by Jill Gregory
“L-look.” Miss Denby drew her to the piano and pointed up at the painting.
It showed a man and woman, the same woman Josie had seen wearing the brooch in the portrait at Lady Cartwright’s home. Beside her this time stood a lean, handsome man with a distinguished air and gleaming chestnut curls and a wide, strong-boned face. He was grinning at the artist with a devilish smile playing about his lips.
“You have our mama’s eyes and our papa’s hair,” Miss Denby whispered, her voice thick with emotion as she gazed first at the painting and then at the beautiful young woman standing thunderstruck beside her.
“I’ve studied pictures of them all my life, I know exactly how they looked. And you are a stunning m-mixture of them both. I can see it now that I know. Josephine, it’s t-true. We lived in Georgia on a plantation. Our family lost everything during the war... Papa was killed at the battle of Chickamauga, and Mama died before she could get you to safety... her efforts went amiss. You were lost to us for all these years. Josephine, Grandpapa and I—we despaired of ever finding you.”
“But I found you.” Josie clung to Miss Denby’s hands, squeezing tightly, still feeling off balance, fearful of accepting that the search that had been fruitless for so many years had come to an end. “If it hadn’t been for the holdup, and your letter—”
“Alicia, my dear? Forgive me for disturbing you.”
Both of them turned to stare at the elderly man in the doorway. With the use of a cane, he came into the room, his gait slow and measured, but his shoulders very straight.
Josie’s heart surged into her throat as she looked at him. Could this thin-faced, snow-haired gentleman with his erect carriage, sharp nose, faded, almost silver-blue eyes, and slow, beautiful diction be her grandfather?
“Grandpapa! C-come in! The most wonderful thing has happened....”
The old gentleman moved forward with surprising grace, despite the fact that the blue-veined hand gripping his cane trembled. “Something has made you very happy, my dear,” he said with a smile, and then, as his gaze shifted to Josie with polite interest, the blue eyes suddenly sharpened.
Josie felt herself examined swiftly, piercingly, saw something of hope and then doubt flicker in his dignified face.
“I want to hear, by all means. But first, won’t you introduce me to this lady.”
“Y-yes! That is what is so wonderful. She’s Josephine, Grandpapa! Our Josephine! After all these years, she has found us!”
The old man’s gaze swung back to Josie, locking on her. He stared at her as if he would dissect her with his eyes.
In the background, Miss Denby was saying something about the brooch, about an orphanage in the South, about years of fruitless inquiry. But Josie couldn’t focus on anything but the awakening wonder in the old man’s eyes.
“You look... like Winston, and like my... daughter. I thought I saw... something about you—can this be true? Alicia...”
He tore his gaze from Josie’s at last to glance at the blond girl as she rushed to him and took his free arm.
“It’s true. Your eyes tell you, and so does your h-heart, Grandpapa. Our Josephine has come home.”
And as Josie watched, the elegant old man with his beautiful carriage and immaculate suit and ivory-handled cane, held open his arms and began to cry.
* * *
She spent three hours in the house in Belgravia discovering who she was and what had happened to her so many years ago. At some point, a footman sent Rupert and the carriage home, as Josie’s grandfather insisted his own carriage would bring her home when she was ready. But, the old gentleman insisted, his eyes and voice strong again after the initial bout of emotion, she must stay as long as she wished.
This home was her home, he told her. And a shining-eyed Alicia ran to find photographs and letters of the parents Josie had never known.
Her grandfather was Hugh Althorpe, Duke of Bennington. Her mother, Charlotte, had been a great beauty, gently raised in London and at Bennington Hall in Kent. She’d fallen in love with an American plantation owner from Georgia, Winston Denby, and married him only a few years before the start of the War Between the States.
Alicia had been born first, lovingly ensconced in the white, pillared plantation house of Twelve Trees, where Winston’s elderly father also lived. When the Confederates began drafting soldiers in 1862, Winston Denby had had to leave his wife and father and infant daughter. He’d joined the ranks of Confederate officers, had proved himself brave and cool in battle, and had received promotions.
