The diary had to be here. Somewhere, lodged under a piece of furniture, hidden beneath a stack of books. There was no question of if there was a diary, only where it was located.
Ella sat in the quiet room, rubbing sticky cobwebs from her fingers. She shoved the last of the books back into the bookshelf. Nonsensical idea that had been. As if Lucy would be daft enough to hide her secret thoughts in the most obvious of places.
But where else could it be?
She went to the bed again, but qualms hindered her from unfolding the coverlets. As if touching them would unveil the fear, make her closer to the man who had hidden here nights ago.
She yanked back the coverlets anyway, eased her fingers across the bed in search of a lump, and turned over the pillows. Nothing.
I shall never discover the dashed thing. With hurried movements, Ella restored the bed to tidiness. Her eyes swept back to the corner, the secretary. Had she overlooked something?
She opened and closed all the drawers for a second time. The last drawer had considerable difficulty closing. She gave it a hard push. Oh dear, it’s broken. What would Lord Sedgewick say if he knew she had blemished his property?
She slid out the drawer. Good heavens, it appeared as if some inept carpenter had sawed away half the drawer, making it much shorter than the others. But what was preventing it from closing?
She fished her hand inside. More cobwebs, then … something cold?
Her heart spun a whirl. She latched onto the object and tugged it out.
A small wooden box sat in her lap, with gilded claw-feet and ornate paintings across the lid. Must have fallen over when she’d hurried to open the drawer.
Lucy’s. She’d never seen it before, but the very touch of it raised her flesh in bumps. She tried the lid. Locked. Within must be the greatest of secrets for Lucy to take such deliberate precautions …
A noise drew Ella to her feet. She clutched the box against her chest, listening, eyes pinned to the closed doorway.
But the knob never moved, and when she was certain the noises had faded, she slipped the drawer back into place. With the box under her arm, she stole from the room and hurried back downstairs.
She tried to assure herself no one had seen, no one had been watching her, no one knew she’d taken the box.
But all her senses warred against her, and she was just ridiculous enough to believe they were right.
“Let me do that for you, m’lord.”
“No.” Henry dragged the saddle off his horse, sparing a glance at the stable boy. “Miss Staverley and I have a rather undeclared agreement, you know.”
“M’lord?”
Henry reached for a brush. “She has promised to ride well for me only if I attend to her myself—and with the utmost care.” With a slight grin, he pulled a lump of sugar from his coat. “I am bound, therefore, and cannot leave the task of grooming to any other.”
The stable boy made a sound in slight resemblance to a chuckle, then moseyed away to another part of the stable.
Henry glided the brush down the horse’s back. His thoughts lingered, drifting again and again to a scene he had no reason to recall. She had defended him. The acknowledgment lodged in his throat and pushed down a portion of his hatred.
He had never known anyone in his life to stand up against Lady Rutledge. What had propelled Miss Woodhart to do so on his account? What could she possibly hope to gain?
Surely she was not so conceited as to think she might gain his affections if she impressed him well enough. She was a governess, an inferiority. There could be no reward in securing his good opinion.
But then again, Miss Woodhart had never strived to impress. On the contrary, many times she had been quick to fault him and even quicker to speak her mind—heedless, it seemed, of what he might think of her.
Then why had she defended his honor at the cost of her own humiliation?
Questions, so many questions. They didn’t matter, and he couldn’t attain the answers even if they did.
He hung the brush on a peg, led Miss Staverley into her stall, and went for the house. The butler took his greatcoat and hat.
“I do believe Dunn is looking for you, my lord.” The butler smoothed the greatcoat as he looped it across his arm. “Shall I take your gloves?”
Henry stripped them off. “What did he want?”
“I do not know, my lord.”
“Where is he now?”
“I believe he determined to wait in your study, my lord.”
Henry headed straight for his study, but before he even touched the knob, the steward swung open the door.
“My lord.” Panted, raspy. “My lord, you are needed upstairs.”
His gut tightened. Dunn’s footsteps fell in place beside him as they navigated through the hallways, up the stairs, up the stairs, up the stairs. They creaked and groaned, sounds he loathed but couldn’t escape. Could never escape.
