Aurora had assumed that she would wear her blue silk gown to visit Spring Gardens. But when she took it out of her trunk and shook out its creases, Edward dismayed her by telling her that the dress, at least in its present state, would not do.
“Spring Gardens is a pleasure-ground for the wealthy, but it is also a hunting-ground for professional ladies of low reputation,” he declared. “You must resemble the former more than the latter.”
“Impertinence!” she replied, but she had to acknowledge he was right.
There was not time to get a new dress made, but Edward gave her the money for a new front panel for the skirt of the old dress, ribbons for the back, and a new hat and gloves. “I must repay Richard when I can,” he told her as he handed her the sovereigns. “Do not, I beg you, be extravagant.”
She was as extravagant as a visit to Spring Gardens demanded. The necessity of avoiding anyone in the mantua-making business who might be known to her mother sent her south of the river to Lambeth, near the Gardens themselves, where Celia reported that she and her friends the Clarence sisters patronized a woman who did excellent work and did not overcharge.
The new silk panel, embroidered with tiny flowers and birds, matched the blue of the dress exactly. The ribbons, likewise, reflected the colour of Aurora’s eyes. Standing in the mantua-maker’s parlour before the tall looking-glass, Aurora was pulled this way and that as the woman drew up the back of the skirt and pinned the material into intricately gathered layers, ready for the ribbons to be sewn on. When the hat Aurora had already chosen from the milliner’s next door was upon her head, and the new, lace-edged kid gloves on her hands, she allowed herself the luxury of noting that she was pretty enough to attract any man amongst the many hundreds who frequented Spring Gardens.
Aurora knew it was a wicked thought, but Joe was so handsome, and carried his sword and his opinions so boldly, she could not help observing to herself that he resembled the vision of her future husband far better than the man to whom she was actually married. The many hundreds of men did not matter; she wished to look pretty for Joe.
By Thursday evening the dress was finished, and Aurora put it on for Edward’s inspection. “Lady of the night or daughter of the gentry?” she asked, posing.
She thought he would smile, but his face remained immobile. “Something in between.”
“Perhaps if I wear a mask, as I did at the theatre?”
“No!” he protested. “In Spring Gardens a mask is the sign of a harlot.”
Aurora felt admonished. She disliked it when Edward’s superior age and experience exposed her unworldliness. “Very well,” she said stiffly.
He smiled then, and patted her shoulder. “You are to go to the Deedes’ tomorrow, are you not?”
“I have been invited for dinner.”
“You will be offered fish, no doubt,” said Edward, still smiling, “as Catholics must abstain from meat on Fridays.”
“I like fish,” said Aurora blankly. “And it will be very finely cooked, you may be sure. No expense is spared at the Deedes’ table.”
A change came over Edward’s face. Aurora was suddenly conscious of her careless words. “I did not mean—” she began, but he stopped her.
“Now,” he said, “change out of this finery. I have something of great interest to show you.”
When Aurora emerged from her chamber he was sitting at the table. As usual, Mary had not yet collected the breakfast dishes; Edward had pushed them aside. He motioned to the other chair, and when Aurora was seated he held up the key which opened the outer door of their rooms. “What do you notice about this key?” he asked her.
Aurora frowned at it. It looked the same as every door key she had ever seen. Fashioned from iron, with a ring at the end, a plain shaft and a head with a pattern cut out, like teeth. “It is an ordinary key,” she said helplessly.
“And what about this one?” He held up another door key, which looked the same except that it was plainer.
“That one fits a different lock?” hazarded Aurora, feeling like a child interrogated by its tutor.
Edward lowered his voice. “It will fit almost any lock. It is a skeleton key.”
He laid the keys beside each other on the table. “See, our key has several teeth, and a depression at the end that fits into a pin.”
Aurora inspected the end of the key. True enough, it was hollowed out. “I have never noticed that before,” she confessed.
“All keys of this type have that depression. And all have a number of teeth, which fit into notches inside the lock. But this one, the skeleton, has the depression at the end, but only one tooth, at the top. That is why it is known as a skeleton key – it has not the flesh of the true key.”
