The door to her brother's chamber was locked, just as Vanessa had feared, but a hastily inserted hairpin caused the ancient ironware to yield in an instant.
She ran over to Gerald's dresser, and looked at the top of it, which was bare apart from a few worthless cravat pins and cufflinks. She yanked open drawer after drawer in the dresser and armoire. Finally, in the bottom drawer of the old armoire, she found what she was looking for. It was behind a concealed false back which she detected upon pulling the drawer out fully to see why it was so heavy when it looked almost empty. It was a treasure trove of ladies' jewelry and pocket watches, some purses and men's wallets, all in a jumble.
Vanessa scooped a handful of items out of the drawer and stuffed them in her reticule, then rearranged the items so they would not look as though they had been disturbed. Just as she was about to close the drawer, her eyes fell upon a small book covered in silver.
It was an unusual item, and looked to be very old. It was a miniature Bible. Just as she had hoped, it had a family tree inscribed upon the first inner pages of the book. The handwriting was spidery, and she recognized it as the copperplate script she had seen on ancient documents written many centuries before. Ancient it might be, but it was easy enough to make out the name: Jerome.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she nearly dropped the book as she heard footsteps approaching. She grasped it firmly and shut the drawer a trifle too loudly.
She concealed herself behind the curtain as she stuffed the Bible into her small reticule. She concealed it under her dress by tying the handles of the bag to her lower leg.
She waited a few moments, then approached the door and opened it a crack. She could hear the two servants stacking boxes in her room, talking to Penelope. She hastily dashed out of Gerald's room and moved at an even pace to her own chamber, trying not to run.
"If you would be so kind as to empty the wardrobe and chest, I shall empty the dresser and desk," she instructed, pointing to each manservant in turn as she entered.
Penelope looked up expectantly. Vanessa gave a small nod. The girl looked visibly relieved, and turned back to folding her best gowns.
Vanessa hardly noticed or cared what she was doing, flinging her possessions into the boxes willy-nilly. Her few jewels seemed like such meaningless baubles compared to the enormity of what her brother had done, stealing and murdering up and down the countryside for gain.
She shoved them in their velvet bags, and determined to give the lion's share of them to Penelope for her help. There were a few trinkets from her mother and aunt, but the rest made no difference to her now.
Her cousins' family were blameless. That was a tiny crumb of comfort. She wished she could blame her father for having protected such a fiend. But she could understand why he had done it. His only son and heir. A daughter could never compare. Not to a man with his old-fashioned way of thinking. He had already lost his second wife. Her father had decided to try to protect them all in his own way. Allowing Gerald to be executed wouldn't have changed a thing except to leave the poor man even more alone and full of wretched regret. But what a terrible price they had all paid.
But still it hurt. Her own father had told everyone she had had the archery accident. Killed her own mother. The half-naked body had been explained away by Gerald, just up from London with Peter and Toby, as his own feeble attempts to staunch the blood.
Had her cousins guessed? Was that why they had been so determined to get her to come live with them? Or had it been the money all along?
Vanessa closed her eyes and saw it all now as clear as day, her mother in a lovely blue dress the color of they sky. Gerald and she quarrelling, her hiding in terror at the root of the box hedge, until her mother's final scream had propelled her out of her hiding place and into the arms of her mystified father, who had tried to soothe his hysterical daughter without in the least knowing what to say.
She plopped down upon a low stool, winded.
"What is it?" Penelope asked in alarm.
"I remember it all now. Oh God. And I provoked him."
Penelope looked around at the two men. "Wait outside please," she ordered, shooing them from the room.
They looked surprised, but nodded and left, shutting the door behind them.
"Provoked Gerald how?" she asked gently, putting her hand on Vanessa's shoulder.
Vanessa shuddered at the sight of Penelope's puckered scarring. "He wanted money. My mother was expecting, and my father refused him, saying there were three children to provide for. He was afraid of being supplanted as heir. He killed her and her unborn child."
"Your mother? But she's been dead for years, hasn't she?"
Vanessa put one shaking hand to her temple.
"I can see it all now. He was trying to gain from my aunt's death in whatever way he could. When he failed to marry me off to a man he could manipulate, he tried to kill me. Damnation. I never stopped to think that curbing his excesses, as I threatened to, would only make him more vicious and resentful of others who had more than he."
"Envy is not your fault!" Penelope said, shaking her by the shoulders. "It is the sin of the one who covets. Or lusts. Besides, he still would have assaulted women. Been prone to violence. It's his nature. We're convenients to him, holes to spend himself in. He said as much to be before he tried to have me." She tried to suppress a shudder.
Vanessa was appalled at the change in the poor girl. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"
"Don't apologise. It's not your fault. I was just remembering too." Penelope sighed.
