* * *
Miss Ophelia Campbell
Now, Ophelia was confused. Who was this lady that was now coming forward to meet her?
“We insist,” she said with a smile. “Please, allow my brother and I to make up for his clumsiness.”
Before Ophelia could deny their request any further, her mother quickly stepped forward. “Well, if you insist. My daughter and I, and Lady Emily would be glad to join you.”
“Great!” said the man’s sister. “Please come with us.”
Ophelia could not believe that her mother had done that. She did not want to impose on to these people, whom they barely knew. She shook her head in protest, but Emily dragged her along behind their hosts.
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Prologue
Richmond Manor, Exeter, East London, 1820
Miss Magnolia Richmond
The early morning sun caught Magnolia Richmond’s eyes as she woke from her slumber.
“Morning, miss,” said Mrs. Clarke, the housekeeper. She was busy drawing the curtains apart.
“Mrs. Clarke, please . . . can you close the curtains?” Magnolia begged, squinting her eyes. “The light hurts my eyes.”
The older woman chuckled. “Very well. But it is almost time for the physician to come around and he insisted on good ventilation. And he is certain you are not malingering, for no young woman of nineteen would miss going to a ball unless she were quite, quite ill.”
Magnolia sighed. “I am not that ill. And I hope Mr. Parker will understand that all I need is a good sleep and I shall be fine.” She turned to the other side of the bed and covered herself with a blanket, listening to Mrs. Clarke chuckle while she went about tidying up the room.
“Do you know if Father and Mother are back?” Magnolia asked.
“I’m afraid they are not, miss,” replied Mrs. Clarke.
Magnolia frowned. “Are you certain?” she asked, now straightening up.
It was so unusual that her parents and her brother would go to a ball and not come back before morning. Her mother would never have allowed them to stay till morning, knowing full well she had a sick daughter at home.
“I left your brother’s room, and theirs, a couple of minutes ago,” replied Mrs. Clarke. “They have not slept in. I am certain of it, miss.”
Magnolia shook her head. It was the strangest thing, she thought.
Suddenly a sharp knock sounded on the door. “Who is it?” Magnolia demanded.
“Miss, there are some constables downstairs who wish to speak to you,” said the voice of a servant through the door.
Magnolia exchanged looks with Mrs. Clarke. What could constables be looking for?
She climbed out of the bed, pulled open the door, and rushed downstairs not caring that she wore only her nightgown. Just like the servant had said, there were two constables waiting in the parlor and talking to Martins, the butler.
Martins was close to sixty years of age and Magnolia has never seen him look so horror stricken. His skin was greyed, his mouth hung slack with his lips slightly parted, and his eyes were open as wide as they could stretch. And he seemed to be shaking like a leaf.
Magnolia could feel her heart beating frantically as she approached them.
“Oh, here is Miss Richmond,” said Martins, his voice breaking. “You can tell her yourself, sir, because I'm afraid I do not know how to relay such news.”
“What is going on?” Magnolia asked.
The two men exchanged glances.
“Miss Richmond,” said one of them. “I am sorry, but there has been a terrible accident.”
She was unable to breathe. Unable to move or speak. Magnolia was paralyzed by that statement alone.
“So, what happened?” she finally asked, with a trembling voice. “Are they – are my parents – ”
The man looked down, unable to continue. She walked closer to him, though fear gripped her for what she was going to hear next.
“Please, talk to me!” she cried. “Where are my parents?”
The man finally looked up at her. “I am so sorry…”
Magnolia’s chest was rose and fell as she listened.
“I’m afraid, miss, that they are no longer with us.”
That was the last thing Magnolia heard before her own voice filled the room with a terrible scream.
Chapter 1
Richmond Manor, Exeter, East London, 1822
Miss Magnolia Richmond
Magnolia Richmond inhaled a sharp breath as the coach halted. “Well, here we are,” Aunt Dorothy said from beside her.
One of the coachmen came around to open the door for them. Magnolia was the first to step down from the vehicle, followed by her aunt.
“Thank you very much,” Aunt Dorothy said, paying the coachman before turning back to Magnolia. “And there it is.”
The tan sandstone house sat atop a hill. Its many windows reflected the noon sunbeams, making the glass sparkle like distant diamonds. Men came in and out through the front door, carrying one tool. In the unkempt garden were two more men, busy working.
She was home.
For some time, Magnolia was quiet. All she could do was to stare at the manor and desperately try not to cry.
