My heart ached for this pair so deeply in love who were kept apart by small-minded people who could not have understood real love. They’d been allowed only stolen moments together and secret letters. How had they ever managed to marry? They must have been another Gretna Green romance. But even as my mind trailed down that possible path for their story, I knew there was far more to the tragic romance than a mere elopement. But with all that had blocked their path, they couldn’t possibly have married any other way. Unless . . .
My mind scrambled to collect all the facts and sort them out from what I’d only assumed. Father had told me about Lady Jayne and their love, but marriage—had he actually mentioned that word? Not once had he called her his wife, only his “love.”
My hands shook. The tale became tarnished in my mind as I acknowledged the subtle insinuations now occurring to my reluctant heart. I could not equate the famed Lady Jayne with such impurity, and my writer brain immediately dreamed up the most lovely justifications for what I could not explain in real life. Heroines must be above reproach, and I could not include even a hint of impropriety on her part.
As my mind spun with possibilities too wild to be reality, a knock sounded on my door. Shoving the letters into the box and hiding the whole thing beneath my bed, I hurried to answer.
“Here to help you start the day, miss.” The chambermaid bobbed a curtsey and swept into the room. After dressing with the help of this hapless young girl who was wonderfully terrible at tight-lacing my corset, I turned to her and smiled. “Minnie, have you served long in this household?”
“Yes, miss. Ten years this fall.”
“What of the other servants? Have any been here twenty or so years?” This would be one way to narrow down the person indicated by that note. The killer would have been here twenty years ago when Lady Jayne had come, and if Nathaniel Droll meant for me to find the guilty one here and now, it must mean he or she remained at Lynhurst.
“Digory has served here his whole life. Most of the others have had a shorter stay than myself. But you can check Lord Gaffney’s books, if you’d like. He keeps records of the staff.”
“What a brilliant idea. Thank you, Minnie.” Of course. He’d been the house steward years ago, and certainly he still retained that level of management, even though he now wore the title of son-in-law.
I readied myself with haste, grateful for a day with looser constraints about my ribs. Pausing at the doorway, I turned and locked my chamber door, pocketing the heavy key. If Nathaniel Droll wanted to paw through my things, I wouldn’t make it easy.
As my stomach growled, I took myself down to the morning room and into the lovely aroma of fresh toast and stewed fruit. Silas and Garamond hovered near the sideboard, speaking in hushed tones over their plates, and Juliette glided toward me, arms outstretched in welcome.
“I knew I’d find you here eventually. Wherever there is food.” She offered a brief embrace, then led me toward the sideboard. “Honestly, I’ll never know why you insist on eating so much. It’s as if you’re already thirty and completely finished caring about your appearance. Why, look at my figure.” Hands lighting on her corseted waist, Juliette turned this way and that, sneaking sideways glances at Silas Rotherham to see if he, too, heard the invitation to appreciate her figure. “Neither of us can expect our trim figures to last without a little effort.”
No sense. The girl had no sense. How could one live without eating? Besides, my figure was more slender than hers. I plunged a silver spoon into a bowl of eggs and heaped them on my plate. Salivating, I tucked a stack of sliced cheese on the side, dropped crusty bread on top like a cherry, and followed Juliette and her single teacup to the couch in the center of the room.
“Don’t you delight even a little bit in your waistline?” These last words Juliette whispered, hand flat against her cinched belly.
I smiled coyly and popped a bite of crust into my mouth. “Very much. I delight a great deal in filling it up and testing its capacity.” Generous bites of bread and jam followed.
Silas coughed and sputtered, covering a coy smile with his hand and clearing his throat. So they had overheard.
When the men excused themselves to embark toward Bristol on business, the awareness of opportunity sparked. As soon as politely possible, perhaps a few minutes before, I escaped Juliette’s company, begging the need of solitude. But my deeper need was to quench the thirst of my curiosity, with the study now unguarded.
