Digging Up The Dirt

“I’ll admit that I did develop tastes for a wide range of different cuisines,” Hadley said after a sip of tea. He set down the glass and smiled at his hostess. “The South is in my blood, in my DNA, as it is in yours and Dickce’s. No matter how far I strayed or how long I was gone, I never forgot my roots.” He paused, and his expression turned serious. “I never lost the desire to return home. It simply wasn’t possible as long as Hamish was alive.”

“Why ever not?” Dickce asked.

“He swore he’d kill me if I ever came home,” Hadley said.

CHAPTER 12

An’gel nearly choked on her tea. She set the glass down on the table. “He left you Ashton Hall. Surely that meant he was no longer angry with you.”

Hadley shrugged. “I’m the last male in the direct line. Hamish probably hated the thought of anyone other than a Partridge laying claim to Ashton Hall more than he hated me. The irony is that I have no son to inherit it after me. Hamish had no idea, of course, but the end result is that the direct line will go kaput after all when I’m gone.”

“What will you do about the property?” Dickce asked, then blushed when she caught the irritated glance An’gel shot her. “Sorry, that isn’t any of our business.”

“I don’t mind,” Hadley said. “It’s a good question, and although I’ve thought about it, I haven’t come to any decision yet. I’m open to suggestions.”

An’gel didn’t want to discuss this particular subject at the moment, interesting as it was. She and Dickce faced a similar situation, but with Benjy now in their lives, they did have more options. Right now she wanted to steer the conversation back to Hadley’s long absence and the reason for it.

“I’m going to be blunt, Hadley.” An’gel regarded him with a determined expression. “You can refuse to answer, but frankly, I think you owe us all an explanation for why you disappeared from Athena. We were all your friends—good friends, we thought—and you walked away from all of us. That was painful. We are glad you’re back, but we can’t help but wonder why you left.”

“Ah, yes.” Hadley picked up his tea glass and stared into it. He drained the contents and set the glass down again. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Well, aren’t you going to tell us?” Dickce said, her tone sharp, after Hadley failed to continue right away.

Hadley took a deep breath and looked at each of them in turn. “I loved Callie. She was my very dear friend, and I loved her. I wasn’t in love with her, however. She was more like a sister to me. She was in an unhappy marriage. Hamish became more and more jealous of any attention she paid me, and he took it out on her. He threatened me, as I’ve already said, and I was afraid that if I didn’t go, he would kill me, and possibly Callie, too. I tried arguing with him, but he had lost his reasonableness, if you understand what I mean. So I left.” He shrugged. “I thought that if I were out of the picture, Hamish would no longer have a reason to be jealous. That he might treat Callie better, and she could find some kind of happiness with him.”

An’gel felt a sudden rage toward Hamish Partridge. She had little doubt now that he had killed his wife, even though Hadley left in order to protect her.

“That’s horrible.” Dickce pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

“And you had no contact with Callie after you left?” Benjy asked. He also, An’gel noticed, appeared moved by Hadley’s story.

“I never saw her again,” Hadley said.

That struck An’gel as an evasion after she thought about it a moment. She challenged him. “You never saw her again, but did you speak to her after you left? Or perhaps exchange letters?”

“You should have been a lawyer, An’gel,” Hadley said with a wry smile. “Yes, I did talk to her. When I left I went to Memphis. I had a good friend there, and I knew he’d put me up for a few nights. Callie knew him, too, and she figured that’s where I’d go. So she called me there. She had to go into town to do it.”

“How long had you been gone when she called you?” An’gel asked.

“Let me think.” Hadley got up from the table and went to the sideboard to refill his tea. That accomplished, he returned to his seat. “I left the first Saturday in June, three days before my birthday. Callie called me on Monday, sometime around noon, I think it was.”

“How was she?” Dickce asked.

“Upset that I had left, although she understood why, naturally.” Hadley sipped from his glass. “She said Hamish was calm, almost pleasant, once he knew I was gone. She told me he had invited guests to dinner that evening, something he hadn’t done in months. I remember thinking, ‘Well, she’ll be okay now.’ But evidently she wasn’t. She disappeared, too, and I had no idea until I came back here.”

“Weren’t you surprised when you never heard from her again?” An’gel asked.