by Lynda Hurst
“You handled that superbly, milady,” he commented. As her valet, he always apprised himself with her affairs, both large and trivial, so she wasn’t surprised that he must have known what had happened in the dining room. With a kind smile, he reminded her, “Your publishers are awaiting your submissions for this week. If you like, the library is available if you need a quiet place to work.”
Faith felt grateful to Faust for knowing how badly she needed an escape from the tumultuous feelings that threatened to overwhelm her. She wasn’t required to be friends with Lady Margaret, but it would make for a happier stay if they could at least put aside juvenile tactics and agree to be civil but distant housemates. Seeing through Devlin’s sister, she understood the hostility on the other woman’s part as she had known how unpopular she was for the part her family played in hurting hers. All the same, they were thoughts she couldn’t afford to dwell overlong; if she allowed them to overtake her, she’d be buried and swept away by its forceful inundation.
“Thank you, Faust,” she said. Heading towards the library door where moments before she had stumbled into Devlin, she steeled herself to embrace all of her emotions at present. The slow burn of her anger. The stinging hurts of moments before. The joy of friendship with the people she loved most. The uncertainty of a new relationship. All of it would be useful when she dove into her work. Armed with these tools she was ready to pour herself out, heart and soul, crafting words into genius pieces of art.
Back in the dining room, Devlin chastised his sister for her unbecoming behavior. “I don’t care for your reasons why you’ve treated Faith the way you did. You do not insult her in front of me or anyone in this household. Father would have been ashamed.” Appalled at her behavior, he stalked away from her to join his guests at the table and try to apologize for her.
At the mention of their father, Margaret hung her head in shame. Her brother was right: Father would not have approved of her unladylike behavior, and a glance at both Mary and Jackson told her they too were disgusted for the reprehensible way she had treated Faith if their dark looks were any indication of their moods. She wasn’t normally a catty person. Juvenile at times, perhaps, but never outright hurtful to anyone until Faith had been forced into her life as a result of her brother’s do-good efforts.
Benjie laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Cheer up, pet. I’m here to help you enjoy yourself this season at your suggestion, remember? You, too, can choose to enjoy yourself by letting go of this petty jealousy you wrote about. Faith seems lovely.” And he walked away to join Devlin and the other guests.
Margaret fumed as angry tears slipped down her cheeks, and flounced out of the room. She wasn’t eager to have everyone notice her discomposure, and leaving seemed best for everyone involved. Faith was no longer about for her to properly apologize, but her heart wouldn’t have been sincere. Hearing her Benjamin’s words confirmed her suspicions that he was developing a marked interest in Faith. It wasn’t fair! Again, that Revelstoke trash was coming out of every situation smelling like roses, while she couldn’t even win a smile at least from Jackson.
Storming off in the direction of her bedchamber, Margaret vowed that she would find a way to undermine Faith and to persuade Devlin and Benjamin to see Faith for what she really was. Faith was a usurper who used her wiles to worm her way into the unsuspecting hearts of men. She was a schemer like her mother who had stolen her father from an adoring, devoted daughter. It wasn’t possible for there to be peace between Faith and herself; there was just no room for forgiveness when the cost of it meant she’d have to let go of the anger of losing her father.
And it hurt to remember him because he’d been so happy when last she saw him. Happy with the Countess of Revelstoke and he had forgotten all about his daughter for that happiness. Secretly, Margaret wondered if her father was hoping to gain Faith and her siblings as his own once he found a way to marry the countess. And if he did, where would that leave her and Devlin?
She couldn’t think that way, no, Devlin was their father’s pride. She, as the only daughter, wasn’t given the chance to know her mother as she passed when Margaret was a little girl, and Father hid himself from his children in his grief. No one was there for her except Devlin. The thought of Father wanting a new wife and her children only served to anger her further because she was then forced to face some terrible facts about herself. I’m not good enough for Father on my own. He needed someone like Faith and her mother for him to feel whole and happy. No one wants me because I’m a horrible person for acting on my wants.
And right now, all Margaret wanted was for her world to be set to rights. To do that, she needed Faith out of the way, and the world would be bright and happy again.
13
Treating Devlin’s office as her own, Faith was able to work undisturbed, fashioning lyrics to fit a tune she had completed the week before. She was also able to submit her articles for a women’s journal just that morning as she had used the entire day the day before to write them. Rather than take meals with the rest of the household, she opted to eat them alone in the library, unable to stem her steady workflow to take a break and eat. Accustomed to her work habits, Faust sent in her meals and saw to it that she had plenty of ink and paper.
Glancing out the window, Faith marked the sun was now setting when she was finally finished. Stretching out her kinked arms and rolling the cricks out of her neck, Faith stood up from her seat at Devlin’s desk and walked about the room to permit proper blood flow into her underused limbs. Alone in the room, Faith was free to look about her surroundings which had been her temporary hideout for the past twenty-four hours.
