The Enigmatic Lady in the Ivory Tower

by Hazel Linwood

  Unable to bear the thought of it, Diana swore that she would get to the bottom of it no matter what it cost her to do so. As if the ghost of the infant itself urged her forward, Diana arose and left the room without a word.

  “You will do no such thing. Do you have any idea who I am?” The Earl of Appley answered the highwayman’s threat to kill them where they stood if they did not surrender their belongings, without any evidence of fear marring his features.

  Gabriel was impressed by the nobleman’s bravery but did not approve of his reckless behavior in refusing to do as instructed.

  “Possessions can be replaced, My Lord, your life cannot.”

  “It is a matter of principle, Gabriel. I do not expect you to understand, but I cannot simply surrender. I am honor bound to resist.”

  “It will be difficult to resist anything from the cold hard ground once I have sent you to your grave,” the highwayman growled threateningly, thrusting his pistol into the Earl’s ribs with a most menacing snarl.

  “Do what you must,” the Earl growled back, holding the robber’s eyes with a steely stare.

  I am not certain if the man is truly courageous or simply mad, perhaps a bit of both.

  Gabriel, unwilling to allow the Earl to be murdered before his very eyes, handed over what few meager possessions he owned and encouraged the Earl to do the same. The Earl again refused.

  “I am attempting to save your life,” Gabriel murmured under his breath.

  “My life is not of your concern. I will act with honor or not at all.”

  Gabriel saw the patience leave the highwayman’s eyes and saw his finger twitch on the trigger. Before he could truly think of what he was doing, Gabriel launched himself at the Earl, knocking him from his horse. The pistol went off and Gabriel landed on top of the Earl, sheltering the nobleman’s body with his own. The lead ball pierced his shoulder, sending searing pain through his arm and torso. The Earl lay beneath him, gasping for air like a fish out of water, as all of the air had been forced out of his lungs as he had hit the ground.

  The highwayman bent down and ripped the pocket watch from the Earl’s side where it had fallen loose from its pocket.

  “This did not have to happen this way,” he grumbled, removed the ring from the Earl’s finger, then mounted his horse and rode away with his gang.

  “Gabriel,” the Earl gasped when he finally caught his breath. Gabriel was unable to answer as the pain was so bad that he had begun to fade in and out of consciousness.

  “Gabriel!”

  The Earl pushed on Gabriel’s body to get him off of him but was unsuccessful.

  “Gabriel!”

  The Earl shouted again, and Gabriel attempted to move himself, but a shooting pain caused the world around him to go black. He tried again as the Earl pushed and the combined effort caused Gabriel to roll to the ground. The last thing that Gabriel remembered was seeing the Earl’s face looming above him before he surrendered to the beckoning arms of oblivion.

  Diana moved through the house uncertain where to go to begin her search for the truth. After aimlessly wandering down the halls for several minutes, she eventually found herself standing in the library, staring up at a portrait of the former marquess.

  “Is it true?” she murmured up at him, seeing similarities in the face with that of his son. Thoughts of Ernest made her wonder if he had any notion of what was being said about his mother.

  I cannot believe that he would be greatly pleased to discover that his mother was a murderer of infants. What son would be?

  Diana could not blame the late marquess for falling prey to the temptations of love. It was difficult to resist such things at the best of times, let alone when one is lonely and sad beyond measure. Diana moved over to the desk and sat down behind it, keeping an eye on the door to ensure that she would not be caught nosing about in the Marquess’ things. She doubted that she would find a clue as to what had happened, but she did not know where else to start her search.

  There may not be any evidence of her crimes as she might not have left anything behind, or she might not have committed the heinous deed to begin with.

  Diana felt rather foolish at this last thought, as she felt that it was most likely the truth and that the young maid’s imagination had run wild with the notion of intrigue. The one thing that gave Sarah’s story credence was the fact that her mother had been the midwife.

  Diana began opening drawers and rummaging through the contents. She found paper and various other supplies for letter writing, several letters addressed to the Marquess pertaining to estate business, and several more ledgers pertaining to the same. There was nothing at all to suggest that anything untoward had transpired. Sighing, Diana stood and surveyed the room.

  Perhaps the library is the wrong place to start. A person tends to hide their most personal secrets closest to them. Their bedchamber, perhaps?

  Diana left the library and climbed the stairs toward the end of the hallway that held the Marquess’ bedchamber. The Dowager Marchioness’ chambers were next to his, joined by a dressing room door. Husband and wife had lived separate lives for many years, but for the sake of appearance they had kept up the charade of nearness. Diana slipped inside of the Dowager Marchioness’ room, praying that she would not be discovered by the Dowager’s lady’s maid. The last thing that she needed was to be forced to explain her presence there.