"And to think all this time I just blindly accept his glib word for everything," Vanessa said, her tone dejected.
"I suspect your father and aunt tried to shield you as best they could. It's pretty grim, you know, what I've discovered about your half-brother even through some very general inquiries. Gerald didn't lack for funds during his London season. Your father actually indulged him even more in the hopes it would steady him down. Needless to say, it had the opposite effect intended. He was just about engaged to a young woman there. I don't know the whole story, but I doubt it was as Gerald told everyone."
"I'm sorry I never looked into the matter more deeply. I've been such a fool, affording him blind family loyalty where he deserved none. Tell me what happened."
Penelope revealed, "He had claimed that the girl had led him on, had lied and deceived him. Had been a common strumpet hiding behind a guise of respectability. They behaved most shockingly at a ball. She was found in the garden with him with half her clothes off, and was ruined. She protested her innocence, that he had forced himself upon her, but Gerald said she was a trollop. Whatever happened is gossiped about to this day. She lost her good name, and retired from London to live outside of society. He ruined yet another life through his acts of mindless debauchery."
"Oh, God, this is all my--"
"You can't blame yourself," Penelope insisted. "You had no control over any of it. Could not have done anything. You were but a child, remember?"
"Why, oh why didn't her family press charges against him?"
Penelope shrugged wearily. "The answer rests in the society we all live and participate in. Her family must have been too afraid of scandal, just like mine. All of them are so fearful of what others will think when they admit their daughter has been molested that they neglect to do the right thing. My parents did it to protect my sister's reputation first and foremost. I don't know if the girl in London had siblings, but the parents might just as easily have been protecting themselves. I know mine were."
"Well, no more." Vanessa got to her feet, and began to hurl the last remaining items into the packing cases.
"What?"
"I have to tell the truth, all of it. Even if it means letting Gerald hang, and shocking my aunt. Ruining my own social standing. I'm not sure I can bear to lose Clifford. I know he's said it doesn't matter what my family is guilty of, but I'm not at all confident that his protestations of love would hold up to the storm the revelation
s of Gerald's true character would produce. But I can't turn a blind eye any longer."
She rose from her dresser, now empty, and drew another box over to the desk. She wondered about her books downstairs, but decided not to bother. She would just take what she could, and leave the rest. None of it made any difference any longer.
She lifted her skirt hem and took the reticule out from under her dress. Penelope's eyes widened.
"Incontrovertible proof," Vanessa said simply.
"Thank God. But only of robbery."
Vanessa nodded. "I know. And he can try to lie and say he bought the items in a pawn shop. Even if the charge of theft sticks, or highway robbery, because he's gentry, he might get only a very brief sentence compared with an ordinary man. We just have to hope something more incriminating turns up. Otherwise he could be out of Newgate in a few years."
"And after you."
"After us both," Vanessa said with a shudder.
She placed her reticule down into the bosom of her gown for safekeeping. She would bring her discovery straight to Mr. Branson the magistrate as soon as she left Hawkesworth House.
A clatter of hooves in the drive sent her running to the window in the hall in a complete panic.
"Someone's coming," Penelope gasped, paling. She clutched her pocket nervously.
"Oh Lord, let it not be Gerald," Vanessa prayed fervently.
Relief flooded through her as she saw two blond heads close together: Clifford and Henry.
"It's all right. It's Clifford and his brother. We're safe now. They would never let anything happen to us."
She called to the servants waiting outside, and instructed them to start bringing the boxes down to the wagon. She clutched the reticule to her bosom and flew down the stairs as fast as her trembling legs would carry her.
Vanessa flung open the front door without waiting for Simms the butler, and threw herself into Clifford's arms.
He was alarmed, relieved, and angry all in an instant. She could see the barely suppressed fury in his eyes as he left off kissing her, but she forestalled his tirade by pressing the reticule into his hand.
"Vanessa, how could you come here alone!"
"I'm not alone. Penelope Winston is with me. She has a terrible tale to tell about Gerald and Edmund Cavendish. The three eldest brothers have been acting as highwaymen all along."
Clifford's eyes widened. "My God. Those swine."
"I'll fetch her down to go with you to give her testimony. And here. Please, take this to Mr. Branson, and hurry. I found these things concealed in Gerald's bottom drawer, in a secret compartment. There are all sorts of watches and women's jewels.
"Even worse, there's a chased silver Jerome family Bible. I fear Samuel's brother Martin has met a bad end. That woman in the sluice gate. I think it must have been his new wife. That's why she was here in the district but no one knew her. You must find out what happened to him!"
Clifford looked as though he would dispute her theory, but she was so wild-eyed with worry, he did not gainsay her. He was torn between love and duty, but put her from him with one last kiss.
