Lady Jayne Disappears

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  But the words that met my eyes were empty. Meaningless chatter and useless, fanciful descriptions. How had I written this drivel? Hadn’t I any sense as a writer? It read like the work of a child who thought herself a lovely, eloquent poet. Sickened, I shoved the book back on the shelf and forced my feet toward the stairs to go to dinner.

  Juliette and I arrived in the drawing room first and perched on chairs as red as my dress, with walnut arms and backs. The shadowed room felt somehow cozy, and not unlike the tower room I’d called home my whole life. Maybe this dinner would go well.

  “Let’s make a game.” Juliette moved up behind me. “First one to speak at the table loses. Shall we?”

  “Why ever would I do that?”

  Footsteps clicked in the hall. She bent close, her breath tickling my ear. “Because it’s the only way a girl like you will survive what is to come now.”

  4

  She managed to be the beauty of every gathering, because she clothed herself in confidence and made up her face with a lovely smile.

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  Within minutes, the other family members gathered in the drawing room and paired off to go into dinner together amidst pleasant chatter. My arm was caught by a young boy no taller than me, with serious green eyes and freckles over his nose and cheeks. Silas Rotherham escorted Juliette.

  The couples filed into a long room of intricately carved wood and tall candles and stood behind their seats. Situated in the center of the long table, I faced a low, austere fireplace with a gold-rimmed mirror above it. I caught sight of myself from the chin up—smooth hair gathered behind my head, soft tendrils loose on white skin as if they’d escaped by accident, eyes large and scared. No wonder Juliette thought me in need of guidance.

  The last to enter was Lady Pochard, my aunt Eudora, walking with the aid of a cane and the severity of a queen. She paused her royal entrance behind me with a crinkle of fine clothes and the aura of peppermint. Surely she wouldn’t make me leave this minute or shame me before the family. Not a woman this genteel.

  “It occurred to me last night that I did not suitably welcome you into my home.”

  I turned to the heavily powdered face, unsure what was expected of me at the moment, and dipped a curtsey for good measure. The others stared as the woman patted my shoulder with stilted movements and dropped a kiss on my forehead.

  Silence followed the gesture. Aunt Eudora hobbled to the head of the table and took her seat, signifying that the rest of the family should take theirs.

  As the aproned maids served soup, Aunt Eudora spoke to me. “I’m pleased to have you meet my family. Beside me are my daughter, Glenna, and her husband, Garamond.” The middle-aged, overdressed pair would be my first cousins, and likely Juliette’s parents. “Their eldest, Kendrick, is detained in Bath. Their other children are Juliette, across from you, and Clement, your escort. Of course, you’ve met Silas Rotherham, guest of Kendrick.” Rotherham’s gaze flicked over me with quick evaluation, long lashes hooding his eyes. “This is Miss Aurelie Harcourt, a relation who will be staying with us for now.”

  Glenna’s eyes snapped to mine, radiating with quick judgment that would wither a crowned princess, then fading again into a serene look of a wealthy woman.

  “Harcourt?” coughed the little man at her side, studying me with sudden interest.

  Juliette clapped, drawing a pointed look of annoyance from the head of the table. “Isn’t she a pretty thing, Mr. Rotherham?” she asked her companion in a stage whisper. “So innocent and unworldly. It’s as if she’s grown up in the woods.”

  Apparently her little game of silence had been abandoned as her attention flitted on to the next interesting thing.

  Mr. Rotherham hunched over his soup, brows drawn, clearly uncomfortable. But he did look up at me after a moment. His eyes, serious and penetrating, jumbled my nerves. Yes, he belonged in my novel, but certainly not as the villain. With that handsome physique and shadowed face, perhaps he was Lady Jayne’s secret beau. At this thought, a smile touched my lips. This man, a romantic? It’d be much like embracing a stone wall. Or maybe Lady Jayne was just the right woman to unlock this wonderfully mysterious puzzle, unleashing the power and passion pent up in those steady gray eyes. For any stone wall was merely a well-sealed dam.

