“I am sorry to hear that, father,” she said, not sure of how yet to broach their next topic. As she sat in front of him and tried to listen of his night-time woes as he recited them to her, she sifted through the different ways she could let him down gently with the news of his wife’s departure. Time was passing, and Mr. Blanton showed no signs of easing his personal complaints. As he spoke, Daphne felt her body turn sicker and sicker with anticipation. Her hands grew clammy in his.
“Father?”
He looked at her, eyes rimmed red for the lack of sunlight, good food and many days spent in his darkened chamber. “Yes, Daffodil?”
“I have some news to share with you.” She tried to still her palpitating heart. “A letter arrived to me this morning.”
“Oh? And what did this word contain?” He seemed uninterested as he wanted to conversation to return to himself, but Daphne knew his opinion was about to change.
“It was a letter from your wife, father.”
“From Roberta? Why is she sending word to you? Is she not in this house as we speak?”
Daphne’s heart was a separate thing living in her body, existing in a panicked flutter. Daphne had to rise from her father’s side to pace about the room – or rather, navigate through the mess – just to expend her body’s influx of nervous energy.
“Roberta has left for the season, father. She intends to spend it in the city.” Daphne tried to continue with the words that were due to fall next – she will not be returning to you – but they made themselves unavailable to her.
Her father was looking at her with such a deep frown she was worried it would split his head then and there. “Why is she going London?”
Daphne fretted about the room, still unable to finish her statement. “I do not know father. I am sure she has a reason.” Of course she did, and Daphne knew it. But the pained look on her father’s gentle face was too much to bear.
Mr. Blanton was quiet for a long moment. In the silence stretched the chirping of birds and hollering of her brothers outside, as well as a bustling from downstairs as Prudence began her daily chores. Life outside of this room was occurring as usual, and yet Mr. Blanton’s chambers existed in some paused state of living. He took so long to find his next words that Daphne was beginning to worry that the poor man had turned mute.
But he finally spoke. “In London for the season – what a wonder.” His voice sounded strange and tight, almost like it did not belong to him.
“I have not heard anything else,” Daphne said.
Mr. Blanton nodded. “Thank you for telling me, Daffodil. Such loyalty and devotion I receive from my lovely daughter. If only my wife were as loving and dedicated as you. And thank you for staying on with your ailing father and taking care of him.”
Daphne wanted to interrupt his flattery, but could not. He paid her thanks and expressed his gratitude, and yet she could not tell him the rest. Her father only thanked her because she was unable to tell him the whole truth. Curse her sorry heart! The guilt her father’s kind words inflicted upon her was enough to cause her physical pain. She must tell him!
But she did not, and so he continued on in his thanks, showering her with compliments. Daphne returned to his side and stroked his hair, trying for the last time to release the final confession to him, but she failed. She simply could not burden him with the knowledge that his wife’s leave is not temporary; she had not left for the season alone, but forever. He was without a wife now – and treacherous as she was, this was to the detriment of all of them.
She needed advice, that much was obvious. Naturally, the first person who sprang to her mind was Benedict. He was the clear choice since he was close with her family. A man’s advice would be what she needed to hear. The thought of travelling to Hedingham again so soon weighed heavy on her soul, for she did not wish to intrude upon the Gildons again so soon, and in much the same manner that she had the first time. Her appearance in Lady Vivian’s eyes may have been excusable as a single occurrence, but to arrive again in the same manner would be an insult her Ladyship. She could not go herself, and writing to Benedict would take too long.
“I am going to fetch you some breakfast,” Daphne told her father. She returned to his bedside to settle him amongst the pillows assist him in sitting up before pressing a kiss to his brow and departing before he could begin to thank her again. Making her way through the hall and back into her chamber, she returned to her desk and placed Roberta’s letter into the drawer, retrieving a piece of parchment and an envelope of her own. She made quick work of penning a letter, deciding to keep it short and blunt. After she signed and sealed it, she made her way down the stairs.
“Good morning, Prudence,” she said.
The girl turned from the stove where she was making tea. “Good morning, Miss Daphne.”
“I need to ask a favour of you this morning.” Daphne could not waste any time; her father could not go on believing that his wife’s stay was temporary. Delaying the news would be lying to him, and Daphne refused to do that.
Before Prudence had a chance to even accept, Daphne handed her the letter and told her to go to Hedingham Estate. “Please give word to Lord Gildon that I wish for him to visit our home. You must express that the matter is of the greatest urgency.”