The last time she was here was the day after her parents and her brother were buried, and that had only been until Aunt Dorothy had to come take her away.
Even though she had sworn several times to herself in the coach not to get emotional, to be finally home after two years of solitude was overwhelming for her.
Magnolia’s emotions were becoming uncontrollable. She was fast losing the grip she had had on them for so long, for now that she was here it was more difficult than she had imagined. She could almost hear James’s laughter the last time they had played hide and seek in the garden….
“Are you all right, darling?” asked her aunt, placing a kindly hand on her niece’s shoulder.
Magnolia inhaled a deep breath and forced a smile. “Yes, Aunt Dorothy. Come! Let us go in, shall we?” Without waiting for her aunt, she strode into the house.
There was a man in the parlor, repainting the walls. Magnolia looked around for a while, wondering how long the renovation would take.
“You lot have been doing a fantastic job,” Aunt Dorothy said to one of the workmen as she walked in. “May I know how long this will take?”
“We shall be done in about a week’s time, madam,” replied the man.
“Thank you. You can go back to your work now.”
While Magnolia looked around, she realized none of the familiar drawings and sketches of her family members were hanging on the wall where she last saw them.
“If you are looking for the drawings, madam,” said a man close to her, “they are right there.” He pointed towards the stairs where the drawings were all sitting flat on a table.
“Oh, you removed them?” asked Aunt Dorothy.
“Yes, madam,” the man replied. “We had to. We shall hang them once we are through with painting the house.”
“Good. So, Magnolia, would you mind if we take a look at them together?”
Magnolia sighed and nodded and then went on ahead, anxious to see them again. A few minutes later, she and her aunt were both sitting at the table drinking tea while looking through the sketches.
She picked up one of the drawings, but stopped when she saw that it was a portrait of her. It had been done during the last Christmas which her family had enjoyed together.
Her mother had forcefully asked her and her brother, James, to sit in the courtyard while she sketched their pictures. While Magnolia enjoyed sitting still while their mother did what she loved doing best, James was never one to sit still. He and her father were the most restless human beings she had ever come across.
“This is really beautiful,” said Aunt Dorothy, taking the draw
ing from her. Magnolia realized she must have been staring at it for a long time before her aunt decided to take it out of her hands.
“Your mother was so good with her hands,” Aunt Dorothy said. “I envied Katia her skill.” Then she picked up a small feather duster and slowly, carefully dusted the drawing.
When Magnolia took the next, she burst into laughter. It was a picture of James and it looked horrible, as his eyes were not in the right place. They seemed to be drawn too close together and were not even on the same axis.
She remembered how James had reacted with horror when he saw it. “But this is not fair!” he had complained to their mother. “Why does Magnolia get to look so beautiful, while I look like all my body parts were either borrowed or glued together?”
“That is what you get when you do not sit still like your sister!” their mother had replied.
Magnolia laughed and laughed at the memory, until she realized she was no longer laughing but shedding tears. She could not understand how she had gone from laughter to tears, but here she was with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Oh! You poor thing,” said her aunt, pulling her into a warm embrace. “We talked about this, remember?” Aunt Dorothy cooed into her ears.
“I know, Aunty Dorothy. I just … I couldn’t help it.” The tears kept flowing, for it hurt terribly to lose all her family on a single day.
The emotions she had carefully put away for some two years had finally found a way to escape. Her heart was breaking into tiny fragments all over again and there was a terrible emptiness in the pit of her stomach, for the memories would not stop flashing through her mind.
On that horrible day, Magnolia’s parents had gone to a ball and her brother had decided to follow. She could not go because she was down with fever and was told to stay in bed.
The next morning, they were reported to be dead. All of them.
“It’s all right. I am here for you, darling,” Aunt Dorothy said soothingly into Magnolia’s ear. “I know you miss them. I miss them, too, but there is nothing more we can do. They are gone. The accident should never have happened, but it did. I promise you that I will be here for you as long as you need me.”
After a while, the tears stopped coming. Magnolia only felt weak and drained and could not cry any longer . . . or even speak. And then, in place of the grief, there was a rising anger.
She knew it was because of what her aunt had said: The accident should never have happened.
An accident? If there was one thing Magnolia was certain of, it was that her family did not die accidentally. They were murdered and that was the reason why she had finally come home to Richmond Manor: To prove it.
She took a deep breath and pulled away from her aunt. “I think I will go to my room,” she said weakly.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“I will be fine, Aunt Dorothy,” she said with a smile.
“All right, then. But you must promise me you will not go in there and start crying.”
