by T T Thomas
Lena stopped sipping her coffee and looked out at the morning scenery. “I didn’t know any of that, but I’ve sensed you had more information. And what were your sister’s intentions?”
“Merely to earn a little money and keep tabs on how close Hugh was getting. I didn’t want him to find me. Nor did George. Who better to take the job of finding me than the one person who would lead Hugh Glyver away from me? My own sister.”
“And why was he trying to find you?” Lena asked.
“I believe he wanted to fix a final settlement on me as he had not kept up his legal obligation to send me money the previous year.”
“Why would that be a problem?” Lena asked. The rig stopped to allow a large flock of wild turkeys to cross in front of it.
“Only that neither George nor I wanted Hugh to know about my involvement with George. They were friends, you see. But, now I think back on it…he actually hired Felicity to investigate Sabrina.”
Lena opened her mouth. “For what pray tell?”
Bel’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I don’t rightly know. General information. I…Lena, I knew about that. Not initially—we had no idea why Glyver wanted a private detective. George told me Glyver needed a private detective, and he volunteered Felicity for the job. I…I, oh, what a mistake. George thought it a good way to keep Glyver from finding me, which we suspected he was trying to do. He’s a vengeful man, Lena. So, when we realized he wanted information on Sabrina, Felicity told him the bare minimum.”
“So, Felicity misdirected Hugh about Sabrina, then Markham pretended to take over the job of finding you, managed to find you and then arranged a settlement? And Hugh wouldn’t think it suspect?”
“I believe he would, yes. At some point.”
“And we still don’t know why Glyver would want to investigate Sabrina? We never found out?”
“Well, no, Felicity resigned as soon as George moved me into the new flat.”
They rode in relative silence for the last third of the ride.
In the face of her hard life, Bel knew her heart had calcified into a joyless lack of hope. In the shadows of the dark alleys and darker souls therein, her spirit had clenched its weakened muscle and closed itself off from curiosity, from exposure to love. The lack of forgiveness she encountered in her harsh world had conveyed her soul to a gray and unmerciful place. The changes within worried her, but she was unsure how to regain herself. She could see the recklessness of her past decisions in Lena’s shocked visage.
She looked out at the early morning world going about its living motions. She wondered if she would ever be able to forget what she had been through the past couple of years. If not, would she at least heal from the sharper edges of her past?
Would she wake up some morning and simply have regained a tender heart? Perhaps her child would help her—she smiled inwardly at the thought. She had to find a piece of her softer self to offer Sophia.
The carriage stopped.
They had gone the full route and were pulling into Sabrina’s drive.
“Right,” Lena said as she climbed out of the rig, Bel behind her. They stood there together. “And so we’re faced with a dilemma, here. Possibly Hugh Glyver and George Markham were in something together, and now we wonder if Glyver has broken rank with George Markham for some reason, or are we about to find ourselves the recipients of a massive double, double-cross. Indeed, now I think on it, I suppose it could be both. Well, then, in for a penny, in for a pound.”
The two women hugged. Lena went on about her day, and Bel climbed into her small bed in a darkened room with her hurting heart.
Chapter 45
Later that morning
Sabrina knocked on her own front door. Walters opened it, and tears ran down his face immediately.
“Cath! Cath!” he shouted as he helped Sabrina limp over the threshold. “Oh, my poor girl, what have they done to you? Cath! She’s home!”
Cath came down the hall wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! You’re sunburned. Oh, sweet Lord, come here, girlie. Walters, let’s get her upstairs. Easy now, look at those bruises on her arm. Glory be to whoever in heaven got her out of there.”
Cath and Walters walked on either side of her up the wide stairs, both of them weeping. Soon Sabrina was crying, too. She saw and felt their love, and it seemed so long since she’d felt anything close to it.
Once they took her into her room and sat her in a comfortable chair across the room from her bed, Cath sent Walters to the kitchen for a fresh pot of tea, while she ran a hot bath. This would do the trick, Cath said. She loved her steamy baths, now, didn’t she.