"I want to stay with you more than anything, but I will go myself, as you ask, and make sure Penelope stays safe. Henry will remain here with you while I ride over to Malcolm's. Just leave your things. None of them are of any value compared with your life."
"It was just a pretext to search--"
"I know, darling, but go now. Please. Leave this place, and don't come back. Promise me."
"I will. I remember everything now."
His brows knit. "Everything?"
"Aye, all of it, my mother, my aunt, everything."
Clifford looked both curious and relieved. "Darling, I am eager to hear it all, but time is pressing. We really must leave. Tell Penelope to come down now and come with me to tell her tale to Malcolm."
Vanessa turned and called up to her. She held out her hand encouragingly as the shadowy woman crept tentatively down the stairs.
"It's all right. Just tell the magistrate what you told me. Clifford will keep you safe."
Penelope clasped Vanessa's hand. "Thank you."
"Thank you. You risked a lot by coming here."
They walked down together, and Vanessa asked suddenly, "Your son. Is he safe, being tended to properly?"
"Yes. He's fine. He will be looked after for as long as I am away."
"Good. Then come see me at Stone Court as soon as you can. Then we can discuss your future."
"I don't want charity," she said with a proud lift of her patrician chin.
Vanessa reflected with a pang how lovely she once must have been. "I don't plan to offer any, just help to a friend to whom fate has been most unkind."
Penelope nodded. "Thank you. I would like to be friends."
"Even with Gerald's sister?" Vanessa asked softly.
The young woman fixed her with a level stare. "Listen to me. And heed me, so that you don't spend the rest of your life wondering 'What it...' the way I have. You can't blame yourself, or your parents, Vanessa. Lay the blame squarely where it belongs. With Gerald.
"Some people are born bad. Others are goaded to it by circumstance or defects of character. A lack of moral compass. The younger Cavendishes, for example. But Gerald and Edmund are born bad."
"Then pray God they get their just punishment, in this life and the next."
Henry helped the woman mount, while Clifford held Vanessa in his arms for a brief time.
"Go home to Stone Court and wait for me there."
"I will, if you still want me."
Clifford's eyes sparked darkly. "There's no if about it." He stroked her cheek, then ran down the front steps and swung up onto his horse's back in one fluid movement. She watched him head down the drive, and then Henry came up to her and grasped her elbow.
"Come. It's not safe here for any of us."
Vanessa gathered up her cloak and two of the boxes the servants had brought down, while Henry waved to the driver to hurry. They loaded the boxes into the farm wagon haphazardly, and she took only a moment to spring up into the saddle of her borrowed mare.
Even so, Henry still urged haste, and spurred his own horse almost viciously. They bolted out of the gate and down the road to Stone Court as if the Furies were pursuing them. Neither of them spared the horses until their destination was safely in view.
The wagon was far behind, so they slowed their mounts and waited for the driver to catch them up. "It will be dark soon," Henry said, looking up at the cobalt sky.
"Please send some servants to escort Clifford back from Malcolm's."
"I will. And we shall post guard all around the estate. The Army is out on regular patrol. They've instituted a curfew in Millcote and the adjoining villages along both main roads. Anyone moving abroad from six in the evening until six in the morning will be stopped and questioned. If Gerald is in the district, or the Cavendishes here, we'll catch them. I give you my word."
Vanessa wondered grimly, "But how many more people will he harm until we do?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Jerome sisters were already at Stone Court waiting for Vanessa when she came in with her boxes looking disheveled and wild with worry.
She entered the front door and stopped dead. She looked up in awe at the twin staircases which ascended to the upper floors, and the fine moldings, busts, and paintings which filled the walls.
The staircases themselves were of snowy white marble, with gilt leaves decorating the posts and balustrades. Fine Turkey carpets underfoot led up the stairs and to the large formal reception room through the double doors under the balcony formed by the two staircases meeting at the upper story.
The girls insisted upon leading her up to the chamber which was now hers by right as the wife of the master of the house. Ascending the right-hand staircase, they made their way through the door to the right, and she entered a chamber to the left which was lined with windows on two adjacent sides, giving a light and airy effect. She could se
e through the windows to the ornamental garden below, with a marble terrace and stairs descending onto a magnificent lawn.
In the center of it a huge bronze fountain bubbled gaily, while further below, past a rose garden, was a small waterfall and lily pond, and beyond that a wending stream with a rustic stone bridge leading into the fields beyond.
At the edge of the fields she could see the darkness that was Millcote Forest, and shivered.
The two sisters settled her on a low bench in front of the hearth to get her bearings as they helped unpack, and poured her some tea.
Vanessa finally felt her breathing slow as she soaked up the warmth from the fire. Soon she stopped shuddering with cold and fear, and began to take notice of her surroundings with some degree of curiosity.
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