  She entered the bedchamber and looked around to find it empty of anyone. Breathing a sigh of relief, Diana looked about the room for a place that one might hide their secrets. She doubted that the Dowager Marchioness would have been so foolish as to leave anything behind to incriminate herself, if she was even guilty at all. Not for the first time since starting her search, Diana felt foolish for invading her host and hostess’ privacy as she was. Guilt washed over her again at the thought and she faltered in her resolve.

  I do not even know what I am looking for, if there is anything to be found at all. I am on a fool’s errand, but the fear in Sarah’s eyes was very real, as it was for the maid who warned me not to trust the Dowager Marchioness at Westwallow.

  The thought occurred to her belatedly that if the murder had taken place at Westwallow, she was unlikely to find evidence of it in Wales, but she had not been quite herself since coming to stay with the family and it had gotten worse the longer that she had remained with them.

  Shaking her head in frustration with herself, Diana turned to go, determined to leave her foolishness behind, when the doorknob turned to the bedchamber door leading out to the hallway. Diana hurriedly slipped into the dressing room to escape detection as the Dowager Marchioness’ lady’s maid entered the room.

  The maid moved across the floor toward the dressing room and Diana’s heart raced in her chest causing her head to pound in trepidation. Looking around frantically for a place to hide, Diana was left with no choice but to risk entering the Marquess’ room without looking to see if anyone was there first. Taking a deep breath and sending a prayer skyward, Diana stepped into the next room. The maid entered the dressing room just as Diana shut the door between the two rooms.

  Diana turned and searched the room to ascertain that she was alone. Sighing in relief to discover that it was so, she moved silently through the room toward the other door that led out into the hallway. She pressed her ear against the door to ensure that no one would see her leaving, but heard voices heading in her direction and stopped.

  How can this be happening?!

  She looked all around her for a place to hide and found the only place available—under the bed.

  Scurrying across the room, she slid under the bedframe with just enough room to breathe, but not much else. The door opened and more than one person entered the room, speaking in low voices.

  “Lady Diana’s maid, Frances, has been asking questions among the household staff about Caroline.” The voices were so low that she had a hard time making them out, but it was clear that one of the whispers belonged to a woman due to its higher
pitch.

  The second voice said something that she could not hear, but it had a low rumble to it, denoting it as male. As she was in the Marquess’ room, she assumed that it must be him, but she could not see anything from where she lay beneath the bed to identify them for certain. The woman spoke again.

  “She must be stopped.” The man rumbled another indiscernible reply then the two of them left the room together.

  Frances lay beneath the bed for a few moments more to make certain that they would not return, before wiggling back out and dusting herself off. As she crawled out from beneath the bed her eyes fell upon a painting of the late Marquess. Unlike the perfection of the portrait in the library, the composition of this one seemed quite off. She would not normally have given it a second thought, but she would have sworn that the Marquess was looking down at a baby-shaped blob in his arms.

  Standing, Diana stepped forward to examine the painting. She reached out and ran her finger along the line of paint that did not fit with the rest. It was as if two separate people had laid the paint upon the canvas. One was clearly an experienced artist who had painted the Marquess’ strong masculine features with clean, clear strokes. The other appeared to have been less than even a novice, overlaying the first in angry strokes. It was as if the second artist had been possessed with fury while covering up something on the original.

  Diana took her fingernail and scratched the rough second coating off on a section where it was raised the most from the canvas. Praying that she would not find what she feared, she scratched at the paint until it peeled away to reveal a pair of startling blue eyes. Her heart racing, Diana peeled away more paint exposing the entire face of a newborn infant. Diana took a step back.

  It could be a painting of the late Marquess holding Ernest, but if that were so why would it have been painted over?

  The sound of approaching feet from the hallway caused her to abandon her task. There was no way to hide what she had done to the painting, but she had no intention of being caught in the room with the evidence of her actions piled upon the floor and those brilliant young blue eyes staring back at her as if in accusation.

  Who are you?

  The sudden turning of the doorknob left Diana little choice but to reenter the dressing room and risk that the maid was still there. Without even bothering to look around, Diana raced across the dressing room, through the bedchamber, and out into the hallway. She ran until she reached her room and shut the door behind her.

  As she stood there leaning against the solid wood of the panel, breathing heavily, she felt as if the blue eyes had followed her, haunting her with every step she took.

  Who are you?

  Chapter 28

  “I think that we should tell Lady Georgette what we have discovered and return to Kilgrave Manor, My Lady. If your parents knew what was going on here, they would never have sent you to be educated by the Dowager Marchioness, nor allowed Lady Georgette to accompany them to Wales,” Frances pointed out in an uncharacteristic effort to give advice. Normally she kept her thoughts and feelings on such matters to herself, but she had been truly shaken by what Diana had told her and by what she had learned from the maid, Sarah.