  Conversation floated politely around me as the first course passed to the second, and I watched the others for how to arrange my linen napkin and balance my glass aloft with my fingertips. Poor Garamond, with a nose and ears bigger than his face, worried over his “dainty little woman” whom he seemed to believe was in danger of straining herself with the serving utensils or under-eating. But the radiantly plump woman, with rosettes dotting her dress across her abundant bosom, could likely lift her husband over her head.

  The courses arrived one by one to the mostly silent room. When a server placed a plate of pheasant before me, I immediately cut into it, relishing the way the tender slice fell away. The soup and bread had only tantalized my gnawing appetite.

  Juliette lifted her glass toward Aunt Eudora. “Grandmama, you must insist that the woman come from Bristol tomorrow. A girl needs her own dresses.”

  Aunt Eudora sighed with the patience of a thousand hardships. “When I can produce a woman out of thin air, Juliette, I will present her to you.” She turned to Glenna, who sat beside her. “Why did we allow her coming out so soon? The girl is far better suited to ornamentation.”

  Cheeks warm, I swallowed my bite and spoke. “You needn’t worry about dresses for me. I don’t enjoy them quite so much as other girls.”

  “A young lady who is not dying for dresses?” Garamond spoke up, mouth dotted with garnish. “Is she broken?”

  “Really, if you only give me access to a library, I shall be more than happy to amuse myself. Reading makes me forget that I’m wearing anything at all.”

  A fork clattered and someone choked on a bite, and Aunt Eudora leaned back and rolled her eyes. The other diners fell silent.

  My already-warm face heated even more. What, were ladies not even to like books?

  Rotherham’s low voice broke the tension. “Reading is the perfect way to engage and excite your mind while appearing to merely pass the time.” He met my gaze with the barest trace of a smile on his solemn face.

  Light chatter resumed around the table now that I, the oddity, had been safely tucked into conversation. Yes, Mr. Rotherham made such a fresh character. He was quiet and brooding, yet with some undeniable redeeming qualities to round him out. Perhaps he had come to Lynhurst to woo Juliette for her fortune, but there had to be a reason. Was his mother ill, desperately in need of medical care? Maybe a sister with an illegitimate child languished in some secret corner of his house, needing protection and financial assistance.

  One thing was certain. I had read far too many books.

  Rotherham stared openly across the table, as if still trying to label me, yet constantly reassessing his findings. His voice broke through my thoughts. “And the maiden found her escape into books, the worlds created by the pen of some stranger who would creep into her mind and rearrange the furniture.”

  At this, my gaze snapped to his sparkling gray eyes. I’d never heard those words voiced aloud, but I knew them oh so well. “You read Nathaniel Droll.” And that particular quote had been from a chapter I had penned during one of Papa’s illnesses. “I had no idea gentlemen polluted their shelves with serial fiction.”

  “Good literature is good literature, whether it is marketed toward the poor for ha’penny an issue or the aristocracy for a fortune.” The corner of his mouth tipped up in a fleeting smile.

  Good literature. He had called my little thoughts good literature. I had come to dinner with no desire to engage with Mr. Rotherham, but hearing him quote my own writing had enticed me into conversation anyway. He’d found the one topic that trumped my insecurities.

  “What, exactly, do you like about his writing?” I couldn’t help it. Every detail of his assess
ment must be coaxed out and revel in.

  He ran his fingers along his jaw. “I suppose I ought to say he has a fresh style and brings characters to life. And he does, but to be perfectly honest, I’m enraptured by Mr. Droll for reasons I cannot explain. It’s as if he laced his words with an addictive substance that draws me through the pages until I’m surprised to find myself at the end of the installment.”

  “Really.” His words needed to be written down. In large letters. Somewhere I’d see them often, just so I would believe them. “And who was your favorite character?”

  “Call me dark, but I rather like the villains. No one crafts a murky figure like Nathaniel Droll. It makes one wonder what sort of company the man keeps.”

