“Yes,” Deborah said. “This is about my sister’s death. Annie knew her well. Perhaps she can tell me something about Edith that I do not know.” And then she was careful to say no more.
* * *
A fine rain was falling and Deborah and her lady’s maid trudged through the village toward the home of Annie’s parents.
“Are you sure about this, Miss?” Sarah asked with concern. “I can tell you’ve been on edge lately. Are you sure you will be able to handle anything Annie might tell you?”
Deborah nodded resolutely. She was nervous about what she might learn, of course. But the discovery of the diary had only made her even more determined to learn every piece of the truth. No matter how brutal it might be.
“Edith would want this,” she said, then hesitated.
Would she? Edith kept everything from me. She did not tell me a thing about her trysts with Lord Averton. Did not tell me a thing about her plans to run away…
Edith had her reasons, Deborah knew. But the fact remained that she had not trusted her sister enough to share. The thought was a bitter one. Deborah pushed it away. She did not want to be angry with her lost sister. She just wanted answers.
“There.” She pointed to a small stone cottage on the corner of the muddy road, opposite a tiny chapel. Both the house and the church looked so old Deborah was sure they would crumble with the next breath of wind.
She led Sarah through the crooked wooden gate and walked up the stone path at the front of the cottage. The skeletal remains of flower bushes lined the path, their brown stems blowing in the wind.
Deborah knocked on the door of the cottage. Footsteps sounded down the passage and the door opened a crack, revealing a hunched and gray woman in a mobcap and apron.
“Good day, ma’am,” Deborah said anxiously. “Is this the home of Annie Barnes?”
The old woman peered at her curiously, her eyes moving over Deborah’s finely embroidered woolen skirts. Deborah tugged her cloak closed self-consciously. She had dressed modestly. Had not wanted to draw attention to her nobility. Had not wanted to draw attention to herself at all. Heaven only knew what her father would do if he caught her strolling about the countryside and paying visits to random households.
“This is Annie’s home,” the woman said, opening the door a little further.
Deborah nodded. “I’m—”
“Miss Wilds.” Annie appeared suddenly behind the woman Deborah assumed was her mother. Edith’s former lady’s maid stood with her lips parted, her eyes wide with shock. Her dark hair hung in a long plait down her back, tufts of unruly curls clouding around her cheeks. She looked just as she had the day she had left the Chilson manor.
Deborah gave a small smile. “You remember me.”
“Of course.” Annie smiled in greeting to Sarah, then pressed a hand to her mother’s shoulder, guiding her away from the door. “Please, Miss Wilds. Do come in.” She gestured for Deborah and her lady’s maid to enter.
Deborah kept her voice low. “Is there somewhere we might speak?”
Annie nodded. “Of course. This way.” She led them down a shadow-filled hallway and into a tiny kitchen. A crooked table was crammed into the middle of the room, three chairs sitting around it. A fire was spitting and crackling in the grate, making the room smell of woodsmoke and salty roasted meet.
Annie pulled the door closed, and it scraped loudly as it slid over the flagstones. “This place isn’t much, I’m afraid. But we can speak in private in here.”
Deborah could hear the nerves in her voice.
Is she nervous at the thought of me seeing her home, or at the questions I might be here to ask?
She couldn’t deny she was nervous, as well.
Annie hovered by the table and Deborah and Sarah sat. “Can I get you something to drink, Miss Wilds? Tea, perhaps?”
Deborah shook her head. “No. Thank you.” Her stomach was beginning to churn so violently the thought of swallowing even a mouthful of tea felt unbearable.
Annie sat opposite her at the table and looked at Deborah with expectant blue eyes.
Deborah clasped her hands together tightly. “I need to ask you about my sister,” she said bluntly. “And her relationship with the Baron of Averton.”
“Ah.” Annie lowered her gaze. She did not sound surprised.
Has she been waiting for this day? Did she know I would one day find out about Edith’s relationship with the Baron?
And then another thought swung at her, making her breath catch.
What if Annie was the one to give me the diary?
Deborah pushed the thought away quickly. There was no way it could have been Annie, of course. How would she ever have made it into the Chilson manor undetected?
She forced herself to focus. “My sister was in love with Lord Averton.”
“Yes,” said Annie. “She was. Very much.” After a moment, she looked up to meet Deborah’s eyes. “She wanted to tell you about him, Miss Wilds. She really did. But she knew it would put you in a very difficult situation. She didn’t want you to have to keep secrets from your parents. She didn’t tell you because she wanted to protect you.”
Deborah gave her a small smile, the last of her earlier anger toward Edith disappearing. “It’s all right. I understand. But I need to know what happened between them.” She drew in her breath. “Did you know they had planned to run away?”