While Sabrina bathed, Cath turned down the sheets, fluffed the pillows and put Sabrina’s favorite afghan at the bottom of the bed. She lit the fireplace and shut all but the bedside lamp.
Although it was early in the day, Sabrina crawled into the luxurious cocoon. She was tired, but the bath had invigorated her enough to enjoy her pot of tea and biscuits.
Walters brought the tray into her room. He rarely came into Sabrina’s bedroom suite, but exceptions were made and understood in times of illness or unusual circumstance. This day seemed to offer both. Husband and wife stood at the foot of her bed.
“Yes, it was awful,” Sabrina said. “But no, I’m not permanently damaged. Not physically anyway.”
Cath and Walters nodded solemnly.
“I would think someone will want to get to the bottom of this intrusive and unnecessary attack against our mistress,” Walters said, as if speaking only to Cath.
“I expect so, yes,” Cath answered.
“How is Lena?” Sabrina asked. “And the others.”
Cath whispered, “Annabel is asleep in the guest room down the hall…she’s here to recuperate.”
Sabrina felt the surprise washing across her face.
Walters spoke. “Miss Thornbrook seems strongest of all. They all met here last evening.”
Sabrina raised an eyebrow.
“In attendance,” Walters said, in answer to Sabrina’s unasked question, “were Dr. Jeremy, Miss Thornbrook, Miss Annabel North and her sister, Miss Felicity North.”
“Why?” Sabrina asked.
“We’re not entirely certain,” Walters said. “Apparently, Dr. Jeremy called the meeting.”
Sabrina looked at Cath. “What did you hear, Cath, in your comings and goings? I assume they gathered in my library.”
Cath opened her eyes wide to establish innocence after which she nodded. “I might have heard Lena say your life was in danger. While I was refreshing the canapés, of course.”
Sabrina sipped her tea. “Anything else?”
Cath shook her head in negation. Walters looked up.
“As I was clearing away the drinks,” he said, “I did hear about some kind of get-together this morning, around 9 a.m.”
“Well, that makes perfect sense,” Cath said, “as Miss Thornbrook came by early to pick up Miss North.”
“Which Miss North, Cath?”
“Miss Annabel North.”
Sabrina’s eyes crossed. “And not Miss Felicity North?”
“No, that Miss North left the house even earlier for a long walk. Said she’d return for dinner.”
“That’s more than a long walk,” Sabrina said. “More like a day trip to Kew Gardens.”
Cath and Walters stood there, expressionless.
“What?” Sabrina asked, looking back and forth at each of them.
“The Royal Botanic Gardens might have been yesterday,” Walters said. “Miss North went for a long walk yesterday, too.”
Sabrina nodded but chose not to pursue this odd piece of information.
“Very well, you two. Thank you for your astute observations, however accidental. I’ll rest now. I’m quite sure I’ll be up in plenty of time for dinner. I feel like I could sleep a week, but that’s merely a sense of relief talking.”
Walters removed the tray and left the room. Sabrina slippe
d down beneath the covers, and Cath turned off the bedside lamp before following him.
Sabrina slept through dinner and awoke the next morning to the smell of burnt toast being furiously scraped of its blackened crumbs. She rolled over and smiled. Cath in the kitchen was far better than the sounds of prison cooks bludgeoning a tin dish with an evil-smelling splattering of tasteless gruel. Perspective. It was everything.
After breakfast, which she ate alone in her room, Sabrina dressed for the day. She wondered where Felicity was, where Bel and the baby were. An hour later, she walked down the stairs and found Cath at the mail table.
Sabrina was wearing something almost no one had ever seen her wear: a skirt.
Although she had lost weight, the fabric draped beautifully over the contours of her body. It was a suit, but instead of her usual trousers, she wore a skirt with the latest Parisian hemlines above the ankle revealing the beginning of shapely legs in silk stockings. The outfit was a dark blue gabardine with narrow, powder blue pin stripes. Sabrina accessorized with navy blue pumps and a large, dark blue envelope. On closer inspection, the blue envelope was a flat leather purse with a single gold clasp.
