“I know,” Leonard said. “And I’m sure you’ve thought of nothing else since you found your sister’s diary. That’s why I think it important that we take a step back. Perhaps allow a few days for this information to settle. Try and make sense of it all.”
Miss Wilds looked down, not meeting his eyes. Leonard could tell she had no intention of taking a step back. But he was beginning to worry for her. He felt a fierce need to protect her.
And then there was the issue of the handkerchief he had taken from Lord Averton’s dressing table. A handkerchief almost identical to one his own mother owned, with neat embroidery of an anchor in the corner. A thing he had every reason to believe had come from the Dowager Duchess herself.
Leonard couldn’t even begin to make sense of what such a thing might be doing in the bedchamber of the Baron of Averton, a gentleman he had never even heard of until Miss Edith Wilds had spoken of him in her diary.
A part of him longed to tell Deborah about what he had found, seek her advice, her counsel. But he feared what it meant, that a handkerchief of his mother’s had been found in the bedchamber of a gentleman who—if rumours were to be believed—had come to a gruesome end at the hands of violent men. And he feared what impact such a thing might have on his relationship with the lady he loved.
He couldn’t tell Deborah about the handkerchief. Not yet. Not until he knew a little more about it. Perhaps if he could convince her to step away for a time, it would give him a chance to find answers.
He squeezed her fingers and looked into her eyes. “I want to find out what happened to your sister and Lord Averton just as badly as you do. But I’m worried for you. I can see the toll this search is taking on you. And I think it would do you good to put your mind to something more positive.” He dared a small smile. “Such as our wedding.”
Miss Wilds nodded, the edges of her lips turning up a fraction. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “Perhaps such a thing would do me good.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “I hope you know how much I am looking forward to our wedding day, Leonard. I know I have been distracted, but the thought of being your wife makes me immensely happy.”
Leonard smiled. “I’m glad of it. It makes me immensely happy, too.”
Deborah pressed her palm to his cheek, making his breath catch slightly. “We will find an answer to all these questions, won’t we?”
Leonard leaned forward and kissed her impulsively. “Of course,” he said, holding her against his chest and letting the warmth of her steady him. “And we shall have a long and happy life together once all this is over. I’m sure of it.”
Chapter 24
As Deborah slipped through the side gate into the garden of the manor, a hand reached out and snatched her wrist. She swallowed a gasp of shock.
“I’m sorry, Miss Wilds,” Sarah hissed, standing close to a tree trunk to hide herself. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Deborah pressed a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was waiting for you,” Sarah whispered. “I had to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Your mother was worried for you when I told her you were unwell.” She hung her head. “I’m afraid she insisted on coming to your bedchamber to see you.”
Deborah’s stomach rolled.
“I’m afraid both she and your father know you left the manor today,” Sarah said grimly. “I’m sorry, Miss Wilds. I did my best to distract them. They—”
“It’s all right,” Deborah said gently. “It’s not your fault.” She met Sarah’s eyes. “Were they angry at you when they discovered you have been covering for me?”
“A little,” Sarah admitted. “But I think they were far more concerned with your safety.”
“Did you tell them where I was?”
Sarah shook her head. “I told them I had no idea where you’d gone. I told them the last I’d seen of you, you were in bed resting.” She tugged anxiously at her apron. “They only noticed you gone less than an hour ago. If you’re lucky, you can sneak back inside the house and pretend you were in there the whole time. Helping the cook prepare dinner, perhaps.”
Deborah gave a short smile. She knew she would be lucky if she managed to convince her father of such a thing. She sighed heavily. After all she had seen and heard today, all she wanted was to curl up beneath her bedclothes and escape from the world for a time.
What would she tell her father when he finally found her? She couldn’t possibly confess that she had been with the Duke without a chaperone. Such a thing would be scandalous. It could even lead him to do something as rash as call off the wedding. That was a risk Deborah was not willing to take. Never mind the loss of her beloved, the disappointment in her father’s eyes would be unbearable enough on its own.
And what if she were to tell the Lord Chilson about her search for the truth about Edith’s death? Their father had reconciled himself with his daughter’s loss by convincing himself Edith had suffered from melancholy. Deborah did not want to be the one to upend that belief for him. She knew how devasting he would find such a discovery. And she did not want to cause her father any more pain. He and Lady Chilson had suffered enough.
But Lord Chilson was a powerful gentleman. If there were truths to be discovered about the Baron of Averton’s demise, then perhaps he could help uncover them. If the Baron had truly been murdered, it was a deathly serious matter. There ought to be a proper investigation, those darkly-dressed men the farmer had seen sneaking into the manor brought to justice. The truth about what had happened to Lord Averton might finally be uncovered. Could her father bring about such a thing?