As expected of a duke’s home, the library’s organization was impeccable as well as immaculate. The staff dusted and polished in here regularly as evidenced by the gleaming spines and dust-free tops. Many first editions of popular books lined the shelves just as there were many books dedicated to topics such as agriculture, history, political treatises, and architecture. One wall contained past account books; she only discovered that’s what they contained as there were no titles or embossing on either the spine or the cover and pulled one out from curiosity. With no interest in past household accounts, she placed it back on the shelf.
She marveled that each section of books was dedicated to a particular topic, alphabetized, and then shelved in size from smallest to largest. She liked that the system of organization led to a pretty mosaic of books, clustered together in a tidy and harmonious blend.
Approaching another set of volumes that looked just like the account books she saw on another shelf, she puzzled why they were not occupying the same shelf as the rest of its category. They were the same black hardcovers as the other ones except that these two weren’t aligned together, and were jutting out over the shelf’s lip. She tried to push further in, but found the two books wouldn’t budge. Peering underneath, she could make out another book wedged behind the previous two. The top of the hidden book had not been discovered by the maids as it still harbored a bit of dust.
Faith thought it was an odd place for a book, but gave in to her curious nature and pulled out the two account books to set onto the floor. Reaching for the other book and dusting it off, she flipped it around to see if any markings indicated what it possibly contained. Like the account books, it was a hardcover with no markings, but contained half the amount of pages compared to the account books.
Flipping open the cover, the title page revealed a monumentous discovery Faith hadn’t expected to see, and she gave a soft gasp of shock. The words on the page hadn’t fully registered, and she had to mindfully re-read them. She read, “Still Lifes, Portraits, and Extraneous Subjects, Lady Eugenia Revelstoke, Countess of Revelstoke.” Her mother’s drawings encased in this book were the very ones her mother had written about in her first journal.
What was her mother’s sketchbook doing hiding in the Prestonridge library? Why hide both the journal and the sketchbook in two separate places? If the sketchbook was just
that, a book with her mother’s artwork, why was it even necessary to hide it in the first place? None of this made sense. Faith arrived at a possible theory: there must be value in and of itself for it to have been hidden away.
The journal itself was only valuable to Faith as it held precious sentimental value as one of her few connections to her mother. It hadn’t revealed the whys and wherefores leading to clues about her mother’s disappearance, but instead, it had given Faith the assurance that she had been loved by at least one parent.
The sketchbook, however, had yet to be plumbed for its secrets. Her fingers trembled as she flipped the first page to find a likeness of her when she was six. The portrait must have been done from memory as Faith had never sat still long enough for her mother to even try an outline of her features. She would have remembered if her mother made such a request. Her mother had drawn in her doll, the very one she kept to remind her of her mother, clutched tightly in both arms underneath her chin.
That doll wasn’t fancily made with anything as breakable as china. The entire doll was fashioned out of fabric and stuffed with cotton and sawdust but had worn a pinafore over a simple green dress. Its hair was made of red yarn to match Faith’s own shade of hair, and its eyes painted blue, to imitate her own. The doll itself was special only because Mother had it made for her to be a miniature Faith, and to her, it represented one small piece of evidence that her mother had cared.
Faust had chosen that moment to breeze in with a tray laden with a pot of tea and a few sandwiches. Faith looked up from the book at his entry, and greeted, “Oh, hello, Faust. I see you’ve brought me refreshments. Thank you.”
While setting the tray’s contents onto the large desk, Faust replied, “You’re welcome, Faith. Are you sure you won’t join the rest for dinner? Lady Mary had been asking, and I had told her you weren’t to be disturbed until your work was completed. I know how you get when you’re creativity is sparked.”
Picking up a freshly poured cup of tea, she set it to her lips to hide her smile. “Yes, I know you know. But I have finished my work, and am now doing a bit of pleasure-reading. Would you like to see?”
“See?” Faust puzzled, and she turned the book so he could see what she had just been studying. His eyes widened at the portrait of six-year-old Faith, and exclaimed, “That’s an accurate likeness of you! Who had this commissioned?”
“It wasn’t. This was done by my mother’s hand.”
Faust immediately understood. He had been closely informed of the recent developments in Faith’s drive to discover as much as she could about her mother. “Ah, maybe this is the journal your mother wanted you to find. A journal not written in words, but drawn in pictures.”
“That very well may be, but I’ll have to look at the rest of it,” she said, rapidly flipping to the last page. “It looks like she filled this one completely. Oh, Faust, would you mind making my excuses to the Duke and everyone for me? Dinner seems less important when faced with something like this and I’d like to be alone to look through it.”
“Of course. What should I tell the duke?”
“Hm. Tell him the truth. That I’ve finally found my mother’s real journal, the one she intended for me to find. He’ll understand.” Since she missed dinner the night before due to her work, Devlin wasn’t as understanding as she had hoped and had stormed the room after dinner to tell her so in incendiary terms. Her response was to yell and rant that she needed peace to write and had thrown a half-eaten sandwich at him. The sight of the destroyed food, splattered across the library floor, had the effect of calming Devlin and had turned to leave the room to stifle his chuckles. He must have been down the hall’s length outside the library when she heard him chortle, “Keep your ammunition for its intended use, Faith. You’re a termagant when you’re hungry!”