Aurora strove to understand. “So, inside the keyhole, these teeth make the lock turn, which unlatches the door. Is that correct?”
“Quite correct,” nodded Edward.
“So when you put the skeleton key in the keyhole, how can it work, if it has no teeth?”
“Because it bypasses the notches the teeth are supposed to fit into, but latches on to the pin at the end. When you turn the key, the pin and the barrel of the lock turn, and the door opens.”
Aurora stared at the skeleton key. “So can anyone make a key like this, which will fit any door lock, by filing off the other teeth?” she asked incredulously.
“That is, in theory, true,” said Edward. “Though in practice it does take some skill. But that is why such locks only appear on things of little value.”
Aurora nodded. “Such as our door.” She considered for a moment. “Or a writing desk?”
“Exactly. At the first opportunity, try this key in the lock of that cabinet in the library. My family has no such piece of furniture; Josiah Deede must have brought it from Tavistock Street, so everything in it must belong to him or his children. No doubt he carries the key everywhere he goes, but has not added to the security of the desk by padlocking it. Perhaps his children also have keys.”
“I must be prepared to find nothing of interest,” observed Aurora despondently. “His private papers are more likely locked up in his office, or in a chest in his bedroom.”
“Perhaps.” Edward watched her turning the key round and round in her fingers. “But he regulates carefully who enters his house, and is very unlikely to suspect his daughter’s new friend. With a little luck this key will reveal something.”
“If it works,” said Aurora, scrutinizing the key.
“It will work. It was made by a craftsman.”
They regarded each other, Aurora with a frown and Edward with the hint of a smile. “I will ask no more questions,” she told him, weighing the key in her palm, “as it is plain I will get no answers. And I will keep this in a very safe place until I am called upon to use it.” She slipped the key down the top of her bodice. It felt cold against her skin, but secure against any intruder. “I promise you, Edward, I am as eager as you are for this deception to be over. I will find the truth.”
When she arrived at Mill Street on Friday, Joe Deede was from home. He had also been out on Wednesday, when she had accompanied Celia to Brunswick Square to take tea with the Clarences. Four days had now passed since she had last been in his company.
It seemed that she was expected to act as Celia’s friend, ready with flattery and gratitude whenever Miss Deede desired it, pandering to the girl’s vanity, self-centredness and ignorance, and that of her acquaintances. Celia treated Aurora pleasantly, but the notion that she considered her as a new distraction, to be discarded when another came along, was never far from Aurora’s mind. She told herself that was what rich girls were like; the Clarence sisters had displayed the same attitude. But this thought did not make it easy to bear so much of Celia’s company when she would have preferred a little more of Joe’s.
“Where does your brother go, that he spends so many hours from home?” she asked Celia nervously, fearing to incur more accusations that she must be madly in love with him.
But Celia responded with affectionately scornful laughter. “White’s, of course! Where he sits with his friends and chews the world to pieces, arguing and pontificating, as stubborn as a dog with a tough old bone. I thank God I can have no part of it.”
Aurora did not acquiesce. Coffee houses, with their unrestricted gathering of men and minds, had always seemed attractive to her. Celia might be glad that women were forbidden to enter them, but Aurora had far rather accompany Joe to White’s than sit in the parlour with his sister.
Her mission today, however, was to engineer enough time alone in the library to attempt to unlock the cabinet. To that end, she had brought back the books she had borrowed. She now put them on the worktable and handed Celia a note. “My brother thanks you for the loan of the books,” she said, “and sends you this.”
Celia made a great show of bashful astonishment as she unfolded the letter. “What a delightful hand!” she exclaimed as she read it. It was Aurora’s hand, heavily disguised, though the words had been dictated by Edward. “And equally delightful sentiments.” She looked up from the letter. “What a pity your brother is so ill. I am sure he is very charming.”
Aurora smiled. “A charming Protestant?”
Celia shrugged her slim shoulders. “I suppose so.” She sighed, letting the letter fall into her lap. “But you know, Aurora, I sometimes wonder if I will ever be permitted to have a suitor. Father is so strict.”
