It was apparent Lucy had been influenced by Alethea, for her sister delivered a hard blow to Mr. Collum’s arm for a proposal notably unromantic. “How can you ask me like this?”
“When can I ask you when you have bodyguards jumping me in an alleyway?”
“If you had come to me at Terralton Abbey rather than skulking . . .”
“I arrived the moment you’d left for Chippenham. I couldn’t wait to see you.”
Alethea had to admit this was quite romantic. Lucy pursed her lips as she regarded him, but she seemed a trifle more mollified by his explanation.
“Perhaps it’s best we return?” Lord Ian suggested dryly.
The carriage ride back to the abbey was silent, although Alethea was dying to speak to Lucy about Mr. Collum. Lucy’s countenance was bland and professional despite the recent scene. They let Mr. Collum down at the inn nearest Terralton Abbey, then continued on to the house.
“Miss Terralton desires your services as soon as you returned,” the butler informed Lucy as they entered the house.
Lord Ian said, “I’ll waylay Clare and tell Bayard what happened today, shall I?”
Alethea and Lucy went to the music room where the faux violin had been displayed on a table. Alethea locked the music room door and went to her wooden chest, shoved into the corner behind a harp and a violoncello as if forgotten. “Lucy, you must tell me all.”
“I am as surprised as you. Richard and I became friends at Mrs. Ramsland’s home. He is quite educated. His father was a merchant who lost his fortune, and Richard took a job as a groom since he preferred horses to a job as a clerk. I have known him since I began working for Mrs. Ramsland.”
“You said nothing of this to me.” Alethea pulled from the chest the blankets folded inside.
“There was nothing to tell. We spoke often, for Mrs. Ramsland’s stable and carriage house is behind her home, and she keeps but one horse and her gig. If there was not much to do, he would come to the house to help. I thought perhaps he had a preference for my company, but he was friendly and helpful to everyone.”
“You had no indication he desired to marry you?” After emptying the chest, Alethea pressed the spring-loaded joint that would open the false bottom to reveal the cavity where she had hidden her violin.
“Goodness, is that where it has been hiding all this time?” Lucy asked. “I had no idea.”
“Calandra’s husband made this chest for her as a joke, since she prized the violin so highly,” Alethea said.
“Lady Arkright always had the violin in her music room on the table, as did you.”
“I could not leave the violin on Aunt Ebena’s drawing room table.” Alethea removed the fake violin from the cavity in the chest and replaced it with hers. “So I stored it in my room in the chest.”
“I had assumed you stored it in a case.”
“No, the cavity in the chest acts as an instrument case.”
“That is why the thief could not find it. A clever storage spot.”
Alethea closed the hidden compartment and replaced the blankets in the chest. “You have conveniently forgotten my question.”
Lucy sighed and walked to the wide windows. Alethea followed her. The view overlooked the courtyard garden and beyond that, the square pool.
“I was not certain his intentions had progressed to such a point,” Lucy said slowly, “but I did wonder . . .”
Alethea swallowed and asked through a dry throat, “Lucy, were you afraid to tell me?”
“No, of course not—”
“Lucy.”
She fussed with the heavy burgundy curtains swept back from the window. “Perhaps I was, a little.”
“I would never begrudge you happiness for the sake of my plans, which are far off and unsettled.”
“There really was nothing definitive. If he had asked me when I was at Mrs. Ramsland’s house, I do not know what I would have answered. I still do not.”
“Do you love him?”
“I like him. I feel I know the essence of his character. Is that love?”
Alethea thought of her feelings for Dommick. She esteemed his character, and she felt as though he understood her in ways no one else had. “When you left Bath, did you miss him? Did you regret the fact that you may never see him again?”
Lucy’s face grew drawn and tired. “Yes.”
“Do you wish to marry?”
“I do not wish to hurt you.” Lucy took Alethea’s hands. “We have had these plans since we were girls together. They have sustained me through my most difficult trials.”
“Would you be happy in Italy? It has been my dream, but is it yours? Or would you be happier in England with Mr. Collum?”
“I do not wish to leave you. I love you.”