Prudence look the letter from her hand. “Is everything alright, Miss?”
Daphne looked at the maid, whose expression was caught between confusion and concern. She could only shake her head.
“I fear that things are not quite right at all, Prudence. But it is my hope that Lord Gildon might be able to help us. Please go at once.”
With a curtsey, Prudence followed her instructions, leaving the tea and breakfast in the care of Daphne. She did not know how long it would take for word to reach Benedict. She prayed that he was home, and that he was not so currently caught up in his responsibilities that word would reach him as immediately as possible.
After crafting a makeshift breakfast for her father, she returned to his room. One look into his eyes told her that he was taking the news of his wife’s absence much harder than he initially led her to believe. He was distraught in his loneliness.
Daphne soothed him as best that she could, encouraging him to eat the toast and fruit she had prepared. She managed to coax two cups of tea into him, all the while trying to distract him with conversation of anything other than the one thought that was plaguing them both. Once she had been contented that he has eaten all he could, she allowed him to take his rest.
She returned to the kitchen, gazing out its narrow window and into the garden. She could see her brothers through the pane digging about in the back corner. She was grateful that she, at least for the time being, did not have to entertain them. They would likely come inside enquiring about their own breakfast soon enough, but hopefully Prudence would have returned by then.
The day outside was grey; the sky was as dull as the dust on the window pane. It did not look to threaten rain, but the tone of the world filled Daphne with despair. She was so uncertain as to what was about to happen next. She wished that she did to have to ask Benedict for help as she did not want to burden her friend with something that was not of direct consequence to him.
After all, the only way this incident affected him family was in the Gildon’s connection to the Blantons. Daphne could only hope that her stepmother’s betrayal would not push her best friend away from her.
Then she remembered that Roberta had mentioned her trunks. She supposed then that it was only right to begin clearing the house of the hated woman’s belongings. If the witch was so determined to be gone from their lives, then Daphne would gladly oblige her. She had contributed so little to the family beyond her selfishness and conceit. It had weighed on them too long.
Still, none of her personal gripes with the woman could not do anything to allay the ramifications for what her running off with a Baron Townsend would do to her father.
Daphne found herself feeling at a loss. Now she truly had
no mother, real or otherwise. Neither did her brothers, nor her father a wife. They were altogether a broken family. How Daphne wished that sickness had not taken her mother! For a long moment, standing at the window and watching Jasper and Lionel, the grief overwhelmed her. Her heart was so heavy that she considered that it might just cease to beat.
Her mother’s sickness had been crippling. The only wonder that truly came out of it was that the rest of the family were not afflicted by it. Part of that had so much to do with the fact that their mother was so alienated from them, shut away in her chamber. Much the same as her still-living husband had been doing these past weeks. Were they so destined to follow the same path?
Before she was completely conscious of what she was doing, Daphne found herself mounting the stairs once more. She turned toward the eastern wing, but instead of heading into her stepmother’s room to organise the trunks, she turned to the door opposite it. This door had been long-shut, closed for more than four years.
Always unlocked, but always shut. It was the other reason for Daphne’s consistent avoidance of this part of the house. Her mother’s bed chambers had since become her mother’s tomb, left empty since the room lost its resident. Her father had arranged a purge of the room to ensure that none of the sickness remained after his first wife was buried.
With a heavy heart and a budding suspicion, Daphne opened the old door for the first time in years.
It was mostly as she remembered: spacious, square, each corner occupied by a desk or armoire or chair. This was the only room that had its own fireplace. Its dark mouth was empty, the flames long-since extinguished. The curtains were still drawn back from the window through which spilled in grey light, setting the entire scene in a monochromatic palette. The bed was merely a skeleton four poster, void of pillows or linens of any kind. The entire room had a bare, eerie look to it – a chamber fit for a ghost.
Daphne closed the door behind her, not wanting to be disturbed as she let the emptiness settle around her. She passed the hearth and trailed a hand along the back of the chair. She brushed the dust from her fingers and walked over the wardrobe.
Opening it, she found the only bits of colour in the room: her mother’s old dresses. There were not many inside for Daphne had already taken from it her favourites many years ago at the request of her dying mother. She left those which she knew her mother loved and often wore and did not touch these fabrics – to do so would be to wipe away the traces that her mother left. All of the gowns were accounted for, much to her relief.