“Winston went home to Twelve Trees on furlough. It was late summer of 1863,” the Duke told Josie as he stared into his empty teacup. “He feared for Charlotte and for Alicia. Conditions were dreadful in the South and growing worse. He wanted Charlotte to go home to England. If only she had,” he murmured sadly, “if only she had.”
Before either Alicia or Josie could fill the silence that followed, the Duke began to speak again, his tone heavy. “But my daughter wouldn’t leave her father-in-law, a stubborn, proud old man who vowed to die on Twelve Trees before he let the Yankees drive him away.” He cleared his throat. “My daughter was stubborn too—or perhaps one might even call it courageous. She felt it her duty to remain on the land, to keep the family’s plantation going as long as she could, to look after all their people there, and the livestock and crops.”
“She had courage and loyalty,” Josie whispered. She’d heard enough stories of the privations in the South during the war to know how difficult it must have been. Clothing, supplies, food, medicines, all had been in disastrously short supply. The women and children remaining behind had sacrificed their comfort and much more besides—giving all that they could.
The Duke shook his head. “At least Charlotte and Winston had the good sense not to want their little daughter to live in the midst of a war-torn land.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “They didn’t want young Alicia to suffer the hunger, deprivation, and fear afflicting everyone around them. And above all, they wanted her to be safe in the event the Yankees did get through.”
The Duke steepled his fingers and glanced at Alicia, perched solemnly on the sofa beside Josie. “During his furlough Winston arranged for her to be taken north, to safety, and from there she sailed to us in England—accompanied by a slave couple devoted to her and to the Denby family. We were so relieved and overjoyed to have her with us. We thought it would be a temporary situation, an extended visit. Ah, but we were wrong.” His eldest granddaughter had tears in her eyes as she watched him turn his head away, to stare out the window at the garden, where the bird now was silent. She turned to Josie and continued the tale.
“During his furlough, when P-Papa visited Mama...”
She took a breath and started again. “You were born some nine months after that.”
Josie met her eyes and nodded.
“But Mama became ill only a few months after—she and our Papa’s father took ill with smallpox—and General Sherman’s troops were on the m-march....”
Josie listened as the painful scraps of information the Duke had acquired over time emerged. News of baby Josephine’s birth had reached them, and also news that Charlotte was ill and couldn’t be moved—that the Yankees were closing in....
Her mother and grandfather had died on the plantation amid the chaos of war, with Sherman’s soldiers marauding and destroying everything in their path. By the time the dust had cleared and the war ended, and news could be sent and received, Charlotte’s baby, Josephine Maud Denby, was missing.
The sun made gilded patterns on the carpet as it slipped westward, and as the brilliant afternoon faded and cooled, the clouds blew in. The words swirled around Josie as she sat with the Duke and with Alicia in the pretty room in Belgravia and heard how the Duke’s hirelings had searched orphanages across Georgia, and in several other states as well, how a detective had made inquiries, how long and hard they’d struggled to find one tiny child in the wrecked and agonized South.
“
We prayed you had been taken in by someone, that you would be found in a good home, or in one of the orphanages, but there were so many children orphaned by the war, it was impossible to find you. We tried, child,” the Duke told her heavily, “for years we tried. And then, last year, Alicia sailed with me to America, determined to search for you herself—my shy, timid granddaughter who will not brave parties or balls, braved an ocean voyage and a strange new land in an effort to find her sister. We checked records, made inquiries in person, but came away empty-handed.”
Josie’s heart swelled with emotion as she met the gaze of the girl beside her. Now she understood the fragment of letter found in Alicia’s stolen handbag, the reason her sister had been on the stagecoach that Snake and his boys had robbed.
Maybe it was all fate, destiny, that had enabled her to find her family at last. What had Ethan said last night? You can’t escape your destiny.