“You are young,” said Aurora soothingly. “There is plenty of time for a young man of the Catholic faith, whom your father considers suitable, to turn up.”
Celia did not look convinced. “I hope so. But you are younger than I, and you have got Joe.”
“I have not ‘got’ Joe!” protested Aurora. “I have met him but once!”
Celia responded with a knowing look. “Twice, actually.” She folded up the letter and put it in her workbox. Aurora wondered if she would reread it later, letting loose her dreams of the non-existent Edward Drayton. Guilt swept over her. Spying on Josiah Deede might suit her nature, as Edward had pointed out, but this deception of his artless daughter did not.
“May I borrow some more books for Edward?” she asked.
“Of course.” Celia laughed briefly. “Any man who writes such an elegant letter may borrow as many books as he chooses!”
“Thank you,” said Aurora, standing up. “I will take these back down and bring some more up, and then, perhaps, we could go for a walk? It is another beautiful day.” She thought quickly. “While I am downstairs I could tell Harrison to bring our cloaks, and save you calling him. You have better things to do than run after servants.”
Celia was satisfied with any suggestion that implied she was important. “You are so good, my dear. Always thinking of me.” She drew her workbox towards her. “I will get on with my work.”
Or read that infernal letter again, thought Aurora. “I will not be many minutes,” she assured the girl, and, with the books under her arm and the skeleton key nestling between her breasts, she walked quickly downstairs to the library and closed the door behind her.
She put the books on the table. Taking the key from her bodice, she slid it into the keyhole in the front of the writing desk, pushed it as far as it would go, and tried to turn it. Nothing happened. She tried withdrawing it a little; she tried turning it the other way; she tried lifting it as she turned, then depressing it. But it would not budge, and the desk remained locked. Frustrated, Aurora tried the key in the lock that secured the top drawer, immediately under the hinged front of the desk. To her amazement it slipped in as if made for the purpose, and turned as if newly oiled.
There was nothing of interest in the drawer. Writing paper, sealing wax, a dusty collection of old quills, a long-unused snuffbox right at the back. The key also unlocked the next drawer, and the bottom one. In none of them was anything that could be remotely connected with Henry Francis, or indeed with anyone. No letters, documents, money, forged wills, incriminating objects of any kind. It was as she had said to Edward: Josiah Deede kept his important papers locked up in his office, under a locking system less easily breached.
Why would the front of the desk not open, though? She stood there frowning, and a dim memory came to her of something her father had once told her. “Hidden in plain sight” was the expression he had used to describe to her and an equally fascinated Flora how God created certain animals with clever markings so that they could hide from predators. A speckled bird in a laurel bush, a stoat in the snow – no one could see them although they were there all the time.
She felt gingerly at the back of the top drawer, moving the paper, the stick of sealing wax and the quills out of the way. When she tried to do the same to the snuffbox, however, she found she could not. It was fixed, either to the bottom or the back of the drawer. Her body tensing, she tried to pull the entire drawer out of its casing. It would not move. She had heard of this: cleverly made hiding places in seemingly innocent pieces of furniture. Just as with the speckled bird and the white-coated stoat, someone was sure that what they had hidden could not be seen – unless a more determined predator than usual should be looking.
Carefully, she pushed, pulled, and eventually twisted the small wooden box. It was not a box at all; it had never held snuff. It was actually a turning mechanism that opened the back of the drawer. She knelt down and felt with trembling fingers for a further mechanism – a lever, a key, something she was sure was there, which would lead the way to the locked upper compartment of the desk.
Suddenly, she had it. She was not sure how, but her exploring hand had touched something that had operated some kind of spring. To Aurora’s utter surprise, the entire hinged front of the desk opened about an inch, remaining propped there, ready to be lowered from the outside. She inspected the keyhole. It was false, a mere ornament covering a smooth hole with no pin for the skeleton key to attach itself to. The upper part of the desk could only be unlocked by someone who knew how.
This was Josiah Deede’s personal hiding place.
