Her Saving Grace

by Catherine Winchester

  “Which is another good reason to ask you to stay.” He agreed.

  The idea both terrified and appealed. The thought of being among civilised society again worried her, because she had become so used to doing as she wished, without fear of disapproval or censure. Then there was the idea of staying with Nathaniel, or Nate as he preferred to be called. She couldn’t understand the strong feelings that he invoked within her but they both thrilled and frightened her.

  He was right about the Higgins however, they weren’t able to run an entire house and cater to guests, and they were getting on in years now and deserved to take things a little easier.

  Still, the thought of staying here felt dangerous.

  “I-”

  “Please, Mari.”

  She looked into his eyes and once again was caught by his gaze. She felt as if he was seeing into the very depths of her soul.

  “As you wish,” she answered. She didn’t understand the powerful draw she felt towards this man but she felt helpless to keep her distance.

  His warm smile was almost enough to overcome her doubts.

  “So, how did you get out here?” he asked.

  “I rode; my horse is tied up in the woods.”

  “Would you allow me to accompany you home?”

  “Thank you, but I have inconvenienced you enough already.”

  He looked as if he might argue then thought better of it. “Then take this.” He got up and retrieved the pistol from where it had landed when she had barrelled into him earlier. “It’s only a single shot duelling pistol but it’s better than nothing.”

  “Thank you.” She slipped the gun into her tool bag then picked up her cloak and swung it around her shoulders.

  “Will you allow me to accompany you to your horse?” he asked as they walked to the front door.

  “Thank you but no. It’s too late in the night to even be at much risk from highwaymen and besides, your estate is close to town.”

  Although he seemed disapproving, he nodded. “You should cover your hair again however, it does rather give your gender away.”

  She remembered that her hat must have been left on the lawn. “I’ll retrieve my cap on the way,” she assured him.

  He opened the door and she stepped through then turned back, oddly unwilling to leave.

  He reached out and took her hand, bowing over it and pressing a kiss to the back.

  “Until tomorrow,” he said as he stood up.

  “Yes. Goodnight, Lo- Nate.”

  “Goodnight, Mari.”

  “Thank you for not turning me in to the authorities.”

  He smiled. “I am the authorities in this town and besides, it was my pleasure.”

  She smiled shyly then turned to leave, determined not to turn back and see if he was watching her go. She didn’t hear the door close however and when she bent to pick her cap up, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder.

  He was watching and gave her a jaunty wave. She quickly coiled her hair under the cap again, then returned his wave before resuming her course to the woods. She didn’t look back again because she could feel his eyes on her, right up until she entered the woodland and was swallowed by shadows. []

  The journey home was uneventful and she untacked the horse and made it to her room without discovery. As she climbed into bed, she realised that she was tired, which was rare without potions to aid her sleep, and for the first time in a very long while, she drifted off to sleep with a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

  Chapter Seven

  Over breakfast the following morning, Nathaniel explained that he had invited Damaris to stay with them, citing his reasons as her father’s house only having elderly caretakers, not staff, and his desire that she not be alone during such a trying time.

  He left out the midnight break-in.

  His family were very understanding, his mother sending him a happy smile as he explained. Nate ignored her. He wouldn’t be averse to something developing with Damaris but equally, he wasn’t sure that such a damaged woman could be open to the possibility of love.

  With that in mind, he made sure that they were all aware of the extent of her losses, and that she could be a little temperamental at times because of it. They all promised to be understanding.

  Her coach arrived at half past eleven but only his mother came with him to greet her, thinking that if they were all waiting, she may feel intimidated.

  “Welcome, Lady Wellesley,” Isabelle stepped forward and clasped both her hands. I do hope that your journey wasn’t difficult?”

  “Oh no, not at all, Lady Copley. Thank you so much for inviting me. This is my companion, Mrs Paddington.”

  They curtseyed to each other.

  “Come now, is such formality necessary?” Nathanial asked, stepping forward.

  “I should very much like if it wasn’t,” Damaris said although her demeanour was somewhat shy. “I am not used to formality.”

  “Then consider yourself among family, my dear Damaris, but if you are uncomfortable calling me Mama, Isabelle will suffice.”

  “I- I-”

  “She teases,” Nathanial placed a hand on her shoulder to guide her inside. “She doesn’t really expect you to call her Mama. My family like to jest, I hope you will get used to it.”

  “He is right, my dear, I mean no harm by it.” They stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Would you like me to show you to your rooms now?”

  “I wonder if you would show Mrs Paddington-”

  “Lilly,” her friend corrected.

  “Lilly,” Damaris agreed. “I find that I am quite impatient to look over my father’s papers.”

