The Baron had intended to take her far away from this life, had come closing to taking her innocence. An innocence her father had intended to be taken only by the Duke of Tarsington. The Viscount’s rage had been palpable. And for that? Lord Averton would be made to suffer. Of that Edith was certain. She had no idea what her father was capable of.
Finally, she glimpsed the lights of a house blinking between the trees.
Lord Averton’s manor?
She knew she had to be close. If it was not the Baron’s house, at least whoever lived there might be able to point her in the right direction.
Edith stumbled down the incline, her boots sliding in the earth. She stopped in horror.
Four men, all dressed in black, were charging across the grounds toward the servants’ quarters of the house. She had seen these men many times before. Her father’s footmen. She recognized the shock of orange hair on one of them. A man unable to hide.
Nausea gripped her and she pressed a hand to the trunk of a tree in a vain attempt to steady herself. She felt the blood from the cut on her palm sliding down her wrist.
I must get inside.
And do what? It was too late to warn him. And how could she fight off four grown men?
Edith didn’t know. She only knew she had to get to Lord Averton. Whatever was going to happen, she could not let him face it alone.
When the men had disappeared inside, she crept through the shadows and slipped through the door of the servants’ quarters. She froze, listening intently.
There was no sound at all from inside the house.
Perhaps Lord Averton is not even here. Perhaps he is safe somewhere…
But Edith’s brief moment of optimism was shattered by a sudden shout from the main house. It was followed by a thud, and the shrill tinkle of glass shattering against the floor.
She heard muffled shouts. Recognized Lord Averton’s voice. Heard a barrage of footsteps charging up the staircase.
Instinctively, Edith raced toward the sound. She scrambled dizzily out of the servants’ quarters.
At the bottom of the main stairwell, the red-headed footman was hunched, clutching his stomach and gasping for breath.
Did Lord Averton deliver a blow?
Edith charged onto the staircase. The man looked up at the sight of her. He made a grab for her arm, but she darted away, racing up the stairs toward the thudding and shouting coming from the second floor.
She could hear the footsteps of the red-headed footman. Could hear him advancing on her. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding her beloved.
The door of the Baron’s bedchamber hung open. Inside, Lord Averton was swinging wildly, struggling to fight off three footmen. A thick stream of blood was spilling from the side of his head. A pistol had fallen across the floor.
Lord Averton’s eyes fell to her. “Edith,” he panted, “get out. Now!”
Edith said nothing. She darted toward the pistol. Before she could reach it, she felt hands grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her back sharply. She cried out in pain.
One of the footmen lurched forward and snatched the pistol from the floor.
Edith scrambled to her feet and stood protectively in front of Lord Averton. “You want to kill him,” she hissed, “you will have to kill me, too.” Her voice came out thin, but she glared fiercely at the men.
She felt Lord Averton’s hand around her shoulder. “Don’t do this,” he hissed. “Get out. They will kill you.”
Edith spun around suddenly, pressing her forehead against his. For a fleeting moment, nothing else mattered. Not the three murderous men surrounding them, not the pistol pointed at the two of them. They were to die, Edith was suddenly certain of it.
“I love you,” she told Lord Averton, clinging to him.
“I love you, too. More than anything.” He cupped her cheek in his palm. “I wanted so desperately to call on you like I promised. But your father threatened me. Told me I was to have nothing to do with you. Told me if I did, it would come to this.”
“What?” she sputtered. The horror of it brought a sharp pain to her chest. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I—”
Before she could say more, Lord Averton had shoved her out from in front of him, out of the path of the pistol fire. The shock of it sent her tumbling to her knees.
And then the shot. In the confines of the bedchamber, it was sickeningly loud. Lord Averton fell at once, a bloom of blood beginning to spread across his chest.
Edith heard herself cry out. She scrambled toward his body, clutching him to her, shaking him, screaming his name.
No, no, no. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
But Lord Averton’s eyes were blank and glassy, the crimson stain on his chest growing with each second.
Edith sobbed loudly and looked over her shoulder at the three footmen. The largest stood in the center with the pistol in his hands. She met the eyes of the redhead who had found her and Lord Averton by the river. Could he feel the hatred behind her eyes? He looked away hurriedly.
Would they come for her now? She had learned too much about her father, surely, to be allowed to walk back into the Chilson manor. Would the Viscount’s footmen reload the pistol and leave her body here beside the gentleman she loved?
Let them.
My beloved died on account of me. Why should I get to live when he doesn’t?