One point struck her most forcibly. It made her grip her hands in her lap and swallow back tears. She had been wanted. Her mother had loved her, her family had wanted her. She had not been abandoned, tossed aside.
But for war, and circumstances, she would not have had to grow up alone and lonely, at the mercy of strangers. But for war, she would have grown up like Alicia—cared for, sheltered, loved.
She knew no resentment, no bitterness, of her fate. Josie was too much a survivor and realist for that. But there was immense relief and joy to know that she had indeed had people and a place, those to whom she belonged, if only she’d known....
“If only we’d known...” Alicia murmured, tears in her eyes when Josie related, at their urging, an overview of her own past, a sketch of her life—sparing them, for now, the harshest details.
“My dear, dear child, this pains me more than I can say. You never should have had to know such hardships.” The Duke spoke hoarsely and passed a shaking hand across his brow. Instantly, Josie was sorry she had told him any of her past at all. But she was so tired of secrets.
“We’ll make up for lost time,” he went on, before she could speak. “There is so much to say, to know. You must return tomorrow, and dine with us. We’re eager to meet Lord Stonecliff, to know both of you better.”
At his mention of Ethan, Josie gave a start. A glance at the darkening sky beyond the window revealed the lateness of the hour. And the gold clock on the mantel read nearly five o’clock!
She jumped up from the sofa. “I must be going. Forgive me for having stayed overlong!”
“Child, you have stayed away overlong. You cannot now stay long enough to suit Alicia and myself.”
Her heart trembled as she saw the film of emotion in the Duke’s eyes. “You will return tomorrow?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
His shoulders relaxed at her reply and he nodded in relief. But Josie suddenly noticed just how weary he looked, how the afternoon’s excitement and revelations had exhausted him and seemed to deepen the lines etched beneath his eyes.
“I’ll send for the carriage and see Josephine on her way,” Alicia said quickly, her anxiety mirroring Josie’s as the two girls exchanged glances. “You must go upstairs and rest now, Grandpapa. I won’t be long.”
When the carriage came, Josie stared wonderingly into her sister’s face. Her sister! She felt like shouting with joy. Instead she reached out impulsively and hugged this gentle girl who had welcomed her so openheartedly into her life. “You’ll come back t-tomorrow?” Alicia asked eagerly. “Perhaps we could walk in the park? I d-don’t go out much in society, as I told you. It’s my stammer. People sometimes stare, or whisper. But we could ride, if you like.”
“I’d like that very much.” Josie glanced down at the opal-and-pearl brooch she now wore proudly upon her gown, and then at the matching ring Alicia had slipped onto her own finger. Jewels that had both belonged to their mother.
“I called your ring ‘my treasure’ all this time I had it. Because it was a clue, you see, it was precious to me. But now—now, Alicia, I truly have something to treasure.”
“And so do I.” Alicia clasped both her hands and smiled through a fresh shimmer of tears. “So do we all.”
Neither of them saw the shadowy figure detach itself from the corner of the building as the Duke’s carriage clattered away, carrying Josie toward Mayfair. And neither of them saw that same obscure figure cross the street and climb into another carriage, which immediately sprang off after the Duke’s in brisk pursuit.
* * *
When Josie sailed into the town house in excited search of Ethan, she was greeted by Edward, a footman, who informed her that his lordship regretted he must be away on business until later that night, but that he had left her a note.
“Will you be dining at home, my lady?”
“What? Oh, yes, Edward, I will.” She struggled through her disappointment to answer distractedly as she tore open the missive he handed her from a silver tray.
Ethan’s business regarding a seat in Parliament would keep him away until sometime this evening—but he wanted her to know that the meeting with Grismore was scheduled for the following day. He loved her, he wrote, in his firm, elegant black scrawl. And he would show her exactly how much when he was finally able to return to her from his damned round of meetings.
Grismore—tomorrow! Josie ignored the nervous flutters in her throat. It was time to get it over with, she told herself. She would pass inspection—for Ethan’s sake, for both of their sakes, she would have to!