She lowered the front of the cabinet. As expected, behind it she saw many compartments and small drawers. The compartments were all empty. Aurora opened each drawer. Empty too. But she was convinced that no one would go to this much trouble to conceal something unless there was something to conceal. She felt at the back of each drawer, prodding the corners, searching for another spring. And at last, on the fourth drawer she tried, she found it. The back of the drawer tipped forwards, and Aurora’s fingers closed around a folded piece of paper, apparently a letter, with a broken seal.
How long had she been in the library? Celia must not come downstairs looking for her. Aurora thrust the letter as far down her bodice as her corset would allow, replaced the back of the drawer, shut the drawer, and pulled up the hinged front with its false keyhole. She had just done this – her hand was still on the top corner of the cabinet – when she heard the door open behind her.
“Why, Aurora, what are you doing?” came Celia’s bewildered voice.
Aurora turned. Joe had followed his sister into the room, and was flicking his eyes from Aurora, to the bookshelves, to the table, to the cabinet. He was not bewildered like Celia; he was suspicious. Aurora searched fruitlessly for an explanation of her position. Then, as smoothly as a prompt from the side of the stage, her mother’s voice floated into her head. “When all else fails, girls, swoon.”
She let out a quiet shriek and fell to the floor. Luckily her hat came off, or she would have squashed it. For authenticity, she had to fall quite hard, and the stone floor of the library, uncarpeted where she stood, was not forgiving. Her hip bone would have a bruise tomorrow.
She heard her name cried out in both a female and a male voice, and then Celia’s alone, very agitated, instructing her brother to carry Aurora to a chair. “Harrison!” she called down the passage to the kitchen. “Bring water! Miss Drayton is not well!”
Aurora felt herself lifted and held against Joe Deede’s body. He set her down, and she heard the man-servant’s footsteps on the flagstones. Harrison must have given his mistress a glass of water, as a wetted handkerchief soon dabbed Aurora’s forehead and a feminine hand took hers.
“How pale she looks!” observed Celia. “She must be worn out, poor thing. Watching her brother’s condition worsen day by day must be a terrible strain. And you know, Joe, they have no mother or father!”
Joe did not reply. Aurora kept her eyes closed, trying not to think too hard about what his expression might be like and trying to fathom the situation in which she found herself.
It was surely impossible that these two concerned young people had been privy to their father’s crime. It must be Josiah Deede – the intolerant convert, the disloyal friend and the possessor of a very sophisticated hiding place – who alone was guilty.
The paper she had found must be of great importance to him. It was bound to reveal something. She would carry it back to Edward like a trophy. And perhaps, long before the allotted month had passed, she would be free.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, opening her eyes. She was sitting on a wooden chair, placed against the wall of the library. Joe sat next to her, close enough for her to feel his warmth and smell the familiar odour of wig hair.
“You fainted,” said Celia, looking very relieved. “I wondered why you were leaning on the writing desk. You must have suddenly weakened, and were unable to support yourself. If only Joe had caught you before you fell!”
“Such foolishness,” said Aurora. “I am so sorry.”
“Not foolishness.” Joe took the glass of water from Celia and handed it to Aurora. “Fatigue. Here, sip this.”
“And then you must come up and have some tea,” added Celia. “I hope you are not going to be ill, for we are going to Spring Gardens tomorrow.”
“You are very kind.” Aurora sat up and looked around for her hat. “I shall be recovered in no time.”
Celia handed her the hat. “Are you well enough to stand? Lean on Joe.”
They made their way upstairs slowly, Aurora hanging on Joe’s arm. As he settled her in his father’s chair with her feet on the footstool, she saw on his face the kind of affectionate possessiveness she had last seen on Edward’s when he had kissed her at the wedding and Eleanora had started to cry. “Thank you, Joe,” she said.
There was a timid knock, and Missy, the pretty, neatly clad housemaid, came in with a laden tea tray. She was followed by Harrison bearing a steaming kettle, which he placed on a trivet in the hearth. When the servants had quitted the room, Celia used a small key she wore on a chain about her waist to open the tea casket. Aurora watched, thinking of the pride of place her mother’s tea casket – a box inlaid with ivory – took in the parlour at home. Tea was too expensive to be left in the kitchen for servants to steal.
