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There was rejoicing in all levels of the house when Miss Eugenia Burnham accepted Mr. Gerard Landon’s proposal of marriage. The servants were all fond of Eugenia and had been hoping to see her happily settled. Mrs. Burnham was ready to have one daughter off her hands, and Mr. Burnham just wanted his oldest daughter to be happy and secure.
The engagement was even alluded to in the Times no more than three days later, and a celebratory dinner was planned for that night. I worked my fingers to the bone trying to change Eugenia’s wardrobe ahead of her need for the gowns. It felt as though I hardly had a moment even to think!
But one evening, after the Burnhams left for a dinner party, I sat at my dressing table, setting aside my hairbrush and meager accessories. I drew a sheet of paper from its case and dipped my quill into a bottle of ink. Maybe once I could see the details of this mystery in writing, it would become clearer in my mind. For a moment, as I stared at the blank paper, I paused to consider just what to put down.
I knew I should be making preparations to leave. After all, there was a dangerous traitor still there. Whoever it was had left the knife in my pillow as a warning. If anyone else were to ask questions, such as Mr. Harper, what would the traitor do? Would it be assumed I was working with Mr. Harper?
“The man could be the death of me,” I said with a sigh.
My thoughts went to how I hadn’t seen the young man in the house since our confrontation. I wondered what he was doing, and if he was any closer to discovering what he wanted to know. Or was he also at a standstill?
Shaking my head, I turned my attention to the blank sheet in front of me. I scribbled a list of the prominent individuals in the house and added Mr. Harper’s name, just for the sake of being thorough. I also made a few brief notes, describing what he’d told me. “He would be playing a dangerous game if he were the traitor,” I decided as I looked over it. I drew a line through his name. For now, he was not a suspect.
At the top of the list was Mr. Burnham, and I noted the information he’d revealed during our conversation. He had been my father’s friend, and I wanted to think the best of him. However, he knew what Jonathan had been doing, and so he could have betrayed my brother. But, he hadn’t been here when the pointed warning was left in my pillow in the form of the paperknife. Unless he’d arranged for a third-party to leave the note, such as his valet, but to what end?
I scratched out his name, tentatively freeing him from suspicion. It took longer for me to do so for Mrs. Burnham, but I eventually decided that she was too self-absorbed to concern herself with politics. Eugenia, Calliope, and Daphne were innocent of any wrongdoing unless the younger pair’s mischievous, immature behavior could be considered a crime, and I removed them from the list.
Faced with the list of servants, I paused. Anyone of them could have left the knife in my pillow. Which reminded me I ought to learn what Wilder had discovered in that regard. I capped my ink, folded my list, and stood up. After hiding the papers in my pocket, I headed for the door in search of the one person who could give me the insight I needed.
Evenings always brought a calm to the lower levels of the house. I rapped my knuckles against the door of Wilder’s office. It took several moments before the butler called out a sharp, “Yes? Who is it?”
“It’s Miss Nelson, sir.” I laid my hand on the doorknob in anticipation of his summons. “Might I have a few words with you?”
Nearly a minute of silence passed, and I began to wonder if he had heard me. The doorknob turned, and I pulled my hand away. A very flustered, blushing Mrs.Wilder opened the door. “Please come in, Miss Nelson.” Her hair was mussed, and she smoothed her gown. “Wilder and I were going over...the accounts.”
Oh. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as I realized I had intruded upon a private moment between the married couple. “Of course,” I managed to say. I found I couldn’t look her in the eye. “I’m sorry to have interrupted you. When would be a better time for me to return? Perhaps tomorrow?”
Wilder appeared behind the housekeeper. “What is it, Miss Nelson?” he asked impatiently, straightening his jacket.
“I was curious whether you have made any discovery concerning the paper knife,” I said, eager to move past this awkward situation.
The pair exchanged looks, and they both moved back. “Please come in and have a seat.” I accepted the seat across from his desk. Mrs. Wilder stood behind her husband when he sat down. “I informed Mr. Burnham of what occurred, and he is very concerned. It seems there have been far too many instances of a someone being here that should not.”
Mr. Burnham was still angry about Mr. Harper’s coming and goings, but I knew that the young man hadn’t been the one to leave the knife. “Mr. Burnham did not recognize the knife?”
“He did not.”
It would have been too easy if he had, and I considered carefully what to say next. Asking if one of the staff could be a traitor seemed too blunt. “May I have the knife back?”
Both Wilders looked startled. “Why would you want it returned?” Mrs. Wilder asked.
