“I am here because I can’t let this incident be overlooked,” Reid said quietly. “She is a lady of quality, a lady of much esteem. And you, Douglass, have ruined her. That is unforgivable. It is unforgivable for any woman to be violated.”
A muscle twitched in Douglass’s jaw, but that was the only indication that he took any of Reid’s accusations seriously. “I’d like to see her try to blacken my name.” He looked around at his family. Glanced at his mother. Stared hard at Reid. “I’m a Sloane. That name carries a significant amount of weight in some circles. In most circles.” He raised a brow and stared meaningfully at Reid. “Or have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Reid retorted. But this time, he didn’t back down. He stared hard at Douglass. “If you are referring to the way you lied for me back in boarding school, I believe I can safely assure you that that debt has been repaid. Tenfold.”
For the first time, Douglass looked a bit nervous. He pulled out an immaculate handkerchief and wiped his brow.
Veronica paled. “This woman, will she be all right? And does anyone else know about what happened to her?”
“I don’t believe anyone else knows. As for her future? I’m afraid I do not know that answer.”
She leaned forward. “Mr. Armstrong, who was it?”
“You know I cannot divulge that information, Veronica,” he said gently. “Once more, I think you know why.”
Veronica’s eyes widened. “Why would you say that?”
Reid looked around the room, feeling as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. As each face stared back at him, in various stages of anger, disbelief, and pain, he knew he had made the right decision.
This was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but it was a choice he would never regret.
“You and I both know that this has happened before to other ladies of quality, and the reputation of any woman he violated would be ruined as well if what happened became known.”
He went on. “But we also both know that this is not as big of a shock to you as you are pretending it to be. Douglass’s behavior has ruined your chances for a successful match as well. No man of good standing wants to be tainted by such an association.”
Mrs. Sloane clenched her hands together. Mr. Sloane looked stunned. Veronica paled further, and his own mother looked shaken. Rosalind looked dazed.
Only Douglass sat complacently.
And that, Reid believed, was the most telling reaction of all.
CHAPTER 33
But Douglass’s apparent complacency was soon replaced by a dark look.
“I had no idea your gifts included such oratories, Armstrong,” Douglass murmured with a tightness in his voice. With wooden movements, he stood up, crossed the room, opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle and snifter, and poured himself a shot. When he sat down again, Reid noticed that the muscles around his lips had loosened, but there was an increased amount of stress looming at the corners of his eyes.
For the first time since they’d arrived, Reid felt a small amount of relief. At last, Douglass was rattled. Maybe far more shaken than any of them realized.
Mr. Sloane coughed. “Forgive me if I am mistaken, Douglass, but you have not once denied either Reid’s or Carlotta’s claims. Why not?”
“I don’t believe this is the time or the place, Father.”
“Forgive me, but I disagree,” Mr. Sloane said. “You are here with your family.”
“And with the Armstrong family. And with a . . . a maid.” Douglass rolled his eyes. “Forgive me if I don’t harbor the same allegiance to them that you feel toward yours.”
His father closed his eyes with a sigh. When he opened them again, anger lit his features. “Douglass, did you violate this lady?” he barked. “Do you know what Reid is alluding to?”
“He knows,” Veronica said, her eyes flashing. “Everything Reid said is true. Douglass is the reason I’ve become the laughingstock of our social circle.” Bitterness poured through her voice. “And because no one in polite company will dare mention what Douglass has done, they only point out that the wealthiest woman in their midst is slowly becoming an old maid.”
After shooting a spiteful glare her way, Douglass shrugged. “I might have been a touch too eager with my attentions. But it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. It’s not like I have really harmed anyone.”
His father slumped. “So the allegations are true.” Turning to Reid, he said softly, “How much does this woman want?”
Reid exhaled. The family’s response wasn’t too much of a surprise, but it was still disappointing. Here Douglass wasn’t even bothering to refute Eloisa’s claims, and yet all his parents were worried about was saving his reputation.
“She is not asking for anything,” he said at last. “I, however, would like Douglass to tell us about the other women he’s ruined.”
“The other women were of no account.”
“I believe one of the others was a maid in your household.”
Douglass lurched to his feet, frustration evident in the lines of his face. “That blasted girl! I gave Nanci more than enough to keep her silence. She took every penny and promised not to tell. So what did she say, Armstrong? Or was it Rosalind who talked?” he sneered. Turning to her, he glared.
“What did you learn? Did she tell you all about Wooded Island? Did she tell you how she went with me easily enough? Did she lie and tell you she was with child?”
Reid stared at Douglass, stunned as his worst fears came to light. “I wasn’t speaking of Nanci.”
“You hurt Nanci too?” Veronica was on her feet now. “She’d been with me for years!”
“She was nothing. Just an uppity lady’s maid.” His voice lowered, took on a far more bitter tone. “And she knew she was in good looks too. Every day, she taunted me. Teased. It wasn’t my fault that I could no longer ignore her.”
Warily, Reid glanced at Rosalind. Her face was ashen but she remained composed. His mother was holding her hand. She looked shocked. Mr. Sloane sat motionless while the lines around his wife’s lips increased.