  I bit my lip to keep from revealing the truth. I longed—I ached—to spit out the secret, but I offered a rote reply instead. “Not the sort of company anyone of this household keeps, that is for sure.” For who among these perfectly presented family members would ever talk to the prison inmates who made up Papa’s and my entire stock of friends?

  Which is exactly why I needed to introduce the world to them through the novels. Yes, it was brilliant! The decision swelled to an overwhelming desire that nearly drove me from my chair to find my notebooks. Oh, if only the world could see the prison, and the people who lived there, as I had. Well, soon they would.

  I’d put everything about prison life into those books. Crippling disease. Death. Slimy newborn babes. Open sores. Sewer rats. The grit of real life to me, but completely foreign to this family.

  “Whatever his experiences, they must be incredible for his mind to spin such tales.” Silas reached for his water glass. “Perhaps it is his interesting life that makes Nathaniel Droll the genius writer he is.”

  Garamond leaned toward Silas, waving an empty fork with a frown. “It isn’t the writing that’s so fantastic, when it comes to Nathaniel Droll. It’s the mystery of the man himself. He’s only famous because no one knows who he really is. Superb marketing trick, isn’t it?”

  Glenna popped a bite of bread into her mouth and blotted the crumbs from her lips with her napkin. “No, no, no. Why ever do you insist on talking when you don’t know anything? And you never know anything. Honestly, Garamond. You’re sharp as custard.” The napkin then descended on her poor husband, blotting every trace of food from his face. “Why, a man’s come forward!”

  I swallowed the green bean already in my mouth and coughed. Another gulp and it was down. “Come forward? You mean to say, someone has revealed himself as Nathaniel Droll?”

  “Isn’t it splendid? He has made himself known to the publisher and plans to come forward publicly rather soon, I believe. I cannot wait to know who he is and why he has hidden himself for so long. What a story his life must be.”

  After forcing the rest of my food down, I followed the other women into the drawing room while the men disappeared down the hall for billiards. Juliette perched at the piano, highlighted by the glow of a dozen candles above and beside her and, in the stillness of several moments, transformed into a lovely work of art as she closed her eyes and drew magically beautiful sounds from the instrument. Was it truly the same girl who had flounced into my room, all dimples and gaiety?

  But the sounds faded into background music as my thoughts once again crowded in. Who was this man claiming my father’s nom de plume? Could the publishing company have concocted this mess to generate more excitement? I had to tell someone he was an imposter.

  No, because that meant revealing that the real Nathaniel Droll had died.

  “I suppose you’ve left a man pining for you at home, have you?” Glenna nestled herself onto the couch beside me, her deep voice near my ear.

  “I have no attachments at present, Lady Gaffney.”

  Again, that evaluating gaze roamed my stiff body, as if noticing every possible flaw and immediately assessing everything she could lay eyes on. “What a pity for a pretty girl like you. Quite pretty. I daresay you’ll turn heads away from everyone else in the household, even my own dear Juliette.”

  A palpable ire, a female rivalry, rose between us with the few words spoken, and the many words left unsaid.

  “I have no intention of turning any heads, Lady Gaffney.”

  “Which is precisely why you will.”

  Digory brought in a tray with biscuits, wine, and tea, and the women rose for refreshment, redistributing around the room. When they each exited the room one at a time that evening, their lights disappearing down different hallways, I circled back to reality long enough to smile goodbye, take a candle from a table, and drift out into the grand hall. Finally, freedom. Alone, I could sink into deep thoughts to my heart’s content.

  I veered away from the stairs, slipping down a narrow hallway toward the section that should be the south wing. It was late, and I should return to my bedchamber, but my mind overflowed with questions.

  This is what Papa had pictured as he wrote. Suddenly I could not imagine tearing myself away from this place. Papa had spoken of Lynhurst Manor so much that it had settled into the dear parts of my memory as if it were my own childhood home. Great yawning caverns of rooms lay through each doorway off the hall, empty and enticing, but there was one part of the house I must find—the infamous south tower.

  For research, of course.