  “Of course, my dear.” Isabelle smiled. “I’ll have your trunks sent up and you must be hungry, so I’ll have a tray sent into the study for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Isabelle and Lilly headed to the grand staircase, while Nathanial and Damaris made their way into the study, leaving the door open for the sake of propriety. Damaris sat herself down at the desk, in Nathaniel’s chair, and began looking for the papers that she had seen last night, while Nathan rang the bell for refreshments to be brought in.

  “Where are they?” she demanded.

  “Relax, I simply put them away to save clutter. I thought you might like some refreshments after your journey.”

  “I’m fine, and I’d much rather read what my father left with Marissa.”

  “I had a brief look through them yesterday, I don’t think we’ll find anything helpful in there.”

  “I’d still like to see for myself.”

  Realising that’s she was obviously too single minded for anything else, he gave in.

  “Bottom drawer on the left,” he threw the key onto the desk.

  She quickly unlocked the drawer and took the papers out, piling them on the desk until they were stacked six inches high.

  “I didn’t realise there were so many,” she said.

  “When I saw someone pass the window last night, I put most of them away, just leaving a few to tempt the intruder.”

  She began skimming the documents, looking each one over quickly then putting it aside.

  One of the parlour maids entered with a tea tray and began laying it out on one of the side tables near the fire. When she had finished, he prepared a cup for Damaris. She hadn’t looked up once since she began reading and she didn’t thank him or the maid.

  “Do you take sugar?” he asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “In your tea, do you take sugar?”

  She finally looked up at him, then spotted the teacup. “Oh, no, thank you.”

  He brought the cup to the desk and placed it within her reach. She was currently flipping through one of the notebooks that Marissa had given him.

  “You really should slow down,” he told her.

  She ignored him, although she did reach for the tea after a few moments and took a sip.

  Realising that he wasn’t going to get much in the
way of conversation from her until she was finished, he took his own notebook out and reviewed the notes that he had made while browsing the papers.

  It seemed that while Charles Howard kept rooms in London, he spent much of his time, as well as most nights, with Marissa. As such, most of the papers he had left were mundane matters, invoices and such like, both for Marissa and a few of his own London bills, and correspondence that he had answered from her apartments. Like Nathaniel, he also seemed to keep a notebook about his person, filled with all manner of information; names, addresses, important dates, lists of things to be done or purchased, the minutiae of daily life and as luck would have it, the last notebook seemed to finish approximately two weeks before his disappearance.

  Upon first perusal however, nothing had jumped out at him as relevant and he could see little in them that might be of use to them in the investigation.

  He wondered if the final notebook, the one Charles must have carried with him until his death, had held the clues that they were looking for, but it had been discovered with his body. It was badly water damaged to e of any help to them; most of the paper had rotted away, and only the leather bound cover had saved it from total disintegration.

  Still, he thought over each item that Charles had listed in his notebook, wondering if there might be some relevance to certain entries. Names and addresses for example, often had no notes to accompany them and while the dates usually had a brief note with them, the explanation was often not clear to Nathaniel.

  He looked over one particularly obtuse entry now, ‘26th June, AAR’ and pondered its meaning.

  A snack of sandwiches was brought to them, although Damaris largely ignored the food in favour of reading.

  He was nearing the end of his notes, when he noticed Damaris slip into the armchair beside him.

  “You’re done quickly,” he said, glancing at the clock to see that it was nearing two o’clock.

  “Yes, although I found little of interest there.”

  “I have one or two puzzling entries that you may be able to help with.”

  He began to read out some of the cryptic entries he had jotted down.

  “I believe that was in 1812; we attended my first ball at Almack’s Assembly Rooms on that date,” she explained.

  To his immense surprise, she was able to answer all but three such entries.

  One entry was half past four on March 30th and judging from the other dates in the notebook, was in 1814, just eleven days before he was last seen. The only clue as to where and when this meeting might have been, was the letter C, and while Damaris could list a few friends in London whose Christian or surnames began with the letter C, Damaris had written to them and they had not mentioned such a meeting with her father.

  She was also able to explain most of the names and addresses that he had noted, explaining where they met (if her father had told her), what the connection was and how long they had known each other.

  “And the final thing that bothered me, was the strange writing near the end of the last notebook we have.”

  Damaris got up and retrieved the book in question, flipping to the end of it.

  “Do you mean these?” she showed him the page.

  “Yes. Very unusual and I thought at first that it might be some sort of idle drawing.”

  Damaris looked the symbols over again.

  “They are runes,” she explained. “Letters in Germanic alphabets.”

  “Can you translate them?”

  “Well at first glance I thought they might be Anglo-Frisian but see here, the middle word on the first line?”

  She pointed.

  “I see it.”

  “It appears to have the same letter twice, and I am unable to think of any word in the English language that begins with such a double letter. The first word also has a double letter, but as far as I can recall, there were no double letters in runic alphabets.”

  “Is there more than one such alphabet?”