As Douglass and Veronica continued to argue.
“Douglass, you should have left her alone,” Veronica said with a fierce glare. “After all, she was a servant in our home.”
“But that was all she was. She was only a servant.”
Veronica folded her arms over her chest. “You must have hurt her feelings if she left so abruptly. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I gave her enough money to go anywhere she wanted.” Brushing a piece of lint from the arm of his suit jacket, he eyed the rest of the room. “Wasn’t that enough?”
Reid had thought he was far beyond being shocked. Obviously he was wrong. He stared at Douglass while his insides twisted. How had he ever become this man’s friend?
At last, Mr. Sloane stood up. His face was a mask of disdain, but whether it was for Reid bringing the tragedies out in the open or for his son’s admittance without remorse that he’d violated at least two women, Reid wasn’t sure.
“Mrs. Armstrong, Reid,” he intoned. “Rest assured this, uh, situation will soon be resolved. However, it would be best done in the privacy of our home, at the discretion of this family.”
They’d been dismissed.
Reid wanted to leave. He ached to leave. But he had promised Rosalind that he’d see her quest through. And that meant he could never leave the house without bringing up her sister.
“What about Miranda Perry?” he asked baldly.
“Miranda?” Douglass raised his brows. “What concern is she of yours?”
“Miranda was my sister,” Rosalind blurted. “I mean, she is my sister.”
“Your sister?” Olympia Sloane said. She looked genuinely confused, reminding Reid once again that many of the employees of the great house weren’t really seen as people by the Sloane family. Instead, they were warm bodies assigned to do a job to make the family’s lives easier. “I�
��m sorry, did we know you were related?”
“Not at all. I came to Sloane House to search for her. Secretly.”
“I don’t understand. Are you really stating that you only entered our employ to discover information about your sister?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That was a bit extreme, don’t you agree?” Douglass sat back down, resting one foot atop his knee. “Any number of things could have happened to the girl.” He waved a hand. “Most likely, she fell in love with a peddler or something.”
“No,” Rosalind retorted. “That is not what happened.”
“What do you think did?” Veronica eyed her with a wary expression.
“I’m not sure. I . . . I’m still trying to figure that out.” Unable to merely sit and answer questions, Rosalind stood up. “But . . . I think someone in this house had something to do with her disappearance.”
“Such as?” Veronica asked.
Oh, but this was hard! Facing the whole family together was far more difficult than she ever would have imagined it to be. But she had Reid and his mother there. And she was stronger too. Far stronger than she’d been just a few weeks ago.
She also felt the reassurance of the Lord deep inside her. He had sent her on this mission, and he was pushing her forward. She knew it with every fiber of her being. That gave her all the strength she needed.
“I’ve heard from several people that Douglass paid a lot of attention to her. Some of the staff said Miranda had been warned to keep quiet, but I think Douglass and Veronica were angry with her because she was going to talk. She was going to go to the police or even go to some of the other servants in other homes.”
Looking around the room, she added, “There was talk, you see. I think she was in danger.”
“Are you trying to say I did away with her?” Douglass looked completely incredulous. “I certainly did not do any such thing.”
“What kind of talk?” Mr. Sloane blustered.
Veronica slumped against the cushion of the sofa like a petulant child. “Oh, Father. Have you really been so oblivious to anything but work? Douglass’s reputation for violence and poor treatment of women stopped being whispered speculation over a year ago. Now it is regarded as common knowledge. No one decent calls on either of us anymore.”
Her father shook his head. “What your brother did shouldn’t have mattered. You have the Sloane name.”
“A name means whatever people want it to mean,” Veronica pointed out. “At the moment? It means many bad things.” She glared at Reid. “But you were my hope. I thought you, at least, would see me for who I am. Not that I was tainted by my brother’s reputation.”
“I wasn’t in love with you. I had already given my heart to someone else.”
Rosalind saw the softening in Reid’s gaze. Knowing that he was most likely speaking of Eloisa hurt. She’d seen how concerned he’d been about her, how much he wanted to help her. A combination of jealousy and despair spiraled inside of her as she realized that Reid Armstrong could never be hers.
She pushed aside the pain as Mr. Sloane’s booming voice broke the sudden silence. “Did you violate Miranda, Douglass?”
He squirmed. “I didn’t violate her . . .”
“But you did compromise her,” Reid pointed out.
Douglass raised a brow. “Can a maid be compromised? I’m not sure.” He cleared his throat. “Regardless, she was an uppity thing too. Threatened to tell all sorts of people.” He laughed. “She actually said she had proof that I’d molested other women as well.”
“What kind of proof?”
Douglass’s expression tightened, but it was obvious that he was determined to act blasé. “She said she’d talked to other women . . . and even a lady. That they were willing to damage their reputations to bring out the truth. They were even going to tell the police, if you can believe that.”
Rosalind stepped forward. “What happened next to her?”
“Nothing,” Douglass blurted. “She made all these threats . . . then one day she was gone.”
Looking at Veronica, Rosalind said quietly, “Do you know what happened?”
“I know nothing.”