  But then the hallway turned east. Frowning, I followed the path past closed doors and great windows draped in sheer curtains. The hall ended at the rounded wall of a tower, and I ran to it, but it proved to be a disappointment. A mere storage closet for the servants’ personal items, the delightfully creepy space seemed a complete waste. Turning back, I spun and my candle light illuminated another hall. Had it been there before?

  This one angled south and west, tapering off into darkness. Shoring up my courage, I crept down the slender hall with cobwebs stretched over the gaps between stones and bare windows splintering at the sills. At the end of the lonely, moonlit passage, another tower curved into the hall, the door open and enticing with the foot of a bed visible just beyond.

  Upon entering, the feminine aura of the place wrapped itself around me. Dusty glass surfaces and rose-colored trim dominated the round room. Certainly, this was the south tower where Jayne Windham would have stayed, if Papa’s stories were true.

  “You certainly would have lived like a fairy-tale princess in this room.” My mumbled voice did not echo. Likely the only place in the house where that was true. I perched on the rosebud coverlet and absorbed the lovely emptiness, ideas spinning. It could have been a jealous rival or a former suitor who caused the disappearance. Maybe it was a kidnapping. Perhaps someone had snuck in from outside. Sheer curtains sparkled over the ground-level windows, letting in a full dose of moonlight. But that still did not explain how all the pieces fit together, and where I came in.

  I pivoted to look at the place where my mother had supposedly spent her final months. My mother. That had been such a foreign concept while growing up, but a vague idea of warmth and femininity accompanied all thoughts of the woman who had given birth to me before she’d ceased to exist. Even when Papa began sharing her story months ago, the woman still seemed like a fairy in the woods, ethereal and fleeting. That’s when I admitted it to myself—I did not believe in my mother. At least, not the one in my father’s story. That magnificent woman had been his grandest fairy tale.

  Drawn to the cherrywood armoire gracing the north wall, I walked to it and parted its doors, letting in the nighttime glow. There, hanging in shimmering perfection like forgotten ghosts, were the most luscious gowns. Purple gowns, every last one. Suddenly her presence in the room nearly overwhelmed me, as if she called out to me to find her killer. As if some part of her lived here still.

  I moved back, panic rising in my throat. As I pivoted away from the door, a tiny sparkling object caught my gaze. There on the glass-topped dressing table sat a delicate, ornate gold ring with a light purple stone, blanketed in dust.

  An amethyst, like the one in my father’s boo
k.

  She was real. Lady Jayne was real.

  And something very real had happened to her.

  A tingling fear invaded my body and propelled me from the room. Candle in hand, I slipped out the doorway and down the hall.

  Footsteps sounded deep in the shadows, echoing against stone. Paranoid, I turned and walked back the way I’d come. The footsteps sped up, click-clicking with rapid beats, and I hastened my steps. But the sound grew closer. When I turned with the candle, I spotted the outline of a man moving along the passage toward me. Fear gripped me. Overcome with the notion of ghosts and horrible murders in these very halls, I abandoned all caution and sprinted, hand out before me.

  At that moment a wall rose up and collided with my body. I crumpled with a cry, fingers pressing into the pain in my temple. Blackness swept over me and muted my senses. Moments passed. Then light flickered on the hallway walls, brightening with approaching footfalls. Turning over and planting my hands behind me for support, I watched a figure close the distance in seconds, and there he stood, his dusty gray suit hanging open over me, muttonchops lining his jaw. “What are you doing here?”

  “Only exploring. I’ve just arrived.” My arms shook under the weight of my upper body and my vision swirled.

  Angry eyebrows lowered. “No. What are you doing here . . . at my home? Isn’t it enough that you’ve already stolen my work from me?”

  “I’ve stolen nothing, that I promise.”

  A long growl radiated from his broad chest.

  “Sir, might I ask who you are? I thought I’d met the whole family.”

  His jaw twitched, muttonchops jerking. “I am Nathaniel Droll. And I want my stories back.”

  5

  The bright lavender dresses she wore were simply an outward display of Lady Jayne’s personality, an expression of the color and joy that overflowed from her soul.