  “Indeed. It could be one of two Scandinavian variants, known as younger and elder futhark, or Marcomannic runes, and I believe that certain regions in Sweden still use a similar language. And of course, just like the meanings and spellings of some English words change in time, runes have likely evolved over time as well.”

  “So can you translate them?”

  “Well, that’s the problem, I’m not very well versed in Germanic languages, or runes, but I will try. Now if we ignore the double letters, then I believe the middle word would be uith. If I believe it to be a mistake and substitute similar runes, it could also be yith or mith. Unfortunately, none of those make a scrap of sense to me.”

  “Could it mean ‘youth’? Perhaps as you say, the English word has evolved over time.”

  “I suppose it could. Do you have a pencil?”

  He withdrew one from his pocket and handed it to her. She began writing above the markings on the top line.

  “You may be onto something, the last word could be ‘child’ in which case it would be ‘youth child’.”

  “And the first word?”

  “Well that’s where our theory breaks down; the line would read ‘Madonna youth child’.”

  “If this is an ancient language, is it possible that Madonna has not always been a name for Christ’s mother?”

  “Well, it can also be a means of addressing a Lady, especially in Italy. I don’t suppose you have any books on runology?”

  “Not that I know of, I’m afraid.”

  “Then perhaps I should visit the library this afternoon. Although I wanted to visit some of the outlying estates and see if perhaps they saw my father passing on the day he went missing.”

  “Which do you believe would be more helpful?”

  “Well, my father enjoyed learning, so this could just be the result of study on his part, practicing something he had just read. Given the structure of the words, two to five words per line, it’s possible that he might have translated a poem or verse, albeit a very simple one. It’s probably far more practical to visit the estates and enquire if anyone there remembers seeing my father; I can work on translating this in my spare time.”

  Nathanial couldn’t shake the feeling that these runes meant more than just idle study on Charles Howard’s part, however Damaris knew her father better than he, so he would revisit the runes at a later date.

  “I’ll have the carriage readied,” he told her, “and perhaps on the way I can tell you everything else that I have discovered, although as yet it isn’t very much.”

  “Thank you, Lor-.” She caught herself and actually smiled at him. “Thank you, Nathaniel.”

  ***

  Thanks to her status as a widow, Society wasn’t too bothered about impropriety. Her innocence had already been lost and if marriage hadn’t been proof enough, her child was. She was already damaged goods and as such, could afford to be alone with a gentleman without fear of scorn and ridicule, providing she didn’t do anything too outlandish, of course.

  Little could be done on a short carriage ride of no more than five miles, so Damaris felt safe leaving her companion at home. As much as she cared for Lilly, she knew that she would only be a hindrance to the investigation and that her presence could inhibit both her and Nathaniel from speaking freely.

  “So, what else have you discovered?” she asked as the carriage got underway.

  “You don’t much care for pleasantries, do you?” he asked.

  “I have little use for them.”

  “Truly?”

  She looked surprised. “What can be gained by engaging in random chatter about unimportant things?”

  He raised his eyebrows but didn’t press the issue. “Well, what else I have discovered is this; your father was worried, very worried, about someone selling state secrets.”

  “To the French?” she asked. The Peninsular Wars had already taken her husband from her; she couldn’t believe that they might have taken her father too. “But that’s ridiculous, my father was a lawyer, not a spy
.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Unless you’re trying to imply that he was selling our secrets to the French?”

  “Not at all, but it is possible that someone used him to get information.”

  “Even if they had, he didn’t know anything to tell them. He tried criminals in the Army.”

  “But isn’t it possible that in the course of a trial, he came across sensitive information?”

  She opened her mouth to refute it then hesitated. “I suppose it’s possible, but he was such a conscientious man, that I don’t see him letting anything slip, not for money nor from carelessness.”

  “You’re saying he couldn’t have been overheard?”

  “Not outside of the office.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s not an idiot; he’s an intelligent and reliable man…” her voice cracked slightly on the last words and she took a deep breath. “I mean, he was an intelligent and reliable man.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was filled with sympathy and she hardened her heart to it. She would not be an object of pity.

  “How did you discover this?” she asked, doing her best to keep her voice even.

  He paused for a moment before replying and Damaris wondered if he was deciding whether to tell her the truth or not, or if he should continue to try and comfort her.

  “The barkeeper at your father’s club told me.”

  “The… the barkeeper?”

  “Yes. It occurred to me that many gentlemen feel free talking around servants, almost as if they weren’t there, trusting that their secrets will be kept.”

  “So you think this man overheard my father discussing secrets?”

  “No, your father chose to confide his concerns to him.”

  “But of all people, why would he choose such a man?”

  “Because your father knew that most people would overlook him, not even think to question him.”

  “My detectives should have thought of it.”

  “Perhaps they did. He told me that for a long while, a lot of people were asking questions about your father at the club. He kept quiet because after your father went missing, he was unsure who he should trust and he was also worried for his own safety.”