Celia made the tea and gave the cups to Joe to distribute. He set Aurora’s at her elbow, where she watched its spiral of steam disperse in the sunny room for a few moments before she picked it up.
“When I have drunk my tea I must go,” she told them decisively. “I do not think I can eat dinner. I had better rest at home.”
“Then you must allow me to accompany you in the carriage as far as, say, Charing Cross,” said Joe. “You cannot walk all the way.”
If her fainting fit were to seem genuine, there was no possibility of protest. “Very well, sir.”
The three of them chatted idly while they finished their tea. Aurora could feel the edges of the folded paper inside her bodice, pressing into her flesh. This delay caused by the drinking of tea would at least be offset by a carriage ride for more than half the distance back to the lodging rooms. She had promised Edward she would be back as soon after dinner as she could. He would be surprised to see her returned so early. And hopefully, he would be pleased with her morning’s work.
Harrison was told to order the carriage. Aurora collected her hat and kissed Celia, who grasped her hand. “What about your brother’s books?” she asked. “They must still be in the library. Joe, collect them on your way out.”
“There is no need,” Aurora assured her. “I had not progressed very far in choosing books when I began to feel faint. I will select some on my next visit.”
“But your next visit is tomorrow!” protested Celia. “We are going to Spring Gardens!”
Aurora could see Celia was not to be denied. The girl was hoping, no doubt, for another communication from Edward Drayton. Turning to Joe, Aurora smiled encouragingly. “Your sister is so kind. Perhaps you might choose some books you think my brother would like, and I can collect them tomorrow evening?”
“It would be an honour,” said Joe.
It was hot in the carriage, even with the windows down. Aurora fanned herself all the way to Charing Cross, trying to calm her agitation. The piece of paper must have slipped further down inside her dress. She could no longer feel it there, but could not check for it with Joe sitting only inches away from her. She prayed it had not fallen out.
When the carriage stopped, Joe alighted and handed her out. Before he let go of her hand he raised it to his lips, bestowing a kiss upon her gloved fingers. “Until tomorrow.”
“At seven o’clock.” Aurora smiled. “Goodbye, and thank you again.”
He bowed, and climbed back into the carriage. “Fare thee well, Aurora.”
She watched until the carriage was out of sight. Even though she was convinced it would not have mattered if Joe had seen where she went, she had assured Edward that she would be zealously careful, and she must keep that promise.
Turning away from the road, she slipped into the shadow of the buildings and felt for the paper. It was still there. She wavered a moment, indecisive, wondering whether to withdraw it and read it. Then she sighed and set off once more for Samuel Marshall’s bookshop.
The attic was deserted. Aurora stood at the open door with her hand on the latch, unable to contain her irritation.
Edward had left no note on the table. She checked her own room. Nothing. She went to the top of the stairs and called. “Mary! Mary, do not pretend you cannot hear me!”
After a few minutes Mary shuffled up the lower flight and waited, looking up sullenly.
“Tell me, when did Mr Drayton go out?” asked Aurora.
“Cannot say, ’m.”
“Is Mr Marshall in?”
“Yes, ’m.”
“Thank you. That is all.”
Aurora went back into her own room. The glass confirmed that she looked as anxious as she felt. The flesh of her face was as lifeless as clay. She pinched blood into her cheeks, but could do nothing to disguise the dullness of her eyes, nor the smudges beneath them. She pulled her hat brim forward and set off down the stairs.
A light showed under Samuel Marshall’s door; he must have lately finished his dinner. Perhaps he had spoken to Edward earlier in the shop, and might know where he had gone. Aurora set an expression of polite enquiry on her face, and knocked.
“Come in!”
When she opened the door she was met by the sight of Mr Marshall – his round face bathed in delight, his gouty foot supported on a stool – sitting at a table weighted with books, ale tankards and the remains of a platter of bread and cheese. On the other side of the table, smiling sheepishly, sat Edward.
“My dear Miss Drayton!” The landlord indicated with his walking stick a chair in the corner. “Draw up that chair and partake of some cheese, if you will. And there is some ale left in the pitcher.”
There could not have been much. Mr Marshall, gout or no gout, was very intoxicated. Edward, who was less so, raised the pitcher. “Empty.”
