by Ella Carey
Louisa loved working with him, loved the fact that he had stuck to his promise on the very first day he had taken her around the estate. He included her in his work as much as possible. And it was something that Louisa valued more and more every day.
Henry arrived at Ashworth at the beginning of summer. Paris was relatively deserted for the season, so he said. People escaped the city, and it was the perfect opportunity for him to come home.
The duke and duchess were excited about Henry’s return. Louisa sensed that they still hoped, in some ways, that he would get over his predilection for Paris and come back home for good, especially with an heir of his own on the way.
Charlie drove Louisa to the Women’s Franchise League meetings now that the date of Louisa’s confinement was arriving. Louisa had grown the number of regular attendees at Jess’s house to ten with the help of Mrs. Pankhurst’s pamphlets and a visit from one speaker. The ten women who did attend had sworn secrecy about their activities.
But the League was spreading its wings around the country. It was becoming clear that women wanted change. It was becoming clear that many women wanted the same rights as men. And this was exciting.
Louisa felt her upper back stiffen at the sight of Henry’s carriage on the drive. She had a perfect view of his approach from where she sat on the terrace, and now she eased herself out of her wicker chair and gripped the handle of her white parasol.
The carriage rounded the corner to the front of the house. As Louisa glimpsed Henry inside it, he turned to face her. He looked at her, but he did not wave.
Louisa took up the letters that she had been writing to her mother and to Samuel. The one to her mother was brief. But she had no idea what to say to Samuel. She had always been open with him, but she could hardly reveal the truth about her complex feelings for Charlie. Louisa’s life had turned into something that she knew was beyond what her younger brother would understand.
Henry’s footsteps sounded clear on the hard tiles in the entrance hall. Louisa moved through the open French doors into the ladies’ sitting room, then out into the corridor, turning left toward the secondary staircase that wound its way upstairs. She wanted to be alone in her rooms.
But Charlie came out of his office just as she approached the back stairs.
“You’re letting Henry’s arrival upset you, and I just don’t know why,” he said, stopping her right there outside his office. He took her arm. “Talk to me.”
Louisa shook her head. “I would rather go upstairs.”
Gently, Charlie led her into his office.
Everything in the room was neat—papers were stacked in piles on Charlie’s large wooden desk. His shelves were stocked with farming manuals and books on the running of estates. A set of double doors was open to the farm manager’s office. The man worked alongside Charlie. Louisa knew that they both understood the importance of being innovative with farming methods on the family’s vast estates.
Louisa glanced out through the open door. Henry had moved into the library. She could hear him talking with his father. Laughter resonated up the hallway.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Charlie said, his voice low and deep. “You know what to expect from him, so why worry? Enjoy the baby, when he or she arrives.”
Something caught in his voice as he said the last words.
Louisa forced herself to move away from him, even though her entire body was willing her to move closer. Instead, she walked over to the open French doors. His office overlooked a walled garden. A bird played in the fountain that was built into the back wall, its wings flapping, spraying up water onto its body, reveling in it.
Charlie stood behind her, reached out, ran his hand down her arm for a moment.
She turned and looked up at him.
It was even more impossible and even more real when their eyes met. But she could not expect him to go on like this. She just didn’t want to do it to him, and yet the thought of losing him . . .
“I’m glad that you and Jess have become friends. I’m glad that you are working together. If you just keep going, you will make a real difference in how the local women think. I have every faith in you, you know that.”
He ran a hand over her cheek.
She closed her eyes and imagined his hand running down to her waist.
But he stopped at her chin, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
She opened her eyes. There were his again. There was such truth in them—too much truth. She almost could not bear it.
“How do you feel about me now?” he asked, suddenly, his voice so intimate that Louisa thought she might not breathe.
She felt her lips tighten for a moment, then open, just slightly. “You know,” she whispered.
He tilted his head, shaking it a little, still holding her gaze. “And you know I’m never going to marry anyone else.”
“But you must.”
“No, I mustn’t.”
He leaned down, his lips brushing hers for one tender moment. And she reached up, she couldn’t help it, her arms wound around his neck, her baby was between them, and she felt that it was more his child than anyone else’s, and he opened her lips with his own, exploring, deeper, until Louisa felt she might explode.
He stopped first, running a hand over her hair, kissing the top of her head. “Go and rest, darling,” he said. “You are so close. You have done so well. And everything is going to be all right. The most important thing is your health right now—one day at a time.”
He still held her hand.
“Rest,” he whispered. “And for God’s sake, don’t upset yourself over Henry. Think of the baby too.”
She nodded.
But she did worry that every time he kissed her, it would be the last.
A week later, Louisa held her baby, Evelyn, in her arms. Henry had appeared after the birth, white, a little shaken, looking almost like a half version of his usually confident self. Louisa was to rest for three weeks. A wet nurse had been called in. The baby spent most of the day in the nursery, and all this did was afford Louisa too much time to think.
Because when Louisa lay alone in her room, tears would fall silently out of her eyes; she stared out the window at the glorious weather that was a mirror of what it had been when she first arrived in England.
