Lady Jayne Disappears

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  “Thank you,” I murmured, and then they were gone. I hadn’t even needed to close the door myself.

  My eager fingers tugged off the blanket and wet underthings so I could slip into the velvety warmth of clean bathwater. I sank into it up to my shoulders and closed my eyes, allowing the words of the hated letter to swim through my mind in a mental critique.

  Sending this letter would not steal the identity of Nathaniel Droll from me. That had already happened when Papa died. But somehow my heart couldn’t bear the finality of this action. Nathaniel Droll was the wonderful secret that had shaped so much of my life. It had kept me from feeling purposeless, discouraged, and empty. I moved the cloth across the goose bumps on my bare flesh. No matter how the world saw the little debtor’s prison girl, I had a hidden sense of worth in this secret. And now I would only be an outcast living among strangers, and Papa a failed man who’d died in disgrace.

  I rose and hugged a towel around myself as I stepped out. The hot bath had warmed my skin, and in a moment the bed would ease what the carriage and rain had done to my muscles. Donning the nightdress, I readied for bed and climbed into sheets thick enough to lose myself between them. Exhaustion pulled at me immediately, and I glanced around this room serenely for traces of my precious papa before sleep fell like a curtain on this first night here. With a smile, I closed my eyes and pictured him. Not the wilted giant on the cot in his final days, but the effervescent man with the booming voice who had lit up our tower room. Especially the night he’d begun Lady Jayne’s story.

  “And now, dear princess of the tower.” He had dropped his massive frame down on one knee, gently lifting my hand and throwing his other arm over his head. “One wish I grant you tonight. What’ll it be?”

  I hugged my knees and rocked back into the sunlight streaming in our tiny window. “An orange. I’ve not had an orange in months.”

  “Ach, what a way to ruin it.” He thumped his chest. “I’d planned to offer something far better than a mere orange, but”—he twirled his hand in the air and stood—“suit yourself.”

  Realization hit me at what he’d intended to offer. “Papa, the story!” I grabbed his hands. “You’ll tell it to me now? Truly?”

  He squeezed my fingers, eyes crinkling into that beloved smile. “I’m keeping my promise to you, Aura Rose. The next novel we write will be her story.”

  “What was she like, Papa? Do I look like her?”

  Lifting the hair off my face with his free hand, he looked down at me and smiled thoughtfully. “So much so that it hurts, little one.”

  Another quick squeeze and I released him and went to fetch a blank notebook. “Shall we start now? This installment is due to be mailed in a few days.”

  “Ach, girl. Have I ever rushed to finish one?” He collapsed onto the broken throne-like chair against the wall and propped his feet up on the stool. I knelt on the stone floor at his feet, leaning against the table.

  “Please, Papa. I’m ready to hear about her.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere, child. She’s taken up residence right here.” He tapped his balding head. “And of course, she’ll be in you too, before long. Ah, child. Once this story takes root and that woman invades your heart as she did mine, you’ll be able to write her story as well as I. How I love that it’s written in your own dear hand. That’s a gift, you know.”

  I adjusted my legs beneath me. “Start with what she looked like. I want to hear that. No, begin with how you met.”

  He leaned down and looked at me, drawing me close and running a thumb along my ear. “This is your legacy, child. Hold on to it, will you? It’s a living, breathing story that I’m passing on to you. Promise you’ll take good care of it.”

  “Yes, Papa, of course. Now let’s hear it!”

  But still he hesitated. “I’ve put off sending it into the world with my other stories, for fear of the ripple effect it will have.”

  “Then why not tell only me?”

  He exhaled the tension from his body. “Because, Aura Rose. This story is far bigger than you and me and your mother. It should be told this way, and you should be the one to pen it.” Squeezing my shoulder, he threw his head back, revealing his whiskered neck. “All right, lassie, the story of Lady Jayne. Ready your pen, child, because the sparks are flying!”

  It’s a living, breathing story.

  I’m passing it on to you.

  Passing it on.

