PART 2 — THE SECRET BEHIND THE BEAST OF BLACKTHORN VALLEY

The face staring back at me from the hidden compartment belonged to a man I had watched being lowered into the ground.

My father.

Not as he looked today, with his silver hair, expensive waistcoats, and eyes that could turn cold whenever he looked at me.

This was Edward Whitmore twenty years younger, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his mouth twisted into a smile I remembered from childhood.

But it was the woman standing beside him that made my blood run cold.

My mother.

Alive.

Her hand rested on my father’s arm, and she was looking directly at the painter with an expression I had never seen in any portrait of her.

Fear.

“No,” I whispered.

Caleb stood motionless beside the open chest.

I stared at the painting, then at him.

“My mother died eighteen years ago.”

“I know.”

“You said you knew they would send me here carrying wounds nobody could see.” My voice cracked. “What does this mean?”

Caleb lowered his eyes.

“It means your father lied to you.”

The words struck harder than the winter wind rattling the shutters.

I shook my head.

“My father buried her himself. I remember the funeral.”

“You remember a funeral,” Caleb said quietly. “That isn’t necessarily the same thing.”

I wanted to slap him.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I clutched the silk nightgown against my chest and tried to draw a breath that wouldn’t come.

For twenty-four years, I had believed my mother was the one person in my family who had loved me without conditions.

She used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep. She would brush my hair for an hour, telling me stories about brave women who crossed mountains and never apologized for the space they occupied in the world.

When I was twelve, she had kissed my forehead and promised she would never leave me.

Three months later, she was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

And now a stranger with a scarred face was telling me that perhaps she had never died at all.

“Tell me everything,” I demanded.

Caleb pulled a chair closer to the fire.

“Sit down, Clara.”

“I’d rather stand.”

For the first time, something resembling approval crossed his face.

“Then stand.”

He reached into the compartment and withdrew a bundle of letters tied with a faded blue ribbon.

My mother’s favorite color.

I recognized her handwriting immediately.

My hands began to shake.

“Where did you get those?”

“From my father.”

“Your father?”

“Jonah Kane. He worked for your family twenty years ago. He was the foreman on your father’s western property.”

I remembered the name.

Barely.

A tall, quiet man who had visited our Boston house twice, always wearing a weather-beaten hat and carrying the smell of horses and cedarwood.

I remembered my father shouting at him in the library.

I remembered my mother crying afterward.

Caleb placed the first letter on the table.

“My father found your mother hiding in a supply cabin during the winter of 1878. She had been beaten. She was carrying these letters and a small amount of money.”

I stared at him.

“Beaten by whom?”

Caleb’s jaw тιԍнтened.

“Your father.”

The cabin seemed to tilt.

“No.”

“He had been gambling for years. But the debts weren’t the only problem. He’d borrowed money from men who wanted the land beneath your family’s western holdings. Your mother discovered he’d forged her signature on several deeds.”

My gaze dropped to the letters.

“She tried to stop him?”

“She threatened to expose him.”

I swallowed.

“And he tried to kill her?”

Caleb didn’t answer immediately.

That silence frightened me more than any confession could have.

Finally, he said, “My father believed your mother had been left for ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. He helped her escape west under another name.”

“Why didn’t she come back for me?”

The question escaped before I could stop it.

For the first time that night, Caleb looked almost helpless.

“She tried.”

He handed me a letter.

The paper had yellowed at the edges, but the writing was clear.

My dearest Clara,

If these words ever reach you, know that I have not abandoned you. I have tried to return, but Edward watches every road. He says that if I come back, he will destroy the only thing I have left.

You.

My knees weakened.

Caleb stepped forward, but I lifted a hand.

“Don’t.”

He stopped instantly.

I read the letter again.

And again.

Then I reached the final lines.

There is something your father must never discover about you. Something that could cost you your freedom.

The letter ended there.

I looked up.

“What does that mean?”

Caleb’s scar seemed deeper in the flickering light.

“I don’t know everything.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m withholding something.”

“Then tell me.”

He glanced toward the bedroom.