“Lucy, I would not force you to choose between Mr. Collum and me. Your happiness means more to me than your company. I love you, and I want your happiness.”
“You cannot afford to hire a paid companion.”
“Then I shall find a travelling companion to share the costs. Lucy . . .” She took her sister’s hand. Although her heart was breaking, Alethea said, “If you love him, then marry him.”
Alethea did not know what drew her to the chapel. She had thought it would be a place she would avoid since the incident with Dommick, but there was a peaceful silence here that she had not found in her empty bedchamber or even in the bleak gardens, smothered by the deep cold of approaching winter.
Her heart felt like those gardens, and she was ashamed. Lucy’s happiness was important to her, but she worried now about her plans for living in Italy, her dreams of independence. She could not move to the continent until the war ended, but surely it would not last more than two years? When it ended, perhaps it may not be difficult to find a travelling companion.
But that companion would not be her dear sister.
She was ashamed that her dependence upon Lucy could have cost her sister a family and children. Alethea had been thoughtless and selfish, assuming Lucy would always fall into her plans for them both.
She sat in a pew and studied the altar at the front, standing atop the small raised platform. The altar’s rich wooden carving had been smoothed by time and perhaps industrious tools in the hands of little Lord Dommicks in earlier centuries. Light glowed in the low vaulted ceiling arches and draped across the embroidered cloth on the altar’s surface, but the chapel was dim because of the narrow windows, which had perhaps once had stained glass, but now only held diamond-cut panes.
It was a place of past grandeur. Dommick’s grandfather had stopped the practice of daily prayers, and so the chapel lay empty and forgotten much of the time, an abandoned mother longing for her grown-up children.
Perhaps that was the reason for Alethea’s affinity with the chapel, the air of desertion. She knew logically that Lucy had not deserted her, but the loneliness settled in her bones like an early frost.
Loneliness should be an old friend to her, but Lucy had always been her shield against lowness and pain. Lucy had always been her comfort. Now she fought the stirrings of betrayal and an unsteadiness in the foundations of her life that frightened her. There was no comfort for her now.
It may have been the chapel that caused the words of the rector’s wife to come in a whisper: divine relationship. It meant nothing to her, and yet there was a promise of comfort if she could understand its meaning and take hold of it. Yet what kind of comfort could God offer to her? He had not comforted her before.
Or perhaps, like Margaret, Alethea had simply not heard him.
It was absurd to think that God would want to comfort her. Did he not control circumstances as he willed? Why should he cause suffering in order to bestow comfort?
No, she was being unfair. God did not cause suffering. Her father had caused her suffering. Her brother had caused her great pain. Dommick had lashed out in fear. Her sister . . .
But where was comfort? Where was the surcease of burdens? It was not here, in this lonely room, amongst relics and cobwebs.
Light footsteps sounded outside the chapel doors, then the creak of a door centuries old. Alethea turned to see Aunt Ebena in the doorway.
“Good gracious, you certainly are acquainted with the most unlikely places. If a servant had not happened to see you, I never should have found you.” Aunt Ebena stopped at the pew where she sat. “Well? Be so good as to allow me to sit.”
Alethea moved over.
“I had not known you intended to travel with your inheritance.” Aunt Ebena scowled at her.
“You knew about my inheritance? I thought only my father and brother knew of it. And Wilfred now, if the lawyer has informed him.”
“Of course I knew of it. My sister’s husband set it up to form the dowry of any of his granddaughters, since he did not trust the prudence of his eldest son and did not wish shame to come upon the house of Trittonstone should the girls have no portions. Your father was freely able to squander what was not tied up in trust for you.”
“Why should it surprise you that I wish to use my inheritance? My marriage prospects are highly unlikely.”
“I suspected you would want your independence, but I had not thought that you would travel.”
“I have read that in Italy one may live on very little expense. And there are music masters I wish to study under.” Of course, it may all come to naught now.
“But now that Lucy will not travel with you, you will need a paid companion, which may be a financial hardship,” Aunt Ebena said.
“I had thought that when the war ended, I might find a travelling companion to share the expense.”