A naïve young girl.
She would change everything if she could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ashworth, 2015
The morning after her secret mission in the library, the words inscribed in the family Bible wound themselves through Sarah’s mind like threads on an endless spool. The book was filled with countless family trees, intricate diagrams decorating page after page, illustrating cousins and branches of the family that spread all over the world. Were Sarah not on a mission, she could easily have spent hours reading stories about certain characters in the book. Some family members, who were clearly regarded as unique, had paragraphs devoted to them. Sarah had read several such books back in Boston, and she was able to locate Louisa using the well-documented hand-written index at first glance.
Louisa had been accorded an entry, which was both a surprise and a comfort to Sarah. The odd thing was that Louisa’s entry described a woman who was nothing like the “bad choice” whom the current duke had dismissed. In the Bible, Louisa was described as a family member with a keen interest in furthering women’s rights. She was instrumental in the formation of a branch of the Women’s Franchise League at Ashworth. She had known and corresponded with the now famous suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Furthermore, the Women’s Franchise League had spread around the country as a result of the efforts of such women as Louisa Duval. Their achievement had been the gaining of the vote for women in local elections. Louisa had died, tragically, in Paris, in 1895.
But it was the next part that intrigued Sarah. Louisa had planned a four-day conference of the Women’s Franchise League at Ashworth village after her return from Paris. The conference had been postponed after Louisa�
��s death, but her supporters had held it in her honor at a later date, and her tireless efforts in arranging it were acknowledged. Had she lived, there was no doubt that her achievements would have been remarkable.
In fact, Louisa had inspired local women so much that the Ashworth branch of the League had gone on to become one of the most active in the country. Louisa was remembered for her determination, her love of life, and her intelligent approach.
The more Sarah delved into Louisa’s story, the more she sensed that Louisa herself would never have given up. The fact that Louisa had a conference organized for after her trip to Paris stood out in Sarah’s mind like a red flag.
Now, she gazed out of her bedroom window at the park. A gardener, an elderly man, swept the terrace in front of the house in the early-morning sunshine, his broom moving in slow, rhythmic strokes. Sarah frowned and turned back into her bedroom.
She gathered an outfit together—a black linen dress, black patent sandals, a silver necklace—and packed the rest of her clothes away into her suitcase.
Her phone rang.
Almost glad of the distraction from her thoughts about what on earth she was to do next, Sarah picked it up. There was a pause before she heard Laurent’s voice come through.
“Hello,” he said, sounding tentative.
Sarah suddenly realized that she didn’t want him to be that way.
“Morning, Laurent,” she said, aware of the fact that her own voice was brightening the moment she spoke to him.
“I just thought I’d check how things were,” he said.
Sarah looked at her clothes on the upholstered chair by the window. “I’m not sure what to do,” she said. She told him, briefly, about the entry.
“You’re going to push on,” he said.
“I suppose I am.” She knew her voice sounded absent.
“The family is spinning you a complete line.”
“You sound confident.”
“My instincts. Your logic. Together, they make a formidable team.”
Sarah felt as close to him as ever. She didn’t say that the only thing she had left was her own instincts and that it was he who sounded more logical then she felt. And yet, she felt such a connection to Laurent right now that if someone had told her he was right there in the room with her rather than in Paris, she would have had no trouble believing them.
“Sarah,” he said. “Have you thought about asking whether there are any of Louisa’s things left in the palace, or Henry’s? Did they keep anything? Letters, you know what I mean. Diaries, journals? So many people recorded things back then. You found that letter here in the apartment. I just wonder if you should ask. Say that you’d love to take her things back to your family, or something innocuous like that.”
Sarah allowed the smile that was forming on her face to develop into a grin. “You know, you’re quite good at this,” she said.
“What?”
“Strategy,” she chuckled, knowing her voice had dropped. “Thank you. I’ll ask Jeremy. He’s the most approachable. I won’t get anywhere with the duke. And as for the duchess . . .”
“Go and get on with it,” he said, his voice firm, but there was humor underneath. “And Sarah,”
“Yes.”
“Don’t let Jeremy fob you off. Sounds like he’s under his parents’ thumb to me.”
Sarah found herself grinning again. She didn’t want to hang up.
“Go, Sarah,” he said.
“Have a good day.” She was still smiling as she stepped toward the shower.
The rest of the family appeared to have finished breakfast by the time Sarah came down. Silver platters held hot food, and the coffee was blessedly good.
Jeremy popped his head in the door while Sarah was eating. A yellow scarf was tied around the neck of his shirt. Sarah couldn’t help thinking that this was rather sweet—it was as if he were expressing himself, and this seemed to be a good thing for him to do.
“Jeremy, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?” Mild again.
Sarah couldn’t get around the word.
She put down her empty coffee cup. “I was wondering if you might have any of Louisa’s things here on the estate, whether the family kept any mementos that I could see? Letters, anything like that?” She almost held her breath while she waited.
Jeremy tugged at his scarf, pulling the yellow silk down into one continuous smooth run. He stood there, and sighed.
