Insanity. Over and over, the word catapulted through Ella Pemberton’s mind, as loud and jolting as the hard-seated stagecoach. This is insanity.
More than that, it was a mistake. She ought to know. After all, hadn’t she told her father countless times there was no purpose, that he was only torturing a soul already battered, that they needed him home more than anything else in the world?
But he’d never listened. He’d gone to Northston again, and again, and again—until they’d stopped expecting him to stay with them.
“The truth,” he’d say. He’d stumble back through the doors of Abbingston Hall, their manor house in Gloucestershire, with his eyes demented and empty. “In the name of everything holy, Ella, I must find the truth.”
Mayhap if he had uncovered the answers he sought in Northston, the pain would have been less. When he had died on his bed three days past, perhaps it would have made a difference.
But he never found the truth. That strange, crazed look was never eased from his eyes. And heaven have mercy, but he died without vengeance on his eldest daughter’s murderer.
The coach door swung open. “Where ye want to be goin’, miss?” A calloused hand reached out. “Watch yer step, then. It be a might slippery with this dashed weather an’ all.”
Clutching her reticule, Ella accepted the driver’s help and emerged from the coach. Her back ached, but the greater agony fluttered in her stomach. “Pray, this is Northston?”
The cobblestoned streets were clean, glistening with rain. On each side of the road, neatly trimmed bushes grew in front of wooden fences or stone walls.
The buildings were timber framed, many with thatched roofs and brick chimneys. Small townhouses, a millinery shop, a bakery, and a bookstore crowded the left side of the street, while a large bell-tower church stood on the other.
Quaint, it seemed. Pretty, almost. Didn’t look at all like so many of her nightmares.
“Feedin’ yer eyes on it, miss?” The driver unloaded her valise and trunk, then wiped his brow. “Where shall I take these for ye, miss?”
Ella fished a coin from her reticule and handed it over. “I am looking for a Miss Fitzherbert, a resident of Northston for longer than five years, I am certain.”
“’Tis a mite far to walk. I’ll send a boy to be takin’ye in a pony cart.”
Ella thanked him and waited beneath a wild cherry tree, whose sheltering boughs kept away the slight drizzle. She tucked a damp curl back beneath her bonnet. What a sight she must be. But then again, it had not been easy to persuade her mother and sister she was heading for London. Even harder to pay off her young lady’s maid and send the abigail away with references to another parish entirely. Mother would never find out that Ella had done the unthinkable.
In the end, this would all be worth it. She would not fail, as her father had done. She would search every crevice and badger every person and unbury every forgotten trace.
And she would destroy the man who had killed her sister.
There was no leaving until she did.
Henry Sedgewick crested the ridge with speed, then drew the leather reins to his chest.
The mare slowed, swung her head, and let out a defiant snort.
“Just a moment, Miss Staverley.” He rubbed the horse’s neck. “We cannot very well return home without first enjoying the view, now can we?”
The bay horse pawed the ground.
The dark-stoned structure of Wyckhorn Manor stood tall along the edges of a rocky cliffside, overlooking a gray-blue sea sixty feet below. The waves glimmered and shone in the afternoon sunlight, as dazzling as diamonds against an ivory neck.
Henry urged Miss Staverley forward. How little the place had changed in the weeks he had been absent. Indeed, it was much the same as the day he had left—the manor casting long, disorienting shadows, the bushes sparse and without bloom, the windows shuttered and lifeless.
All but one.
A small hand waved at him from behind the glass, and the figure disappeared. No doubt, the child was running downstairs to meet him upon entrance.
Henry’s chest swelled with anticipation. If only his happiness were not mingled with dread.
“You cannot be.” Dorthea Fitzherbert wore a simple patterned gown with green ribbon tied under her bosom. Her eyes were rapt with wonder. “You simply cannot be.”
Ella stood on the threshold of the Fitzherbert home, luggage stacked behind her. “Yes, Miss Fitzherbert.” She cleared her throat. “I most certainly am.”
“Lucy’s sister!” Dorthea clapped her hands. “My heavens, I could cry. I really have no words. Come in, come in, won’t you?”
Moments later, Ella had been dragged into the sitting room, seated on the red damask settee, and offered a cup of tea.