  “We do not know anything for certain and if it is true, then how can we leave when there may be an infant who remains unavenged? I cannot leave until I know the truth.”

  “It is too dangerous, My Lady. At the very least, should Lady Georgette not be informed, for her own safety’s sake?”

  Diana nodded slowly. “Perhaps, but not until we know more.”

  Frances frowned in concern, but she said nothing more on the matter, in spite of her disagreeing with the decision.

  “What shall we do?”

  “I do not know, but I think that it would be best if I spoke with the Marquess on the matter.”

  “That will not be an easy thing to do, My Lady.”

  “Quite difficult, in fact. I cannot imagine that he will be pleased that such a thing is being spoken about among his own staff.”

  “Sarah will lose her position within the household, My Lady.”

  “I will leave her name out of it for now. I would not wish to be responsible for such a thing coming to pass.”

  Frances nodded. “That would indeed be best, My Lady, but His Lordship may demand to know from whom you have heard such rumors.”

  “He may indeed, but I will protect Sarah as long as I can. If there was any other way to learn the truth of the matter I would do it.”

  “When will you speak with him?”

  “Soon.”

  A commotion in the drive, shouting, and a pounding on the door brought their conversation to an abrupt halt. Georgette’s face appeared in the doorway, pale and drawn.

  “There has been an incident. Diana, it is Gabriel and the Earl of Appley.”

  Diana’s heart seized in her chest as she arose and raced out of the door, all thoughts of her prior worry temporarily forgotten.

  Gabriel’s head swam as the darkness inside of his skull threatened to swallow him whole.

  “Gabriel, we have arrived,” the Earl of Appley’s voice cut through the pain, filtering through the dim curtain that lay between himself and consciousness. When Gabriel had been shot, the Earl had arisen to his knees after crawling out from beneath Gabriel’s body and had ripped Gabriel’s shirt open to stem the flow of blood, placing his own jacket over the wound.

  The Marquess appeared above him, hovering with a concerned frown upon his face.

  “Send for the physician immediately!” the Marquess bellowed to the stable hand holding the reins of the waiting horses.

  “My Lord.” The groom nodded and jumped into the saddle of the Earl’s horse.

  “Appley, you and I will carefully lift him up and carry him into the manor house. How did you manage to get him up on his horse?”

  “It was not an easy task, but he regained consciousness and helped me in the endeavor. We were so close to the estate when it happened that it was closer to come here than to find another place.”

  The Marquess, having just healed from his own wounds, waved for two of his footmen to help and they leapt forward to do his bidding. In no time at all, Gabriel found himself being carried into the manor house and placed on the settee in the library.

  Lady Diana and a woman who looked very much like her met them at the door and followed them into the library.

  “My Lord, what has happened?” Diana asked of the Marquess, her voice high with worry. When she saw the blood on his clothing, all of the color left her face and she reached out a trembling hand.

  “Who did this, Appley? What are you both doing here?” the Marquess demanded to know of his friend.

  Diana reached out and took Gabriel’s hand in her own, kneeling beside him. “Gabriel, can you hear me?”

  “My Lady,” he gasped out in answer.

  “We were ambushed by highwaymen,” the Earl answered, accepting the glass of brandy handed to him by the butler.

  “Where is Mother?” the Marquess turned to ask the servant.

  “She is in the drawing room with one of the maids.”

  The Marquess nodded. “It would be best if she remained away from this.”

  “Of course, My Lord,” the servant nodded and turned to close the library door.

  “Gabriel saved my life. He was on top of me, sheltering me with his own body, before I even heard the shot. I could not leave him there to die after he so gallantly saved me. I am afraid that the brigands got away.”

  The Marquess nodded. “You did the right thing. I will send out men to search for the highway robbers and go with them myself.”

  Gabriel lifted his hand in protest and the motion caused pain to rip through his shoulder with a blinding intensity.

  “It is not safe, My Lord. They were intent upon killing His Lordship and would not hesitate to do the same to you.”

  “Did you see who it was?” the Marquess asked, taking Gabriel’s extended hand in his own. “Did you recognize
the men as locals?”

  “No, I did not, My Lord, but it has been many years since I spent any significant time among them.” The effort of speech was wearing on Gabriel’s severely taxed form.

  “Why were you out there to begin with?” the Marquess demanded to know. “I believe I told you to remain at Westwallow.”

  “You did, My Lord,” Gabriel admitted.

  “The matter is entirely my fault, Ernest,” the Earl of Appley admitted. “I had returned from my business on the Isle of Wight and had summoned Gabriel to Kilgrave to act as my guide to your Welsh estate. I was also the one who refused to surrender my belongings to the thieves and got Gabriel shot.”