“I’m not sure if I should tell you this . . .” His voice trailed off. “But I’ve been thinking about it ever since you arrived. My father can be . . . well. I can’t see how it would hurt, were I to tell you . . .”
Sarah stopped moving, her glass of orange juice halfway to her mouth.
“You see, the thing is, the wing of the house where Louisa and Henry lived, where that generation lived, has been left exactly as it was. My father hasn’t said anything about not letting you see it all, but . . .”
Sarah put the glass down.
Jeremy waited a moment. “You see, both Henry and his younger brother Charles died almost straight after the Second World War. Huge sections of the house were closed off in 1946. The estate had lost nearly all its workers—servants were no longer easy to find, of course, and their wages had gone up, so my grandfather shut huge sections of the house off. What else could he do? But what that means is that all Henry’s clothes, and so forth, are still there. Along with Henry’s younger brother’s belongings. My parents never got around to tidying it up either. It’s all just sitting there.”
Sarah had to take in a long breath.
“Jeremy.” She would revert to curator mode. She had to keep her head. “Please, I’d really like to see their rooms. It would mean a lot to me. Just to be able to see the wing where Louisa lived, where she spent her last years. It might help lay her ghost to rest, if that makes sense.”
Jeremy nodded, but as he leaned against the mantelpiece, looking, oddly, half like a pale version of the lord of the manor, and half like a confused young man, Sarah suddenly wondered how comfortable he was with the idea of inheriting this vast estate himself.
“Would you like to come with me?” she asked.
Jeremy tilted his head to one side. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I would. Shall we meet once you have finished your breakfast, say in about fifteen minutes?”
Sarah nodded. She sat still for a few moments once he had gone, unable to eat any more. So she went to her room, brushed her hair in a vague sort of way, cleaned her teeth, put on lipstick. Was this too good to be true?
When she followed Jeremy up the grand staircase, up through the beautiful tower, sunlight lit up the family crest. Sarah’s nerves sang their own odd tune in her stomach.
Jeremy kept up some banter, but his voice was shaky too.
Sarah wondered if he had ever gone against his father’s wishes before.
He stopped once they reached the third floor. A closed door with glass panels led to a long corridor beyond. “You see, the thing is that neither my father nor my grandfather like complications. They both believe in keeping things simple,” he said. “If things are too hard, they tend to shut them off.”
“Well, I, for one, appreciate the fact that they did not remove my ancestor’s possessions,” Sarah said.
Jeremy paused. “You’re ready?” he asked.
Sarah nodded, feeling quiet all of a sudden.
Jeremy turned the handle of the glass door and they entered the long, cold hallway. Rows of closed doors lined either side of the seemingly endless space. The floorboards were bare, but the wood was darkened where, once, a rug had run down its center. The smell was of must, of age. Sarah took deep breaths to calm herself down.
They came to another landing. A circular staircase wound up from some other part of the house—a back staircase, a private family one, perhaps. Sarah imagined Louisa tripping up it, up to her bedroom. How had she felt? What had gone wrong?
Light danced into the space through large picture
windows, the brightness almost seeming to mock them, Sarah thought. Once, there had been life here. Now, there was not.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
“How long has it been since anyone has been up here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Jeremy sounded far away now. Several doors led off the large landing.
Which one led to Louisa’s room?
Silence cloaked the strange, empty space, and dust motes floated in the air. A round table sat bare against one wall. Paintings hung, still and ghostly on the walls, but these were frosted with dust too, their frames housing thick blankets of gray residue.
Jeremy moved toward one of the doors. “I’m not exactly sure which room is which. Haven’t been up here since I was a teenager, to be honest, and I just can’t remember. It’s all been shut off. It’s strange being back up here.”
He turned the brass handle of the closed door, and when she followed him into the room, she could not help but gasp.
A four-poster bed sat, resplendent, in the middle of the room. Dust formed layers of filth on the green counterpane. A tennis racket leaned at an angle against the wall next to the bed, and a green crystal glass sat on the bedside table, next to a photograph in a silver frame.
Jeremy picked it up. “Henry,” he said.
Sarah moved across the room to look over Jeremy’s shoulder.
Henry Duval stared out at them as a young man, just as Louisa would have known him. He wore a striped jacket and his trousers were white against the background of the photograph. He wore a boater hat. He was good-looking, Sarah thought, and there was something rakish in his smile.
He stood out on the terrace at Ashworth, which was clearly recognizable, and behind him a group of people was almost draped, as if for effect, in wicker chairs around a table. Drinks were laid out, and the women wore white dresses and held parasols. It was a particularly charming scene, an English scene, and it all looked perfect.
If only people knew.
Jeremy moved to the window and pulled the curtains open, bathing the room in yellow light. More photos in silver frames sat atop an old chest of drawers, glinting in the sun now through the grime. Henry was in every one. An old pair of silver cufflinks sat near the photos, embedded in layers of dust. A tall mirror in a wooden frame sat on the other side of the wall, next to a wooden rack for hanging men’s suit jackets. A freestanding wardrobe completed the picture.