to step in and purchase this lovely land we’re standing on.”
    “You’re a hateful person with an evil mind!”
    Was he? Was he seeing conspiracies everywhere now? “I don’t know, Kate. I don’t think so. But I do wonder how long your very young and suddenly barren grandmother would have lived had it not been for your grandfather’s death within a year of Barry’s birth. How did he die, do you know?”
    “Stop it, Simon. Just stop it!”
    “You understand now, don’t you? You’ve walked the long gallery. You’ve begun to see what everyone else has so far missed. Your grandfather was building himself a small kingdom, wasn’t he? And your father, as well. No matter the cost.”
    “I said, let me go. You’re here to help find the journals, even if Gideon doesn’t want you here. You’ve no right to say anything about my family.”
    Simon held tight. “Then why tell me about Alice Gribbon and this land? Why not tell them? I think I know. You’re afraid to ask your brothers, your grandmother, what you now suspect. Was it easier to say it to me, test my reaction?”
    “I love my grandmother,” she said quietly. “I love my brothers. Everything else is yesterday. It has to be.”
    “And we’re all going to try our best to keep it that way, including me. But more and more I’m realizing that to understand today, we have to know about yesterday.”
    She shook her head. “No. Whoever is using the Society now is doing it for his own reasons. None of us is involved. It’s only the journals they want, those and the supposed bible.”
    “In case their names were mentioned, at least those who were members before the new leader arrived to take over and called a halt to the journal keeping. More important, we’re all fairly certain Turner Collier disobeyed the order to cease and desist in his position of the Keeper, and continued to update the bible every year. Perhaps he thought he could hold the information over everyone’s heads, that it would keep him safe, instead of being the same as signing his own warrant of execution. Men have done stupider things. Locate the bible, and we could know all the names.”
    She stopped tugging against his grip. “Do you want to know what I think, Simon? Before they killed him, Adam’s father told the Society that everything is here, at the Manor, but didn’t divulge the correct location. I know if I had no chance of saving my life I certainly wouldn’t tell such monsters the truth with my last breath, but just enough to be sure they believed me.”
    Simon cocked his head to one side, surprised by this statement. “You have put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
    “I do realize how important the journals and bible are. They’re also probably hot to find Barry’s so-called plans, hoping to use them, to use some damning information about the members and their invited guests from his time, or their heirs if the members are dead, to use for leverage now, planning to make them dance to the new leader’s