“Pray do not trouble yourself, sir,” said Aurora to Mr Marshall with a curtsey. “I have a private message for Mr Drayton that will not wait.”
Mr Marshall raised his eyebrows at Edward. “A private message?” He looked back at Aurora. “I trust it is not bad news?”
“It is of great import,” said Aurora.
“Then I will come at once,” said Edward. He rose and picked up his hat. It was the green one. She looked at it, remembering how the sunlight from her mother’s drawing-room windows had fallen upon it.
“I bid you good day, Edward,” said Samuel Marshall, nodding in the studied way of the inebriated. “You and your sister both.”
“Good day, sir,” said Edward, “and many thanks for your hospitality.”
“Come down after dinner whenever you like.”
Edward bowed, and they left the room. “I was very happy in there,” he told Aurora. “What can be of such great import that you pluck me from such good company?”
“I cannot tell you here, on the stairs. I have come straight from Mill Street.”
Edward frowned. “Then they eat their fish very early.”
“I did not stay for dinner.”
“Why, then, you should have partaken of some cheese when Mr Marshall offered it!” he exclaimed. “There is no food up here. I have eaten it all.”
“Edward!” Aurora dragged him into the attic room and shut the door. “I have brought something from Mill Street. I pray you, attend.”
“Very well, I will attend. But may I make myself comfortable first?”
He removed his coat and wig and put on his well-worn grey worsted house robe, that garment so despised by Joe Deede. He placed his sword, its belt and holder still attached, against the wall. The table was spread with the remains of their breakfast, which Mary had again neglected to clear. The window was too small to admit much sunlight, and the room was gloomy. Removing her hat and gloves, Aurora sat down on the edge of Edward’s bed. “Would you light a candle, please?” she asked. “I wish you to read something.”
He took the tinderbox from the mantelpiece, lit a candle and placed it in the centre of the table. Then he sat down, sprawling in the chair with his elbow on the table. He had drunk enough wine for his eyes to have a wayward, abandoned look. “So, faithful accomplice, what is your report?” he asked.
Aurora told him about the dummy keyhole, the snuffbox, the levers and mechanisms, the false drawer backs, the folded paper. He listened without interruption, not looking at her, but studying, as he often did, the candle flame. It was too far away to light much of his face, but Aurora watched his eyes become increasingly concerned as she talked.
“Please, let me see the paper,” he demanded as soon as she ceased.
She drew it from her bodice. He unfolded it, held it close to the candle and read it quickly. His expression remained passive, though tinged now with sorrow.
“Is it a letter?” she asked.
“It is.” He cast it upon the bed beside her. “Read it.”
Aurora picked up the letter. It was dated the fifteenth of February, 1698, more than two years ago, and was addressed to Josiah Deede in a neat hand.
Mill Street, Mayfair
My honoured friend,
I hope you will forgive this timely reminder of your promise. Our mutual friend will be at his post at seven o’clock this Friday evening, in the usual place. I have no doubt you will fulfil your obligation, but may I prevail upon you to make that obligation a little larger than last month? I find I am no longer able to keep the costs of this venture at the level they once were. Thirty-five shillings should be sufficient. I hope I shall not have to prevail upon you again for a further increase, though of course this cannot be guaranteed.
If you wish a return upon your investment, as a businessman you will understand my request. I will endeavour as usual to obtain for you the very best return.
I am, sir, indebted to you for your continued generosity,
H. F.
Aurora was so shocked that her breath disappeared. She felt as if an invisible hand with the strength of a giant had struck a blow to her chest. It was the letter of a blackmailer. A blackmailer who signed himself “H. F.”
Her throat had dried. She swallowed, watching Edward. No indignation or anger had come into his eyes.
“Edward, this letter is from your father,” she said, bewildered.
“It is not.” His voice was full of contempt.
“But the initials—”
“It is a forgery.”
Aurora looked again at the letter, and back at Edward. “You must face the truth,” she told him gently. “The evidence is here before your eyes.”