“Oddly enough, it looks familiar to me, though, for the life of me, I cannot recall where I have seen it,” I explained. “I was hoping if I could take it to study, it might jog my memory.”
Wilder pulled a drawer open, drawing the knife out. “Mr. Burnham may want it,” he warned as he held it out to me.
“And I will return it immediately if he should.” I glanced over the design on the handle for a moment before I slipped it into my pocket. “Mr. Wilder, Mrs. Wilder, I have no wish to offend you, but I do have another question. Is there anyone on staff that you feel could be involved in questionable activities?”
If I thought my request to have the paper knife back had startled them, this question completely stunned them. “Of course not!” Mrs. Wilder exclaimed, her tone bristling defensively. “How dare you think we would hire a criminal!”
“I don’t believe that at all!” How to explain without giving too much away? “It’s just that...it is possible that someone may feel they have no other choice in a situation.”
Wilder frowned at me. “Miss Nelson, do you believe you are in danger? Have you been threatened before?”
“No, I have not. But it was brought to my attention that nothing is quite how it should be here.”
“What do you mean by that?” Mrs. Wilder demanded, still defensive.
Her tone spurred me to respond in a sharper tone than I intended. “I mean exactly what I say! Is it normal, do you suppose, for a lady’s maid to be threatened with a knife plunged into her pillow? For young gentlemen to come in and out at any hour of the day?”
The butler held up his hand, cutting off his wife. “Mr. Burnham has expressed concerns,” he admitted. I could only imagine that he was sharing this information because I was already a part of the events. “I would personally vouch for any of our staff, Miss Nelson. They are hardworking and honest individuals.”
“That is all I need to know.”
“Though Miss Graham,” he began to say, before stopping himself.
“What about Miss Graham?” I asked, reminded that I’d never had the opportunity to ask about the errands that took her from the house so often. How had I forgotten about that?
“She did mention that Bridges has had some family crisis,” Mrs. Wilder reluctantly said. “I did think it strange that the valet would choose to confide in a governess.”
Perhaps the pair had been more circumspect in their feelings for each other around the servants. Humming a note, I stood up. “Thank you. I appreciate you taking time away from your...accounts.”
Before they could react to that impertinent parting statement, I hurried out and returned to my room. I sat back down at the dressing table. While the Wilders could certainly be mistaken in the servants under them, they did know them better than I. It took only a few seconds to draw lines through most of the names left on my list, leaving me with only two: Bridges and Miss Graham.
“Miss Graham, what are you involved with?” I said aloud as I contemplated her name.
She had become close to Bridges, but why would my old governess threaten me? Had someone convinced her to do so? If so, was that person Bridges?
The way he was able to appear out of nowhere and watch everything was uncanny. And hadn’t he reacted strangely to me when I had arrived?
I circled his name and folded the page, wondering whether there was some place safe I could keep my list. Someone —Bridges?—had already entered my room once. Until I could prove the valet guilty or innocent, I had to make sure he didn’t know I suspected him.
And though I wanted to keep it where I could consult again, I consigned it to the fire.
Once the paper had disintegrated in the flames, I needed to hear Miss Graham’s point of view. I left my room for the second time and made my way to the nursery where Calliope and Daphne still slept. I found the two girls there, arguing over a game, but there was no sign of the governess.
“Gray Boots? She said she had to go out,” Calliope explained when I asked. She shrugged her shoulders. “She does that a lot.”
“At this late hour?” I glanced at the windows that looked out to the darkness.
“We’re used to it by now. Are you going to stay and play with us? Callie is cheating and won’t stop.”
“You both are old enough to amuse yourselves,” I said firmly, having no desire to be drawn into their squabbling. Ignoring their protests, I left the room and firmly closed the door. They weren’t that intent on having my company because they didn’t follow me as I walked down to the library.
“Oh, Miss Graham,” I murmured as I warmed my hands at the fire. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that my former governess was involved in something dangerous. She and I had never been close, as sometimes is the case between governesses and their charges, but I had no desire for her to be embroiled in any suspicious activities.
Making sure the door was open, I settled into a chair to wait for her return. If there was one habit I remember from when she taught me, she always perused bookshelves for something new to read each night, whether she had finished a volume or not. This would be where she would come once she returned from wherever she had gone.
****
SEVERAL HOURS PASSED and I was on the verge of searching her out when the governess came in. Curled up in a chair, I straightened as she walked directly to the bookshelf. “Miss Graham,” I said, closing the volume I had vainly been trying to read while I waited. I rose from the chair to face her.
