by Candace Camp
Rhea looked at Alexandra with desperation in her eyes and sat up, clutching Alexandra’s shoulders. “You have to understand. I didn’t think it would hurt anyone, and I loved you so much! Your parents were dead, only your grandparents to take care of you, and they would have the other two children. I know it was wicked of me, but I—I was bitterly unhappy and lost. I didn’t know how I was going to live without Hiram. But you made everything bearable. It seemed so unfair that I had never been able to have children. All I wanted was just one, just you—”
“Calm yourself, Mother. It’s all right. You are not wicked. I am sure that whatever you did, you did with the best of intentions.”
“No,” Rhea said sadly, “only the most selfish. I had no right to take you. Legally you belonged to the Countess. But I—I simply could not let you go.”
“Mother, I don’t understand. What did you do?”
Rhea sank back against her pillow, resignation filling her face. “I told them you had died. I said the baby had taken sick with the fever and died. It was easy enough to believe. John was terribly sick with it. And I took you home with me. I raised you as my own. I lied to everyone, including you. I kept you from your true family.” Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she turned her head away.
Alexandra had known what was coming, at least to some extent, but still it stunned her. She stood staring at her mother, her face pale.
“God forgive me. I stole you from them.” Rhea pressed her fingers to her lips. “I know that you must hate me.”
“No! No. I could never hate you!” Alexandra cried. “You are my mother. You raised me. You loved me. I have been your daughter all my life. How can I blame you for loving me so much?”
“Truly?” Rhea turned toward her, her face lighting with hope. “You don’t despise me?”
“Of course not. I love you. You were in a terrible situation. What you did was wrong, but it is easy to understand why you did it. How you felt. I have had a wonderful life, a wonderful family. How could I despise you for what you gave me? And now—now you have given me back my other family. I have two.”
“Oh, Alexandra!” Rhea threw her arms around Alexandra. “You were always the best child in the world.”
They sat that way for a long moment, clinging to each other, tearful and happy at the same time. Finally Alexandra pulled away and looked her mother in the eye, taking Rhea’s hands in hers.
“But, Mother,” she began earnestly. “I don’t understand. What happened to the other two children? What about my brother and sister?”
Rhea gazed at her in confusion. “What do you mean? Nothing happened to them. John was very sick, but—he lived, didn’t he? Don’t tell me he died.”
“Mother, the Countess knows nothing about any of us. She thought that all three of the children died with their parents in Paris.”
“What? But I took them to her. I brought Marie Anne and John here, to London. I turned them over to the Exmoors.”
“You gave them to the Countess?” Alexandra had the sinking fear that Rhea had come completely unhinged.
“No, not directly. She had taken to her bed, they said, stricken by grief at what had happened to her family. I believe they said that her husband had died, too, poor thing. She refused to see anyone. When I told that woman who I was and who the children were, she said that the Countess could not come down and see me. So I gave the children to her.”
“Who? Who is she?”
“Why, that young woman. She wasn’t a servant. She was a cousin or something, a poor relative who lived with the Countess as her companion. That woman—that woman who’s been here watching me!”
“What!” Alexandra exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “You mean Willa? You gave the children to Willa?”
“Yes, Miss Ward, that is exactly what she means,” a woman’s voice said.
Alexandra started and whirled around. There was Willa standing in the doorway, as composed and quiet as ever. She walked into the room, closing the door behind her, and came to the other side of the bed.
“I was afraid that you had recognized me,” Willa told Rhea conversationally. “I had a suspicion that you were only pretending to be unconscious the last day or two. Did you follow me last night?”
Rhea’s eyes skittered away from the woman, and she did not answer. Alexandra stared, hardly able to take it all in. “Follow you! You mean to my room? It was you who—” She stopped, too stunned to complete the thought.
“Yes, it was I. It was obvious that you were never going to give up. At first I thought it would be all right if I simply got rid of Mrs. Ward, but then you kept on asking questions and digging. You had even gotten Lord Thorpe on your side! I knew that if your mother died, you would still manage to dig out the truth somehow.”