Slipping between the doors left ajar, I avoided looking into the eyes of stuffed game that bordered the room and focused on finding the staff logs. The neatly organized desk made the search quick and simple. I pulled the ledger from the cabinet and perched on a stiff sofa to read. Flipping through pages, Garamond’s typewriter-perfect writing outlined the basic facts of the staff. Skimming the list, I tore out a sheet of paper and recorded the names of every staff member serving before the year I was born and when Lady Jayne had disappeared from Lynhurst. And one by one, every name came off the list as I found a record of their service end-date. The only name remaining was Digory.
But of course, there was the family to consider. I wrote down each name: Aunt Eudora, Glenna, Garamond, Kendrick, and Juliette. Clem would not have been born yet, and perhaps not even Juliette. She had to be at least a year or two younger than me. Tapping my pen against my chin, I crossed out Kendrick’s and Juliette’s names. If they had been alive then, they would have been mere children.
Tucking the paper into my purse, I snuck out of the room and into the garden through the patio doors for the solitude I’d requested. A lovely floral aroma greeted me in the heady noonday sunshine, and I slowed at the edge of the patio to breathe it in. There were some things about Lynhurst that made it feel like the haven Papa had described.
Soft whinnies drew my gaze toward the stables. Yes, a perfect way to spend my coveted alone time—rubbing the soft noses of horses and looking into their large, serious eyes. I lifted the hem of my pink morning dress and ran, only to lose one of my kid slippers along the way. Limping into the straw-littered building on one shoe, I blinked to allow my eyes to adjust as the earthy smell of animal rolled over me. Before I could make out the dark shapes of horses, a roughened hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back, my shoulder bumping the rough walls as fingers bruised my arm. “Finally left your little castle to be part of the real world again.”
“Jasper.” My erratic heart recovered as my mind worked to fit this man from my past into my present location. “You have no business here.”
“Of course I do.” His knowing smile showed white teeth against a dirty face. One bony arm reached over my head to lean against the beam and he moved close, towering over me. “Got business with the princess of the castle. You wouldn’t happen to know where I might find her, would you?”
“Stop playing and run home.”
“I shall, but I’d like my pockets to be a bit heavier when I go.” He leaned back and pulled out empty pockets, scattering crumbs on the ground.
Panic squeezed my chest. With a frown, I pushed past him toward the door. I did not have access to my family’s money. Did he really think I would? I was a guest. A barely welcomed one at that.
“I’ve a loud mouth, you know,” his voice called from the shadows. “And quite a bit to say about dear Princess Aurelie that would shock everyone.”
Irate, I spun in the doorway. Why should it matter if my father had died a debtor? “I will not let you do this. Go home, Jasper. Those secrets are all past history.”
“I’d call it more of a ‘present’ condition, seeing as how Nathaniel Droll still seems to be writing.”
Hot waves chased an icy chill over my skin. That secret.
“‘Lady Jayne’s voice carried like a sonnet through the empty house and lifted the spirits of even the lowest servant.’”
My stomach turned, hearing my carefully crafted words from the latest installment on his twisted lips. Why had those silly words ever felt beautiful to me? Like a child who has applied her mum’s
face powder and color and thinks herself beautiful, I’d fooled myself horribly when I’d sat down to fill Papa’s notebooks with my writing. Everyone else had the privilege of keeping their thoughts and words buried in a journal by their bed, but not me.
“Yes I did, I took a peek in your package. I figured to myself how this might come in handy, knowing what the little ice princess was always posting to London.” He stepped toward me, worn boots scuffing the hard-packed floor as he hemmed me against the wall with his body. “And knock me over, it was a book. A rather famous one, I understand.”
“You cannot tell a soul.” I hugged my middle.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Palms up, he feigned innocence. “But just to make sure it don’t slip out, you know, I might need a little reminding.”
I balanced on my one shoe, bare toe from the other foot on the ground to aid. “What is it you want?”
“Oh, I imagine fifteen pounds sixpence would do the trick.”
“You saw the money.” My most recent payment, the one delivered through Jasper’s father, had been exactly that amount.