Dorthea took the armchair opposite her guest. “You might have written and told me you were coming. Mother and Father shall be ever so glad to meet you when they return from tea with the squire.” Her tight black curls, alabaster skin, and expressive green eyes bore all the attractions of youthful beauty. Her smile was eager. “Lucy spoke of you so often that I feel as if I know you already. You were always such a delight to hear of, you know. Lucy told the funniest stories of you. What impish inventions she credited you for.”
Heat prickled Ella’s skin. How many times had she chided Lucy for giving accounts of her scrapes? Lucy had never listened, for she was as talkative as their youngest sister was good—and Ella was errant.
“Tell me.” Dorthea sipped from her silver-rimmed cup. “Are you the bluestocking your sister was?”
“Certainly not. I do read some, but in most cases, only when I am ill at ease.”
“I do not read at all. I detest the sight of books. I really do.”
A moment’s pause ensued.
Ella lifted her eyes, lowered her cup. “Miss Fitzherbert, there is a matter I must discuss with you. I have come a very long way, and I must first beg discretion.”
“Miss Pemberton, upon my honor and pride, I shall not breathe a word.”
A cowardly lump lodged itself at the base of Ella’s throat. “I have come for the very reason my father always came. To expose him … to expose Lucy’s husband.” She hesitated. Willed the air to rush back into her lungs. Why was it so difficult to speak the cursed name? “I must know what happened. I must know why she is dead. And pray, do not ask me how I shall discover all this, for I hardly know myself.”
“I shan’t ask how.” She wagged a finger. “But first, I imagine you should wish to see him. There is a ball at Sir Charles Rutledge’s manor at the end of the week in celebration of his eldest son returning from his grand tour. I am certain Lord Sedgewick will be in attendance and I shall introduce you—”
“No, please. I do not desire him to know who I am. I should rather observe him from a distance. That is all.”
“I daresay, Miss Pemberton, the name does raise suspicion.”
“I shall not be Miss Pemberton during my stay at Northston.” Ella returned her teacup to its tray. “I shall be Miss … Miss …”
“Miss Woodhart.” Dorthea’s face beamed with pleasure, as she grasped Ella’s hand. “It becomes you most perfectly, and no one shall be the wiser.”
From within the large hearth, orange flames licked the air, crackling and sputtering. They cast warm light throughout the drawing room.
“Papa?” A small figure appeared beside Henry’s armchair.
Henry pulled the five-year-old onto his lap. He never realized how desperately he needed the boy’s nearness, these small touches, until the months they were kept apart. “Yes, Peter?”
“I am ever so glad you are back, Papa.” Peter’s dimpled fingers touched his father’s buttons. “Miss Morton and I did not go out of doors very much.”
“Did you not visit the seashore?”
“No.” Peter’s eyes were bright, his hair as smooth and flaxen as his mother’s had always been. “Miss Morton does not like the water. She doesn’t want the sun to touch her face.”
Why would it matter to the old governess anyway? Freckles were hardly consequential at such an age. Aches and pains, doubtless, were the more credible reasons. Or was it more than that? “But you must have played other things, did you not?”
Peter shrugged, sighed, and continued to play with the buttons. “Papa?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you go away?”
“An old friend was in need of my company for a bit.” Or so he had thought. He had received a letter from Major Sir Frederick Tilbury in Essex—an acquaintance of Henry’s deceased father—requesting Henry’s presence at his home. The old officer had been released from his duties in the Peninsular War due to a crippling leg wound he had acquired during the Battle of Nivelle. Finding the comforts of home rather less sensational than the battlefronts of France, Major Sir Frederick’s intent had been to find a suitable match for his daughter—a realization Henry reached only in hindsight. Why couldn’t he be left alone, for mercy’s sakes?
“Was there a seashore there too?”
“Yes, but I fear it was not half as lovely as here.” Nor was the company. “And there was one small misfortune that kept me from visiting it often.”
“What?”
“There was no little boy to play with. It was insufferably dull indeed.”
Peter’s mouth widened with a grin, and he laughed. “We can play tomorrow, Papa, and build a castle in the sand and swim in the water and—”
“So we shall, Peter, so we shall.” Henry stood with the boy in his arms. “But at present, we must both find our beds and get some rest.”