Sabrina gave Cath her a warm smile as she came off the last step. “I don’t think you’ve ever looked so beautiful,” Cath whispered. Sabrina enveloped her in a hug, which seemed to take Cath off guard. She cleared her throat to regain her professional countenance.
“Where you be off to?” she asked Sabrina. “All dressed up like you’re going to Court.”
Sabrina stepped back, her smile broad. “Well, believe it or not, I do have an audience with the King.”
Cath looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “I see.”
“Well, not the King himself, of course, but The Lord Chamberlain, the most important member of the household staff. Apparently, he, the King, heard of my case. I don’t know how or exactly why he wishes to see me, but I do have something to discuss with him...or his emissary.”
Cath was flummoxed. “You don’t say?”
Sabrina looked at her and offered a grin and a shrug but no words. “Where is everyone?”
“Miss Felicity North has gone for another walk and Miss Bel North and her baby have gone to the clinic.”
“Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“No, just a regular checkup, I believe. For the two of ‘em.”
There was a sharp rap on the door. Walters materialized, glided past both women and opened the door.
“His Majesty’s carriage for Miss Blissdon,” the man said.
“Certainly,” Walters said as if it were an everyday occurrence. “She’s right here.” He turned to Sabrina. “Miss Blissdon?” he said.
Sabrina walked through the open door. “Thank you, Walters. I should be home in time for dinner.”
After the door closed, Cath grabbed Walters’s arm. “What the bloody hell was that, man?”
“No idea, Mrs. Walters, and why might you think I’d know?”
“Because, well, didn’t you just sail through this foyer, sweep open the door and speak to His Majesty’s man like you’d had tea with the good gentleman this morning?”
“Mrs. Walters,” Walters said with a partial bow and a feigned upper-class accent, “as the Head Houseman, I believe in being prepared for any situation, a commitment I made early on in getting to know our bohemian Mistress.”
“Oh, go on with you,” she said, laughing. “I could use some help in the kitchen.”
“I suppose Felicity has gone off on another of her long walks,” he said, walking behind Cath, who nodded in confirmation. “I’m sure she’ll return for dinner, though,” Walters mumbled as he entered the kitchen. “That young lady has an appetite. What are you serving, have you decided?”
“I’m going to play it safe tonight,” Cath said.
“Always a dangerous notion.” Walters grinned at her.
She swatted him across the arm with a towel, but he laughed and ducked out the back door. “Bring in more firewood for the evening,” she called after him. “And try not to track dirt all over my clean floors.”
Chapter 46
It relieved Sabrina that she would not be seeing the King but meeting instead with The Right Honorable The Viscount Althorn, The Lord Chamberlain. That made her nervous enough.
She laughed to herself. Yes, she had thought it would be the King himself, initially…she had. During her release from prison, the Head Warden told her that a carriage would call for her at 1 p.m. the following day. They said it would be from the King. Although numb at the time, and dirty, she made a decision to wear a dress—it seemed appropriate for an appointment at Buckingham Palace.
Viscount Althorn came through a pair of dark, carved wooden double doors to greet her.
“Miss Blissdon,” he said extending his hand, “thank you for coming in on such short notice. Shall we take a walk in the gardens? Things are beginning to show promise of new life.”
“Thank you,” she said shaking his hand. “One has to hope so.”
“Indeed.”
They walked through an atrium filled with the most gorgeous array of scent and fragrance. Sabrina slowed, to inhale deeper.
“Marvelous, isn’t it,” he said. “Here we are.” He opened the far door to an outside garden.
They walked quite a few paces before Sabrina found her voice. “I’m not sure you realize, Sir,” she said, “but I have no real idea why I’m here.”
