“I don’t really recall what became of Wharton’s clothing and personal belongings.” Isabella said, pausing in her tracks. “I dimly recall telling his valet that he should do something with them, but that time is a bit of a blur for me. I engaged a house of my own later that month and left the rest of the house for his heir, a distant cousin.”
“And the rattle?” Trevor asked gently. “Did you have it packed away somewhere?”
Isabella nodded. “I keep it in a box in my bedchamber. But I haven’t actually looked in the box for a long time. I couldn’t bear to give it away, but it’s hardly something I wish to look at every day.”
“Lord Archer,” Trevor said to the other man, who had returned from disposing of the box. “I should like for you to pay a visit to the new Lord Wharton and see if he knows what became of his predecessor’s belongings.”
With a brisk nod Lord Archer left to see to it.
“Isabella,” Trevor said, “what became of your husband’s mistress?”
“Mrs. Savery?” she asked, puzzled. “I have no idea. I never met the woman. And after he died, I had no ties to her. As far as I was concerned she was out of my life.”
“Do you think that Wharton might have told her about your mother? And your miscarriage?”
Isabella paled. “I don’t know. He wasn’t in the habit of confiding in me, but I have no notion of how he interacted with her.”
“How would she have learned about what happened with Gervase?” Perdita asked, her brow furrowed. “Wharton was dead by the time that happened.”
“It is not all that unusual for the demimondaine to associate with each other, is it?” Trevor asked. “They can hardly mix with the ladies of the ton, after all.”
“He’s right,” Isabella said to her sister. “Perhaps Mrs. Savery and Gervase’s mistress were on speaking terms.”
“But the dowager was adamant about keeping the circumstances of Gervase’s death secret.” Perdita’s expression was grim. “Could someone have disobeyed her?”
“She’s hardly the sort of person to inspire undying loyalty,” Trevor said wryly.
“It’s true, Perdy,” Isabella said, moving to offer a comforting hand to her sister. “And was not Gervase’s valet incensed about the whole affair?”
“He never did care for me,” Perdita said with a frown. “I can see Kingston divulging the tale to his mistress.”
“It simply remains for us to track down Mrs. Savery and her compatriot Mrs.…?” Trevor began.
“Pringle,” Perdita supplied. “I believe the late Mr. Pringle was a tailor.”
“I’ll come with you,” Isabella said, stepping forward toward Trevor.
But he stopped her, taking her shoulders in his hands. “I dislike holding you here like a hostage, my dear,” he said, “but until this person is caught, I do not wish for you to leave Ormonde House.”
He could see from the mulish set of her jaw that she did not care for this plan one whit.
“I am hardly a child, Trevor,” Isabella said with a frown. “I can be of some help to you in finding Mrs. Savery. The butler at my town house was the underbutler at the home Wharton and I shared. I have little doubt that he remembers her.”
“Be that as it may,” Trevor said firmly, “I wish you to remain here. Now, give me the direction of your town house.”
She was angry, but Isabella told him the address of her house. “When you learn nothing,” she said, “be sure to come back and get me. I will be more than happy to assist you.”
Standing with her arms crossed over her chest, in the universal stance of annoyed wife, she allowed him to kiss her. Trevor was almost persuaded to take her with him. Then he remembered just how dangerous this person might be. “I will be home in time for dinner,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought she uttered a very bad word as he left the room.
Twenty
As it happened, neither Trevor nor Lord Archer was back in time for dinner. Isabella had shared a quiet meal with Perdita and all the while wondered where her husband was and what he had discovered.
After dinner, she’d pleaded a headache and retired to listen furtively for the sound of Trevor returning to the room adjoining hers.
Before long she fell into an uneasy sleep punctuated by dreams in which she ran through a nameless castle, chased by some faceless entity that taunted her from the shadows. She awoke hours later, still fully dressed, to find the fire burned down and the candle beside her bed guttered. A glance at the clock revealed that she’d been asleep for hours.
Worried that she’d missed hearing Trevor’s return, she rose from the bed and padded on bare feet toward the door of the dressing room. She’d almost reached the other side of the chamber when an unearthly wail made her gasp and clutch a hand to her throat.
What the devil was that? It sounded like a wounded animal. She was unable to tell where the sound had come from, only that it terrified her.
She waited to see if it would happen again, but she was met with only silence. Hugging herself with her arms, she finally took another step and was startled again when another cry sounded. This time it was louder.
And somehow she knew that the sound wasn’t being made by an animal but by something all too human. A baby.
Was this what it had been like for her mother? she wondered. Had it been the inability to stop the unearthly cries of her infant son that drove her to kill first him and then herself? Though Isabella knew in her gut that this was yet another ploy by the person who had been tormenting her, she could not halt the feelings of terror that coursed through her as she listened to the disembodied cries echoing around her.
“No,” she said to herself. “No. This is not real. It’s a trick. It’s a trick.”
Drawing on some inner core of strength, she pushed past her fear and forced herself to concentrate not on the fear the cries inspired but instead upon who might be controlling them. Straightening her spine, she flung open the door leading to the dressing room and hurried to open the door leading into Trevor’s bedchamber.