Willa grimaced, looking more exasperated than anything else.
“You were willing to kill me just to keep me from finding out that Mother had given my brother and sister to you?” Alexandra asked. “Why?”
Willa looked at her as if she were a dim student. “Are you mad? What would have happened to me if the Countess found out? She would have turned me out. After all these years, all the devotion I’ve given her, she would have cut me off without a farthing. What would I do if the Countess turned me out? I would have nothing! No one!”
“But why did you—what happened to John and Marie Anne? What did you do with them?” Anger rushed through Alexandra, sweeping away the shock, and she started around the bed toward Willa.
But Willa struck as quickly as a snake, pulling her hand from her pocket, a long, sharp knife gleaming in it. With her other hand, she grasped Rhea’s hair and jerked her roughly, the knife coming to Rhea’s throat. Alexandra stopped abruptly, her eyes on the deadly knife.
“Wait,” Alexandra began shakily. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Maybe if you told the Countess what happened…There must be an explanation.”
Willa let out a short, harsh laugh, her face contorting and her eyes glittering. “Oh, yes, there is an explanation, all right. Its name is Richard! Not much chance the Countess will approve of that.”
“Richard? You mean the Earl of Exmoor?”
“Yes, the Earl,” Willa agreed bitterly. “I was mad to do it! Mad with love for him. I would have done anything he wanted. I risked my position, everything, just to be with him—the Countess would have thrown me out on my ear if she had known that I was sneaking out to lie in his bed. And when that American woman came that day with the two brats, I knew what it would mean to him. He was the Earl, or would be once John and his father were declared legally dead. Everyone was already treating him as the Earl. After all, Bertie Chesterfield had come home and told everyone that Chilton and the children were dead. With the old Earl dead, the title was his. The estate, too. I couldn’t let that be taken away from him. I couldn’t!”
“So when Mother came to you, you didn’t tell the Countess about her visit. You never told her that her grandchildren had been spared.” Alexandra’s eyes flashed, and her fingers itched to grab for that knife. But she knew that it would be madness to do so. Willa could slice Rhea’s throat before Alexandra’s hand wrapped around hers.
“I wanted to help Richard. I thought—I thought I would keep his love forever if I gave him the children. I thought he would even marry me. Ha! I should have known the snake would cast me aside. He knew I could never tell the truth, never reveal what he had done, because it would have ruined me, too.”
As the words spewed out of her, Willa let go of Rhea’s hair, and the hand that held the knife trembled, falling a little from Willa’s throat. Her gaze was fastened on Alexandra, and she did not notice Rhea’s hand slide ever so slowly up. But Alexandra saw, and her stomach tightened.
To keep Willa’s attention focused on her, she said quickly, “Then it was Richard who was the bad person, not you. It was Richard who took the Countess’s grandchildren away from her. She will understand. She’ll see that—”
Willa laughed, hysteria creeping in a
round the edges. “Understand? No one could understand that—or forgive it! Do you think I’m a fool?”
“No, of course not.” Alexandra nervously eyed the knife that trembled in Willa’s hand. “Normally perhaps one could not forgive that. But given the circumstances—I mean, the Countess will be so happy to know that I am really her granddaughter that she will be in a forgiving mood. Don’t you see? And the other two children, John and Marie Anne—if you could tell her where they are, what happened to them…”
“That will get me no favors from her,” Willa snapped, and Alexandra’s heart sank. Did this mean that her sister and brother were dead?
“Why? What happened to them?” Alexandra asked, paling. “Where are they?”
“Why should I tell you?” Willa demanded scornfully, unconsciously swinging her arm forward.
Suddenly, moving faster than Alexandra would have thought possible, Rhea grabbed the other woman’s wrist. Willa let out a shriek of outrage, jerking her hand. But the movement had given Alexandra enough time to race around the bed and throw herself at Willa just as Willa lashed out with her knife at Rhea. She aimed for her throat, but Alexandra knocked her arm aside, and the knife slashed down across Rhea’s arm, laying open a long, red cut.
