Eli looked up from his own private thoughts. “I suppose he could have. We hardly know the young man. He’s a charmer, that’s for sure, and sometimes the charmers are the ones with the most to hide.” She must have looked crestfallen, because his look softened and he reached for her hand. “I know you took a liking to him, but you need to be careful, Tabby cat. Not everyone is deserving of your trust.”
Tabby had never offered Eli the details of her early childhood besides the fact that she was an orphan, and he had never asked. He didn’t know that the guardians to whom her parents had entrusted the care of their children would be cold and manipulative. He didn’t know that Tabby had learned to always be on her guard. He didn’t know the things Tabby had done to survive in those early days. But his reminder was timely; Tabby knew that her greatest fault was that, once won, her trust was too freely given. It was the loneliness in her, the hunger for the warm heartbeat of human connection.
Caleb might have acted the rogue and kissed her, but it seemed a far leap to murder. She just couldn’t see him being capable of that. But if her instincts were wrong about him, what else might she be wrong about?
She stood suddenly, rocking the stool back. “I... I have to go out.”
Eli’s gaze flicked to the darkened windows. “Now?”
“I have to find Mary-Ruth and learn what happened,” she said, gathering up her cloak and bonnet. “What really happened.”
* * *
Tabby hesitantly lifted her hand, and then rapped softly on the back door. She knew that she would find Mary-Ruth wherever the body of Rose Hammond was, and finding Hammond House had not been difficult; she had only to ask the lamplighter as he went about his rounds, and he had pointed her down a broad street lined with brick and marble houses.
The soft pad of footsteps from the other side of the door sounded, and a moment later Mary-Ruth appeared holding a lamp up into the night.
This was not the same carefree young woman that Tabby had run and laughed with in the cemetery the other day; this woman wore her abundant hair tucked up under a white turban like a nurse, and there were heavy smudges under her eyes.
“Tabby? What on earth are you doing here?”
Tabby glanced about the street behind her. Her childhood fear of being followed and discovered had never abated, and she had spent the entire walk darting between buildings, straining her ear for the sound of approaching footsteps. She wouldn’t feel safe until she was inside with the door bolted behind her. “May I come in?”
Mary-Ruth ushered her inside and led her down a steep staircase into the bowels of the large house.
“The family is asleep,” Mary-Ruth said when they reached the kitchen. “I was just about to go home. Now, do you want to tell me what you’re doing here?”
Tabby fumbled for the right words. How could she tell Mary-Ruth that she had kissed the man accused of the murder? How could she explain that she was a burning mess of guilt and fear, curiosity and yearning?
So all she said was: “Rose Hammond... She’s Caleb Bishop’s fiancée.”
Mary-Ruth crossed her arms. “Don’t you think I know that? They’re saying he’s the one who did it!”
“It’s not true,” Tabby hurried to reassure her, the words rushing out despite her own misgivings. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.”
“How do you know?” When Tabby didn’t say anything else, Mary-Ruth groaned. “Oh, Tabby. Don’t tell me you’re sweet on him. You had that look in your eyes the other day, but I thought it was just a passing fancy.” She shook her head. “If it’s true what they’re saying, then you ought to stay far away from him, from this whole mess.”
“I’m not sweet on him.” She bristled. Brushing aside her friend’s concern, she forced herself to ask the terrible question. “How...how did it happen?”
Pressing her lips together, Mary-Ruth looked as if she wasn’t going to answer. After a moment of strained silence, she finally said, “She was strangled and stabbed. Repeatedly.”
Tabby winced at the brutality of the truth, but it did not change the fact that she couldn’t rest until she’d seen Miss Hammond for herself. “I just need to see her.”
“See her! Tabs, why on earth would you want to do that?”
“I just... I need to. Please?”
Mary-Ruth looked uncomfortable, but she also looked tired, and Tabby pushed aside her guilt as she realized her friend hadn’t the heart to argue. “Very well, but she...that is, it was a violent death. I could only do so much.”
Tabby knew what Mary-Ruth was trying to tell her, but the shells that the dead left behind held no dread for Tabby, not after she had seen such horrors in her mind’s eye since she was a small child. “I understand.”
With a reluctant nod, Mary-Ruth led her down the narrow hall.
The room where Rose Hammond’s body lay was cold and still as a mausoleum. A lone table stood in the center, a gauzy shroud draped over the motionless form. With the moonlight spilling in from the small street-level windows, the whole scene looked as if it was carved from marble.
“I’ll dress her tomorrow,” Mary-Ruth said quietly. “The poor thing has had enough for tonight.”
“May I have a moment with her?”
Mary-Ruth’s dark brows drew together in question, but she nodded. “I suppose a cup of hot tea might be nice. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The door clicked shut behind Mary-Ruth, leaving Tabby alone with only the sound of her breathing and the pressing heaviness of the room. The eucalyptus and lavender that Mary-Ruth had placed around the table mingled with the scent of bleach and lime. Taking a deep breath, Tabby closed her mind, and slowly approached the shrouded figure.
Gently, as if it were as fragile as a spider’s web, she took up the corners of the shroud between her fingertips. A horse cart rumbled past on the street outside, the vibrations causing the shroud to quiver slightly. Just as she was about to pull it aside, she stayed her hands. She shouldn’t be here. She had wanted to do penance for kissing the young woman’s fiancée, and had hoped that seeing Miss Hammond would somehow convince her of Mr. Bishop’s innocence. But now that she was here, she felt only guiltier than ever; she was a voyeur, and nothing more.
Her heart beat loud in her ears, and she could hear herself swallowing. The air grew heavier, like the building quiet before a storm. Suddenly Tabby didn’t want to be anywhere near Rose Hammond’s corpse or the too-thin shroud covering it. This had been a mistake.
She was just turning to leave when the smallest of noises stopped her. It was like the soft rustling of a curtain caught in a breeze, the predawn beating of a swallow’s wing. But there was no breeze in the room, no birds, only Tabby and the corpse.