Peter nodded, keeping his arms tight about his father’s neck until Henry tucked him beneath his bedclothes. When Henry returned to the drawing room, he froze at the threshold.
Miss Morton stood beside his armchair, the firelight illuminating her severe features. “Lord Sedgewick.” She bobbed a curtsy.
He approached but did not sit. “Is anything the matter?” Only he already knew there was. Of course there was.
“May I be permitted to speak freely with you, my lord?”
“Certainly.”
“I have had my belongings packed for a fortnight. I wish to depart in the morning, and I have already made arrangements for travel.”
He stifled a groan. “Miss Morton, I have only just returned—”
“Precisely. I have waited most anxiously for you to do so. Conscience would not permit me to leave the child alone in this house, to the care of servants and …” Her sentence faltered, and she looked away.
“Has it become so very bad?”
Miss Morton’s thin lips pursed together. “Yes, my lord.” Tears glistened. “God have mercy on you all.” She ducked her head and brushed past him—as eager to leave the room, it seemed, as she was to flee the house.
Peter tackled the waves with arms wide, greeting the spray of saltwater that splashed his face.
Henry dove after him. He grabbed the boy’s waist, tossed him upward, and caught him against his own chest.
Peter’s squeals rose above the crashing water. “Papa.” He squirmed from his father’s hands. “Watch me.” He disappeared beneath the foam, remained under for several seconds, then popped back up. He rubbed the sea water from his eyes, grinning. “Did you see me?”
A chuckle rumbled from deep inside Henry. “I did indeed.”
“And I can do this.” Peter ducked under again, managing to extend his feet into the air. He toppled over and resurfaced.
Henry clapped. “Jolly good, fellow. Where do you learn such tricks?”
The boy’s cheeks brightened. “I taught myself. Do you want to make a castle now?”
Henry followed the child back to the beach, where they sat by the lapping waves and dug their hands into damp sand. When the castle was built and the morning sun had heightened, they took a stroll along the water’s edge.
Every so often, Peter flung a seashell into the waves, but other than that, he remained contentedly quiet.
It was not a falsehood when I told the boy it was far lovelier here. Henry had spent many evenings ambling down Essex’s coast, accompanied by the tall and elegant Selina Tilbury. She was all grace and sophistication, a woman who could not be criticized in any matter of accomplishment. In painting, she far excelled anyone he had ever seen. He supposed it was Tilbury blood in her veins, for her father had never done anything halfway.
It was certainly a match worth some consideration.
But every time she had looked at him, or laid her gloved hand upon his arm, the bitter poison rushed through his veins. The memories came back. The warnings.
God, have mercy on me.
Because he would never marry Miss Tilbury nor any other woman. All he wanted was to be left alone, to forget everything—to keep Peter from ever finding out the truth.
If only he could keep it from himself.
The knock came lightly at her door, first once, then a second time.
Ella sat upright in bed. “Yes?”
“It is me—Dorthea. Might I come in?”
“Certainly.”
Dorthea rushed inside, clad in a wrapper. “I could not sleep. I always used to visit Lucy at such times, and she never minded a bit.” She slipped into the bed. “I had every hope you would be the same.”
“I cannot promise the stories Lucy might have told you.” Ella smiled. “But I can listen, if nothing else.”
Dorthea leaned back against the pillows, taking a quick glance around the candlelit room. “I have not been in here since …” The words trailed off. “Well, since Lucy’s stay with me, and that was many years ago.”
It seemed strange to hear her sister’s name spoken without the dreaded tone of her father. Why could they not have kept Lucy’s memory sweet and happy, as Dorthea had done?
“Pray, tell me about her,” Ella whispered. “Those last years.”
“Well, we were never naughty, so there is really not much to boast of.” Dorthea giggled. “Oh but we were shameless flirts, to be certain. I always supposed I taught her that sin, though she did seem a natural at it, nonetheless.”
“Our Lucy was always rather shy and bookish.”
“Oh, she was. And that is how she carefully—and most beguiling—caught the interest of so many suitors. I often envied her endearing meekness and those batting blue eyes. La, you should have seen her. It was most entrancing the way she would quietly and perfectly relate her latest novel to whoever sat by her side.”
Ella chuckled. “What fun she must have had.”