Perhaps this was the best course of action. She would be reprimanded for sneaking out of the manor, of course. But this whole affair was far bigger than just her. It was about finding out the truth and punishing those who had done wrong. She needed to do this for Edith. And Lord Averton.
Deborah allowed herself a wry smile. She had promised the Duke she would take step back. Allow herself to focus on more pleasant things for a time. Allow her frayed nerves to settle. She had barely stepped back through the manor gates and already she was planning her next move.
Truly, what choice do I have? How can I stop myself from thinking of the things I have uncovered?
That sight of the blood splattering the doorframe in Lord Averton’s bedchamber would haunt her until the end of her days, Deborah was sure.
Had Edith seen something even more terrible?
She shivered involuntarily, then put her head down and began to walk back toward the house, Sarah hurrying behind her.
“Miss Wilds.”
She looked at the sharp whisper. Mrs. Barton was standing by the open door of the servants’ quarters. She gestured wildly at Deborah and Sarah. “Inside. Quickly. The both of you.”
Deborah hurried through the door and pulled it closed behind them. “Mrs. Barton? What are you doing?”
“Your mother and father are looking for you,” the housekeeper told Deborah. “They’ve not checked the kitchen yet. We’ll tell them you’ve been in there helping the cook all afternoon.”
Deborah flashed a smile. Perhaps convincing her parents she had been in the manor all along would not be as impossible as she had first believed. After all, she had spent many long hours in the kitchen as a child. She could put her odd behavior down to pre-wedding nerves. Her father would not be pleased if he caught her in the kitchen, but he would be far less angry than if he discovered she had been gallivanting about the countryside with her betrothed unchaperoned.
The elderly cook smiled crookedly at Deborah, gray curls peeking out from beneath her mobcap. “Well, Miss Wilds, I must say it’s been a while since I found myself working with you at my side. Last time you was in here you had to stand on your tiptoes to reach the mixing bowl.”
Deborah returned her smile. “Give me a job to do, if you please. I need something to put my mind to.”
The cook held out a knife
and gestured to the pile of potatoes sitting on the bench. “You really want to help, Miss, you can peel them for me.”
Deborah took the knife and set to work scraping away the potato skins. She inhaled deeply, taking in the familiar scent of woodsmoke and roasting meat and unidentifiable spices. A comforting smell that reminded her of her childhood. Reminded her of her sister.
“If my father asks, I’ve been in here for hours.”
The cook chuckled. “Aye, miss. But if your father asks, it weren’t me who asked you to peel the potatoes.”
Deborah gave a short laugh. “Of course.”
She realized Mrs. Barton was hovering by her side. “Where have you really been?” the housekeeper asked softly, her shoulder pressing against Deborah’s.
Deborah didn’t look at her. “I think it best you don’t know.”
“Does it have something to do with your search? With what happened to your sister?”
Deborah nodded, not wanting to say more in front of the cook. Perhaps it was best not to say more in front of Mrs. Barton, either. Though she knew she could trust the housekeeper, she did not want to put her in danger. Or get her in trouble from the Viscount.
Deborah heard Sarah’s footsteps thumping their way upstairs. “I found her, My Lord,” she said brassily, her voice carrying down into the servants’ quarters. “Would you believe she were hiding in the kitchen all along?”
The moment he arrived home, Leonard hurried upstairs to his study and locked the door.
“We’ve both learned things that have been difficult to process,” he had told Miss Wilds that afternoon. “But perhaps we ought to try and put them from our minds for a time.”
Leonard knew there was no chance at all of him taking his own advice.
He sat at the desk and pulled out the handkerchief he had found on the dressing table in Lord Averton’s bedchamber.
He stared at the stitching in the corner. A blue anchor.
This same motif had appeared on several of his mother’s things. There were the handkerchiefs, two or three of them perhaps. A pincushion. A pair of gloves handed down from the Dowager Duchess’s grandmother.
When Leonard was a boy, his mother had handed him the handkerchief and shown him the neat embroidery.
“Your great-grandfather was a sailor, you see,” she had explained. “A very brave midshipman. Fought at sea against the French.” She had tucked the handkerchief into his pocket. “We come from a seafaring family, my boy. My grandfather and his father before him. It’s a thing to be proud of. My grandmother used to stitch this anchor so we would always remember it.”
When Leonard had glimpsed that blue anchor embroidered into the handkerchief on Lord Averton’s dressing table, he had recognized it at once. Had slipped it into his pocket, hoping Miss Wilds would not notice.
