The Confession by Charles Todd Page A

with Mrs. Russell?”
    â€œShe liked me at first. I was a lost child, in need of mothering, and she treated me like a daughter. I was fond of her, and it was comforting to have a home again. I’d been so frightened when my parents died, and everything changed. They wouldn’t let me stay in the London house where I felt safe and everything was familiar. They told me it was for the best to go to strangers.”
    â€œThey?”
    â€œMy father’s solicitors. Very officious old men—well, I thought them old at the time—who kept telling me it was what my parents would have wished. But I was just as certain they’d have wished nothing of the sort.”
    â€œYou said earlier, ‘for the most part’?”
    â€œAt first the three of us, Wyatt and Justin and I, did everything together. It helped me heal, I think, and I expected it would always be that way. But we grew up, as children tend to do, and Wyatt thought he’d fallen in love with me. Sadly, I wasn’t in love with him. Aunt Elizabeth encouraged him. At least so I thought. I was too young at the time to realize that she might truly have liked to keep me in the family. I believed she was pushing us together for his sake, and I’d have none of it. I wasn’t a very pleasant child, I expect.”
    â€œIt’s logical, isn’t it? She knew you well, you stood to inherit from your parents when you came of age, which meant you were Russell’s equal socially and financially, and you were already friends. I should think she was pleased to see River’s Edge in good hands for another generation. Her son could have made a worse choice.”
    She took a deep breath. “In fact, he did. The woman he married was hardly what any of us would have chosen as the future mistress here. She hated the marshes, for one thing. Justin told me that when Wyatt brought her down to see River’s Edge, she refused to spend the night. Even though her sister was with her. And she felt it was silly to keep a country house, servants and the like, when they could live in London.”
    â€œThen why did Russell marry her?”
    â€œI don’t really know. Unless he didn’t much care anymore. He wanted an heir, I expect. And she was enthralled with the idea of a military wedding, uniforms and raised swords and a husband going off to fight for King and Country. She told me that it was just too exciting for words. I told Wyatt he could have scoured England and not found anyone quite so selfish.”
    â€œThat was rather unkind, don’t you think?”
    She shrugged. “I told him the truth. That his mother would have been appalled. That was the day before he was to be married, and I haven’t seen him since.”
    â€œThen why should you wish to buy River’s Edge?”
    â€œBecause it stands empty. I can’t bear that. I could live here. There are no ghosts here for me.”
    But that wasn’t what she had told the rector.
    â€œWhat do you believe happened to Mrs. Russell?”
    â€œI don’t know. At the time I thought it was my fault, that I’d disappointed her and she wanted to punish me. I was too young to understand that it probably had nothing to do with me, or Wyatt falling in love with me, or Justin being angry with him for spoiling everything for all three of us. I heard him tell Wyatt that he hated him. But of course he didn’t. Not really. I remember telling someone that I’d wished I had been a boy, and then none of this would have ever happened. ”
    â€œSomeone? Who did you confide in?”
    â€œThat’s none of your business,” she snapped, as if already regretting she’d given so much away.
    â€œWas it by any chance someone from Furnham by the name of Ben Willet?” As he spoke, he was watching her eyes, and he thought that once again he’d found his mark.
    But she shook her head. And evaded his question. “I didn’t know