“I promise.”
“Good. I shall call you once lunch is ready.”
Magnolia climbed up the rest of the stairs. But before she made the right turn at the top of the landing, she glanced back at her aunt. Her face was buried in the little feather duster she held, for she was weeping softly.
With a sigh, Magnolia decided against going to her old room. Instead, she took the opposite direction towards her father’s study.
When she got to the wooden door, she took in a deep sharp breath and prayed that the room has not been affected by the renovation. On pushing the door open, she saw that her prayer had been answered for the room was still the same way she had left it.
While her family was alive, her father and James were always in the study talking about business and other things. And on that day of the ball some two years ago – the day of the “accident” – she had overheard them talking about a man who did a lot of harm to innocent people, and how they wanted to find clues and catch him so they could turn him over to the authorities.
Magnolia knew she was not supposed to have heard that, but the door to the study had been sitting half open. And besides, she had just been nineteen at the time and her father never believed a young lady should have anything to do with business or with any dreadful things. Her only concern should be to attend balls and find a suitor who would eventually marry her.
But Magnolia hated it. So many times, she and her father had argued about what was right and what was not. Seeing that her father was still determined to keep treating her like a little girl, she decided to find things out by herself.
Perhaps she would have heard more if the maid had not come to announce that breakfast was ready. But later that day, Magnolia had come down with a fever and they had all gone to the ball together . . . except for her.
The constables kept saying it was an accident but her instinct said otherwise. Magnolia sat down in her father’s chair, and one after the other she began to go through the files. She was certain that the answer to her question would be in one of them. It was just a matter of finding it.
* * *
Magnolia was on the tenth file when a soft knock sounded on the door.
She gasped. What if it was her aunt? Magnolia had told Aunt Dorothy that she was going to her room, but now here she was trying to find evidence about her suspicions that her family had been murdered . . . suspicions which her aunt knew nothing about.
“Miss Richmond,” said a servant, from behind the door. “Lady Johnson is here to see you.”
“Oh! Please bring her in!” Magnolia cried, and then the door opened and her friend walked in. “Caroline! My sweet Caroline. I am so glad to see you!”
The two of them embraced. “I have missed you so much,” said Caroline, her best and only friend. “I heard you were back and I could not stay away. I simply had to see you! It has been so long.”
Magnolia closed the door so that they might not be overheard in the study, and the two women sat down together.
“I am so sorry for all that has happened to you, Magnolia,” Caroline said. “I cannot imagine what you must have been through.”
Magnolia shrugged, smiling. “I have been doing fine.”
“No, no! You could not possibly be ‘doing fine.’ You must tell me everything! We haven’t been able to talk all this time!”
Magnolia searched for words. “I suppose – the worst of it was knowing I would never see them again.”
Caroline sighed and took Magnolia’s hands in hers. “I cannot imagine such torment.”
“Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that they are really gone,” Magnolia said, staring out across the room. “Sometimes I think I will awaken and discover that the last two years have been nothing but a nightmare. But, over time, I have learned to accept that this is my life now.” The way Caroline held her hands was soothing, and gave her courage.
“I wish I had been there with you, Magnolia. To talk to you, to be there for you.”
Magnolia smiled. “You are a good friend. I told you not to come because I did not want to be the one to hinder you from living your own life.”
“Nonsense! That is when you truly need a friend. Someone who would not mind abandoning everything for you. You know I would do that without thinking twice.”
“I know you would, Caroline,” replied Magnolia, now holding her friend by the shoulders. “I honestly do know that. But that would be very selfish of me.”
“Stop saying that!” Caroline protested.
But Magnolia only pulled her closer and embraced her. “I am better now. I promise you.” She could feel Caroline relax before they pulled away.
“What are all these files for?” her friend asked, looking at the heavy paper folders on the table.
Magnolia swallowed. “Well, I have a feeling that my family’s deaths were not an accident. I believe they were killed on purpose.”
Caroline stared at her, letting go of her friend’s hands. “I am sorry. I
do not quite follow – ?”
Magnolia sighed and continued. “I once overheard Father and James talking about a man that has been killing innocent people. They wanted to find some clues which would help them in catching him. It was right after that that the ‘accident’ occurred.”
“And you think there is a connection between those two things?”
“It’s either that or I’m going mad, and you and I both know that I am very sane. So these files are what I must go through if I intend to catch whoever did this horrible thing to my family.”
Regency Diaries of Seduction Collection: A Regency Historical Romance Box Set Page 88
