by C. J. Chase
“So she might believe her actions justified.”
“I meant such an idealistic nature would be unlikely to have sided with the Corsican tyrant during the war.”
Harrison pulled on his gloves, the side of one finger visible through a rent in the fabric. “You seem wont to defend her, my lord. What are you going to do about her?”
“I’ve hired her to pass on my messages to her compatriots. I left her instructions to inform them of my suspicions regarding their involvement in my father’s death.”
“That could be dangerous to you, my lord.”
“Then I’d have my answer.”
“If her sympathies lie with the radicals, your offer of remuneration might not be enough to buy her loyalty. I don’t suppose you left any bogus messages in your chamber before you left.”
“To test her credibility?” The wind whipped against him as he exited the building. Julian turned up the collar of his cloak. Once before he’d entrusted a subordinate with a confidential communication, only to find himself deceived. He would do well to remember that. “I’ll do that when I return to Rowan Abbey. Perhaps a letter suggesting the government intends to crack down on the growing unrest and will be sending troops to Wellingborough will garner their attention. Will you accept the position?”
“Only a foolish man would decline an opportunity to feed his family this winter.” A gaunt horse lumbered past them. The wagon behind skidded on the dingy, packed snow, eliciting a bellow from its driver. “I’ll travel to Northamptonshire and join the local group of radicals. However, my lord, as an outsider, I probably can’t penetrate far enough into the leadership to glean much of their plans.”
“True, but you have better prospects than any other. I can hire someone from Bow Street to conduct inquiries in London about the Spa Fields riots.”
“I’ll get you the right man. He is very good—but not cheap.”
“I’m prepared to pay what I must.”
Harrison stared at a pigeon roosting on a rooftop for several moments. “My lord, you do realize you have placed this governess in a precarious position? Should her contacts learn of her duplicity, I doubt they will be as obliging as you.”
Julian shoved his hands into his pocket. The crackle of the anonymous note tossed his mind back to the simple nativity star Harrison’s youngest had drawn with childish scrawl. Misgivings mingled with determination. “She placed herself in danger when she began this game. I doubt the government would have been more forgiving than the mob had the magistrate caught her first.” Or his sister Elizabeth. “Should I inform Sotherton of my discovery and our stratagem?”
“Let’s see what your governess achieves for us.”
“And offer Miss Vance a chance to redeem herself?”
“We are all in need of redemption, captain.”
Julian startled to hear his old title—not the one he’d inherited so unexpectedly, but the one he’d studied for, worked for, earned. He stared at a nearby ship whose masts disappeared into the London fog. Perhaps even he had a bit of the revolutionary coursing through his veins. “It seems I’ll be visiting my sister for an extended stay. She won’t be pleased.”
“Reconciliation is every bit as necessary as redemption.” Harrison directed Julian’s attention from the ship to a tenement in the distance. “Our quarters are simple and the fare is modest, but you are welcome if you are staying in London.”
By the looks of Harrison, their meals tended to the meager. “I spent years of my life at sea. I’m not so fastidious as you might imagine. Unfortunately I must journey immediately to Somerset. My housekeeper writes my mother is not well. I shall return to Northamptonshire as soon as feasible.” Julian retrieved a purse from inside his coat and passed it to the other man. “Buy whatever you need for the task—including any provisions your family will require during your absence.”
* * *
Leah stared across the rolling fields of sun-glazed snow. The bare branches of leafless trees framed the footpath as she hiked to the entrance of a large estate. A high stone fence enclosed the grounds and ivy covered the manor’s walls, as if they hid from the world, ashamed. She glanced over her shoulder. Assured none save a few thin, shaggy cattle observed her movements, she marched to the gatehouse.
The gatekeeper came out and fitted a key in the lock. “Another Sunday visit, eh, Miss Vance?” He pushed open the foreboding iron gates that shut out unexpected visitors. And shut in any residents bent on escape.
“Yes, thank you.” She slipped through the opening, fighting a wince as the lock clicked behind her.