Alexandra’s rush carried Willa backward, but she did not fall. She was preternaturally strong in her madness, and she fought back. They careened around the room, Alexandra holding Willa’s knife arm up and back while Willa scratched and kicked and beat at her, trying to loosen her hold. They crashed into the wall and slid along it to the highboy, sending a porcelain dish of pins crashing to the floor, followed a moment later by a small box. As they fought, Rhea climbed out of bed, clasping the sheet to her upper arm. Blood poured forth, staining it red. She staggered toward the door, screaming for help.
Willa turned as she and Alexandra shuffled in a deadly dance, then shoved with all her might, throwing Alexandra against the wardrobe. Alexandra’s head smacked against the tall cabinet, and she loosened her grip on Willa’s arm enough that Willa was able to jerk it down. Willa shoved her arm forward, aiming for Alexandra’s stomach. Alexandra twisted and pulled away, and the knife sliced harmlessly through her dress and chemise. She turned, grabbing Willa’s arm again with both her hands, and they grappled.
The door to the room was flung open, and Aunt Hortense let out a cry of horror. An instant later, she was unceremoniously shoved aside as Sebastian barreled into the room.
Willa, seeing the reinforcements arrive, let out a high animal scream of rage and pushed against Alexandra with all her might. Alexandra staggered backward, her hands still clenched around Willa’s arm, and stumbled over a footstool. They went crashing to the floor, Willa landing on top of Alexandra.
Thorpe rushed forward, grabbed Willa by the shoulders and pulled her off Alexandra. All he saw at first was the blood staining the front of Alexandra’s dress, and he went pale.
“Alexandra!” He let go of Willa to go down on his knees beside Alexandra, and when he did so, Willa crumpled to the floor. It was then that he realized the knife was deep in Willa’s chest, not Alexandra’s.
He gathered Alexandra in his arms, and she clung to him, crying. She pulled away suddenly. “Willa!”
“Don’t worry. She is beyond hurting you any more.”
“No! It’s not that!” Alexandra scrabbled across the floor to where Willa lay.
The knife was sunk into Willa’s chest, but she was still alive, her eyes open. Blood had soaked the front of her dress. Her breathing was labored, and there was an odd gurgling noise in her throat.
“Tell me what happened to them!” Alexandra begged, bending over her. “Please…tell me what happened to my brother and sister!”
She heard Sebastian’s astonished exclamation behind her, but she ignored him, leaning closer to Willa to catch her words.
Willa looked at her with hatred. “Why should I? You’ve ruined me.”
“For your soul,” Alexandra pleaded. “Do you want to go to your Maker with that on your soul, too? Tell me what happened to them. What did Richard do with them?”
“Boy had fever.” Willa choked the words out, bloody bubbles seeping out of her mouth. “Died. Girl…orphanage…no name.”
She began to cough, and blood poured out of her mouth. Then the light of hatred dimmed in her eyes and went out. She was dead.
Alexandra stared at her. A wordless moan of grief issued from her mouth.
“Alexandra, my darling.” Sebastian pulled her into his arms and stood, taking her with him. Alexandra rested her head upon his chest and sobbed.
Finally she calmed down and raised her head. “Mother!” She pulled away and looked around the room. Her mother was seated in a chair, Aunt Hortense kneeling beside her, wrapping a strip of sheet firmly around her arm.
“Mother, are you all right?” Alexandra hurried across the room to Rhea.
Rhea smiled at her. “Yes, darling. I’m fine. Aunt Hortense is bandaging me. It was just a cut.”
“Alexandra,” Sebastian said, his voice taut with frustration. “What is going on here? Willa is the person who has been behind all these attacks?”
