18
ANDERSON BARRELED OUT the front door the moment he saw Effie approaching his house, Patrick at her heels.
“Effie!” The dark thundercloud that stretched across Anderson’s face was nothing in comparison to the turbulence in her heart.
He bolted down the stairs and the walkway. “Who are you!” he barked at Patrick.
Patrick grinned politely, extending his hand. “Patrick Charlemagne.”
Anderson grunted and gave the proffered hand a reluctant shake. “Thank you for escorting Miss James.”
Patrick looked between them and then frowned. “Are you . . . ?” He gave Effie a questioning look. “I mean, is your mother here perhaps? Or is she meeting you?”
Effie appreciated that he was concerned about her reputation, but at the moment she couldn’t care less about that. A baby! Agitated, she shifted her weight to her other foot, wishing dear, good Patrick Charlemagne would take his leave.
“No. You may go now,” Anderson instructed stiffly.
“Pardon?” Patrick reared back.
“I said off with you.”
“Miss James?” Patrick turned to her.
“Thank you, Mr. Charlemagne.” Effie gave him a halfhearted smile.
Patrick pressed his lips together. Frowning, he nodded. “All right then.” With that, he strode away.
Effie opened her mouth to call after him, to thank him. Without Patrick, she’d not know what Mrs. Branson had witnessed. Not know—
“Into the house,” Anderson gritted through his teeth.
Effie lifted her chin. “Pardon me, but I will not be talked to as if I’m your . . . belonging.”
Anderson started to say something, then stopped. Effie could see he was trying to control his fury. Or was it concern, worry? Had he been worried about her?
Anderson lowered his voice. “My apologies, but I was quite concerned when your mother sent a carriage here to inquire after you. To get here, you had to walk past Predicament Avenue. What were you thinking? Then I see you strolling down the sidewalk with a strange man?”
“He’s not strange to me. I know Mr. Charlemagne. We’ve been acquainted since we were children. He’s respectable and—”
“Being unchaperoned with a man was your downfall to begin with!” Anderson pointed down the street toward Patrick’s retreating form, now far in the distance.
Frustrated, Effie glared at him. She rarely lost her temper, but Anderson was testing her patience. “I don’t care about that right now. What about you? What haven’t you told me that I should know!”
Anderson’s eyes widened. He motioned toward the house. “Let’s go inside before this becomes so much worse.”
She hurried up the steps and into the house. Gus was nowhere to be seen. Anderson shut the door firmly.
This was ridiculous. All of it. Every single moment of every single day had become a portion of a much bigger nightmare. And now? Effie turned to address Anderson. To confront him about the woman and the child.
Anderson spun toward her, and with the door at her back, Effie was quite trapped there. His expression had gentled, and she thought she even saw his chest rise and fall in what appeared to be relief.
“Patrick Charlemagne is trustworthy?” Anderson confirmed.
Effie nodded. “Yes. The Charlemagnes are honorable. He is courting my dearest friend, Bethany.”
“And you are all right?” His eyes skimmed her from the top of her head to her toes. “Your mother is beside herself. She sent a message. Something about you accusing Polly’s nurse—”
Effie reached out and clutched Anderson’s forearm. “You must believe me. It makes sense. Ever since that night, they’ve been medicating Polly with powders. She’s been unresponsive, suppressed. The day we went to Predicament Avenue, she had life in her still.”
“Trauma can cause digression.” Anderson stated it so matter-of-factly that Effie dropped her hold on his arm.
He still had her positioned between him and the door. His eyes softened as he looked into hers. His English accent grew thicker for some reason, his voice huskier. “I believe you.”
Those words meant the world to her. Effie expelled a pent-up breath. One she had been holding in, it seemed, since she’d left the manor in a rush. Now she looked up at Anderson and searched his face. He was withdrawn still, as she was growing accustomed to, and yet something in his demeanor tugged her toward him.
But first . . . “Do you have a child?”