“Of course back then, I was rather prone to jealousy. Especially when the grave Lord Sedgewick began to court her. I had doted on him for years, you know, but he never once even smiled at me. He was quite immune to female charms, or so we all supposed, until Lucy came along.”
“Did she care for him so very much?”
“I always thought she was flattered more than anything else. It was quite a feat to receive a proposal from such a man—and of his standing too. Anyone would have said yes.”
Heat burned across Ella’s chest. “Did you see her much after the wedding?”
“Hardly at all. He swept her away to his manor on that terrible cliffside, and since she soon became with child, she was never present at any balls or such. I did not even see her at church.”
“And her death?”
“Sudden illness, they say. Yet that is a matter of controversy—at least among the gossips. I think it was your father who first aroused suspicion. Did you know how often he used to come here?”
“Quite often.”
“He was never forthright about anything, yet his line of questioning always led one to believe he thought Lucy’s death was not of sickness at all. But the constable has never taken action against Lord Sedgewick or anyone else for that matter, so who can know?” Her brows rose dramatically. “Although Father has never liked Constable Keats. He seems a might richer than he should be—and certain, shall we say, upstanding gentlemen have not reaped consequences for their suspected crimes.” She paused, then added in a thicker tone, “If you get my meaning.”
“Yes.” Ella drew the covers to her neck with an involuntary shiver. “I do indeed.”
The modish brick building was set apart from the rest of the village, with a white fence along the perimeter of the yard. Ella unlatched the gate and entered. She had taken only a few steps when a shuttlecock landed at her feet.
“Dear me.” A fleshy man drew to a quick halt, breathing hard, his navy waistcoat dark with sweat. “What a shock, indeed. I did not expect to find a lady around the corner.”
Ella retrieved the shuttlecock and tossed it to him. “A fair day for sporting, is it not?”
“Quite so. Kept it up in the air six and twenty times.”
She smiled, giving a tiny clap of her hands. “How marvelous. You far exceed my meager abilities, I admit.”
A flush-faced woman appeared with a battledore in hand. “You play?”
“Only when nothing else allures me.” Ella faced the gentleman again. “Constable Keats, I presume?”
He outstretched his hand. “And my wife, Mrs. Keats.”
The woman curtsied.
“Well.” He surrendered his racket to his wife. “I am always aware of the nature of one’s visit by the title with which they choose to address me. Shall we go inside?”
“Certainly.”
He proceeded her to the house and into a small, disorderly study. He motioned toward a chair. “Won’t you sit?”
She removed a stack of papers from the seat.
“Here, give me those.” He grabbed them, stuffed them inside a drawer, and forced it shut. “Pray, don’t judge the man by the room. Tidiness was never among my greater virtues.”
She smiled.
“Now, miss.” He sank into his chair. “In what matter might I assist you?”
How many times had her father been in this same room, perhaps this very chair? “I wish to make an inquiry. You see, a dear acquaintance of mine resided here around seven years ago. I have long since stopped receiving letters, and because I would be traveling in the near vicinity, I decided on a sudden visit.”
He nodded.
“Upon my arrival, I was informed by a local that she had died.”
“My condolences.”
“Thank you.” Ella twisted her finger around the drawstring of her reticule. “I should like to know how she … what circumstances led to her death.” She lifted her eyes. “Her name was formerly Lucy Pemberton.”
A deep shade of red colored the constable’s cheeks. “Lucy.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes. Lucy Pemberton.”
A clock on the wall groaned a low, mechanical sound. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
“I wish to know of her death.”
Tick-tock.
“Sir?”
He leaned back in his chair until it creaked under his weight. “Five years ago, she became rapidly ill, I’m afraid. It was all rather sudden and”—he looked down as if perusing the scattered papers on his desk—”is that all you wished to know? I’m afraid I’ve quite a lot of paperwork.”
“Her health was always impeccable. I cannot imagine her to succumb to—”
“Yes, well, we are all subject to malady.” He came to his feet. “Surely you cannot gainsay that. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Constable?”
He frowned but answered genially nonetheless. “Miss?”
“Where might I find her grave?”
“She is buried at Wyckhorn Manor.” The constable strode to the door and opened it for her. “But you’ll be wise to leave the place alone.”