Epilogue

 

“Lady Wellcott, I cannot fathom how you can help me but an old friend assures me that you are the salvation I am seeking on my sister’s behalf.”

Serena held up the letter she’d received from one of the Black Rose’s members referring the elegant and distraught Mrs. Cavendish to her doorstep. “I have Lady Osterley’s praise of your devotion to your family and of your character. She hints at some unforeseen tragedy that only I can avert but it falls to you, Mrs. Cavendish to fill in the details. Tea?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.”

Serena smiled and once again, made the tea to suit herself aware that Mrs. Cavendish wouldn’t even taste the brew, that the woman was sitting in exactly the same chair that nearly all her petitioners chose to take, and that this play was oddly familiar and comforting.

“My sister. My younger sister, Mary, has only been married for a year but…”

“Go on. You could not be in a safer or more discreet place for such a conversation. Tell me the worst.”

Mrs. Cavendish took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “She wrote to me that her husband had threatened to have her committed! She said he had been cold to her from the start and now had sworn to see her locked away as a hysteric and a madwoman!”

“How horrible!”

“Mary may be many things—spoiled, lively, and impulsive but she is not imbalanced, I can assure you. Even so, her claims were so shocking I could barely credit them and wondered if there could be any other explanation!”

“But now he’s done it,” Serena supplied.

“He’s done it! I heard nothing more from her and when I inquired to him directly, he sent a brief and horrible note explaining that Mary had gone mad and he’d been forced to put her away for treatment and for her own safety! Can you imagine such a thing?” Mrs. Cavendish’s face became mottled with red splotches of distress. “I was…I am much older and confess that I was always jealous of my baby sister and her beauty. I—haven’t always been kind. But she reached out to me in desperation and I must trust my instincts. He is her husband and has legal authority over her. He has refused to allow us to visit her! To retrieve her! And now I fear for her life… Oh, God! My poor Mary!”

Mrs. Cavendish lost the battle to tears and Serena immediately gave her a handkerchief from her skirt pocket.

“I’m going to pace as I speak, so do not think our session over, dear lady.” Serena stood to walk. “Was there a substantial dowry?”

“Vast! My father left us each a generous portion although I was far too old to apply it to securing a good match. Desmond was so charming, and although I never liked him, I was hardly in the mood to object to their marriage.”

“He married her for the money and has no use for a wife. By putting her away rather than ending the marriage in divorce, he retains control of the fortune. If she dies in some hellish mental institution, then all the better from his perspective.”

“He is a villain. Of that, I have no doubt, Lady Wellcott.”

“Yes, but I will find out why he would move so aggressively and I will rescue your sister from her prison and from her marriage.” Serena laid out the terms of the Black Rose and Mrs. Cavendish accepted them without hesitation.

Their business concluded quickly and Mrs. Cavendish left with a gleam of stern satisfaction and hope in her eyes. Serena closed the door behind her and crossed to the bell pull expecting Quinn to answer, but it was Phillip Warrick who came through the doorway from the library.

“Well?”

“I am going to Scotland. I have to rescue a damsel in distress.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“No?” She crossed her arms. “What do you mean no?”

“We are going to Scotland, my love. My dangerous and incomparable love.”

“We. Yes. We are going to Scotland.”

And the Black Rose goes on…