Eerie quiet reverberated across the lawns as Leah trudged to the house. Despite the lofty status of the residents, most of their families limited contact to paying the exorbitant fees. Few carriage wheels had left their impressions in the snow, probably only the occasional delivery dray. But as she drew closer to the house, Leah caught the unearthly moans, punctuated by the occasional screams, of mental distress. Sunlight winked on discreet bars that lined the windows.
Breath tightening in her chest, she climbed the steps and rang the bell. The door swung open to reveal the unsmiling matron in a dress as white as the grounds.
“A bad night, Miss Vance.”
“But she is better now?”
“As much as we can expect.”
As if any of them had expectations for Phoebe. Leah lingered on the stoop, then forced her feet across the threshold. The heavy oak door slammed in place, the sliding of the bolt echoing like a thunderclap through the empty entrance hall. The familiar sense of panic squeezed around her stomach.
Unlike a typical home, no personal touches warmed the interior. No rugs blanketed the floors. No sideboard sported a vase presented to some long-forgotten ancestor. No flowers filled the air with perfume. Only cold utilitarian sterility filled the rooms.
“Alice will take you to your sister’s chamber.” The matron gestured to an orderly who marched up the staircase, shoes tapping against a flight of bare risers.
Leah removed her hat and gloves, then willed reluctant feet to follow.
Down a hallway the orderly paused by a door and retrieved her keys. “We had to administer a double dose of laudanum last night. Your sister was most agitated—tried to kill herself. Took three of us to get the laudanum into her.” Alice pushed open the door.
Leah stepped into a room that reeked of sweat and urine. Despair washed over her. Phoebe lay still and deathlike on the mattress that comprised the room’s only furnishing. Filth dulled the shorn blond locks that had once been her glory. “Why hasn’t she at least been bathed?” Phoebe’s care cost enough coin.
“We have to wait until she regains her senses. She could drown in her current state.”
Leah stared through the bars that prevented escape via the window, feeling as trapped as her sister. The sun glared against the snow-swathed grounds so brightly as to cause her eyes to sting. And yet the thought persisted. Did Phoebe, in her more lucid moments, seek to flee her mental and physical prison, even by death?
“If you need anything, or if you decide to leave before your usual time, ring for me.” Alice passed Leah a small silver bell.
Leah sat on the mattress beside her sister’s motionless form and closed her ears to the sound of the lock imprisoning her in the cold, barren chamber. Why the need for locks for an insensate woman? “Phoebe?” She shook a thin shoulder. Phoebe’s head rolled to the side, her cold cheek coming to rest against the back of Leah’s hand. But for the gentle rise and fall of Phoebe’s breathing, she could have been dead. Leah raised one of her sister’s wrists and examined the skin for welts or bruises. Relief welled within her at the sight of the unblemished skin. While she disapproved of the matron’s enthusiasm for laudanum, at least here the orderlies eschewed binding unruly patients.
Leah retrieved a comb from her reticule and set to work unsnarling the tangled nest of Phoebe’s hair. The golden strands gleamed with memories despite their dirty condition. If only Leah had thought to ha
ve Alice bring a warm, wet cloth to wipe the dried sweat and grime from the porcelain skin.
Guilt welled in her, spilling out at the corners of Leah’s eyes. Clever David had been their parents’ pride and lovely Phoebe their joy. For years Leah had resented her role as the plain, overlooked middle child, had envied David his quick wit and Phoebe her beauty.
What kind of malicious God would spare her while taking everyone else?
* * *
“That the house?” Caroline pointed out the window as the carriage pulled up before Rowan Abbey.
Julian glanced past his youngest sister to the forbidding pile of redbricks. The many-paned windows sparkled in the sunshine, an ironic counterpoint to the anything-but-sunny welcome he expected inside. “Yes, that’s the house.” Unfortunately.
He could already imagine Elizabeth’s reaction. If only he could have left Caro with Felicity...but Maman needed respite. Grief and exhaustion had drained her body and mind—not that Caro could understand. No, she demanded the same care and attention from her only parent. He had to separate them, for Maman’s sake. For now.