But in truth, it had been many years since he had seen those handkerchiefs in his mother’s drawer. Perhaps time had blurred his memories. After all, Leonard knew how bizarre it would be for something of his mother’s to be found among the Baron of Averton’s things.
Before he could stop himself, Leonard was creeping down the passage toward his mother’s dressing room.
Look at me, stealing about my own house like a criminal…
He opened the door a crack and peeked inside. No sign of the Dowager Duchess, or her lady’s maid. Leonard slipped into the room and pulled open the drawer of the dressing table.
He rifled through an array of hairbrushes and combs, pots of face powder and lip stains, before he found what he was looking for. A white handkerchief. With a blue anchor embroidered in the corner.
He reached into his pocket and pulled the handkerchief he had found at Lord Averton’s manor. Held the two side by side.
And his heart lurched.
Exactly as I feared.
Identical.
Leonard hurriedly folded his mother’s handkerchief and slipped it back into the drawer. He darted back to his study. Found himself pacing restlessly in front of his desk.
How desperately he wanted to trust his mother. She had always been so loving, so selfless, so decent. Never in his life had she given him any reason to doubt her.
But something had shifted. She had begun to avoid his questions, had developed a glassy look in her eyes. There was more to his betrothals to the Wilds sisters than appeared, Leonard was sure of that. And now he found himself questioning the mother who had given him unwavering support and affection throughout his entire life.
Is it possible my mother is not the decent lady I have always believed her to be?
Leonard felt a stab of guilt for even letting the thought enter his head. And yet he was entirely unable to push it aside. Because there was something his mother was keeping from him. Of that he was certain.
And what of the things the farmer had claimed to see? Men storming the Averton manor late one summer evening? Screams and thuds and pistol shots in the night?
There were more answers to be found at the Averton manor, Leonard felt sure of it. Whatever had happened to the Baron had taken place within those walls, and there were bound to be more clues to uncover.
But a glance through the window told Leonard that the last of the light had almost drained from the day. In his frantic pacing, he had failed to notice the long shadows that were now lying across his study. There was little point going back to the Averton manor now. It would be difficult to find anything in dark.
Leonard also knew there was a part of him that did not want to go traipsing alone through that blood-stained old house in the dark. There were some leftover remnants of childhood inside him that feared the ghosts and monsters hiding in the shadows. And feared men brandishing pistols even more.
No, he told himself, glad of the excuse, there was little point venturing to the manor tonight. In the darkness he would find nothing.
First thing in the morning, I will be back at the house.
Whatever secrets hid within the dilapidated walls of the Averton manor, Leonard was determined to find them.
Deborah sat through a long-winded lecture from her father about just how inappropriate it was for a future Duchess to be traipsing around the kitchen with potato peel dangling from her fingers. Then she hurried upstairs to her bedchamber. Pulled her bedclothes to her chin and tried to sleep.
She was mentally and physically exhausted, but her mind refused to still. She knew the Duke had been right when he had suggested she take a step back from all they had discovered. He was right when he had said the search had begun to take its toll on her. And he was also right that they ought to be looking forward to their wedding.
Forgetting about all she had discovered would be an impossibility, of course. But perhaps she might manage to look forward to her wedding at the same time.
Perhaps tomorrow she would call on the seamstress. See how the preparations of her wedding gown were faring.
In spite of everything, Deborah felt a smile on her lips. In less than a month, she would be the Duchess of Tarsington.
“I hope you know how much I am looking forward to our wedding day, Leonard,” she had said. But what she had been too shy to put into words was how much she was also looking forward to their wedding night.
The feel of his hands roaming her body had been enough to push away all other thoughts that had been cluttering her mind. For those few precious moments in the carriage, she had been breathless with anticipation, overcome with longing, with heat, with desire. For those few precious moments, she and the Duke had been the only people in the world.
She had always been a little afraid of her wedding night. Had feared giving herself so entirely to a man. But after what she had experienced that day, she found herself hardly able to wait.
Chapter 25
The Averton manor was even more desolate and eerie than Leonard remembered. Perhaps it was due to the fact that, last time, he had been here with Deborah. Her company had been reassuring. Steadying. With her by his side, he felt as though he could handle wh
atever life threw at him.
Today, he was completely alone. He had walked the two miles from the Tarsington manor to Lord Averton’s abandoned home, in hope that the exercise might go some way to stilling the restless energy inside him.
But standing in front of the shadowy, dilapidated house, he felt his heart speed. There were answers to be found inside that manor, Leonard knew. And they were answers he was growing increasingly afraid of.
Breakfast that morning had been difficult. Leonard had not been able to face his mother, without his mind leaping from one devastating possibility to another.
A part of him had longed to ask her about the embroidered handkerchief. But he couldn’t bear to hear her answers.
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