“I love you, Remi,” he professed. If it wasn’t for the soulless look in his eyes, she would have believed him.

The violation she’d felt in finding the letters among her things grew; he’d seen a part of her that no one else had without her permission. She shook at the thought. When she didn’t answer right away, his frustration grew crazed, breaking past the serenity of his false calm.

“I said I love you,” he snarled. “I have confessed!”

“I do not owe you a reply.” Remi summoned all of her strength and willed herself away from the wall, forcing her feet to move as she walked past him. “I suggest you find a place to hide away, Monsieur.”

He followed her, hot against her heels. The force of his strength fastened around her right wrist and stopped her dead in her tracks. Through bared teeth, he growled, “Is that a threat?”

Remi whipped her head around and mirrored his scowl. He was a brute. No wonder Sylvie could not tell him no. He would have done much worse to her if she had not done as he instructed.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Make no mistake that my family will hear about this, and you will lose everything you might have ever had with my cousin. Now, release me, sir.”

He reluctantly released her.

Remi spared him nothing else. She instructed Martin’s son to run straight inside and tell his father what happened, then climbed atop her horse and made haste down the hill to the gaol where Ben waited.

BARRED

BEN

“I spoke with Madame Leone,” Inspector Marceau had announced upon his return to Ben’s cell. “She’ll be here presently.”

It was the first good news he’d received in days.

The days had felt like months, with the silence dragging on. He swore he heard whispers at night, even though he’d only seen rats scurrying from hidden corners in the walls. His conversations with the inspector had been conducted at certain hours of the day, but little strategy had been devised. The person he truly needed was Remi—and more than that, he missed every second he couldn’t see her.

On the first day, he felt desolate.

By the third day, he’d dizzied himself with enraged pacing.

But the news Marceau had delivered some twenty minutes ago had lifted a weight from his chest that had settled there overnight. He paced the cell like a madman, jumping when he heard voices or footsteps. Doubt that she would not show snuffed itself out when her blue-green eyes and wind-blown red cheeks appeared in the hallway. He collapsed against the bars, pressing himself as close to her as he could through the iron barrier.

“You came,” he breathed.

“Elise said…” Remi gasped, curling her fists into his dirtied shirt. “...it doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

Between the bars, Ben kissed every inch of Remi’s face, until he reached her lips. He never thought he would know desperation so intimately as he did when he clung to her warmth through the bars of his cell. The echo of a strangled cry left his chest, and he would have reduced himself to tears if she had not been crying herself. He pulled away and lifted her face up, cradling it in his palms.

“Forgive me,” he pleaded. “Forgive me for what I’ve done to you—to your friend. I made a grievous mistake.”

“Tell me why you did it.”

“To right a wrong, to get answers I couldn’t find in paperwork.” Ben swallowed. “Does it matter? I hurt you.”

“It matters,” she whispered. “It matters...if Leith was well and truly murdere⁠—”

“He was,” Ben said without a hint of doubt. “Trust me, please.”

“And your father?” she asked, fear and realization mingled in her expression.

He gave her a solemn nod. The anguish in her was written across her face, and the grief he imagined she felt at the truth was tangible. Remi sank to her knees, and he went with her, the joy at their reunion replaced by inconsolable sorrow.

Finally, she managed to say, “It’s Hugo.”

“What about Hugo?”

“The letters,” she paused. “He wrote the letters. It’s no wonder Sylvie was so distressed. I can’t imagine what he said or did to her.”

He’d been right to suspect her uncle’s associate then. “How do you know?”

“He tried to stop me from seeing you.” She bit her lip. “And then he admitted to it...just before he confessed his love for me.”

“Did he hurt you?” Ben’s anger slammed into him like a forgotten door in a long passage. “What about Soleil? Did he mention my sister?”

“No,” she said. “He made no mention of Soleil. Do you think perhaps it was him who pushed her?”

“It could very well be,” Ben said, no happier about being proven right than he would have been if his assumptions had been wrong. “He could have wanted her for money—he’s the type to kill for it.”

“Oh, Ben.” Her eyes were wide like saucers as she rubbed absently at her wrist. “If it’s true—if it was him—I’m sorry.”

“He’ll get what’s owed to him. Rest assured,” Ben said as he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips through the bars. He muttered against her knuckles, “I saw him as well. He was there the day they brought me, watching from the crowd.”

She looked incredulous. “But why?”

“Jacques and I…” Ben hesitated, unsure of his suspicions. Both of them had wondered if Hugo was the true culprit, and if the letters were his, then it aligned. If it hadn’t been about money, then it had to be about Remi. “We thought it might be him. He’s been sneaking around and poking his head into everything.”

Quickly, he added, “Of course, the letters he’d been sending to you were a piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit...until now.”

“Then...you think he killed Leith?” Remi asked. Ben remembered her question outside of the study some nights ago. She’d only speculated at Leith’s untimely passing, but it seemed possible now that jealousy had driven Hugo to the brink. Greed had done his sister in, of that he was sure.

“Possibly.”

“And that’s why the bodies were...in the cellar?” She hesitated, afraid to bring it up.

“Yes.”

Remi bit her bottom lip. “Edgar as well?”

“Strangled. He’d been beaten and stabbed,” Ben said, not withholding the gruesome truth. “When we looked, the wounds had been stitched up with a sloppy hand. Someone was trying to cover their tracks.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is.” Ben’s tone dropped to a warning and whispered to Remi softly through the bars. “Now listen—Inspector Marceau believes me to be innocent. He’s heard my side and wants to help, but we need proof. We need to provide him with something solid.”

“The papers from Lamotte’s office?” Remi asked, remembering the stack in the guest room.

Ben shook his head. “Perhaps, but those don’t incriminate him. They paint a colorful picture, but otherwise, they prove nothing.”