She ran lightly up the stairs, wondering how she could possibly wait another few hours to tell Ethan her news—that she had discovered who she was, that she had a grandfather and a sister living right here in England. She glanced down at her brooch once more, elated that now she could show it to him and wear it openly, that she could let the world know it was hers. No more hiding, no more wondering, no more searching...
She gave a little skip as she started down the corridor to her room, her lips curving in a smile of anticipation.
Suddenly a door flew open beside her. She glanced up, expecting it to be a housemaid, finished dusting one of the guest bedrooms, but instead a brawny figure lunged at her. A hand squashed her mouth, iron arms clamped around her in a death vise.
Before Josie could even try to scream, she was plucked from the corridor and dragged into the empty room. The door was kicked shut.
In total darkness she heard a laugh.
“Josie, honey, you didn’t think I’d let you run off and leave me now, did you? Honey, I missed you somethin’ fierce. And I’m going to show you how much. I’m going to show you so you’ll never forget.” Snake Barker chuckled in her ear.
And then something struck her over the head and there was blinding pain and blazing dots of light, and then nothing but cold—blizzard-white icy cold that snapped at her bones and dragged her down, down, down into a chilly river of blackness.
Twenty-four
She swam dizzily up out of pain and cold and darkness. Everything hurt. She couldn’t open her eyes. The sound of rain beat against a window. Such a hard sound. Lightning flashed, hurting her closed eyes.
What’s happened to me? Josie wondered groggily, and then she heard a door open, heard voices and the scrape of booted feet, and memory rushed back—and with it fear.
“Well, lookee here. She’s comin’ to. She’s breathing hard now, not like before. So she’s awake, boys. Snake, bet you twenty dollars she knows we’re here.”
Deck’s voice. Josie tried to hold herself motionless, tried to slow her breathing. But suddenly she felt someone standing over her, and sensed Snake’s presence the way she might sense a wolf baring its fangs in the dark.
“Wake up, Josie girl.” Pain wrenched through her head as he knotted his hands in her hair and pulled.
Her eyes flew open. With a snarl she lunged at his arm and tried to break his hold, but he only laughed. He held her down with his free arm, and pulled harder.
“You been a real bad girl, Josie. I had to come all the way across the wh
ole Atlantic Ocean to git you. And Deck here was sick the whole way. It warn’t too enjoyable, thet trip.”
“I wish your ship had sunk,” she gasped, tears stinging her eyelids even as she fought not to give him the satisfaction of showing how much he was hurting her.
Snake roared with laughter and the others joined in.
But to her relief, he abruptly let go of her hair. “You’ll wish it even more, honey, by the time I’m done with you.”
There was a cruel glint in his eyes. Josie remembered that glint all too well.
“Meantime,” he said curtly, “we’ve got some business to talk over. There’ll be time for fun and games later.”
She struggled up to a sitting position on the bed. Her head ached. What had he hit her with? Gingerly, she touched her fingers to the back of her head and winced at the tender bump.
For a moment Josie just stared blearily at the four of them, crowding around her in that dark, cramped room, rain spattering the window, a jumble of noise coming from somewhere beyond the door.
Where was she? How had she come here? And did anyone at the town house know she was gone?
She was in a small, moldy-smelling room, which seemed even smaller with Snake and the boys in it. An inn, she guessed, and not one that served the aristocracy, but one for the masses, those too poor for clean, well-aired sheets and wholesome food. What furnishings the room contained—the bed, a three-legged stool, a grimy bureau—were cheap and garish. There was an ugly stiff brown quilt on the bed and torn red muslin curtains at the window, a bare floor that looked as if it hadn’t had a good scrubbing in decades, and a paraffin lamp in a tin holder, which sent out a sickly yellowish glow that made Snake’s fair hair look pale and greasy as butter.
“Something tells me this isn’t the Grand Hotel.”
“Not by a long shot, honey. Welcome to the rookery.”