“The truth? I will tell you the truth!” He leaned towards her, his expression alert, with no trace of intoxication. “Consider this,” he began in a low, patient voice: “My father was a healthy man of fifty-one when he died. That is to say, his organs were sound and he had no fatal disease. Of course men may suffer diseases that do not kill yet inflict great discomfort upon their victim. Look at poor Samuel Marshall, almost crippled with gout.”
Aurora did not understand. “But what has this to do with the letter?”
“I beg you, forbear. My father suffered greatly from rheumatism. By the time I was fifteen, his hands were so gnarled and painful it had become impossible for him to write his own letters. At the palace he had an amanuensis to do it for him; at home he relied upon me. All he could do was scrawl his signature – the signature that appears on the altered will.”
Aurora’s heart sank. “So you are saying that he could not have written this letter two years ago?”
“Nor at any other time in the ten years before his death.”
Resentment crept over her. She felt an irrational desire to stamp her foot. “Why should I believe you?” she demanded. “Short of exhuming your father’s body and showing me his skeleton, you have no proof!”
“Then you must take my word as a man of honour,” he told her steadily.
“And you must take my word that this letter is the key to your father’s death!” She picked up the letter and shook it. “The contents of this show that it was not the only blackmail letter Josiah Deede received. He must have paid a great deal of money to the sender, burning the letters, saving only this one against the day, perhaps, when he could bring his tormentor to justice.”
Edward nodded in agreement. “That is plausible, certainly. But since the letter is forged, and my father was not his tormentor, who was?”
Aurora thought for a moment, frowning. “Someone who knew something about Josiah Deede that he does not want made public,” she reasoned. “I wish we knew what it could be! But whoever the blackmailer was, they wanted Deede to believe his tormentor was Henry Francis.”
Edward’s face was again sorrowful, again immovable. He did not speak.
“Perhaps the blackmailer wanted your father dead all along,” ventured Aurora, “so they engineered a way to incite Josiah Deede to murder him. The two men were already enemies, after all. Blackmail would surely drive the final wedge between them.”
She paused. She had thought of something else, and looked carefully at Edward, to watch his response as she voiced it. “Or … will you consider the possibility that your father was guilty? You said you used to act as his amanuensis, so why could not someone else do the same?”
“Because my father was not a blackmailer!” Edward slapped his hand down on the table so hard Aurora jumped. “Because the letter is written in a hand attempting to mimic his! The writer does not know my father suffered from rheumatism. This person has copied his handwriting from some document written many years ago.”
He sat back, his fingers striking the edge of the table repeatedly, his face filled with concentration. “You are correct, it is someone who knows Josiah Deede’s secret. If we can find out what that secret is, we will, as you say, find the key to my father’s death.” His black eyes roved restlessly over Aurora’s face. “You have done very well today, but there is much more to do if we are to expose Josiah Deede’s villainy, and my father’s innocence, before the world.”
Aurora let her head drop forward, resting her forehead on her fingers. She felt intolerably weary, as if she had struggled through a quagmire, only to find herself confronted with quicksand.
“For a moment I thought I would be able to go home,” she confessed miserably. “I thought my promise to you had been fulfilled. The letter seemed to show that your father was a heartless criminal, who disinherited you and left his fortune to Josiah Deede in order to make his peace with God.” She sighed, a juddering, disappointed sigh. “And now,” she went on, “I find I have to stay in this horrible place for Lord knows how long, and not see my sisters, and … and everything has gone wrong!”
Unable to hold her head up any longer, she lay down on Edward’s pillow and closed her eyes. She thought about the little shop with its shelves of silks and damasks, the measuring tapes, the cutting table, the snippets of material on the floor. She pictured her mother sitting on the high stool, humming softly as she held a newly ruffled cuff to the light. She thought about Eleanora curled up in the corner of the parlour window seat, reading by candlelight when she should have been in bed, because Mrs Eversedge did not allow her youngest daughter candles in the bedroom. Aurora thought about Flora, trimming and retrimming her gowns and hats, turning this way and that in front of the looking-glass, making a moue with her lips, smiling and chattering to whomever would listen. Dear Flora.