Inside, things seemed much as they should be, with one exception. His bed was turned down, but there was no sign that he’d returned yet.
Where is he? She felt a stab of fear as she realized that he might have met with some misfortune while searching for Mrs. Savery. Isabella wished for the fiftieth time that she’d insisted upon accompanying him. She could hardly protect him from every sort of threat, but at least they’d be together. And she’d know whether he was safe or not.
Another wail from the disembodied child, however, reminded Isabella that she herself might be in danger now. It was likely that her tormentor knew of Trevor’s absence and that was why she was being subjected to the current spate of terrors.
Turning slowly in place, she tried to determine where the crying, which was constant now, was coming from. Moving toward the door that led into the hallway, she thought it was coming from there. Stepping out into the hall, she followed the wails, which almost sounded as if they were coming from within the walls.
She had gone about thirty feet down the darkened passageway when she saw a door ajar up ahead. Could it have been left open for her benefit? As she got closer, she realized that it was an “invisible” door leading into the servants’ passageway, a system of halls running parallel to the main hall. It was a way for servants to remain out of sight so that the wellborn ladies and gentlemen of the house would not need to see them. The practice had always seemed a bit hypocritical to Isabella, as if she and her peers were in denial about the fact that their every whim was accommodated by an entire class of people.
She paused on the threshold, knowing that she should fetch Lord Archer or Perdita, but she was tired of hiding behind others and letting them fight her battles for her. The baby’s cry grew louder, and Isabella knew that whatever the case, she also needed to rescue the child from whoever was using it as part of this cruel game. And she was convinced now that it was a real c
hild and not just an illusion or an adult playacting. A person who would use a real child to further their schemes would have no compunction about harming an innocent in the process. Which meant that Isabella needed to find the baby soon or something more terrible than her own torment would happen.
Stepping into the servants’ passageway, Isabella noted even in the dim light that it was far less ostentatious than the main hall. There was no intricate wallpaper here, no shining brass wall sconces. Only unadorned cream-colored walls trimmed in a dull greenish gray color. The contrast was telling, and reminded Isabella that whoever it was threatening her might be someone who resented the differences between these two worlds.
Finally, she came to another open door, this one leading into the nursery, which to her surprise was lit up like Vauxhall during a fireworks display. Isabella blinked against the brightness of the candles and stepped inside.
Scanning the room, she saw her maid, Sanders, seated in a large rocking chair near the fireplace. Puzzled, Isabella found herself reluctant to step toward the maid. “Sanders, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you would have been abed long ago.”
But the child in Sanders’s arms told Isabella that her lady’s maid had a reason for remaining awake long into the night that had nothing to do with her duties and everything to do with tormenting her mistress.
Sanders’s words only confirmed Isabella’s suspicions. “Come, my lady,” Sanders said, never pausing in her rocking. “Let’s not pretend that you don’t know why I’m here. You may have taken a long while to figure it out, but surely by now you have done so.”
Faced with the betrayal of someone she’d considered a trusted ally, Isabella shivered but tried not to show the fear or revulsion she felt. Her first priority must be the safety of the babe in Sanders’s arms.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were as foolish as Ralph always said you were,” the maid said with a shake of her head. “Even now you didn’t figure it out until I led you here. It’s a right shame. My Lady.” This last was said with a degree of sarcasm that revealed just how hateful it must have been for the woman to speak to Isabella with such deference for the time she’d served her.
And as she listened, several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place for Isabella. How the letters had reached her in Yorkshire. How her painting had been defaced when it was clear that the house had been locked up tight. How the replica of Ralph’s snuffbox had arrived at just the right moment. And, most frightening of all, she recalled how Sanders had been the one to bring her attention to the box with the dead rabbit in it.
It had been Sanders all along. Thinking back to just how intimately the woman had been involved in her life over the past few months, Isabella was hit with a wave of disgust that made it difficult for her to remain standing. How could she possibly have been so blind to the woman’s perfidy? It was terrifying just how much Sanders had been able to deceive her.
Now, not wanting to disturb the maid lest she harm the child, Isabella shut the door behind her and stood motionless just inside the room.
“I must give you credit for your guile,” she said calmly. “But I’m afraid I still don’t understand things fully. Why would you do such a thing to me, Sanders? What possible harm can I have done you that would inspire you to such hatred? Did I even know you before you came into my employ?”
Never pausing in her rocking, the maid shook her head at Isabella’s lack of comprehension. “You still don’t understand it, do you, Isabella?” she asked. “I suppose I shall have to spell it out for you as I’ve had to do with every other detail.”
Her eyes cold, she sneered at Isabella, her hatred for her mistress transparent at last. “I was your dear husband Ralph’s mistress!” Sanders shouted, making the baby cry harder.
“Hush, you little brat,” she hissed, shaking the child, who settled back down with a pitiful cry.
Turning back to Isabella, Sanders went on, “You didn’t remember me because I was beneath the notice of the likes of Lady Isabella Wharton. Ladies all pretend that women like me don’t exist. They get to live in the fancy house with the titles and the jewels. While the rest of us, the ones whot do the real work, live hidden away so that you don’t have to see us.”
