by Kelley York
Right.
Steady on.
The tremors don’t cease entirely, but they become manageable and the sick sensation in my stomach slowly settles. I straighten, dragging in a few deep breaths. Trying to reorient myself. The sun will be rising directly before me, which means the Brewer’s house ought to be…to the right.
I head down the road at a steady run until my lungs are burning and any remaining cold in my body is replaced with the urge to strip off my coat as heat floods my limbs. The scenery steadily becomes familiar again and, finally, in the distance I spot the farmhouse.
Although I know he won’t be there, I check the house over regardless. Nothing has changed since we arrived.
From our things, I take the remaining two phials of holy water James left behind and add them to my own. I rip a blank page from one of James’ notebooks, scribbling a note to leave on the table should Virgil and Adelia show up as they said they would.
I hope they won’t need to read it. I hope by the time they’ve even woken to begin their day, I will have James safe and sound.
I don’t bother with the carriage. There are saddles in the old stables, well cared for and of surprisingly good quality—or maybe not surprising, given their profession involved breeding horses—and saddle up the mare. By no means am I an expert rider, but I’m good enough. And a horse will carry me faster without a carriage to drag along.
With no tracks to follow, I have only one real lead. The man Flora Brewer kept speaking of when we summoned her.
Reverend Thomas.
Navigating to the church is tricky in the feeble early morning light and me without my full ability to see. But the church bell tower is easy to spot from the road, even with my poor eyes, and it leads me most of the way there.
The church itself is dark and pounding upon the door yields no response. Of course. Reverend Thomas wouldn’t be here at this time of the morning, would he? He doesn’t live in the bloody church. I recall spotting a cottage not far from here, just across the way, and if I had to wager a guess I would say he likely lives there.
It’s a modest home, probably only fit for one or two people, as I would expect a man of the cloth to live. My fist beats against the door, loud enough to rouse even the deepest of sleepers.
“Reverend Thomas? Reverend, please! Open up!”
Finally, from within, light flickers beyond a window and the door cracks open. Reverend Thomas blinks fuzzily at me, eyes heavy with sleep.
“Mr. Esher? What in the world—”
I flatten my palm against the door and push, helping myself to step inside and out of the cold. Any thoughts of niceties or politeness went out the window the moment James was taken from me. “What was going on between you and Flora Brewer?”
Reverend Thomas staggers back to put distance between us, confused. “Pardon? I don’t—”
I slam the door shut and move toward him fast enough so that he skitters back until he’s pressed to the wall. “No. No time for playing stupid. James is missing, and Mrs. Brewer’s ghost kept repeating your name over and over again. I want to know why.”
Thomas has his hands up between us, like I’m some sort of angry beast to be mollified. “Mr. Esher, please. If you’ll allow me to speak…”
“Spit it out!”
“It wasn’t me!” he all but shouts. “Yes, Flora Brewer was having an affair, but it was not with me, I swear to you.”
I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly, and maybe someone would think me a particular kind of terrible for striking a man of God, but I really could not care less.
“She said your name,” I snarl.
“In what context, exactly?”
“She…” I hesitate, reflecting. Mrs. Brewer was not exactly at the height of sensical communication, and she’d not specifically said the man she loved was Reverend Thomas, but…
Slowly, the vicar lowers his hands. “Mrs. Brewer came to me some time ago and asked to speak with me,” he softly explains. “She and her husband had been having some…marital difficulties. She let it slip that she’d been having intimate relations with another man.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t offer the information, nor was I inclined to press her on it.”
No. I cannot allow this to be another dead end. “Think, Reverend. If you had to wager a guess.”
He shakes his head. “I could not. It could be any number of men in the community.”
“What did you say to her when she told you of this?”
“I told her I’d keep her secret in confidence, of course, and encouraged her to find peace with her husband. Adultery is a sin in the eyes of God.” He frowns. “We spoke of it a few times over the course of a couple months, so I couldn’t tell you if she ever reached any kind of resolution.”
I turn away, shoving my hands fitfully through my hair. “Was there anything else? Anything at all?”
He hesitates. His hands are wrung together, his face twisted in guilt. “This affair was not some short, one-off tryst, Mr. Esher. It went on for years.”
“And her husband never knew?”
“Not so far as she told me, no.”
An affair going on for years. Christ, what was going on in her own marriage? Was Hugo hurting her? Why did this new man not step in to defend her, if so? A woman leaving her husband for another man would have dragged her reputation through the mud, but even so.
I’ve a thousand questions and I don’t think I’ll get an answer for any of them. “What of the children?”
Reverend Thomas’ smile is sad. “Ah, the children, yes. It should come as no surprise that when one engages in intimate relations outside of their marital bed, they run the risk of bringing a bastard into the world. It just so happened Flora Brewer had more than one.”
Dread sinks its teeth deep into me. It can never be simple, can it? My head throbs something fierce; a result of the lack of medicine, lack of sleep, and the deep bruise and gash I’m sporting, no doubt. Another dead fucking end until I can sort out who Flora Brewer was bedding.