He paused at the rise of the steps. “Go back, Dunn. I am no longer in need of you.”
“But, my lord, today it is most—”
“I said I do not need you!”
Dunn’s lips pinched, yet not with anger. His eyes offered comfort, but it was scant relief to Henry’s dread.
“Yes, my lord.” The steward fled back down the stairs and out of sight.
Henry entered the hall alone. He did not look when he passed his wife’s bedroom. He never did, as if ignoring the room would make it go away—just as he did his mother’s portrait.
But they never went away. Neither of them. Even dead, they still haunted him, tortured him, plunged him deeper into grief.
Then he came to another doorway. One he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to.
Ella did her best to devote attention and enthusiasm to her young charge, but her mind’s sole thought was on the box she’d left in her chamber. She glanced out the window, seeking any indication of night’s approach.
“Miss Woodhart?”
“Yes?” Ella leaned over to inspect his work.
“Can I be done?” He pushed away the quill. “I want to play. I want to climb my tree, please.”
“Please.” She mimicked his entreaty with a smile. How very often she had pleaded to be dismissed from studies that only bored her. “How shall you ever write letters if you cannot pen your name, Peter?”
“But my name,” he said with a pout, “is very long.”
“How should you like to have the name Jehoshaphat?”
His nose scrunched. “I wouldn’t like it. Miss Woodhart?”
“Yes?”
“Is Josiah’s name bigger?”
Ella helped him count the letters, and he seemed a bit encouraged to learn his name was a smaller feat than his friend’s. They continued studies for a little over an hour, at which time they prepared for dinner.
Lord Sedgewick was not in attendance. Peter did not ask of his father’s whereabouts, but he seemed markedly quiet and solemn throughout the meal.
The evening stretched long and quiet. When the time came to tuck Peter into bed, Ella did so quickly and bade him to say his prayers to himself.
“How come?”
She drew the bed linens around his small neck. “One cannot always say prayers aloud.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Say your prayers out loud.” He blinked, waiting. “I never heard you before. I hear Papa, though.”
A burn crawled up her chest. “Oh?”
“He prays with me.”
The thought of Lord Sedgewick’s eyes shut in veneration, lips mouthing psalms and praise—why was the image so contradicting to everything she knew of him?
Doubtless, he prayed for the child’s sake. He would not otherwise deign to pray himself, would he?
“Miss Woodhart?”
She scooted from his bed. “No more chatter, Peter. You must go to sleep now.” After an exchange of goodnights, she departed his chamber and found her own.
Eagerness rooted out the niggling thoughts the child had planted, even as she grabbed the wooden box from where she’d placed it under her bed.
She utilized a hairpin to insert into the lock. She twisted. Pray? Why should a man of Lord Sedgewick’s iniquities care to pray? Twisted the other way. Or did the guilt drive him to such nonsense, just as the grief drove my father?
The lock clicked. A spasm of anticipation unrolled inside of her, and her fingers hesitated for the space of a heartbeat.
Sucking in a breath, she lifted the lid. Lucy’s diary.
The man’s form was hunched, his shoulders caving as if broken under a heavy weight. He faced the window, but it offered no light, no view below. Not this time of night. Only faint, silvery shafts of moonbeam.
Henry stood braced in the center of the room. Sweat formed on his skin, rolled down his temples, but he didn’t bother mopping it away. How many hours had it been already?
He didn’t know. Too many to count, too many to comprehend. Shouldn’t have stayed, but what choice did he have? He would not have a servant deal with what he had wrought himself.
The man at the window touched the pane. Too quickly the silence was gone, the terror returning. “How long must I bear chains?” Both palms pressed against the glass, fingers splayed. “I suffocate in this prison … I suffocate.”
Fury churned in his stomach. “There are no locks on your door, Ewan.”
“No locks.” A deep chortle that held no mirth, only scorn. “No locks, yet I can never leave.”
“You may leave when you wish.”