“But Nanci said her belongings were left here. She wouldn’t have left on her own without her clothes.”
Veronica shrugged. “I truly have no idea what happened to her, Rosalind. I knew Douglass had made her his latest conquest, but that is all.” She looked at her mother after a split second. “Do you know, Mother? I now remember Nanci telling me that you went to their room and boxed up Miranda’s clothes for the workhouse.”
Mrs. Sloane’s expression tightened, but she said nothing.
“I remember you threatening her,” Douglass said to his sister. “I remember you continually asking her to deliver your breakfast tray and that she was often white as a sheet whenever she left your room.”
“If I challenged her, I was justified,” Veronica said. “If I reminded her once or twice about our family’s power? Well, it was nothing more than the truth.”
Reid sighed. “I’ve heard enough. Rosalind, let’s go to the police. If we talk to them, maybe now they will, at the very least, consider investigating Miranda’s disappearance.”
Mrs. Sloane stood up. “Reid, you cannot involve the police.”
“We have no choice,” Mr. Sloane murmured. “As much as it pains me to admit it, there is a good chance that something untoward happened to the girl. It is in everyone’s best interests if we all cooperate.”
Mrs. Sloane looked from her husband to her daughter in obvious panic. “I think not.”
“We have no choice.”
“Of course we do. If we continue on as if nothing happened, no one will ever suspect anything.”
Mr. Sloane paused. “What do you mean, as if nothing happened?”
As Rosalind stared at Mrs. Sloane and saw a flash of guilt cross her features, she realized that she’d underestimated the formidable lady. “You’ve known what happened to Miranda all along, haven’t you?” she whispered.
“I’ve known what I needed to do to protect this family,” she replied.
Reid leaned forward. “What are you saying?”
She sighed. “I’m saying . . . I’m saying that our family’s reputation means more than each of us.” Turning, she glared at her children. “We’ve given you everything, but you didn’t understand the depth of your good fortune. Douglass, you let your spoiled, selfish nature threaten to ruin everything generations of Sloanes accomplished. And you, Veronica? You haven’t even been able to make a match. I had to do something.”
Silence filled the room as each person stared at her in shock.
Finally, Mr. Sloane asked the one question Rosalind assumed they were all thinking. “What did you do?”
“I got rid of her,” Mrs. Sloane bit out. “I took her down to the pier. By the lake. I pretended to fall. And then, when she bent down to assist me? I picked up a rock and hit her on the back of the head.”
Douglass jumped to his feet. “Mother!”
“I had to do something. Miranda was going to ruin you and Veronica. She was going to taint our name. Our reputation! And the fair had just opened. Anyone who is anyone was here in Chicago and would have heard about it. We could have been ruined.”
It took everything Reid had inside him to force out the next words. “What did you do after you hit her?”
“I dumped her into the lake.”
Her husband’s color turned ashen. “What?”
“I had no choice, Clayton. We had to protect our name.”
As the rest of the group stared at Mrs. Sloane in dumbfounded silence, Rosalind felt her heart break. She was almost too proud to show her tears, almost too proud to let them know just how overcome she was. But she couldn’t help but let out a sob. And then Mr. Sloane, of all people, reached over and handed her one of his monogrammed white handkerchiefs.
She knew those small pieces of cloth well. Had ironed dozens of them during her time working
at the home. When she’d first arrived at the mansion, the linen had intimidated her. She’d never imagined something so fine could be used for wiping tears and noses. But as she crushed the fine linen in her palm and brought it up to her eyes, she realized it meant nothing to her anymore.
Now all it did was allow her tears to fall.
At last, she’d gotten an answer. She swiped her eyes again, tried to tell herself that the news was what she had expected. Truly, it had been the only thing that had made sense. She had never really thought headstrong Miranda could have been snatched from the streets of Chicago. It wouldn’t have been like her.
Besides, the secrets of Sloane House had been powerful, calling all the time from beneath a veneer of privilege and wealth.
And then the reality of it all sank in. And it became too much. Her sister had been molested. Murdered. Her body had been dumped. With a lurch of her stomach, she stood up. Tried to run from the room. But all she really was aware of was the floor spinning and her head pounding.
At last, she’d discovered the truth. But instead of giving her freedom, it only served to make things worse.
Her sister was gone, and she was never coming back.
CHAPTER 34
Reid barely had time to reach for Rosalind before she fell to the floor in a faint. With her body limp in his arms, he gently eased her to the carpet, situating himself so that he could cradle her head. Worry for her, mixed in with the blow of what Douglass and his mother had just admitted, made him feel almost as weak as Rosalind. Their admissions rang through his head as he smoothed her hair from her brow.
“Oh, Rosalind,” he murmured. “I am so sorry.”
He was barely aware of someone in the room calling for smelling salts until his mother was kneeling by his side. After sharing a worried glance with him, she opened a vial and waved it underneath Rosalind’s nose. “Don’t worry, Reid,” she murmured. “It’s just a faint. She’ll come around in a moment.”
To his surprise, Veronica appeared at his side with a glass of water. “This will help when she wakes,” she said simply.
Secrets of Sloane House Page 25