The vicar seems to notice the blood-encrusted wound on my skull, and concern overtakes his gentle features. “You’re hurt. Please, allow me to—”
I brush him off, heading for the door. “Never you mind me, Reverend. However, there’s another body in the woods about two miles south of the Brewer’s farm, at the base of a hill. If you want to help, do me the favour of finding out what family is missing a son or a brother.”
By the time I arrive at Evenbury, the sun has risen, and my headache has turned from a mild nuisance to a blinding pain. I stumble in through the front doors, only dimly aware of a servant catching me by the arm as I trip over the edge of an ornate rug in the foyer. He shouts—not at me, but elsewhere in the house—and moments later, Virgil has hold of my elbows and is escorting me somewhere.
Lord Wakefield has returned from his business in London, it would seem. As Virgil settles me in a chair in the parlour, Adelia and her father join us. Disjointedly, trying to think through the foggy-headedness, I recount what happened the previous night, as well as my early morning conversation with Reverend Thomas. Virgil hovers over me, tending to my injury with care, and the antiseptic stings but helps to clear my head, oddly enough. Or maybe that’s the laudanum he slips me when the others aren’t paying attention.
After I’ve finished speaking and the pain has subsided enough that keeping my eyes open isn’t making me feel like I’m going to pass out, I look at the three of them, Virgil standing at my side, ready to fuss at my first sign of discomfort, Adelia seated near the fireplace, and Lord Wakefield beside her, staring into the fire with one hand braced against the mantle and the other stroking his jaw in thought.
Adelia looks to him. “Father…”
He stands. “I know. I will have a party assembled to search for Mr. Spencer, and to recover whoe
ver it was you encountered in the woods. I assure you, we’ll find him.”
He exits, leaving the three of us to sit in silence. I sink further into my seat, exhausted and dirty and chilled to the bone and yet utterly heated with restless energy. I need to be out there, looking for James.
I have the perfect view of Adelia on the edge of her seat across from me, her delicate features pinched in concern. She meets my eyes and tries her hand at a smile. “Are you all right, William?”
I swallow hard and look away. “I’ll be better when we locate James.”
“We will find him,” she gently assures. “He can’t have gone too far.”
No, I suppose not. But that doesn’t mean he’s in one piece. I’ve seen first-hand the damage Abraham Fletcher is capable of inflicting on a person. There’s a family of evidence laying in the morgue. The thought of James on an autopsy table with those same disfiguring gashes rendering his body unrecognisable… I tip my head back and try to breathe through a fresh, cold wave of nausea.
“You should get some sleep,” Virgil says. “We can wake you when Lord Wakefield has a party ready to go.”
I sigh through my nose. Would I be able to sleep? I’m exhausted and sore and foggy-headed enough that I might be able to. An attempt needs to be made, at least; I’d be useless to them as I am. “You’ll wake me? You promise?”
Adelia rises, stepping over to place a hand against my shoulder. “Of course. The very moment.”
“I’ll try to nap,” I grudgingly relent, rising to my feet. It doesn’t even occur to me until I’ve made it upstairs that I should have thanked them both. I shall have to do that later.
Rather than retire to my own room, I find myself going to James’. The absence of him is something I feel so profoundly that I could rip my heart from my chest and it would hurt less. By no fault of either of ours, we’ve been separated. I have no idea where the love of my life is, and there’s a very real, tangible danger present.
I may never see him again.
And…then what? What happens if I lose James? He’s been my sole purpose for existing. The reason I get up in the morning. The reason I try to be a better person every day.
I recall the end of third year, after the whole mess with Mordaunt and King. James, not wanting to stay at school but not wanting to go home, had accompanied me back to my family’s house for a few weeks. It had been a strained, miserable time for the both of us, and resulted in James almost having it out with my brother on more than one occasion over Peter’s treatment of me.
But for my part, the entire thing had been bearable because James was at my side. The harsh words of my family had not mattered when I could turn and see his eyes locked onto me, reassuring, loving, never judging me for things I could not help.
A world without James is one I could not bear to face.
I strip out of my dirtied clothes and wash up, pulling on a fresh pair of trousers before collapsing into bed. The sudden lethargy that engulfs me must be from the laudanum; I suspect Virgil purposely gave me more than I needed just to help put me to sleep. Maybe I will not thank him after all.
It’s a sleep that’s over in a moment. In one instant I’m closing my eyes, and the next, I’m jolting awake and it’s several hours later. I’m still muddle-headed, fumbling my way out of a bed that smells entirely too much like James, and over to the window to look out. Several men are milling about in the front of the house, with wagons, guns, horses, and hounds. Lord Wakefield’s search party has assembled. Good.
Pulling on the remainder of my clothes, I begin to make my way out of the room in search of Virgil and Adelia, assuming they’ll be going with us. I spot them at the base of the stairs, speaking in quiet tones with one another. At my approach, they simultaneously turn to regard me, and the look on their faces makes my descent slow.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Virgil pockets his hands, clearing his throat. “No, nothing’s wrong. Just… After talking it over, Adelia and I thought, perhaps you ought to stay here while the search party goes out. On the chance that James returns on his own.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of such a suggestion. “Excuse me?”