She turned back to Lord Averton’s body and curled herself over him. Felt the warmth of his blood staining her clothes. Felt the sickening stillness of his chest.
She closed her eyes. And she waited to die.
There was no second shot of the pistol. There were just footsteps. The footmen disappeared out of the bedchamber and down the stairs.
Soon, the house was silent. No voices. No footsteps. Not even the pattering of insect wings, or an owl hooting in the garden. It was as though the entire place had become devoid of life.
Edith lay with Lord Averton for a long time. She cried heaving sobs and single, silent tears. She clung to his body as it grew colder, with no idea of what she was to do now. No idea of where she was to go from here.
How could she just leave his body here, alone and forgotten on the floor of his bedchamber?
A great racking sob tore through her body. She buried her face against Lord Averton’s shoulder, the thick fabric of his coat muffling her screams.
I wish the footmen had killed me, too.
She had no idea how long she been curled up here. Seconds? Hours? Days? Time seemed oddly distorted. Nor did it seem to matter. What was the point in tracking the minutes when her love had so been taken from her so cruelly?
Footsteps inside the house roused her. Heavy footsteps. Men’s footsteps. They were steadily climbing the stairs. Coming toward her.
Edith scrambled to her feet and hid herself in Lord Averton’s wardrobe. Peeking out of the crack in the door, she saw her father’s footmen had returned.
They bent to gather up Lord Averton’s limp body. Out of the bedchamber they carried him, disappearing down the dark staircase.
Had her father sent these men back to retrieve the Baron’s body?
Where are they taking him? What will they do with him?
She couldn’t bear to think. Wherever it was, she knew he would not be given the burial he deserved.
Edith waited until the house was silent. And she let herself cry.
Chapter 34
Finally, Edith slipped out of Lord Averton’s wardrobe, trailing her hand over the softness of the coats hanging behind her. She felt blank. Empty. Cold.
Earlier that evening she had been in her beloved’s arms, dreaming of their exciting future. Dreaming of the future they would spend together.
How could it have come to this?
None of this felt real. A part of her expected Lord Averton’s footsteps to come toward her at any moment. Expected him to hold out a hand and pull her into his arms and assure her that everything was all right.
T
omorrow they would escape to London.
They would be married. They would spend the rest of their days together.
Edith let out another desperate cry of grief. Tomorrow, there would be nothing but cold, unbearable reality.
Lord Averton was dead. Murdered at the will of her own father.
Violent hatred rose up inside her, bitter in her throat. Her father, the one gentleman she had always been able to rely on. The one gentleman she had always trusted.
What was she to do? How could she possibly carry on after this? How could she go back to the Chilson manor and sit around the dinner table with the gentleman who had killed her beloved? How could she marry the Duke of Tarsington when her heart was so black with grief?
In the faint moonlight spilling through the window, she could see dark stains on the doorframe. Dark splatters on the floor.
Blood.
And suddenly, she wanted to be anywhere but this place. Anywhere but the room in which Lord Averton had been so cruelly taken from her.
She stumbled dizzily down the stairs, her legs unsteady beneath her. More dark stains on the stair rail, she realized sickly. Had they been left when the men had carried the Baron’s body out of the house?
She stumbled out of the house through the open door of the servants’ quarters, not bothering to close it behind her.
She walked back to the Chilson manor in a daze. Where else was there to go? What else was there to do? Her tears had dried, leaving her head pounding and her mind numb. She couldn’t bear to think. Couldn’t allow herself to feel.
She walked in through the front door of the manor, Lord Averton’s blood staining her bodice and skirts. What did she care if anyone saw her? What did she care if she were punished?
But it was still hours from dawn. The house was still and silent, not even the chambermaids awake. Edith walked up the staircase.
She stopped for a moment outside her sister’s room.
Deborah needed to know, surely, all that had happened. She needed to know the reality of who their father was. Their mother needed to know.
Didn’t they?
If she were to tell Deborah the truth, where would such a thing lead? Edith had a marriage in place, but her sister and mother did not have the option of leaving the Viscount. Even if they attempted to flee, he was so powerful, his murderous men in black would no doubt find them. Punish them for their disloyalty.
No, running away was not an option. And turning the Viscount over the authorities? Such a thing was almost laughable. There would be nothing but Edith’s word to link her father to Lord Averton’s death. No doubt the Baron’s body had been tidily disposed of.
She knew well that Deborah and their mother knowing the truth would only lead them to live in fear. Perhaps ignorance, silence, was the kindest course of action.
And what of me? I do not have the option of living in ignorance.
Edith closed her eyes.