His body went rigid. “What did you ask?”
“Do you have a child? You and Isabelle?”
Anderson took a step toward her.
Effie backed away, hitting the door.
“Tell me what you know,” Anderson insisted.
Effie tilted her nose upward. He could interrogate her. Intimidate her. Show her kindness. Even smile at her—what would that be like?—but he could not hide from her. Not any longer. She deserved to know the whole truth. “Mr. Charlemagne told me that Mrs. Branson had seen a woman at Predicament Avenue the day before Polly and I were there. The woman had a child with her—no more than a year old, Mrs. Branson said.”
Anderson gripped Effie’s arms in the first sign of urgency she’d seen in him. He wasn’t hurting her, he was intent. Even hopeful. “Was the child all right?”
“I-I don’t know.” Effie shook her head. “Mrs. Branson said no one has seen the child since. But I—”
Anderson dropped his hands from Effie and turned his back to her, driving his fingers through his hair with force. He let out a long groan, and then in a rare show his arm swept out and sent a glass vase from the side table flying across the entryway. It shattered against the wall into a million little pieces.
Effie cried out, stunned.
Anderson gripped the sides of his head and dropped to his knees.
“Mr. Anderson!” Gus pushed into the room past Effie. He took in the sight of the broken vase, the concern on Effie’s face, and Anderson on his knees holding his head. Gus hurried to the man’s side. “Mr. Anderson, are you all right?”
Anderson’s response was low, pained. “The child was spotted, Gus.”
Gus gasped. “Are you for certain, sir?”
Anderson twisted to look at Effie. “Are you certain? This woman said she saw the child with Isabelle?”
Effie nodded and then bit her lip. “Well, she didn’t mention Isabelle’s name. She just said there was a woman and a child.”
“It’s her,” Anderson said to Gus. “Isabelle had her as recently as a few weeks ago.”
“Most likely, yes.” Gus’s expression was eager, yet his voice was shrouded in caution. “But where is the child now?”
“Whose child is it?” Effie already knew. But if indeed there was a child, it changed everything. This was no longer a mystery of murder. This was about finding a child.
Anderson was in his bedroom, but Effie didn’t bother to question etiquette—that was of no consequence now. He paced back and forth at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind his back. “Leave.” His plea shattered the silence.
Effie remained in the doorway. The man was half doubled over. She tried to understand. “Please tell me. Let me help you.”
Anderson stopped and dropped his hands to his sides. The look he gave her was incredulous, lost, despairing. “What do you think you can do?” he groaned, accusation in his tone. “It has been ten months! Even if we find her—”
“The baby, she’s your daughter?”
Anderson stared at her, his chest heaving in agony.
Effie took a tentative step toward him. “Did Isabelle take your daughter? Did your wife—?”
“Isabelle Addington is not my wife!” Anderson spat the words with vehemence. The veins in his neck bulged, his face contorted with everything that he had hidden deep in his soul. “She’s not my wife!” he repeated. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he wildly swiped them away and reached for the bed’s footboard.
“I don’t understand, you told me . . .” Confused, Effie’s breath hitched.
Anderson strode to a trunk across the room beneath a window. He lifted the lid with a force that was far more than needed. Snatching a framed picture from within, he marched over to Effie and shoved the photograph into her hands.
“That is my wife!” He jabbed his finger at the picture.
She looked down at the photograph of a pretty woman with a kind smile, delicate features, and light-colored hair. Somehow the black-and-white tones had captured the silken beauty of the woman’s blond hair.
This was not the woman with the reddish-brown hair whom Mrs. Branson claimed to have seen with the child. This was not Isabelle Addington. Or was it? Bewildered, Effie lifted questioning eyes to Anderson.
He stared back, his mouth twisting, his face creasing in a desperate attempt to regain control, to steel himself. Anderson blew out a breath and sank onto the edge of his bed, burying his head in his hands.