“With quarterly payments like that, you can afford for one to disappear.” His words filled me with ire. “Especially without dear Papa to waste it all away as soon as it comes.”
I hated his face. Every last dirt smear and stray hair on his shaggy head. The murders of Papa’s mystery novels suddenly made sense—the hate that drove a person to want to wipe another off the earth completely. “I’d rather throw the money in the Thames.”
He squinted, the whites of his eyes standing out against the darkness. “Just this one check. Not another shilling shall I ask of you. A fine deal, considering all I know, and all I could do to ruin your pretty little life. Would you like me to tell them about the little babe you hid away? Or the many times the constable locked you up for quick-fingering?”
I balanced on my bare foot, digging my heel into the straw littering the ground. None of it was true, but Jasper Grupp had the ability to make anything he said sound so.
“What’ll they do to you then? Throw you out on your ear, I’d wager.” He moved closer and brushed a dirty thumb along my jawline. “But don’t worry. I’ll be right there to catch you when no one else will.” He fingered the ends of my hair.
“Wait here. And don’t let anyone see you.” I limped through the thick carpet of grass to my other shoe, slid it onto my dirty foot, and ran back to the house. Through a garden entrance that led to an unused parlor and up the stairs, I sprinted on my toes to my bedchamber and stopped to catch my breath against the doorframe. What good had I ever seen in Jasper Grupp? Once upon a time I’d seen only his pain. Someone who needed my help. Something in him had moved me to act, to give of myself more than usual.
I should have left this particular hurting person alone.
Snatching the check with its blank payee line, as my father had insisted when he began this scheme, I ran back to the stables and held it out, my fingers reluctant to let it go.
“This means you will not say a word.”
“Word of honor, princess.” He covered his lips with one dirty finger, backing into the stable shadows. “No one shall know your secret.”
But the sour taste of his visit did not depart with him. Doubt still gouged my gut. His look of silent victory had unnerved me in a way I couldn’t release.
Horse hooves on the packed ground behind me made me jump. A tall man in dark, neat riding clothes strode with the confidence of ownership into the stable, leading a tall brown stallion. “Beg your pardon, miss. I did not mean to interrupt a meeting.” Perfectly shorn blond hair reached light eyebrows. His face, young and bright, beamed with remarkable self-assurance. He must be about my own age. The light in his face was so like Papa’s—it drew me in.
“It was a chance encounter with an old acquaintance. Nothing private.”
His raised eyebrows made me wonder how long he’d stood in the doorway, holding his horse by the bridle and listening. Why hadn’t I heard them approach? Or had fear thrummed up to my ears and covered the sound?
“What’s your business at Lynhurst?” he asked.
More footsteps swished in the grass outside. Someone was coming—a distraction that might save me from answering. I stalled, chewing my lip. A shadow crossed the doorway, then Silas Rotherham stood there, his form briefly blocking the sun.
“Ah, there you are, chap.” The stranger clapped Silas on the arm. “I was just making myself acquainted with this rather skittish young woman who happens to find herself in my stables.” He led the horse past them both into an open stall.
“Kendrick, this is Miss Harcourt. Miss Harcourt, Kendrick Gaffney of Lynhurst. He is Juliette and Clement’s older brother, and my schoolmate from Master Chumley’s.”
“Ah, and now I’m suitably charmed to make your acquaintance.” He dusted his gloved hands against each other and extended one, which I took hesitantly. He turned to Silas with a wide grin, as if I had suddenly disappeared. “I suppose you have renewed your acquaintance with my dear sister, have you?”
Silas dipped his head in agreement. “A bit, of course.”
“And she was very happy to see you return?” He elbowed Silas.
How terribly awkward. This was not a conversation for me to hear. Especially after what Juliette had told me about Silas.
“Shall we go, then? I’d like to greet Father before the day is too much past.”
Silas turned to me. “Would you care to join us back to the house?”