“Yes—or at least the hired ones. I don’t think she could have been responsible for that man who attacked me when I walked home from the ball—Oh!” Alexandra’s eyes widened. “That must have been the Earl! He had just met me that night, and he must have realized who I was.”
“The Earl?” Sebastian exclaimed. “You mean Richard? He really was involved in this? But why?”
“Willa?” Aunt Hortense interrupted, amazed. “Oh, my God, and we have left her in the room alone with Rhea time after time!”
“I know. Apparently she wasn’t going to hurt Mother unless she regained consciousness. Fortunately Mother sensed that and pretended to still be in a coma. You were awake the other day when you squeezed my hand, weren’t you?”
“I was coming to, but I was very confused. I knew I had seen that woman before, and it scared me. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want her to know.”
“But why?” Sebastian asked, frustrated. “Why did Willa—or Richard, for that matter—want to get rid of you?”
Alexandra drew a deep breath. “My mother told me everything tonight. Simone gave her the children, and she brought them to the Countess. She kept me as her own. She pretended that I had died. But she gave the others to the Countess.”
“What?” Sebastian stared at her, astounded.
“Well, not to the Countess. She gave them to Willa, actually, because the Countess was not receiving anyone. She was prostrate with grief. But Willa was having an affair with Richard, the new Earl, and she realized what it would mean to him if my brother suddenly showed up.”
“Of course. He wouldn’t be Earl anymore.”
“Exactly. So she gave the others to Richard instead of the Countess, and she kept it a secret from everyone.”
“But, then, what Willa just said…the little boy died?”
Alexandra nodded, tears welling in her eyes again at the thought of the brother she had never known and who had died so young. “Yes. He had a bad fever. Fa—Mr. Ward had died of it, too. And the girl, Marie Anne—that wicked, wicked man gave her to an orphanage. She grew up poor and alone—and we have no idea who she is now.”
“Poor little John,” Rhea said and began to cry. “Poor Marie Anne. I did so poorly by Simone! She entrusted them to me, and I failed her. If only I had known, I would never have turned them over to that woman!”
“Of course you wouldn’t, Mother. But you couldn’t have known what would happen. You did all that anyone could ask of you.”
“Did I?” Rhea asked mournfully.
“Yes. Yes.” Alexandra bent to hug her mother. “And this thing that you have suffered over all this time—taking me for your own? You saved me! Don’t you see? You kept me from the same sad fate as my sister!”
“Oh, darling,” Rhea began to cry, and so did Alexandra, and they clung to each other.
At last their tears dried, and Rhea gave a weary sigh, laying her head on Alexandra’s shoulder. Aunt Hortense intervened, circling an arm around Rhea’s waist and pulling the smaller woman onto her feet.
“I think it’s time you were in bed. You’ve lost a fair amount of blood.” She bundled Rhea into bed, fussing over her.
Alexandra turned to Sebastian, who took her hand in his. “So the attacks on your mother and you—Willa hired them done so that no one would find out what had happened to the children?”
Alexandra nodded. “If Mother told the Countess the truth, the Countess would have realized that Willa and Richard had done away with her other grandchildren. It would have been a terrible scandal, at the least, for the Earl, and Willa knew that the Countess would never forgive her for what she had done. She would be ruined with the woman who was her whole life. I don’t know if they acted together or separately, but I am sure that they are the ones who were behind the attacks.”
Sebastian put his arm around her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. He led her into the hall, away from Aunt Hortense and Rhea and the gathering crowd of servants.
“I have sent for the doctor for Rhea and the magistrate for the rest of it.”
Alexandra nodded, then sighed. “Oh, Sebastian, what a terrible thing! How are we going to tell the Countess? To find out after all this time that her grandchildren did not die in Paris twenty-two years ago—and at the same time to learn that they are still lost to her.”
“It’s a hard thing,” he agreed. “But the Countess is a strong woman. And now she has you to help her through it.” He squeezed her hand. “We will find your sister. I shall put a Bow Street Runner on it right away. We’ll search every orphanage in London if we have to.”
