Letters to a Lover, page 22
Augusta frowned in a very familiar fashion, “Azalea, are you up to something?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time Eric came home, Azalea was already dressed to depart. As she entered the sitting room, she gave him a twirl in her uncharacteristically staid cloak and bonnet.
His lips twitched. “I didn’t know you possessed such garments.”
“I don’t. I borrowed them from Miss Farrow. On the understanding that if she ever needs to borrow anything of mine, she need only ask. It seems a perfect disguise if I am mistaken for her. She is very discreet, is Miss Farrow. I like her. In fact,” she added, sitting down on the sofa and catching Eric’s hand to draw him with her, “I seem to like everyone today, even Augusta.”
He sat beside her, warm, large, and frowning. “Augusta has been here?”
“Well, the servants found it difficult to refuse her when they had already admitted your mother.”
He groaned. “Damn it, their orders were clear.”
“Yes, but Given has been here since her day. He is used to obeying her.”
“Well, if he can’t obey me, he must find different employment,” Eric said grimly. “What did my mother want?”
“Oh, she had heard I was mysteriously ill and came to inquire. And when she discovered me so hale and hearty—”
“You mean you didn’t show her your arm?”
“I did not. She was offended enough. After a quick lecture on duty, she departed.”
Eric blinked. “Duty? With regard to what?”
“Oh, everything. Mostly, the behavior and the number of children expected of a Viscountess Trench.”
Eric scowled. “That’s a bit rich!”
Azalea shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Is the hackney here yet?”
“No,” Eric said without even a glance at the window. “Azalea, has my mother ever spoken to you like that before?”
Azalea hesitated. But they had promised honesty and openness. “Yes.” She waved it humorously aside. “She thinks I’m a flighty flippertygibbet with no care for my social standing or yours.”
“Since when?” he demanded wrathfully.
“Since we met,” Azalea replied.
“But she has never said anything of the sort—” He broke off. “Actually, she did, once, when I first told her I was going to propose to you. I cut her off, and she has said nothing similar since. To me. Azalea, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, she’s not obliged to like me,” Azalea pointed out. “And in any case, I never wanted to be the cause of trouble between you.”
“Saying things like that to you, it’s she who is causing trouble. I’ll have a very clear word with her.”
“Actually, I don’t think there’s any need,” Azalea said, resting her head on his shoulder to the detriment of Miss Farrow’s bonnet. “I have discovered a method of dealing with her that neither disrespects her nor lets her walk over me.”
He reached around the bonnet to drop a kiss on her lips. “You are wonderful, you know.”
“Of course I know. Is everything ready?”
“Yes, you are expected. And I think…” He stood up and walked to the window, “that is Dragan’s hackney. It’s time you were gone.”
He came back to her, drawing her to her feet and straightening her bonnet. “You should be admitted without trouble, but if there is any difficulty at all, you must leave. The police can go instead.”
“I would rather it was me.”
“I know.”
She touched his cheek, and he kissed her hand. “Come, mysterious lady resembling the new governess, your chariot awaits.”
They went downstairs together. She kept her cloak fastened and her head bent so that the bonnet protected her identity, and she walked out the front door and down the steps with no more than a curt nod from her husband.
And climbed straight into the waiting hackney beside Dragan.
“All well?” he asked as the carriage jolted into motion.
“Perfectly. Morris will take my dinner to my room on a tray, as usual, and bring it back to the kitchen untouched while he is there. Is everything else arranged?”
“I think so. You just have to come and eat with us, and then the fun, as Griz puts it, begins.”
*
Lord Forsythe Niven, Azalea’s youngest brother, was the first guest to arrive for the card party.
“Am I early?” he asked cheerfully, strolling into the salon.
“Not only that, I didn’t invite you,” Trench pointed out, although he softened the blow with a glass of brandy.
Forsythe only grinned. “Oversight,” he assured his host.
“No, it was a conscious decision not to fill my house with relatives and scare off my prey.”
“This is something to do with Griz, isn’t it? That’s why they sent me. In fact, if I hadn’t agreed to come, you’d have got Horace and His Grace, and probably Landon and Monkton into the bargain. I assured them I would be less out of place at a gaming party, so here I am. You’re glad of me now, aren’t you?”
Trench sighed. “Delighted, dear boy. But I want nothing said to spread any suspicion via other guests or servants. Bear in mind, you are all cheering me up in my anxiety over Azalea’s health.”
“Oh, I’m mum,” Forsythe assured him, making a fastening gesture over his lips. “Here are more guests for you! ’Evening, Naseby! Hammond.”
After them came Lord Darchett, and Will Brunton, one of Trench’s oldest friends. As he greeted them, Eric met Darchett’s gaze with an infinitesimal twitch of one eyebrow.
Darchett nodded once, and Trench knew his quarry was here, on his way to being ensconced in the servants’ hall with one of his cook’s best meals.
He breathed again.
A few moments later came a large man, tugging at his collar and looking out of place, who Trench recognized at once, even though they had never met.
“Ah, you must be Mr. Harris,” Trench said amiably, going to meet him with his hand held out. “I’m Trench.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Harris said, fortunately in accents that would pass muster as gentlemanly.