Thinking about these things made Aurora’s heart heavy. But when she opened her eyes she saw that Edward’s own melancholy had increased. He hunched his shoulders, twisted his hands together until he noticed what he was doing, then stopped. He released air slowly down his nose, his lips in a narrow line.
“You are right,” he said. “I have asked too much of you. I will take you home and continue my quest alone.”
There was no doubt that Aurora would very much like to be Miss Eversedge again. But as she lay there against the pillows, her gaze resting on her husband, she realized with a rush of compassion that he did, indeed, love her. If she stripped away the guile, the art, the trickery and bargain-making of their first encounter, what was left was love. His remorse was real. But so was her belief, taught to her by her father, in the uncompromising pursuit of a just cause.
“Edward,” she said decisively, “listen to me. There is no question of my returning home. I will go to Spring Gardens with the Deedes tomorrow. I will play my part as Aurora Drayton and do everything I can to discover either the secret, or the identity of the blackmailer. Not one of the Deedes connects Aurora Drayton with either Henry or Edward Francis, and that is her most powerful weapon.”
Edward was silent for a long time. Aurora waited, watching the yellowish light strike the prominent bones of his face. Then his shoulders went down a little. He blinked and ran his hand over his chin, rubbing his beard as Aurora had often seen men do when they have not shaved for many hours.
“Very well,” he said with an almost-invisible nod. “I must leave it up to God to keep you safe.”
Aurora reached for her hat. “I will go and rest now,” she said, feeling, for some reason, awkward. But she could not think of anything to add that would take the awkwardness away.
They looked at each other. Edward’s face was inscrutable again; Aurora could not tell what was in his mind or his heart. Then he broke his gaze and seemed to collect himself. “I am to meet Richard at Will’s Coffee House tomorrow evening,” he said in a brighter tone. “He has a letter from Hartford House for you.”
“Then I thank him for that.”
Edward’s calm expression did not change. “When I see him, I will congratulate him on the success of the skeleton key, for he is the craftsman who made it.”
It was at that moment that the world fell in on Aurora. She sat up so suddenly, and with such horror on her face, that Edward rose and came to the bedside, very concerned. “What is it?” He gripped her hand. “Are you unwell?”
“Oh, dear God!” she cried. “Oh, Edward, I have left the skeleton key in the writing desk!”
His mouth opened, and he blinked rapidly, but he did not speak.
“Celia and Joe came in just as I had closed the lid of the desk,” continued Aurora. “I had no business being near it, so I pretended to swoon. Dear God, my stupidity has undone us!”
“But the key is probably still there, unnoticed,” he offered.
Aurora shook her head desperately. “There is worse, I am afraid. Celia reminded me I had not taken books for my brother, so I asked Joe if he would select some for me to collect tomorrow.” She looked at Edward, then looked away again and withdrew her hand. She could not bear the admonishment that was bound to come. “Joe will go to the library and find the key, and all will be lost!”
“Not necessarily.”
She turned her head. Edward’s eyes were fixed on hers, full of concentration. “You have given yourself the opportunity to enter the library tomorrow,” he observed. “When you collect the books, you can also collect the key. If Joe Deede has seen it, he has no reason not to think his father left it there. He will not connect it with Miss Drayton. As long as Josiah Deede himself does not discover it, we are safe.”
Aurora chewed her lower lip, trying to believe him, her imagination galloping. “Supposing Joe removes the key, assuming it to be his father’s, and takes it to Josiah?”
“Josiah Deede is a clever and devious man,” he said seriously, “but if his suspicions are aroused we must be cleverer and more devious. Above all, we must not underestimate him.”
He stood up, snuffed the candle and put on his coat and wig. “I am going out. Do not unlock the door. I will return soon, and bring food.”
Aurora rose too, and stood by his side. “Edward…”
He put on his hat. Beneath its brim, his eyes were black and inscrutable again.
“I am sorry,” she said, looking at the floorboards. “For doubting your father’s innocence, and for forgetting the key.”
“Very well, but I am not sorry at all.”
She raised her head. “What do you mean?”
“Aurora, the crisis has come. By tomorrow evening we will know whether Josiah Deede will show his true colours. The question then remains: when will he strike?”