  I snapped awake in the dark chamber at Lynhurst Manor, the extinguished candle a smoking stub on the table beside me. I must have drifted off. Scrambling to sit up, I clutched the covers to me and glanced about the room. Tree shadows waved from the window and embers glowed in the fireplace. Nothing else in the room moved, yet his presence seemed powerfully real there.

  I’d only dreamed it. Pulled it from my memory and relived it in sleep. Perhaps it was merely the guilt at my absence, for I’d been on an errand the moment he’d passed from this life.

  Those words lingered in my mind, drawing me to the story I was about to cut short and pack away forever. But he’d never intended for it to be set aside, had he? You’ll be able to write her story as well as I. How I love that these words are in your own dear hand. That’s a gift, you know. Not a gift to him, though—a gift to me. Realization solidified in my mind. All along when he’d asked me to take dictation, he was offering the only gift he had to give me. The legacy of Nathaniel Droll’s great name.

  Slithering back down into the bed, my mind whirled with options. He wanted me to do this, but I wasn’t the writer my father was. I blew the hair off my face and stared at the paneled ceiling where angelic scenes scrolled across the white expanse. I was not qualified in the least.

  Yet here I lay in Lynhurst Manor, the setting for Lady Jayne Disappears and every book that had come before it. I’d now walk among people every day who’d known my mother, who’d been present when she’d disappeared.

  I dusted my cheek with the tips of my hastily upswept hair and pondered the risk it might be to write under his name, to uncover years of buried family secrets, but I knew with immediate clarity what to do.

  Pardon, sir. Have you heard of Nathaniel Droll? Ah, well, I happen to know the real man who masquerades under that pen name. In fact, it isn’t a man at all. Not anymore.

  It’s me.

  3

  Lady Jayne’s antidote for boredom was not entertainment but rather curiosity and imagination.

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  I woke to a room lit with sunshine. Rising and pattering to the window bay past the now-cold tub of water, I stood barefoot and looked over the lawn, through a tangle of purple flowers climbing trellises toward the jutting wings of the house, each flanked with a tower at the end. Which one was the south tower?

  Today I would take over Lady Jayne Disappears and create the next installment, for it would need to be posted immediately. That required opening a fresh notebook and filling its blank pages with words beautiful enough to carry Nathaniel Droll’s name. But more than that, it meant unraveling what had happened here nearly twenty years ago. Visually tracing the pattern of vines winding over the wallpaper, I pondered the direction of the plot.

  It was an ingenious novel, actually. One I’d enjoy working on. The prologue was the scene directly after Lady Jayne had vanished from the mansion, when the entire house slipped into a panic at her sudden absence, and then the story jumped back in time and told everything leading up to it, all the way to her disappearance in the final scene. Readers were pulled through each issue, guessing who and what and how as everything built up toward her mysterious disappearance.

  Lowering myself to the rug, I lay on my back, arms spread above my head, imagining the woman who had captivated my father. The woman who’d given birth to me.

  Jayne Windham, or simply “Lady Jayne,” as the readers knew her, had come to visit a friend’s country mansion. Lynhurst, specifically, but the book had not mentioned that detail. She often had vases of heather in
her room and almost exclusively wore her favorite color—purple. She’d spent a glorious summer playing about Bath and Bristol, and then disappeared, leaving all her belongings behind, including her beautiful amethyst ring.

  And her child.

  That element made it even more confusing. It had seemed like he was telling the story of how they’d met, her appearing on the social scene as a lady of mystery and capturing his heart, but if the last time he saw her was the end of that summer, they’d have already been married with a baby. I picked at the plush rug. Perhaps Papa had made up the tale to give me a mother-story. For every girl, if she did not have a mother, sooner or later required an explanation as to why. This story, however, did not fit. Aside from the timeline discrepancies, the only way a woman would leave behind such things was if she’d been killed.

  Ruminating on the story and letting the facts percolate, I glanced out of the windows. Somehow the sun had magically risen higher as I’d daydreamed. Hours must have passed, and my only accomplishment had been severe procrastination—inspecting wallpaper patterns and sweeping story facts into a pile to analyze. Not a single word put on paper.