She gave a sharp gasp and spun around. “Juliet, what are you doing in here?”
“Waiting for you. Where did you go?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was delivering a note for Mr. Bridges.” Miss Graham smoothed her skirt, looking flustered despite her confidence. “You shouldn’t be here, Juliet.”
“Here as in the library, or here as in this house?”
She glared at me. “Both.”
I held my hands up in a placating way. “I will not argue with you, Miss Graham. I am more than ready to leave this house, but I can’t do that until the traitor has been uncovered. So I need you to be honest with me. Why does Bridges need you to deliver messages for him?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“It’s a simple question.”
For a moment, I was afraid she wasn’t going to answer. “Again, it’s none of your business,” the governess told me. “His sister is extremely ill, and he’s been concerned about her. Obviously, with all his duties now that Mr. Burnham has returned, he cannot leave to see to her. So, he writes to her instead to encourage her to get well.”
“And no one else, none of the footmen, could deliver the message?” I asked skeptically. “I find that hard to believe.”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Miss Graham said sharply.
Her behavior was unreasonable, more so than I had expected. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”
Somehow, I had to convince her that there was a real problem, and Bridges was connected to it. “But how about what Mr. Burnham believes? A traitor has been traced to this house, and has already threatened me once.”
Startled, Miss Graham stared at me. “A traitor? Threatened you? Threatened you how? You’re not making any sense. What are you talking about, Juliet?”
I pulled the knife from my pocket. “This was left in my room some time ago,” I told her, choosing not to go into the details. Her face paled. “Do you recognize it?”
“Don’t you?”
“If I did, I would not be asking you. How do you know this blade?”
“Juliet, it belonged to your brother. He purchased it before he left your father's house the last time. He was very proud of it.”
The blade shook in my hand. “What?” I looked down at the blade. The memory of my brother trimming the pages of a new book for me the day before he left came to mind, and I knew she was right. I had only seen it that one time, I was sure, thus accounting for why I did not immediately recognize it. But why? Who would have stolen my brother’s knife and leave it in my pillow that way? “No.”
“Bridges wouldn’t have it,” Miss Graham said, her tone insistent. “You must have brought it with you.”
“Why would I have my brother’s knife, and why would I bring it with me? It is you who is not making sense now.”
“Your insistence on believing that Bridges is a traitor doesn’t make sense either.”
“Why are you so defensive?” I asked, surprised by her insistence on the matter. “You know there’s some truth to what I’m saying, don’t you?”
She scoffed. “You’re ridiculous.” A thoughtful expression came to her face. “I’m beginning to think that the loss of your family affected your mind, Juliet. You are not yourself. Let me help you. You must return to your aunt and everything will be fine.”
“Are you trying to imply that I am insane?” I asked, taking a step back. She’d called me foolish and reckless, but never insane. She couldn’t mean it! “Are you so desperate to get me out of this house, Miss Graham?”
“A proper lady wouldn’t have attempted this masquerade you have put yourself through,” Miss Graham responded, her tone becoming gentle. “I can’t be the only one who has seen this. Perhaps this is the reason, Mr. Bladen—”
“Don’t you dare bring his name into this!” This was not going as I had expected, and I had to bring it to an end. “I’d hoped that you would help me. I see that it was wrong of me to assume that your loyalty to your country would persuade you.”
There was a pause as we stared at each other. “I’m going to tell Mr. Burnham what you have done,” the governess said. “The lies must stop. You need help, Juliet.”
My eyes widened. “You gave me your word that you wouldn’t!”
“You’ve taken this pretense too far,” Miss Graham said, a note of smugness saturating her voice. “If you don’t leave before tomorrow morning, I will reveal your secret. You will be ruined, Juliet. Any hope you have of achieving a good marriage will be gone.”
That threat made me straighten my spine. So, this was the way she wanted to play things? “My entire family was murdered, and you think all I have to be concerned about is whether or not I will find a husband? But very well. I accept your ultimatum. I will pack my things and leave at dawn.”
Kneeling down, I picked up the paper knife. Knowing it had been my brother’s made it important to me now. “Good evening, Miss Graham,” I said before walking out of the room. I felt more shaken than when Mr. Harper had attacked me or even when I’d found the knife.
Miss Graham had questioned my sanity. No doubt many in society would agree with her. The thought of being sent to the Bethlehem Asylum terrified me. Though I knew only my uncle, Frederick Faircroft, could have me sent to that place, I had no reason to believe that he would accept any story I had to tell him in explanation of my actions.
I had to get out.