“Destitution would not serve me well. If you would only but give me a small sum, I could afford the greatest of pleasure.” There it was, faint and intangible, but still distinct enough to recognize. As if the years hadn’t passed, as if the former person had emerged from somewhere inside of him.
But the lucidity was fleeting. “Where is your wife?”
Silence.
“Where is she?” Fingers scratching the glass. Curling back into balls. “I saw her today … touching things … moving things and …” Silence again.
Henry stared at his back.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t see her … didn’t see her because she’s … dead.” His fists plunged through the glass.
Henry dove, caught his arms. “Ewan—”
“Lucy!” His scream rent the air. Blood on his hands, arms, seeping into his shirtsleeves, but he lunged for the window again.
Henry yanked him back.
“Let me go!” Ewan flailed, then he thrust a fist into Henry’s throat and tore away.
Henry doubled over. Air dragged itself into his lungs, every breath painful and stinging. When he lifted his eyes, he saw Ewan propelling his body out the window.
Henry didn’t try to stop him. Not this time. Couldn’t grab him in time anyway.
But Ewan never jumped. “Lucy.” No longer screaming, only moaning, sobbing. “Lucy … I only want to be free … only want to see you …”
Henry drew him away from the window.
As if in fear, Ewan scampered to a corner and hunched, dragging his knees to his chest. His shoulders caved again. Empty, luminous eyes gazed into the darkness. “Lucy?” He rocked back and forth. “Mamma is coming back … she’s coming back …”
Henry towered over top of him. Emotions coiled around his heart, and he little understood how so much hate could bequeath such pity.
He turned and walked away.
On any other night, Ella would have been asleep. She wouldn’t have heard the stairs creaking, wouldn’t have noticed the heavy footfalls passing by her bedchamber door.
She lowered her sister’s diary. There could be no mistake where the person had come from—there was only one set of stairs from that direction.
Go to sleep. She blew out the light and curled deeper into bed. Her heart couldn’t settle. Did she dare slip from her room?
If she could only catch a glimpse of him. If she could just know who had hidden in Lucy’s bed. Could it be the same man who had accosted her at the beach? Or was it truly Henry as she’d imagined?
She lit a candle and hurried into her wrapper. She left her chamber soundlessly, afraid if she hesitated any longer, she wouldn’t go at all.
She slipped toward the stairs and caught the last flicker of light as the figure disappeared down another flight.
Oh, Lucy. Emotion reared inside her, brought alive by the words she’d read in the diary. There had been nothing informative in anything she’d read, only poems of nonsense or frivolous accounts of days spent at balls or outings.
But they had drawn Lucy’s heart nearer to her own. The way she penned the words, the things she said, the endearing and happy way she said them …
Ella blinked hard. Curse the man who had destroyed such a life.
The figure reached the landing and dove into another dark hall.
Pinching away her candle’s flame, Ella hid along the shadows of the walls and followed in silence.
A door opened but never closed. Gone was the figure and his light. Had he entered the room?
Ella eased toward the doorway. Only a quick glance, then she’d leave. She leaned her head past the opening—
From behind, a hand caught her mouth and yanked her backward.
A scream rose, but couldn’t escape. Her panic had no outlet. No, no. But even as she thought the words, the hands were already spinning her around.
Lord Sedgewick. Fear fell apart inside of her, replaced with something she didn’t know, didn’t understand.
His glare pierced her. “What are you doing?”
Doing? Her lips parted, but nothing emerged.
His bare hand grabbed her elbow. “Come.”
She told herself to run, to fight against the strength tugging her into the room she’d sought, but all she could do was obey him.
The door clicked shut. Then, deeper, “What are you doing?”
“N–nothing.” She despised the tremor. Straightened her shoulders. “I was not doing anything amiss, your lordship, and I demand to be released from your grasp.”
His hand jerked away as if the touch of her suddenly burned him. “You seemed very interested in the contents of this room.” Dark brows jutted. “Which I do wonder at, as you have visited it many times since arriving at Wyckhorn.”