  How would I ever maintain deadlines? When Papa had been alive, his stories poured out chapter by chapter, without hesitation or flaw. Oh, that I would be so lucky.

  Rising and pushing one of the wingback chairs to the decadent bay window, I lowered into its cushions with blank paper and looked over a flower-filled yard more elegant than my dreams of heaven. It was time to begin. Encouraged, inspired, I breathed in the magical beauty of my novel’s setting and poured out the words that would paint the picture of my family estate. For nearly an hour I wrote, giving Lady Jayne a few mild enemies and some friends. My wrist ached when I released the pen.

  How draining. And they required one installment per week. Pushing out of the chair, I forced myself into the motions of dressing for the day.

  My underthings, stiff from last night’s drenching, had been strewn about the chairs to dry. My new blue dress, however, hung in a damp mess from a rod behind the door. Just when I began to wonder if I was expected to breakfast in my stiff underclothes of the night before, someone knocked. Tying a colorful, shiny dressing gown from the armoire over my nightclothes, I opened the door. There stood a large pile of colorful dresses supported by a girl about my age with curly chestnut-colored hair and smiling eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I have clothes for you to borrow, and oh! I’m going to dress you up like a doll.” Shouldering into the room, the well-dressed girl swished the items onto my unmade bed. “I’ve even brought you the most beautiful underthings you’ll ever see.”

  Underthings. That was normally not part of the second sentence two ladies said to one another. “I am Aurelie.” There, that was a much more reasonable start.

  “What a fine name for a pretty little thing. It makes me want to put tiny rosebuds in your hair.” She finger-combed my wild tangles, sweeping them up with a dimpled smile.

  “And who are you?”

  She dropped the tresses and hopped onto the bed. “I’m your new dearest chum.” The bright smile showed perfect, sharp little teeth and naturally pink lips. “I’m the old witch’s granddaughter, Juliette.”

  I perched on the edge of the bed with a tentative smile. I should at least try to join in the camaraderie the girl offered so easily and, well, without invitation. Her light-green gown shimmered as she moved. Her undeniable, flirtatious beauty was the sort that likely fit every man’s ideal.

  “She isn’t really a witch, is she? I mean, she does possess some redeeming qualities.”

  “The old woman? Hardly. She despises everyone and only tolerates her family because she must. Have you a special gentleman in your life?”

  What a rapid shift, all over the place like a hummingbird, making one work to keep up with her.

  “No, I—”

  “How perfect!” She sprang up and pulled me to stand before her. “I have the ideal man in mind, and oh, he’ll be absolutely smitten when he meets you.”

  “Does that sort of thing happen?”

  “Oh, of course Alexander will adore you.” The girl held a full-skirted pink frock before me, hanging it from my shoulders and eyeing it. “And all of Somerset will be sighing over the fabulous new couple in the social set.” I frowned and she lowered the dress with a smile. “You must think me vapid. I’m more intelligent than I look, that I promise. For better or worse. I can sum up a person in three quick glances, two if they’re quite open in the face.” She flung the dress on the bed and lifted another, fitting it against my shoulders.

  “You can surmise that much about me in just a glance?”

  “I know plenty. You’re the news of the week, and servants have magical powers to hear through walls. Especially when they’re told to keep to themselves.”

  By the time I was dressed to Juliette’s satisfaction, her lady’s maid shoving one knee into my back to tight-lace my corset, the staff informed us that breakfast had been put up. So we talked, mostly Juliette, of course, until the lunch bell gonged through the courtyard. By that time, my stomach burned with hunger.

  “You must let me dress you up every day. I’ve had such fun.” She looped her arm through mine and led me downstairs into the hall. “I hope your trunks are never returned.”

  Trunks? My trunks were missing? “What has happened to them?” The clothes could be replaced, but the notebooks? How was I supposed to finish Papa’s novel without them?