Then she reached the vanity beside it instead, taking a seat at the little stool that was its faithful companion since construction. The mirror was dark and the lighting so poor that Daphne’s reflection came back distorted and faded. She looked like a ghost herself, the ghost of her own mother.
Daphne looked away and down at the planes of the vanity. She remembered the day her father had bought this beautiful piece for her mother and the delight that had spread across her beautiful face. So many memories were held within its drawers. Daphne opened the top one and her heart stopped.
Her mother’s jewellery was gone.
She looked through the first drawer, then another, and the last one. Every single piece, every necklace, ring, bracelet and broach, was gone.
Daphne’s heart thundered in chest, tempestuous. Her hands began to tremble. Gone, all of it, every beautiful gem and chain and pin.
Roberta had taken them. She must have – there was no doubt. This room was right beside hers and in fact she had insisted that the room on the east was to be made into her chamber. She knew the door was always unlocked and she knew exactly what this room held within its walls. Daphne remembered her father telling her stepmother not to use the room, as it was kept as a preservation for his first wife’s memory.
Roberta had seemed respectful, but she was always so devilish in her manner that her attitude would have been a ruse. And now she had left the house, betrayed her father and was never to return, and taken all of Daphne’s mother’s jewellery with her. The nerve of her!
Daphne closed the drawers and left, shutting the door behind her and vowing never to enter again. They should have locked the door! They never should have trusted that imposter with any of their secrets, nor such free access to the house. Who knew what else she took that did not belong to her?
“Miss Daphne?” Prudence approached from behind her.
Daphne dabbed at her eyes and cleared her throat. “Yes?”
“Lord Benedict Gildon has arrived. He is waiting downstairs.”
Chapter 5
A Merchant’s House in Essex
Benedict stood with his back to the stairs and looking out the front door from whence he came. The sky was ominous today, a stark change from the lovely weather that had graced them this past week. Foreboding, as if it was trying to warn the world that something sinister was afoot. It had set the horse on edge as Benedict’s driver had navigated the carriage down the road. Benedict’s own nerves were frazzled.
The moment he had entered his home that morning after a casual stroll through the garden, he was set upon by the butler who had told him that word had been sent from Miss Daphne Blanton seeking an audience with him at her house immediately. He had worried that her father had truly fallen ill, or that Daphne herself was in some kind of strife. He had called for a carriage immediately and together he and the Blanton’s maid had returned to the house. She had since prepared tea for him, but it remained untouched in the sitting room to grow as cold as the day outside.
“Benedict!”
Daphne called him from the landing and he turned to face her as she descended the stairs at speed. She was so hasty in her arrival that she slipped on the bottom step and Benedict instinctively stepped forward to help her, catching her at his chest to steady her. She sprang back immediately with apologies, brushing herself down with her hands. It was immediately clear that something had happened to shake her so, for she was flushed in the face with a quivering lip.
“Daphne, what has happened? Is everything alright?”
Glancing over her shoulder, she asked the maid to fetch more tea for them and then brought Benedict into the sitting room. The maid cleared the table to reset it, blushing heavily when Benedict thanked her. Once they were alone, Benedict repeated his question, and Daphne began her recount of this morning’s events.
Her story had taken a turn. Her father’s new wife had not only left him for London but had declared her wish to annul the marriage. She was in the company of Baron Townsend, a man with whom Benedict had experienced few interactions with but whose reputation as a proud, well-spoken and impeccable member of society precedes him. A man of incredible wealth with strong connections within noble society, it is no wonder that Roberta would have pursued him. It is how she managed to make his acquaintance that is the mystery to them.
“She took all of my mother’s jewellery, too. Oh Benedict, those gems were priceless – not of monetary value but sentimentally. They were to be mine, and she has taken them from me. That woman has ruined everything!” She hung her head in her hands and it took all of Benedict’s strength not to go to her and hold her. It would not be proper, and she may not appreciate the gesture.
Benedict reflected on the nature of his friend. She was such a good soul and of kind heart. This kind of cruelty should not belong in her life for she was too gentle to have to deal with a hardship like this. Too young and pure. All of these burdens had come to rest upon her fragile shoulders. He hated to see it.
“Let me help you, Daphne. Together, perhaps we can set this right.”
She raised her face to look at him. “Oh, Benedict. I do not know how. I have not yet told my father the entire truth.”
Impulsively, he reached across the table and took her hands in his. Her eyes widened. “I hate to see you in this way, Daphne. Please know that I would do anything for you.”
Once Upon a Dreamy Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 6