Fighting the urge to chuckle at the memory, Faith almost missed Faust’s reply. “Very well,” Faust said, and speedily exited to do as he was bid.
Alone again, she moved to the chaise lounge Devlin had moved in there for her comfort after the sandwich incident. Opening the book once more, she flipped through portrait after portrait of herself and her siblings, either together or alone, in various stages of their lives. To Faith, it seemed her mother had chronicled her children’s lives through her drawings, and there were scenes of them with the rolling acres of Revelstoke Place as their backdrop.
Arriving at the middle of the book, there were no more portraits but were instead familiar landscapes and locations. There, a picture of the old stables which overlooked a once-profitable dale. The house itself as it must have looked like when it had been a monastery long ago. The pond that separated the Prestonridge and Revelstoke lands. All of these were as she remembered them when she was a little girl.
She drank up the memories her mother’s sketches invoked. Thoroughly engrossed in her study of them, she suddenly felt like she was being watched. It must have been a change in the air or a whisper of sound that alerted her to the fact that she wasn’t alone. With her fine hairs on her neck rising, she clutched the book in front of her as if it were a shield, and hastily rose from the lounge. Before she could turn to face whomever it was, she was struck hard on the temple with a solid object and fell unceremoniously to the floor, unconscious.
14
The sharp pain prevented Faith from opening her eyes or making any sudden movements. The pain in her head radiated to other parts that she had yet to determine were functional. Mentally checking with her other senses, she could feel the soft cushioning of the bed beneath her; the sensations of her toes and fingers wiggling at will, and the annoying itch at the tip of her nose that required a modest scratch. Other than the pain thrumming through her skull, everything else seemed normal and hale.
An unintentional twist of her head hurt her dreadfully, and her resulting moan sounded loud in her ears as she struggled to open her eyes. At her sound of distress, she caught sight of Devlin, who rushed to her side, as did a worried band consisting of Mary, Jackson, and Faust. “What’s happened? How did I get here?” Uttering the words hurt worse than the hit she remembered receiving.
“No, Faith. Don’t try to move. You just rest. You’ve got quite the lump behind your right ear,” Devlin urged her.
Relaxing in knowing she was safe, she sucked in a breath as she was suddenly hit with a wave of pain radiating through her brain, acute and relentless. Mary drew closer to fuss at the coverlet and adjusted it higher for it to reach Faith’s throat. With a cold damp cloth in her other hand, Mary gently dabbed at Faith’s brow, giving her some relief from the terrible pain. During her ministrations, Mary said softly, “You’ve given us an awful scare. Faust had found you lying on the library floor while he was on his way to send you a dinner tray.”
“And I wasn’t far behind him,” Devlin cut in.
Faith tried again to speak, “Someone. Hit me. From behind.” She had to let them know it wasn’t an accident that she ended up hurt.
Trying to brush off her dire words and to lighten the mood, Devlin said, “I know you’re not well, but I will yell at you later for refusing dinner with us two nights in a row.” Faith wanted to laugh at his comment, and at his welcome restraint from berating her, but found that even the effort of the beginning exhalation of a laugh had pained her.
Again, she tried to form words to speak, but the pain kept her from the task. Nausea had hit her powerfully, and she tried to swallow back the urge to be ill. Faust stepped up then and encouraged her, “No, Faith. Listen to me, you have to take deep breaths. Breathe, that’s it. There. Now, I have here a salve for that nasty lump. Unfortunately, when I apply it, it will hurt like the devil, but then it will be better so you can properly rest.”
Faust gently dabbed the salve onto the sensitive lump, and the pain came unbidden, causing tears to form at the corners of her eyes. She hissed in reaction to Faust’s light touch, and Devlin commented, “Yes, Faust, I see that it’s best that you do the dabbing. You might just have the lightest touch o
f us all, save Mary here.”
Mary shook her head. “Sorry, but no, Your Grace. I fear I’m shaking too much with anger on Faith’s behalf. I wouldn’t risk hurting her worse. She should not have been hurt while under our care in the first place.” Faith’s words from earlier put both twins on alert that something was amiss and were quick to believe Faith was telling them the truth of what had happened in the library.
Jackson patted his sister’s shoulder. “We both are unhappy that Faith has been hurt and under all of our noses. How is it that we’ve all been at home and not able to protect her?”
Devlin frowned mightily. He disliked thinking that someone outside of this room could be Faith’s likely attacker. His servants were very loyal to him and thus were ruled out as possible suspects. He also didn’t like to think it could have been one of his own family members, but what was he to think? The likelihood of an intruder to come sneaking through his household didn’t hold much weight as Hugo, or any of his footmen, would have immediately noticed, stationed as they were throughout the house. What was more likely was Faith having a clumsy moment while immersed in her mother’s sketchbook, then tripping on the corner of the rug while flying headlong into the desk before her.