“Tizsa has been delayed,” Trench informed him, “but he should be here later on. Let me introduce you to these other reprobates.”
*
Another hackney carriage dropped Azalea, Griz, and Dragan at Darchett House in Grafton Square. Since there was no carriage waiting at the door for his lordship, they had to assume he had already left as planned with his valet.
Even so, Dragan stepped in front of the ladies to knock at the door and wait. The door opened rapidly, and a porter inquired their business.
“Mrs. Day, if you please,” Dragan said.
The porter eyed them all without enthusiasm. “Wait there,” he said severely. “I’ll see if she’s available.” And he shut the door on them.
“Well,” Azalea observed. “This never happens to me in real life.”
“You should spend more time with us,” Dragan murmured.
A moment later, the door opened again, and they saw a motherly woman hurrying across the hall to them. “Come in,” she said pleasantly. “I’m so sorry, Gregor didn’t know I was expecting you. Follow me.”
She led them out of the porter’s sight toward the baize door that separated the main house from the servants’ quarters.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said nervously. “I thought I should take you up via the servants’ stairs. That way, Gregor will assume I’m taking you to my sitting room.”
“Is Gregor a friend of Jessop’s?” Griz asked.
“I don’t know about friend,” Mrs. Day replied, leading them up a narrow staircase. “I suspect Gregor is more of an informant. Jessop likes to know everything that goes on in the house, every detail of his lordship’s business, which I’ve mentioned to his lordship and to her ladyship, isn’t right. But his lordship wouldn’t hear a word against the man until now. Don’t worry,” she added. “We should meet no one on the way. With his lordship out for the evening, everyone is enjoying an extra cup of tea in the servants’ hall.”
“We’re sorry to disturb what should have been a quiet evening for you,” Azalea offered.
“It will be worth it if you find something that finally makes his lordship dismiss that man. Especially with his lordship about to bring a sweet young bride into the house.”
“Why do you think his lordship has put up with such a valet?” Dragan asked.
“I think he can’t dismiss him because he owes him too much salary,” Mrs. Day replied. “In fact, he owes several of us, but that is between you and me.” She turned, wheezing on the top landing in the attic corridor. “His lordship said I should trust you and show you to Jessop’s room. I wasn’t to tell anyone else, which I wouldn’t in my position. I’ve no idea what you expect to find there.”
She plowed along to the left and opened the second door. “Here is his bedchamber. Let me know if I can help.”
“Actually,” Dragan said, “if you wouldn’t mind watching us so that you can bear witness to whatever we find. If anything.”
Mrs. Day seemed more than happy to perform such a service. “Gladly.” She looked about her. “He’s a tidy body, though. I’ll say that for him.”
“Start with the obvious places,” Griz instructed. “The desk, drawers, wardrobe, under the pillow and the mattress, and we’ll progress to floorboards.”
Dragan dropped their small, empty carpetbag in the middle of the floor and walked to the bed, where he picked up the pillow, squeezed it, and threw it down again. Then, he began feeling under the mattress.
Griz opened the crooked, roll-top desk.
So Azalea began opening drawers in the tallboy and raking through clothes. In the third drawer, she felt something wedged at the back and hastily dragged it out. A little packet containing banknotes, together with the letter she had first sent him.
“Eureka,” she said, holding it up.
Dragan dropped the mattress back and held up something similar. “Snap.”
“What is it?” Mrs. Day asked, intrigued, then her mouth fell open. “Oh my! Where on earth could he have got such a sum? Is that what you came to find?”
“Partly,” Dragan said, dropping his packet of money into the carpetbag with Azalea’s find. He moved to the narrow wardrobe. “And it certainly proves we’re in the right place.”
“He has a lot of correspondence,” Griz observed, rifling the desk drawers. “Full of gossip.”
Azalea carried on looking in the bottom drawers of the tallboy. She found a purse of coins in one. “Is this Jessop’s?” she asked Mrs. Day.
“I’ve never seen it before,” the housekeeper replied. “He usually uses a much smaller coin purse, but I suppose it could be his savings.”
“Take it anyway,” Dragan advised. “He’s probably been blackmailing other people for years. If we’re wrong, we can always give it back.”
Azalea dropped it into the carpetbag, too, and carried on rifling among the towels.
“Zalea,” Griz said.
Something in her voice sent chills down Azalea’s spine. She rose slowly from her kneeling position and walked toward Griz, who was holding a folded letter in her hands. At least, she held two pieces of a letter. A piece in the middle had been torn out.
“It’s your writing,” Griz said hoarsely. “And it’s the only one of yours. Dragan was right, and there was only ever one letter. I won’t read it, but Zalea, look.”
She thrust the top part of the letter into Azalea’s hand, her finger trembling as she pointed to the first line under the address, which she had written simply as Royston House, and the date, May 23, 1851.
Oh yes, this was the missing letter. And she was trembling.
“Look,” Griz insisted, tapping her finger where she wanted Azalea to read, where Azalea was too frightened to look.