On the facing seat the maid interrupted her nap long enough to glance at Sotherton’s manor house. Anna wiped her nose with her sleeve, making him yearn for the days when Nanny had been young enough to travel.
The coachman reined the horses to a halt, and a footman came to assist Caro with the carriage step. The sun had melted the top layer of snow, turning it treacherously icy for one with Caro’s precarious balance. Julian gripped her arm and waved the maid to take the other side. The trio ambled to the entrance where the butler opened the door.
“Good afternoon, Hawkesworth.” Julian passed him their coats.
“I’ll tell his lordship you have returned.”
“Thank you. I must speak to my eldest sister first. Where is Lady Sotherton?”
“The blue drawing room.”
“I’ll show myself in. And Hawkesworth, please inform the housekeeper to have a room prepared next to mine for my youngest sister. Lady Caroline will be here for a short stay.”
Not even the excessively impassive butler held his surprise in check. His gaze darted to Caroline, then with supreme control, he recovered his composure. “I’ll have Mrs. Anderson make the gold bedchamber ready, my lord.”
Julian led the increasingly wary Caro by the hand to the blue drawing room where his oldest sister concentrated on her needlework. “Ah, Lizzie. Did you miss me?”
Elizabeth raised her chin. “So you returned.”
“As promised.” He offered a brief bow and an infuriating smile.
“Benedict and Killiane leave for London on the morrow.”
“Then I will meet with him forthwith.” Julian’s business no longer involved Sotherton anyway—although he’d have to provide his brother-in-law with a convenient excuse for his continued stay. His jaw tightened as he swept Caro forward. “Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet Caroline. Your youngest sister.”
The warmth of the room brought a rosy glow to Caro’s cheeks that, with her diminutive size, made her appear so much like a porcelain doll. She glanced at Julian through her oddly uptilted eyes. Julian smiled and gestured, and she dipped into a pretty curtsey.
Elizabeth locked her perpetual frown on her face “What is she doing here?”
“Caro has come for...a short visit.”
“How short?”
“Several days.” Julian wrapped an arm around Caro’s shoulders. “Perhaps several weeks, depending on how long my business lasts and how well Maman fares.”
“Bad enough you seem to have taken up residence in my house—”
“Lord Sotherton’s house—and with his permission.”
“But now you are inviting guests.”
“Caroline is not a guest. She is your family.”
Elizabeth rang the bell for a servant. “I understand there are establishments for her kind.”
Under his arm, Caro trembled. Julian hauled her closer.
“My lady?” An older woman with a cap covering her graying hair entered the salon.
“Mrs. Anderson, please show our guest—”
“Lady Caroline. Her name is Lady Caroline.” Julian folded his arm across his chest and fixed a defiant stare on his older sister.
“—to her bedchamber.”
“Very good, my lady.” The housekeeper dropped into a curtsey.
Julian transferred Caro’s hand to the maid’s grasp. “You and Anna go with Mrs. Anderson.”
Doubt and confusion and caution darkened Caro’s blue eyes. “Jules.”
“Go on.” Julian touched her cheek. “I’ll be along after I take care of some business.”
“Come, my lady.” The housekeeper grabbed Caro’s other hand.
Caro glanced back one time at Julian before she exited the room.
Elizabeth’s frown etched new lines around her tight mouth. “She seems quiet enough. I suppose she won’t be too much bother so long as her nursemaid restrains her.”
“Caro is not an animal that must be caged. She’s a human being, and a far kinder one than many I know.”
Elizabeth clamped her lips together. Reconciliation never seemed so far away.
* * *
Leah smoothed the rag over Phoebe’s brow. Alice had been none too pleased with the request. But a reminder of the fee Leah paid, along with a suggestion that perhaps the matter could be taken up with Alice’s employer, had convinced the grumbling orderly to bring a cloth and a pan of tepid water.