Her face contorted into a mask of hatred. “The same is true for our babies. Yours get the benefit of your husband’s good name, while ours are called bastards. And when they die?” Her voice broke as she seemed to relive a particularly difficult memory. “When our babies die they’re not even good enough to rest in the same ground as your perfect little angels! I ask you what can be more innocent than a newborn babe taken from this world before its time? What harm could it do for a child of mine to be laid to rest in the same hallowed ground as a child of yours?”
Isabella gasped as Sanders removed a pistol from its hiding place on the chair beside her and trained it at Isabella. Her mind racing, she tried to think of something—anything—that would somehow convince her husband’s former mistress to put down the pistol and give the baby to Isabella.
Perhaps that was the answer, she realized. Perhaps she should appeal to Sanders as another mother who had lost a child. She took the seat opposite the madwoman. Schooling her voice to a calm she didn’t feel, she asked, “When did your baby die, Charity?” Now she knew that the woman she had called Sanders was in reality Mrs. Charity Savery, her husband’s longtime mistress, whose own baby by Ralph had died.
But to whom did the baby she held in her arms now belong? Had Charity kidnapped the child solely in her quest to torment Isabella? Surely it was not Charity’s child, for she’d been in Isabella’s employ for too long to have given birth to a child this young.
“He died a week or so after yours,” Charity responded sullenly to Isabella’s query. “Bet you didn’t know Ralph had gotten us both with child at the same time. He was proud of it. Thought it meant he was a powerful man, that he could do anything.”
Isabella remembered with disgust her husband’s glee when she had informed him that she was with child. She’d thought it was because at long last he would have an heir, thus proving himself to be as virile as he claimed to be. But now she understood that there had been another reason for his enthusiasm. Ralph would have thought himself something close to omnipotent for achieving such a feat as getting both his wife and his mistress with child in such quick succession.
Of course, his joy had turned into contempt when he learned the circumstances behind the deaths of Isabella’s mother and brother. Then he treated her like a prisoner, always on the lookout for some sign of impending madness.
“Of course, when you miscarried and I lost my baby so soon after he was born,” Charity continued, “Ralph showed just where his loyalties lay,” the other woman said bitterly. “He didn’t even shed a tear over my little Charlie, but he carried on for weeks over the loss of your whelp. If I’d had any doubts over who he valued more, he set me straight then. When I asked him for the funds for a proper burial he told me to pay for my own bastard’s grave. As if he didn’t have a hand in fathering the boy.”
Isabella thought back to the weeks following her miscarriage. It was not a time she remembered well, simply because she’d been in such despair and had taken so much laudanum to numb her pain that she’d spent much of the time sleeping. How much worse would she have felt if she’d carried the child to term and lost him then? she wondered. It was hardly surprising that Mrs. Savery was so angry now. Especially if Ralph had behaved as she said he did.
“He was a detestable man,” Isabella said, not bothering to hide her vehemence. “He used you and dismissed you. He took out his frustrations on me with his fists, and worse. He deserves neither one of our pity.”
But if she had thought the other woman would agree with her, Isabella was in for a surprise. Instead of chiming in with her own contempt for the man who had hurt them both, Charity began to laugh. Not a joyous sound, but a maniacal one.
“Of course he beat you,” she said with a shake of her mobcap
ped head. “You kept him from doing what he really wished and marrying me. He might not have treated me like a queen,” she continued, “but he loved me. We loved each other. And no amount of money from your father or threats from the dowager could change that. He was weak, it’s true. Otherwise he never would have married you in the first place. But his father had his rules. And Ralph was nothing if not an obedient son. So he married you to make his father happy. And he kept me in our little house to make himself happy.”
It was a common enough tale, Isabella supposed. Plenty of gentlemen lived double lives, keeping a wife and children in one, respectable, residence, and a mistress in another. But Isabella hadn’t considered that Ralph would have defied his father in such a way. Of course, she was the embodiment of his obedience to the older man. She wondered suddenly if her father-in-law had known about her husband’s arrangement with Mrs. Savery. Isabella somehow thought he might have.
“I see,” she said aloud. If she could perhaps keep the woman talking, Trevor would discover she’d left her bed and would come looking for her. “Why did you wait so long to punish me? It’s been nearly four years since Ralph died, after all.”
“I was approached by a certain person,” the other woman said casually, “a person who wanted to pay me to make your life a living nightmare.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I needed the money. And I know enough about you from Ralph’s stories that I knew just what to do to frighten you.”
Isabella was surprised to hear that the woman had been hired by another person to frighten her. Who would do such a thing? And why? She thought back to the first note she’d received. I know what you did last season.
Could the person who hired Mrs. Savery be doing this as a means of revenge for Gervase’s death? It seemed so far-fetched. And yet it made a diabolical kind of sense.
Though she knew the other woman had little reason to tell her, Isabella asked, “Who was it that hired you to frighten me, Mrs. Savery? Will you tell me?”
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