“You’re worn down. You’re injured, and,” at this, Adelia gives me a pointed look, “I wonder just how well you see without your glasses.”
A blush creeps up my face. “I can see well enough to function, and I might have a spare pair.” Possibly. Maybe. Did James pack them? I’m not entirely sure that I did. They say you always forget something when going on a trip. “Surely you don’t expect me to just sit here while he’s out there in need of help?”
Adelia ascends a single step, one hand rested against the banister. “And what if he returns? It would make sense to have you here, would it not?”
“Then someone else can stay here to greet him,” I respond hotly, almost dizzy with the notion. As though James is just going to march in that door… “James is out there somewhere. Lord knows if he’s hurt, if he’s frightened, if he’s—” The words splinter in my throat and cause my voice to fracture. If he’s even alive. “I’ll go mad if you leave me pacing the halls here all day on my own!”
A few more steps up, and Adelia stands just below me, imploring with her eyes. “I’ll stay with you. Please, William. I assure you, they’ll leave no stone unturned.”
I bite back a few unkind remarks toward the two of them that spring to mind, knowing such cruelty is spurred by my frustration and fear.
“I’ll ensure someone reports back often,” Virgil offers. “James is my friend. You know I’ll not rest until he’s found.”
My jaw clenches. I grip the banister tightly and turn my gaze from the both of them. “Have it your way. But if he’s not found by sunset, I’m going out to look for him myself. I’ll not leave him out there in the dark on his own.”
Adelia lets out a sigh. “Of course not. Thank you.”
Virgil gives a nod of approval. “Then I’ll be taking my leave to go with the others. Please be safe, the both of you.” His eyes linger a few moments longer on Adelia when he says that, the knitting of his brows suggesting he’s not pleased to leave us—or just her, maybe—here alone.
And we are alone. Mostly. A cook and one of Adelia’s maids have lingered, preparing lunch since I’ve not eaten since the night before. Not that I have much of an appetite, but I force down what I can to avoid worrying Adelia.
Afterwards, I scour our luggage for any sign of a spare set of glasses and come up empty-handed. Wonderful. I’m going to be bloody useless out there at night, unable to see five feet in front of my face.
The house is so painfully silent, and I meant it when I said I couldn’t stand puttering about on my own, so I stay close to Adelia all afternoon and evening, even going so far as to nap—uncomfortably, sitting up—in a chair in the den by the fire.
Twice now, Virgil has sent someone back to deliver us news that…well, that there is no news. Other than they’ve located the body I spoke of. A Mitchell Keiser, whose name doesn’t ring a bell but apparently, I was correct in that he’d been in attendance at Lord Wakefield’s party. What’s more, he has a sister named Sarah who went missing at the same time. It does not bode well for us, but I don’t care about any of that. If they have nothing of James, I don’t want to hear it.
The moment the setting sun begins to bleed the sky in shades of orange and red, I start to grow more restless. Still nothing. In just a few hours, James will have been missing for a full day.
Close to dark, the sound of hoofbeats outside catches my attention. I lurch from my seat, not waiting to see if Adelia will follow, and hurry out into the foyer to fling open the front door. This time, it’s not a messenger, but Lord Wakefield and one of his men dismounting their horses. Wakefield hands the reins over to the lad when he spots me, and gives me a tired, sympathetic look.
My hope sinks.
> “Nothing, I’m afraid. We have most of the neighbours searching. Checked every building we came across—farm included.”
I drag in a deep breath, unwilling to let that news shake me. “If you’d permit me to borrow your horse, I’d like to go back out and look a while longer.”
Wakefield gestures at the pair of horses they rode in on. “Of course. Though I’ll warn you, many of the men are retiring for the night. Some volunteered to stay out. Mr. Edison, for one, and your friend Mr. Appleton. But without light, it’s going to be difficult to find much of anything.”
“I’ll take that chance.” I don’t give a damn if I have to go by myself and run circles through the hills.
I turn away to retrieve my coat hanging near the door.
Adelia has, in fact, followed after me, and her brows are furrowed. “Will you be able to navigate all right in the dark?”
As I pull on my greatcoat, I flash my best charming smile, which is really no rival at all to James’. “I’ll stick with Virgil. He’ll be my eyes.”
Adelia looks unimpressed. “And how do you plan to find him with your remarkable sight, William?”
“It’s not dark yet, is it? Though if you keep me talking much longer, it will be.”
Wakefield steps over the threshold, peeling off his gloves. “Nathaniel here can take you back to the others, if you’d like,” he suggests, referring to his companion—a gentleman not much older than Virgil, I think, with skin and hair and eyes of a colour that reminds me of Benjamin Prichard. Wakefield is likely unaware of why, precisely, Adelia is so disgruntled. Indeed, she looks very much like she wants to stamp on his foot and scold him, but instead she turns away.
I give a nod of thanks to Wakefield and start for the door. Guilt has me sighing and turning back to Adelia, however. Stepping up behind her, I take her shoulders gently, leaning in to press my cheek to her temple. “I’ll be all right. I promise, if Virgil deems it too dangerous to continue, I’ll come back with him.”