“You mean to say, she isn’t in service?” Kendrick frowned, his gaze assessing me. “I thought for sure she was one of my sister’s little kittens rescued from the storm and tucked neatly into our warm home.”
“Miss Harcourt is a relative come to stay. Although I rather say she’s become your sister’s rescued kitten, even if she did not pull her out of the storm.”
Kendrick cocked one eyebrow and leaned back, arms folded over his chest. “A relative, you say? Why, I thought I’d met every last boring one of them.”
A fleeting smile on Silas’s lips portrayed the nature of his thoughts. “All the boring ones, yes.”
Perhaps he was thinking of the puddle hopping and mud. Or of waistlines and rolls. Either way, that he found me amusing was pleasantly obvious.
At least I was of some use to one person in this house.
“Wonderful, then. Of course she must accompany us.”
We strode together through the yard, thoughts racing through my head. If only I could grasp one of them and pull it into my command so that at least I might speak in this awkward silence.
But before I could manage a word, Silas laid a gentle hand on my arm. “Actually, Miss Harcourt, I need a word with you. Privately.”
9
A good book will enable you to both lose yourself and find yourself.
~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears
A rare gem among women—that’s what Aurelie was. Silas watched her hair sway against the back of her gown as they neared the bricked patio with white metal furniture and curling vines. Every part of her seemed surreal, from the innocent yet intelligent eyes to the personality that glowed from the inside. And with little-known background, she seemed even more a fairy-type creature.
At the patio she turned with a question in her eyes, that placid face like a spring breeze. No matter that Kendrick had thought her a servant or Glenna laughed at her muddy fall, her face remained the same. As if her thoughts always ran deeper, and were more important, than what happened around her.
“I merely wanted to know that everything is . . . that you are . . . safe.”
She dipped her head, obvious shame pinking her cheeks. “Quite all right, thank you. Just a little run-in with someone I used to know. He won’t be coming around again.” Briefly lifting her face for a polite nod, she pivoted to leave.
“I think I’ve figured you out. Why you’re so calm.” His voice paused her steps and turned her back to him. “It hardly made sense at first. Y
ou have all manner of barbs thrown your way and endure insult upon insult, yet you carry yourself with the grace of a duck.”
She frowned. “A duck, Mr. Rotherham?”
Why hadn’t he said something safe? There were plenty of options—What book are you reading? Do you think it’ll rain today? Is that hat considered blue or light blue? Instead, he jumped directly into the deep end with a splash, chasing off every living creature in sight.
“You know.” He made a graceful swoop with one hand. “Up and over, right off the oily back.”
“I see. You think I stand out here, in a world of pretense and masks, because I am able to cover up my feelings?” Amusement tipped the corners of her lips.
Of course. This one was different. She sat and he sank into the seat across from hers. She didn’t flitter off because he said the wrong thing. No, she jumped right in and swam beside him.
“Not cover up. Just . . . remain detached. Deal with them within yourself. I wondered about it, until I recalled that . . . that trunk of rocks. Or books, as you claim. That’s your secret, is it not? You know how to escape into your own world whenever necessary.”
“On the contrary, books enhance everything for me. I do not write to escape the world but to untangle and understand it.”
“Write? You write stories, then?” Of course she did. He should have guessed.
Her toes scuffed crispy leaves on the ground, her face reddening as if she’d shared too much. “Little fables and fairy tales. Mostly for people in Shepton Mallet. It offered them a wonderful distraction.”
Perhaps she was afraid he’d ask to read it and find it lacking. She’d never think her work better than it was. Not this girl.
A loud exhale trembled the delicate clematis beside his face. “I admit I’m an escapist when it comes to books. I become drunk on story, on words, as a buffer against reality.” If only she knew how often. If books were alcohol, he’d be the worst drunk in history. “Growing up, we lived in a swampland in an abandoned house until my father’s business became successful. Insects, a big lonely house, and plenty of people eager to look down on us. When reading, a boy could nearly pretend other people did not exist for a time.”
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