Ella’s eyes swept across the drawing room. There was a fire in the hearth, blazing warmly and glowingly, as if daring to strike against the oppression in its space.
“Is your curiosity satisfied, Miss Woodhart? Or shall I further assist you?”
“Do not demean me.” Rage hinted in her voice, but she could not be stopped for anything. “You can hardly condemn others for menial sins when such superior iniquities mar your own conscience. Provided, of course, you have one at all. I do wonder that your child has such wholesome qualities when you, my lord …” Her sentence fell apart.
Something seized his expression, some measure of pain that could scarcely be seen in the dark. He turned away from her, strode to the chair, and sank into it with nothing to say in return.
Ella could not move. He’d been in Lucy’s bed. The thought hardly seemed to matter. He was the man in the dark, the man who frightened me. Why did she struggle to believe that?
He was the one who killed your sister. Pain sliced through a heart already in shreds. She should have turned and fled. There was no doubt danger. She needed to leave.
Yet her feet drew her forward until she sat in the chair next to him. For the first time, she could see him clearly in the light from the fire.
He wore no coat, only shirtsleeves that were rumpled and damp as if he’d been sweating. The neck gaped open, revealing the broad collarbone, a small patch of hair … his neck. A bruise purpled and swelled where his Adam’s apple worked up and down.
He must have known she was staring because he turned to face her. Shadows hung under his eyes and haunted his expression. “Have you more to say, Miss Woodhart?”
No, she could never have said more. Not when her words were so hurtful, not when his voice was so quiet, deep … vulnerable.
She had beaten him, and she hadn’t even meant to.
Sympathy threatened her judgment. How could she ignore what he’d done? If he bore misery, she should be grateful. If she could whip him with pain, she should rejoice. Wouldn’t her father have? Wouldn’t Lucy?
Ella Pemberton certainly would have. How many times had she lain in bed, weeping because of a father who was never home anymore, longing for a sister she could never touch again? How many times had she yearned to destroy the man who had done this to them?
Ella Pemberton wasn’t sitting beside him now. Miss Woodhart was. “You are injured.”
He did not move. The flames cast moving light across his face.
“My lord?”
Finally, he looked at her. “Do not pretend to be affected, Miss Woodhart. One who views me so despicably could not possibly empathize with my pain.”
My pain. The words echoed back and dove into her. They dug deeper and deeper until they formed a pit inside her soul. “I do not view you despicably.”
“Village talk must have pronounced me a most offensive person. I wonder you came at all.” His lips twitched in a smile without humor. “Did they not tell you of my wife’s ghost? Or perhaps they did. Perhaps that is what you were in search of tonight.”
“Did you love her?” The question arose without warning.
His muscles tensed. He faced the fire again. “No.” Flat, hollow. “I’ve never loved a woman in my life.”
Ella did not know what to say to him. She knew, just as she’d known before, just as her father had known. He had lied about Lucy’s death.
And he had just lied again.
Long after she had gone, Henry remained. He should have prayed. Most nights like this, when he stumbled away from Ewan’s room in the night, he did pray. Such was his only solace, his only peace.
But he could not pray now. Too much guilt hung between himself and heaven. Sometimes he thought he broke through. Maybe he did. Certainly God had forgiven him, hadn’t He?
Other times there was no breaking through. There was no comfort to be found, no balm thick enough to cover his open wounds.
God, why did she say such things? He had grabbed her, frightened her in a moment of surprise and anger.
And she had lashed back. Maybe she shouldn’t be faulted. Everything she said was true. He had accused her of believing the village talk—as if it were all lies, as if he were innocent of the charge.
But he wasn’t innocent. He had killed his wife.
Enervation pulled his head into his hands. God, what do I do?
No answer.
His heart bled, always bleeding. He was tired of bearing the guilt, tired of hurrying upstairs. He was tired of what awaited him inside. He was tired of accepting the cruelty, flinching under the blows—when all he was trying to do was save Ewan’s life.
Sometimes he almost walked away. Sometimes he was tempted to lock the door and never return. But then he remembered why Ewan desired to end his own life.
And Henry knew that was his fault too.