Footsteps rapped against the hallway floor, then the door clicked open. Alec strode into the room and settled onto the mattress beside her, lowering a large strong hand to her shoulder. His grim green eyes stared at Phoebe, his cheeks tight with emotion.
Leah tossed the rag into the basin. “Last night she tried to...”
“I know. I heard.” He drew Leah close and tucked her head under his chin.
She rested her face against the rough wool, letting some of the anxiety and fatigue bleed out of her for several blissful moments. The outline of the pistol under her cousin’s coat—left over from his army days—pressed against her cheek.
Presently, Alec released her and rose. “We should go. You can’t do any more today.”
“But it will be another week before I can return.”
“And hopefully Phoebe will be more responsive to visitors. Besides, if we leave now, you’ll arrive back at the Abbey before dark.” Alec jingled the bell.
Leah brushed her knuckles along her sister’s cheek, the cold skin soft and smooth to her touch. Her impotence weighed heavily on her heart.
The orderly reappeared, unlocked the door and escorted them to the entrance hall where the matron met them at the door. “Miss Vance?” She waited, hand outstretched.
Leah opened her reticule and extracted the requisite coins. Only a few remained—not enough to cover Phoebe’s care another week. The great expense of her sister’s extended illness had depleted their father’s legacy by last year. Leah had continued to provide for Phoebe these past few months by furnishing Alec’s...friends with the contents of Lord Sotherton’s correspondence.
But what to do now? Lord Chambelston had provided only instructions—no payment—before his hasty and mysterious departure.
“I heard Chambelston left the county.” Alec seemingly read her mind as he escorted her along the drive.
“Thursday morning.”
“Will he be returning?”
“Assuredly.”
The gatekeeper let them out with a cheery wave. Leah breathed more easily outside the estate’s confining atmosphere.
Alec fell into step beside her. “Tell me about Lord Sotherton’s other guests.”
“Viscount Killiane and his brother, Mr. Fleming.” Fortunately, with the departure of both Mr. Warren and Chambelston, Lady Sotherton hadn’t needed to press Leah and Miss Godwin into attending dinner again. “Viscount Killiane will be leaving with Sotherton for London tomorrow.”
“It’s
my understanding that while Killiane is a frequent visitor, Fleming hasn’t called on his family in some time.”
“Three years.” Thirty wouldn’t have been long enough.
“I can understand why Killiane would visit his uncle, what with their mutual interest in politics. But what is Fleming’s business?”
“Pleasure, I suppose.” His, and no one else’s. “So far as I know, it’s his only occupation.”
“That makes no sense. If the man is a fribble, what would he be doing in Northamptonshire in the middle of winter? He’ll find no entertainment here.”
“Perhaps he needed a retreat from his creditors? For certain, he and Lord Killiane seem to be at daggers’ drawn.”
“So two men who can’t stand each other decide to travel from Ireland to Northamptonshire to spend the remainder of their holiday together?”
A fair point. So why had Reginald Fleming come? To torment his brother?
To torment her?
The houses and barns of tiny Norford loomed before them with a crossroads in the center of the hamlet where she and Alec would part. The road to their right led south toward his lodgings in Heckton, while the other direction headed westward to her duties at Rowan Abbey. Her residence, but never her home.
“Did you learn the reason for Chambelston’s visit?” The fringe of mahogany hair peeking out from Alec’s hat brim gleamed with fire in the sun and lit a twinge of guilt in Leah. But other than agree to Lord Chambelston’s proposal, she hadn’t actually done anything yet. Nothing that could cause Alec harm.
“He believes certain factions of your group murdered his father.”
Alec’s face stilled. “The late Lord Chambelston? Why would we kill him? He was an ally of our cause.”
Leah stopped so abruptly Alec stumbled on his bad leg and nearly went sprawling into the snow. “An ally?”
“Of sorts. He offered to assist us in presenting our grievances to government.”
“Then who would want the man dead?”
“The son who inherited his title and fortune?”
An image of Lord Chambelston’s eyes—the blue muted with grief—flashed through Leah’s mind. “I think not.”