I do not want to be living at all.
She turned away from her sister’s bedchamber and began to walk slowly back toward her own room. Perhaps her father was in this house somewhere. Perhaps he would find her. Would know where she had been.
Let him find me. I want him to know that I know exactly who he is.
And as though she had wished it, the door to the Viscount’s study clicked open. He stood in the doorway, watching Edith wordlessly. How neatly dressed he was, in his gold-threaded waistcoat, how perfectly combed his hair. This gentleman was who had sent others out to do his bidding.
The Viscount’s eyes moved over Edith’s bodice and skirts, catching sight of the blood stains darkening the fabric.
Edith stared at him. She felt herself trembling. What was she to say to him? No words would change any of this. Nothing she said would bring back her love.
She kept walking. A part of her waited for her father to stop her. But he just let her move silently down the hallway and slip inside her room.
She found Annie pacing back and forth across the bedchamber.
“Oh, Miss Wilds,” she gushed, “I’m so glad you’re back. I was ever so worried.” Her face darkened as Edith moved past her, not speaking. “Miss? What’s happened?” Fear in her words.
Edith shook her head wordlessly. She couldn’t speak of it, she realized. Not to anyone. Ever.
“Leave me,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper.
“Are you sure, Miss Wilds? I…” Annie faded out. “Shall I fetch your mother? Your sister?”
Edith said nothing. Just stared at the floor.
After a moment, Annie nodded, defeated. “As you wish.”
The door closed softly and Edith was alone. She went to her desk drawer and pulled out her diary.
She could never speak of the things she had seen, but she felt a desperate need to pour out every word of what had happened. Needed to make a record of it. Her father and his footmen would never be punished for what they had done, of that she felt certain.
Edith was the only one who knew what had truly taken place. And with each passing second, she was becoming more and more certain that this morning would be her last.
A pistol in Father’s desk drawer…
What point was there waking to a world in which Lord Averton no longer existed? A world so cruel that a father could do such things to his daughter.
She would leave this world. The thought of it brought her a faint flicker of peace. But she couldn’t do so until every word of what had happened was written in her diary. She had no thoughts as to who would read it. She had no thought of when. Perhaps the truth of the Baron’s murder would stay hidden forever.
Perhaps not.
By the time she had finished writing, Edith was exhausted. Her eyes were stinging from tears that refused to fall. Her head was pounding. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Soon this will all be over.
She picked up her quill to write her final line.
Soon my love and I will be together again.
Leonard let out a heavy sigh as he came to the end of the diary. He felt a deep ache in his chest. Could hardly fathom the things he had read.
“Melancholy,” Lord Chilson had said, in an attempt to explain his daughter’s suicide.
How many people had nodded blindly and believed him?
Leonard lowered the pages, his head swimming. His mouth felt dry and his heart was beating fast. He looked over at the Viscountess. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself and she stared blankly at the floor. Her cheeks were paler than Leonard had ever seen them.
What was he to say? “I’m sorry” felt so hollow, so ineffective. How could any words ease the pain of the things she had just discovered?
“Where is your husband?” he asked finally, his voice coming out rougher than he had intended.
The Viscountess sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She shook her head wordlessly.
“Lady Chilson, please. I need to know.”
Finally the Viscountess looked up. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I’ve not seen him since yesterday.” Her voice was thin. “I’ve been unwell…” She faded out.
Leonard tried to swallow the fear gathering in his throat. “And your daughter?” he asked huskily.
Lady Chilson sniffed. “Deborah left me a note telling me she was to go to London. To visit her aunt. But…” She blinked, letting fresh tears slip down her cheeks.
“I don’t believe she is in London,” Leonard said bluntly. “She would never have left without telling me. I’m sure of it.”
The Viscountess managed a tiny nod. “I’m sure of it, too. She cares for you very much.” She looked up at Leonard with pained, watery eyes. “Then where is she?”
Leonard sat beside her on the lounge. He reached over and covered her hand with his, in a vain attempt to calm her. “I don’t know,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice even. “But wherever she is, I promise you I’m going to find her.”
Chapter 35
Deborah op
ened her eyes. Her wrists and ankles were tightly bound, strapping her to a chair. Somehow, she had managed to fall into an exhausted sleep. But as consciousness returned, so did the pain in her arms and shoulders.
And so did the overwhelming fear.
She had no idea how long she had been asleep. The room was dark, but she could tell the windows were boarded. Perhaps it was daylight outside. Perhaps it was the middle of the night. She was beginning to lose track of how long she had been here.
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