Eric will forgive me. Eric will forgive me, she kept repeating in her head for courage. God knows I no longer care a fig for whoever this is. Only, please let it not be Gunning…
She swallowed and forced herself to focus on the letter once more, to read the line above Grizelda’s pointing finger.
My dearest Eric,
*
By nine o’clock, Trench’s party was in full swing. Wine and brandy were flowing freely, as was good-humored banter and laughter. Excessive gambling was not encouraged, so the games set up in the salon were for small stakes, avoiding the possibility of serious losses.
Inspector Harris, who no doubt supported a family on a salary most of the men present spent on fripperies, held his own. But when Trench stood up from his game and strolled into the other salon, where a cold supper had been laid out for constant grazing, he was aware of Harris standing up from his table. While Trench looked out of the window in both directions for any sign of Azalea’s return, Harris helped himself to two sandwiches and an elegant, savory pastry, all of which vanished with remarkable rapidity.
They were, currently, the only two men in the room. A burst of laughing protest drifted in from the other salon.
Trench wandered toward the supper table and selected something at random. He could barely taste it anyway.
“I should say,” Harris began, “I will deliver an accounting of what I lose and return the rest to you at the end of the evening.”
At least Tizsa had remembered to pass on the purse Trench had given him. “No need. You are doing me a considerable favor.”
“I am carrying out my duty which is investigating crimes and bringing perpetrators to justice.”
“My apologies,” Trench said tolerantly. “I have had little to do with the police. I just don’t want you to lose out to a parcel of wastrels like us.”
“You must be very convinced of this fellow’s guilt if you let your wife go and search his rooms.”
“I am. And besides, I don’t want her here while Jessop is around the house. Just in case he decides to investigate how close to death she really is. We can count on a few of my friends and servants to help when the time comes to arrest him, but I do hope you have your own men in position?”
“By now there should be one burly constable at your back door and one at the area steps. He won’t get out of here. Unless we choose to let him.”
“You don’t believe my wife will find the evidence, do you?”
Harris chose not to answer that. “Mr. Tizsa has gone with her, I understand.”
“And Lady Grizelda.”
“Of course,” Harris said sardonically. “And they will just be admitted to this lord’s house and allowed to poke around?”
“Darchett privately instructed his housekeeper, who is, he tells me, a trustworthy soul.”
“But then, he presumably thought his valet a trustworthy soul.”
“You are a great comfort to me, Mr. Harris.”
A faint smile flickered across the austere face. “That is my duty, sir. Should you not return to your guests?”
Trench cast another glance at the window, then turned away. “After you, Mr. Harris.”
*
My dear Eric,
Eric. Of course, who else would she write such a letter to? The words danced before her eyes, and as she read them, she remembered writing them. That terrible guilt landed on her once more like a deluge, flooding her, crushing her.
Grizelda’s arm was at her waist, lowering her into the chair, holding her. Dragan knelt at her feet, gazing up at her with something like alarm. Guilt at taking the life of the dreadful footman, at ruining Eric’s life and that of her children by that act, for she would go to prison, she would hang. She should hang because she had taken a life.
Only she hadn’t.
She clutched Grizelda’s shoulder. “I knew he would be told the rest. That I could tell him the rest, even from prison—about Ned and what I’d done to him—but it seemed most important of all that… I had to tell him I loved him. It just poured out because we had been so distant for so long, I had to be sure he would know.”
She released Griz, blinking, gazing from her to Dragan as she remembered, clearly for the first time, what had happened next.
“As I signed it, I heard a movement behind me. I thought it was Franny. I put down the pen and turned to her. Only, it wasn’t Franny. It was a tall, superior manservant. He bowed to me very politely, said he was there to escort me back to the ballroom. I thought Franny must have sent him. And that Lord Royston might be angry I was in his library without permission.” She frowned. “And then I thought, if I do everything I’m supposed to, if I behave normally, perhaps I will have one more night with Eric, one more chance to see my children.”
She rubbed her forehead. “I was not thinking straight. As I picked up my fan, I think I was already forgetting why I was there, why I was writing to Eric in the first place. I left the letter on the desk. A thought flitted though my head that I would come back for it before I left. The manservant held the door for me, bowed me out of the room, and walked with me as far as the stairs, where I told him he could go.”
Her breath caught. “He did go, back toward the library. I went on to the ballroom, feeling most peculiar. I went through the motions, smiling, dancing, wanting only to go home, though I soon forgot why.”
She paused, suddenly remembering her dance with Gunning and the words that misled him. He had asked if he could call on her, and receiving no response but a smile, had suggested, “Alone?”
And she had laughed, knowing that she would always be alone now, that by the time Gunning called, she would be in a police cell, without Eric or the children, or anyone she loved. “Probably,” she had replied.
And Gunning had taken that as his invitation, as her promise that she would see him alone.
Then there was the mysterious David Grant. She remembered dancing with him, too. He had been shy, admiring, tongue-tied as Dragan had once suggested but had been worried she would faint. He had kept asking if he should fetch someone until she had left the dance floor and the ball. When she had met him again outside the Exhibition, he had probably only wanted to ask after her health.
