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Seaton’s features immediately hardened. “I was her only suitor, Inspector.”
“Were you courting?” Gideon asked, brow arched.
He was attempting to provoke the young man, and Electra wasn’t entirely sure why. She sensed that Seaton’s feelings, if nothing else, were sincere.
“Iris said she preferred that we remain friends during her mourning period.”
“Only for that period?” Gideon flipped pages in his notebook, but too quickly to truly be reading them. “I have been given to understand that Miss Delacourt viewed you as a friend and you wished for more.”
Seaton clenched his teeth; muscles shifted and tautened at the edge of his jaw.
“Did you press her for more, Mr. Seaton?”
“No.”
“Is that what drove her to tears?” Gideon all but demanded, his voice increasingly stern.
“No.”
“Did you cross boundaries that made her uncomfortable, Mr. Seaton?”
“Never!” Seaton shoved back his chair and stood with tears in his eyes. “I would never do that to her. I told Iris I would wait. Forever, if that’s how long she asked for.”
The young man seemed to collect himself and sat down again. “She asked me to be patient with her, and that is what I was determined to be.”
Electra lifted the teapot and poured more tea into Seaton’s cup, then added sugar and cream, as he’d done initially. He gave her a nod of gratitude before reaching for the teacup’s delicate handle.
“Your ring.” Electra had only just taken note of it. Under a polished oval of glass sat what looked to be hair arranged in a tiny artful knot. Distinctive chestnut-brown hair. “May I see?”
Electra held out her hand.
Seaton swallowed thickly. “I never take it off.”
“Would you permit me to take your hand to see it more closely?”
Seaton looked at her like a man battling with long-learned propriety and then placed his larger hand in hers.
“It is a lock of Iris’s hair,” he explained, his voice low and reverent. “She gave it to me years ago, and I have always treasured it.”
Electra kept her gaze fixed on the ring and willed her abilities to show her anything that might help them find Iris Delacourt. She could not close her eyes without Seaton noting the gesture, but she let her gaze linger on the shiny strand of Iris’s hair.
Flashes came, like the shuffling of photocards. Momentary images. A feminine hand held between Seaton’s. A flash of Iris’s face. She looked much like her sister, and yet there was something distinctive about her too. Softer eyes. A gentle grin on her lips.
“We were never formally courting,” he murmured to Electra. “But she did ask me to give her time and to continue to be her friend, and I never pressed for more than that. Never.”
She noted that Seaton now refused to so much as glance at Gideon, who’d gone still and quiet beside her, no doubt hoping her gift had shown her something.
After she’d held his hand longer than the bounds of any kind of propriety, Seaton gently lifted his hand away from hers.
“Thank you for showing me, Mr. Seaton.”
“Did you see anything?” Gideon asked softly.
“I…” He’d shocked her by asking so bluntly in front of Seaton, who’d have no way of knowing of her abilities.
“Miss Poole is a psychic, Mr. Seaton.”
The young man straightened and looked at Electra, openmouthed, at that declaration.