He looked at her and smiled. “I’m sure you don’t. And when you hear it, I’m afraid it might be a rather heavy shock.”
“Has someone died?” she asked, frowning.
“Let’s sit here,” he said. They sat surrounded by what seemed like a thousand years of thousands of roses, most only halfway to their full blooms.
“Allow me to give you the abridged version,” he said. “We have reason to believe, in fact, we are positive, that two different Letters Patent were issued some years ago in error and by virtue of subterfuge. The second instance allowed the man known as George Markham, the 9th Baron Porthleven, to change the name of his baronial homestead from Blissdon Park to Markham Manor.”
“I’ve recently learned about that myself,” she said.
“The bigger problem, you see, the real issue, is that George Markham was not the true-born son of the man who raised him, the 8th Baron Porthleven. Your great grandmother and the 8th Baron Porthleven adopted him from a foundling orphanage. Your great grandmother agreed to that little scheme only if the Baron Porthleven would legally adopt her two existing children, which would be your father and your aunt.”
Sabrina sat in stunned silence, her mind trying to calculate what this could mean.
Viscount Althorn continued. “So, issuance of the first Letters Patent, awarding the title, was based on the legitimacy of George Markham as heir to the barony. But he wasn’t. However, from a legal standpoint, even Letters Patent issued in error still convey the barony. As you know, his estate went to your great grandmother as the surviving widow.”
Sabrina nodded. “And the title?”
“Well, normally, the title itself would have become extinct if the 8th Baron had no heir, but the Crown had been persuaded, if erroneously, that George was his heir and successor.”
Sabrina looked thoughtful. “It’s a shame about the baronial home. I understand it’s gone to seed since George inherited it.”
He shrugged. “Not entirely. There’s actually a good deal of fertile land. The house itself? Yes, it needs a major renovation, but it’s possible. It appears, Miss Blissdon, that the Crown will restore the original name, Blissdon Park. It always had such wonderful gardens, which, hopefully, it will have again.”
“Really? How lovely. Yes, I understood from my parents that the grounds had some of the loveliest gardens in this area.” She frowned. “However, why are they going to the trouble?”
The Lord Chamberlain smiled at her. “Because the King, in appreciation of both your service and your unwarranted incarceration during this
murder investigation, is issuing a Letter Patent restoring the house and grounds to you.”
“Me?” She leaned forward in surprise, then sat upright in shock.
“You,” he said. “And so, in a decision to right the wrongs of the past, Mr. Markham will be stripped of the title and all the lands that go with it.”
Sabrina twisted on the bench. A look of concern filled her eyes. “Does he know that?”
“Well, not exactly, not yet. We advised him of the anomaly and investigation over two years ago. The Crown received an anonymous missive from someone whose intimate knowledge of Mr. Markham’s background persuaded us to investigate. Normally, we would not pay much heed to something of this anonymous nature, but as it involved Letters Patent, we were required to open at least a cursory review.
“Upon doing so, we could not locate Mr. Markham’s official birth certificate. That has stalled our investigation. Indeed, it was a friend of yours, Miss Lena Thornbrook, who managed to provide us with the one document we had been unable to unearth: George Markham’s birth certificate.”
“Miss…? How on earth did she even know to look for such a document?”
“Quite by an accident of Providence, we think. Apparently, she was trying to find out more about your heritage when she came across a somewhat obscure reference to George Markham’s birth certificate. It was said to be ‘on record’ in Penzance—we had not seen that reference before she brought it to our attention.
“And that makes perfect sense because while researching your ancestry, she discovered George Markham is the legal younger half brother of your father and your aunt Sarah. Naturally, she pursued Mr. Markham’s ancestry on behalf of his connection to your father and aunt.”
Sabrina looked around at the sumptuous and well-tended gardens, lawns, trees and fountains, all set against the towering backdrop of Windsor Castle. This particular area gave her a view of the monarchy’s domain as few had seen it. It was at once grand, simple, natural, royal and reassuring.