“Not until you’ve heard the rest.”

I laughed bitterly.

“You bought me for thirty silver dollars. How much more of my life have you purchased without my permission?”

His face went utterly still.

“Nothing, Clara.”

“Then why did you marry me?”

He turned toward the fire.

For several seconds, the only sound was the storm.

Then he said, “Because your father wasn’t the only man looking for you.”

A sudden pounding shook the front door.

Three heavy blows.

Both of us froze.

Caleb moved so quickly that I barely saw him cross the room.

He pulled a revolver from the drawer beneath the mantel.

“Go into the bedroom.”

“Who is it?”

“Now.”

The command in his voice sent a chill through me.

But before I could move, a man’s voice rose from outside.

“Caleb Kane! Open up!”

Caleb’s expression changed.

Not fear.

Recognition.

The voice shouted again.

“We know she’s inside!”

My stomach dropped.

She’s.

Not your wife.

Not Mrs. Kane.

Me.

Caleb looked at me.

“Whatever happens, Clara, don’t let anyone take that letter.”

Another crash struck the door.

The latch splintered.

And suddenly I understood why people called my husband the Beast.

It wasn’t because he looked frightening.

It was because when he raised his gun, the expression on his face suggested he had spent his entire life preparing for this moment.

“Caleb,” I whispered.

He didn’t look away from the door.

“Stay behind me.”

The door burst open.

Three men stood in the snow.

The first wore a black overcoat and carried a silver-headed cane. The second had a rifle. The third was young, clean-shaven, and smiling.

The man with the cane removed his gloves.

“Good evening, Mr. Kane.”

Caleb’s revolver remained steady.

“You’ve got ten seconds to explain why you’re standing in my doorway.”

The stranger smiled wider.

“Edward Whitmore sends his regards.”

My heart stopped.

He reached into his coat and produced a folded document.

“Your marriage is a charming arrangement. Unfortunately, it was based on a misunderstanding.”

Caleb said nothing.

The man continued.

“Mr. Whitmore has signed a new agreement. The girl is to be returned to Boston immediately.”

“She’s my wife.”

“Not according to this.”

He unfolded the document.

Even from across the room, I recognized my father’s signature.

Beneath it was another name.

A name that made Caleb lower his revolver by a fraction.

The stranger noticed.

“Oh,” he murmured. “You recognize it.”

I stepped out from behind Caleb.

“What is that?”

The man looked at me as if I were an object displayed in a shop window.

“Your father’s final payment, Mrs. Kane.”

He held up the paper.

“Thirty silver dollars bought your marriage. But tonight, another man has purchased the right to annul it.”

My mouth went dry.

“Who?”

The stranger’s smile vanished.

He turned the document toward me.

At the bottom, written in dark ink, was the name of the man whose face had appeared beside my mother’s in the hidden painting.

Jonah Kane.

Caleb’s father.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for six years.

I turned to my husband.

His face had gone pale beneath the scar.

“Caleb?”

He looked at the document as though it were a death sentence.

Then the stranger leaned closer and spoke words that shattered whatever remained of my trust.

“Your husband has known the truth from the beginning, Mrs. Kane.”

I felt the letter slipping from my fingers.

“What truth?”

The stranger glanced at Caleb.

“Ask him why his father died.”

For the first time since I had entered Blackthorn Valley, my terrifying husband looked afraid.

Not of the armed men.

Not of the storm.

Of me.

“Clara,” he said softly.

But I stepped away from him.

Because the man who had given me a nightgown without a corset, who had promised I could breathe in his home, who had stopped at the bedroom door rather than demand what he believed marriage enтιтled him to…

Might have married me for a reason far more terrible than my father’s debts.

And then the stranger said one final thing.

“Your mother is alive, Mrs. Kane.”

The letter fell from my hand.

Outside, the blizzard howled.

Inside, Caleb closed his eyes.

And I knew, with a certainty that made my blood turn to ice, that my mother wasn’t simply alive.

She was somewhere in Blackthorn Valley.

And someone had just come to make certain I never found her.