Annie’s eyebrows shot up. “Run away? No. She said nothing of it to me. But I was only her lady’s maid, after all.”
“I found her diary,” Deborah admitted.
Annie breathed out. “Her diary. Yes. I remember her writing in it often. She became obsessed with it. For a time, she never went anywhere without it.” She gave Deborah a small smile. “I think it helped her make sense of things, given that she couldn’t share anything with you. I think she would be glad you have it.”
“In it she speaks of her plans to go to London with Lord Averton so they might be together. They intended to escape the ton and start a new life where nobody knew who they were.”
Annie nodded slowly. “I’m not surprised by it. She was heartbroken when her father betrothed her to the Duke of Tarsington.”
At the mention of the Duke’s name, Deborah felt something twist inside her. She forced herself to keep her voice steady.
This is not about the Duke.
Edith had made that clear. He had just been an innocent player caught up in a terrible mess. A mess Deborah intended to make sense of.
“Edith told you nothing of her plans?” she asked.
Annie shook her head. “Not of her plans to run away. But I knew she was creeping out of the house regularly to see the Baron.” She spoke softly, and Deborah could hear the shame in her voice. Her eyes met Deborah’s apologetically.
“But Edith never left,” Deborah said softly. “And two days later, she was dead.” She heard her voice waver. She looked imploringly at Annie. “Is there nothing you can tell me about those few days before her death? Anything at all? Do you have any thought of what might have stopped her and Lord Averton from running away?”
Annie didn’t speak at once. She breathed out slowly, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears. Deborah could tell Annie found these memories just as painful to dig through as she did.
After a moment, Annie looked up, her eyes meeting Deborah’s. “There is something,” she said. She drew in her breath. “The day before her death, your sister—” Annie stopped abruptly, as though her words had become caught in her throat.
“Please,” Deborah pushed, meeting her eyes imploringly. “If you know something, you must tell me. You must.”
Annie nodded slightly and closed her eyes for a moment before continuing. “The night before she died, your sister came home in a state. She was a mess; her skirts were dirty and her hair all disheveled. Her face was red and swollen like she had been crying harder than she ever had before. I’d never seen her so distressed. I tried to ask her what had happened, but she was in
consolable. Almost incoherent.”
Deborah felt the knot inside her tighten. Where had she been when Edith had come home in this state? Why had she not seen her sister’s distress? Why had she not comforted her?
Nervously, she wound a stray strand of hair around her finger. “Do you think Lord Averton did something to upset her? Do you think they’d made plans to leave together and he changed his mind? Do you think that’s why she…” She stopped speaking, unable to voice the words.
Do you think that’s why she took her own life?
“I assumed at first that Lord Averton had done something to upset her,” said Annie. “But I think there was far more going on. ‘I’ve got to get out’, she kept saying. Over and over, ‘I’ve got to get out’.” She looked down. “I’d helped your sister escape the manor on many occasions to see Lord Averton. But we had always been so careful. I would watch the rest of the household for her, and when it was safe, she would creep out the side gate.” She glanced up at Deborah and gave her apologetic eyes.
Deborah nodded at her to continue.
“But that evening, she did not seem to care who caught her. She told me there was no time, that she had to get out of the house immediately. She refused to tell me why, or where she was going. She climbed out the window of her bedchamber to escape. Heaven knows how she survived.”
“When she came back, it was very late. Close to dawn. Your sister had stopped crying. Instead, she had become completely silent. The look on her face, it was as though she had seen something too dreadful to put into words.”
Deborah’s stomach lurched.
“She went straight to her room and locked herself inside,” Annie continued. “She refused to speak to me. I could see lamplight beneath the door. I assumed she was writing everything in her diary.”
Deborah nodded.
Writing on those missing pages…
“I never knew where she went,” said Annie. “And the next day I found her in the orchard...” Her voice faded to nothing.
Deborah exhaled sharply. She had not known Annie had been the one to find Edith’s body. How dreadful such a thing must have been for her. Impulsively, she reached out and pressed a hand to Annie’s wrist.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Sorry for what? She wasn’t sure. Sorry any of it had ever happened, perhaps. The more she had read of Edith’s journal, the more Deborah had asked herself whether there was something she might have done to stop her death. Annie had clearly been asking herself these same questions for the past three years.
Annie wiped away the tears that had finally spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Miss Wilds. I know I ought to have said something about that night earlier. I just felt so guilty for having let your sister escape. On that night, and all the others. I know it were my duty to chaperone her.” She sniffed. “But she was in love, you see. I thought Lord Averton was making her happy. But if I had refused to help her escape… If I had said something, perhaps…”
Deborah’s grip tightened around Annie’s wrist. “Edith’s death was not your fault,” she said gently. “You mustn’t think that.”
