“When Hemi called, Dickey let it slip that I was scheduled to speak at a conference in Boston the next day, and that afterward, we planned to meet for lunch. At least he said it was a slip. At any rate, Hemi wrangled an invitation. Your father agreed, promising to bow out when I arrived. I imagine he thought we’d sip champagne, look into each other’s eyes, and live happily ever after, the silly, romantic fool. But when you’re happy in love, you think everyone else should be too. Thank heavens for technical difficulties, or who knows what kind of scene there might have been.”
“What happened?”
“There was a problem with the hotel’s slide projector and we were late getting started. I called the restaurant to let Dickey know I’d been held up. When I asked the hostess if Richard Hillard had already been seated, she said yes, both gentlemen had already arrived. When I questioned her, she described Dickey’s guest as a tall, good-looking British fellow . . . and I knew.
“I asked her to call your father to the phone. He didn’t even bother to deny it. In fact, he tried to convince me to come anyway. I was livid. I never dreamed he would do something so underhanded when he knew . . .” Marian abruptly fell silent, as if she’d said more than intended.
She toyed with a heavy garnet ring on her right hand, spinning it slowly, mindlessly around her finger. “He knew how it was after Hemi left,” she said finally, her voice low and filled with pain. “He knew . . . everything. Which is why I was astonished that he could betray me in that way. He was always testing me, trying to soften the ground, but I never dreamed he’d go behind my back that way. At least I was spared the business at the restaurant.”
“You didn’t go?” Ashlyn asked.
The question seemed to astonish her. “Why on earth would I go? I told him I hoped they’d both choke on their soup and I hung up. He called me that night and tried to fix things. I probably would have forgiven him if he hadn’t started in again, pushing Hemi at me, insisting I call him. He wouldn’t let it go. We fought again. A week later, he called to tell me Hemi had gone back to England but that he’d left both books with him, asking that they be given to me. I told him he could burn them for all I cared, and I hung up. It was the last time we spoke.”
Ethan looked stunned. “That’s why the two of you stopped talking? Because of the books?”
“It wasn’t about the books, Ethan. It was about loyalty. Your father set me up to be ambushed.”
Ethan folded his napkin carefully and laid it on the table. “It was lunch in a public place, not a dark alley in a shady part of town. I don’t think he saw it as an ambush.”
“You don’t understand.” Marian’s cup had begun to rattle in its saucer. She set it down carefully and dropped her eyes to her lap. “To look him in the eye after so many years. After all the lies, all the deception.” Her voice fell to a near whisper. “It wasn’t possible.”
“You mean the story,” Ashlyn said softly.
Marian blinked at Ashlyn once, twice. “Yes. The story. Of course I mean the story.” She closed her eyes, as if remembering caused her physical pain. “He swore he wouldn’t print it, but there it was. My mother’s picture. My picture. All of us. And that awful headline splashed across the front page. I couldn’t believe he’d done it.”
“He claims he didn’t,” Ashlyn pointed out gently. “In the book.”
Marian’s chin came up a notch. “He claims all sorts of things. But there were things in that article that could only have come from me. Private things that belonged to me.” She paused, briefly squeezing her eyes shut. “He thought he could hide behind an alias, that I wouldn’t know it was him. But I knew. It could only have been him.”
Ashlyn blinked at her. “An alias?”
“Steven Schwab,” Marian said flatly. “Another convenient invention.”
Ashlyn glanced at Ethan, wondering if he was connecting the dots too. Marian believed Schwab was an alias . . . Marian didn’t know Steven Schwab . . . Hemi wasn’t Steven Schwab.
“He wasn’t,” Ashlyn blurted. “An invention, I mean. He worked for Goldie at some point and even appeared with her in several photos. They were apparently living together when she died. Word is she left him a tidy portion of her estate.”
Marian sat a moment with this new information, presumably digesting the possibility that for years she’d been wrongly accusing Hemi. Finally, she met Ashlyn’s gaze. “How is it you happen to know all of this?”
Ashlyn looked down at the teacup balanced on her knee, her cheeks suddenly warm. “I was convinced that Hemi was Steven Schwab. There were so many similarities. They both worked for Spencer Publishing. They were both aspiring novelists. They were both involved with Goldie. It didn’t seem like such a leap.”
“I have no idea who this Schwab fellow was and I don’t care that his name happened to be on that story. Only one person could have written those things because I only shared them with one person, and that person’s name was . . . is . . . Hugh Garret.”
Ashlyn went still as she registered the name, her mind scurrying back over snippets of Regretting Belle. Turns of phrase, literary cadence, word choices. Hugh. Garret. It couldn’t be. And yet, she was absolutely certain it was. Of course it was.
“You’re talking about Hugh Garret . . . the author?”
“The very same.”
Ethan was watching them, clearly at a loss.
“He’s a novelist,” Ashlyn explained. “An incredibly successful novelist with more than twenty books to his name, almost all of them bestsellers.” She turned back to Marian. “You were in love with Hugh Garret?”
“He wasn’t famous then.”
“Well, he’s certainly famous now. He just released a new novel last month. It went straight to number one, like they all do. Have you read any of his books?”
Marian held her gaze a beat longer than was comfortable. “Just . . . the one.”
“Right. Of course. I just wondered . . .”
“I know what you wondered. And the answer is no. I’ve never been curious. I know all I need to. I have no idea who this Schwab fellow was, and I don’t care that his name was on that story. Only one person could have written it.”
Coming from anyone else, the response would have felt implausible. But Marian Manning had made her own nephew promise to never speak Hemi’s name. It wasn’t hard to imagine her walling herself off from anything that might remind her of him.
She was studying Ashlyn now, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I believe it’s my turn to ask a question now. Why do you care? What is my love life to you?”
Ethan leaned forward in his chair, apparently feeling the need to step in. “It was Ashlyn who actually found the books. She was combing through some boxes I brought to a secondhand shop when she came across Regretting Belle. Your book turned up a week later in a different box.”
Marian stared at him. “You . . . gave them away?”
“I didn’t know what they were. I needed to clear some shelf space, so I boxed up everything that looked like fiction. The next thing I know, I get a call about a pair of books with no authors. I had no idea what she was talking about.”