  “I only mean the accident last night. Grandmama told me about the carriage mishap, and your things being ruined. Only two measly trunks were saved, and they had almost no clothes in them. Just rags and a lot of books and papers.” She wrinkled her nose.

  I breathed slowly in relief, forcing myself not to smile. My trunks were safe. And storytelling, apparently, ran in the family.

  At the main floor landing, Juliette led me to the left through another arched doorway, into a sun-filled room so bright a person had to shield her eyes upon entering. One wall was dedicated to tall windows covered with dark velvet drapes drawn back with red cords, but what caught my attention was the plate of food on a tiny table. I nearly pounced on the pyramid of little triangular sandwiches, wishing I could inhale them in one gulp.

  “So the end of the story is that now you must be fitted for new dresses immediately.” Juliette lounged comfortably on the sage couch, somehow still managing a becoming posture.

  But dread coiled in me at the idea of so many dresses. Being indebted to the cold mistress of the house would not be wise, especially if I was ultimately to be cast out. I would need every penny I had. “Perhaps I should start with one or two.”

  “Or ten.” Juliette winked, lips closing around another delicate nibble.

  One bite into the vegetable-filled sandwich only inflamed my appetite. My fingers shoved a whole sandwich into my mouth while Juliette talked about taffeta and chiffon. Crisp celery never tasted so delightful.

  “Juliette, did something happen to your grandmother? I’ve never known a soul to be bitter with no cause.”

  “Ach, who knows.” She shrugged narrow shoulders. “There was much scandal with her husband and even her brother, I believe. Perhaps she was different before all that, but I couldn’t picture it. And truly, it was a long time ago.”

  Two men ambled by the window in gray-and-red riding gear, whips in hand—Mr. Rotherham and an older gentleman I had yet to meet.

  Juliette straightened. “Right there is one perfectly good reason for you to have a decadent new wardrobe.” She pointed her sandwich toward the men. “I do so need competition with my Mr. Rotherham. He’s too easily plucked from his low-hanging branch.”

  “He is your Mr. Rotherham, then?” Disappointment flickered, for his handsomeness had not gone unnoticed by my romantic little heart.

  She shrugged. “Not really, but he could be quite easily.” She poured weak tea and sipped it. “He’s my brother Kendrick’s oldest friend, and that’s
his excuse for being here. But of course Kendrick is in Bath at the moment, and as you can see, Mr. Rotherham is not.” Another wink over her raised teacup. “Although I believe he’s more enticed by the size of my fortune than by my many charms.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t care for him terribly much, but with everyone in London for the season, he’s the only taste of romance within several shires. I must amuse myself how I can. And it would only double the amusement to have a little competition.” She wrinkled her nose with glee.

  “Then do you plan to court him?”

  Juliette laughed at the nosy question, and my skin heated under the heavy dress. “Courting is not the big to-do you’d think. Its sole purpose is to keep girls reasonably pure and keep men satisfactorily confused. Give a man a puzzle, and you’ve given him a reason to exist another day.”

  Perhaps she and Rotherham deserved one another. He was a gold digger, it seemed, and she a cold, hard lump of gold.

  “So this perfect match you’ve selected for me, this Alexander. He is merely a game too, isn’t he?”

  Juliette nibbled a strawberry and smiled. “You’re intrigued, aren’t you? It’s caught your interest. Admit it. Well, I’ll have you two meet as soon as those new dresses are made.”

  By dinnertime, hunger still pinched my stomach. Juliette had dressed me in yet another gown, even though the first was hardly worn long enough to spill even a drop of tea on it.

  “This one is more appropriate for dinner,” the girl announced, swinging around a scarlet gown with black lace. “It’s dreary, but perhaps that will catch Mr. Rotherham’s eye. He’s a bit dark in personality himself. Takes everything quite seriously.”

  In the stolen moments after Juliette had left to dress for dinner, I escaped to my room and hungrily reread the new installment of my book, the lovely words that had poured out of me that morning. I needed steel in my spine before attempting dinner with the whole family, and nothing did that like reminding myself of my secret talent.