Annie blinked away the last of her tears. “You said you found your sister’s diary. Did she not write about these things in there?”
Deborah sighed. “I’m sure she did. But there were missing pages in the diary. Pages had been torn out.”
Annie raised her dark eyebrows. “Torn out?”
“Yes. I have no thoughts on who might have done it. But I can only assume there was something in those final pages that someone desperately wants to keep a secret. Something that happened the night Edith came home so distressed. Something that might tell us what she saw to devastate her so.”
Annie let out a long breath, wrapping her arms around herself as though suddenly cold.
“Lord Averton,” said Deborah. “Have you any thought of what happened to him?”
Annie shook her head sadly. “No, I’m sorry, Miss Wilds. I never saw him again after Edith’s death.”
“He did not attend her funeral?”
“No.”
“Do you think he was the one who made Edith so upset that night?” Deborah asked.
Annie sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve spent the past three years wondering that. Wondering what became of him. He seemed such a kindly young gentleman. And he truly seemed to care for your sister. But perhaps it was all just a cover.”
“Yes,” Deborah murmured. “Perhaps.” She stood shakily, her legs feeling strangely unsteady beneath her. “Thank you, Annie. I know telling me all this cannot have been easy for you.”
Annie gave her a pale smile. “I ought to have told you these things a long time ago, Miss Wilds.” She picked at the cold wax on the edge of the candlestick in the center of the table. “I very much hope you find the answers you are seeking. Edith deserves to have the truth about her death known. And Heaven knows we could all use answers.”
Deborah nodded silently. She needed answers more than Annie could know. Her happiness with the Duke depended on it.
Annie walked Deborah and Sarah back toward the front door. “Miss Wilds? If you learn something about why your sister did what she did, will you tell me of it?” Her eyes were imploring, and Deborah could tell Edith’s death haunted Annie as much as it haunted her.
She managed a small smile. “Of course.”
Chapter 20
It had been two days since Leonard had seen his betrothed. How he missed her. Not seeing Miss Wilds left an intangible ache somewhere inside him. It was a feeling he had never considered himself capable of.
How is it possible I can miss anyone after only two days?
But miss her he did. He longed to walk through the park with her on his arm or sit beside her in front of a crackling fire. Longed to feel her lips against his again, and the accompanying rush of energy that had coursed through his body.
And he also longed to tell her of his mother’s odd behavior when he had asked about the letters between her and the Viscount of Chilson.
Perhaps it was all in his head. Perhaps he was being a fool. But Leonard felt a desperate need to share it with Miss Wilds anyway.
Is this what is means to be in love? To share even the most foolish parts of yourself?
The though made him smile. Yes, he realized, he had fallen in love with Miss Deborah Wilds. And he had fallen hard.
He penned a quick note for his footman to take to the Chilson manor. Two days without his betrothed was long enough. He needed to see her.
The footman returned with the reply while Leonard and his family were at the breakfast table.
“A response from Miss Wilds, Your Grace.”
Leonard’s heart did a tiny flip. He unfolded the note. Miss Wilds’s handwriting was messier than usual, as though she had scrawled the note in a hurry.
I would very much like to see you today, Your Grace. I have so much I need to tell you. There is much I have learned and I so desperately need to share it.
He pressed a hand to his thundering chest.
“Leonard?”
He looked up at the sound of his mother’s voice.
“Is everything all right? Has something happened between you and Miss Wilds?” She sounded anxious.
Leonard tucked the letter into his pocket. His mother relaxed visibly when he said, “Nothing has happened. I plan to call on her later this morning. I’m very much looking forward to seeing her.”
“I’m glad of it,” said the Dowager Duchess. “The two of you will make each other very happy, I’m certain.”
Leonard brought his coffee cup to his mouth, saying nothing. Yes, he and Miss Wilds would make each other very happy, but with each word his mother spoke, he was becoming more and more convinced she had more invested in this marriage than just her son’s happiness.
He sat the coffee cup down heavily, the thud echoing across the room.
Ought I tell her I have my suspicions about her?
He hesitated. He had his suspicions, yes, but they wer
e based on little but his own hazy intuition. Leonard was not sure he could trust them.
He began to slice his ham, feeling his mother’s eyes on him. Was she expecting him to ask questions? Had she sensed his suspicions? A stilted silence hung over the dining room, the clinking of cutlery against plates deafening in the wordlessness.
“I can’t wait for my riding lesson today,” Florentina said suddenly, her bright voice shattering the stillness. “My teacher said I can ride Arrow. He’s the biggest horse, you know.”
Guilty Pleasures 0f A Bluestocking (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 12