Effie waited for a few long seconds before daring to approach him. She stood looking down at his bent form. He was silent, his shoulders hunched, his face hidden from her.
Finally, Effie said, “She is . . . beautiful.” She studied the photograph of Anderson’s wife once more. A twinge of jealousy—she didn’t know why—touched her inside, and then Effie immediately squelched it. That Anderson loved this woman—the child—was more apparent now than it had ever been.
“Where is she?” Effie breathed, hesitating before moving around him and giving herself permission to sink onto the edge of the bed beside him. “Where is your wife?”
“I told you. She’s dead.” Anderson’s admission was familiar, but this time it was said so solemnly, muffled by his hands, that Effie knew they were no longer speaking about the woman at 322 Predicament Avenue. The pools of blood, the splatter on the mirror—those belonged to someone else. Someone who had written a letter, referring to a “songbird” and leading Anderson on a chase across the sea—not for her, but for his child.
Footsteps shuffled in the hallway, and Effie looked up to see Gus standing in the doorway. The old man looked as beaten down and defeated as Anderson now did.
Gus stepped into the room, his eyes filled with sadness. He ran a hand over his mustache, then cleared his throat. “Her name was Laura. She passed away eleven months ago—in childbirth. The child was their daughter, Cora.”
“And who’s Isabelle?”
Anderson raised his head from his hands, glaring down at the floorboards. “The woman who took my daughter from me.”
The weight of his declaration settled on Effie’s chest, stealing her breath. She met Gus’s eyes, beseeching him to confirm that all of this was the truth. His nod brought another moment of speechlessness.
Gus went on to explain. “We’ve called Isabelle his wife so it wouldn’t create suspicion. Or any trouble.”
“Trouble?” Effie questioned.
Anderson rubbed the back of his neck. “Two men following a woman? Who would you side with and try to protect? But a man asking questions and searching for his wife is far less threatening. And I’ve no idea who has my daughter or what they will do to her if I’m vocal about her. If I tell the police—anyone—whoever murdered Isabelle may do the same to my daughter.” He let out a groan. “If they haven’t already.”
The air in the room was suffocating. Effie, stunned by the revelation of Anderson’s daughter, scrambled to piece it all together, to identify the missing pieces. “So . . .”
“I’m not married. Not anymore.” Anderson locked eyes with her, and the pain Effie saw there pulled her in. She recollected his admission beneath the willow tree.
He was terrified of grief. Fearful of its repercussions. Yes, she could understand now. Anderson couldn’t afford to grieve. He couldn’t waste time or effort to face that his wife had died almost a year before and his baby girl had been taken from him. The child wouldn’t even recognize him were he to find her!
Effie noticed his hands, which were on his knees now. His fingers kneaded his trousers with a nervous type of energy as he worked to control his breathing and calm himself. Before he could disappear inside of his soul, convincing himself to shut out the world around him, Effie reached over and placed her hand over his.
Anderson stilled. He stared down at her hand, her palm pressing into the back of his hand. She ached to say something that would bring comfort, both to him and to Gus, who stood by in silent witness. But there were no words to be had when the reality of life’s horrors was splayed out for all to share in.
Effie’s terror of losing Polly was equaled only by the fact that Anderson had already gone before and walked that road with his wife, Laura. Perhaps one day, when and if this was all over, they could face the grief together. But for now, for today, they just needed to be together. For the sake of Polly, at the risk of whoever and whatever was hunting at Predicament Avenue. And for the sake of baby Cora, who wouldn’t know her father but whose existence was what gave Anderson his determination, and whose life hung in the balance and in the void of the unknown.
She had been wrong, Effie decided, even as Anderson continued to stare at their hands stacked together. Death wasn’t the worst monster. Not knowing was. Not knowing when Polly would die. Not knowing if Polly was even safe. Not knowing who and what had created such a heinous scene at 322 Predicament Avenue. And not knowing if Anderson’s baby girl was even still alive to save.