“That is very wise of you.” Aunt Ebena hesitated, her face as stern as always, but faint apprehension in her grey eyes. “It was my thought to offer myself.”
Alethea could not speak for nearly a full minute. She realized her mouth had dropped open and closed it with a snap. “You would . . . want to . . . travel? With me?”
“I have always desired to travel, but . . . it did not appeal to Mr. Garen.”
Now that Alethea knew her aunt’s history, the reticence of her comment spoke volumes. “You enjoy travel?”
“I have not travelled at all. But I desire to partake of foreign culture.”
Alethea recalled her aunt’s avid attendance at concerts, art exhibitions, lectures. What must it have been like to marry a man much like Aunt Ebena’s father, in control of all her actions and decisions? How had she borne the frustration of wanting something dear to her heart, knowing her husband had the funds for it, but being unable to attain it?
Alethea also knew her aunt’s income. “May I ask an impertinent question?”
“When have you ever asked permission?”
“After Mr. Garen died, you never wished to sell your house and travel?”
Aunt Ebena said in a halting voice, “I had thought my age and respectability a deterrent. But I flatter myself that I have come to understand you in this past year. You will not allow such a setback to forestall you.”
“No.” Not while Italy beckoned.
“Then I cannot allow my notions to forestall me. Our combined income will enable a very comfortable housekeeping, more so than independently of each other.”
It was true. But her aunt’s abrasiveness had caused no small discomfort to this past year.
However, she now understood Aunt Ebena better. And might some of that abrasiveness have been a reaction to Alethea’s carefree spirit, her determination to pursue her desires, whether befriending her illegitimate half sister or playing an instrument scandalous for genteel ladies? Weren’t all those things against what her aunt had upheld for most of her very correct, upright life?
“Are you certain you could live with me, ma’am?” Alethea asked with uncertainty.
“I have lived with you for the past year,” she snapped, then seemed to regret her tone. “You are sensible, and while you can be headstrong, you are not foolish. We shall rub along tolerably well, I fancy.”
Aunt Ebena, for all her faults, was strong and confident. Alethea needed her confidence now, for she felt very alone and unsure. “I should be glad of your company, Aunt Ebena.”
Her aunt nodded as though she had known all along that Alethea would agree. “We can make no plans until you have received your inheritance and the war with France is ended, but you may know that I will remain committed to our schemes.”
“Thank you, Aunt.”
What an unexpected turn her life had taken in less than a day. Yet out of this, all three of them would achieve their dreams. Aunt Ebena would travel, Lucy would marry, and Alethea would still go to Italy.
But in the depths of her heart, deeper than she wanted to scrutinize, was the doubt that Italy was still the focus of her dreams. Yet what else did she have? She would do better to forget what was not directly before her and instead embrace this new opportunity.
Bayard was certain Richard Collum was involved somehow in the intrigue surrounding Alethea’s violin.
Verifying it, however, was a different matter.
Bayard wrapped himself against the freezing wind, damp and smelling of a brewing storm, and rattled the knocker at a small, respectable house in Chippenham. It had the look of former affluence, but had fallen into disrepair and neglect. The widow of an attorney lived here, but he had no wish to speak to her.
Mr. Collum’s appearance was too convenient. He was a stranger, but his presence was excused by his engagement with Lucy. No one would note the doings of Lucy’s betrothed.
Clare was disappointed to lose Lucy as her maid, for she would leave as soon as Mr. Collum found a new position. Clare had dropped broad hints that Bayard should hire Mr. Collum as a groom, for their head groom was getting on in years, but Bayard had rather doggedly pretended not to hear her. He would not hire a man he could not trust.
He hadn’t spoken to Alethea in days. He had never realized how effortless it would be for a woman to avoid speaking to him in the confines of the abbey. He wasn’t certain what he would say if she did speak to him. It was better by far that she avoided him and believed him to be a blackguard.
Bayard had spent the majority of the day in Bath, speaking to Mrs. Ramsland’s butler about the letter of reference Richard Collum had produced upon being hired as head groom, then following the trail backward to two other homes in Bath where Mr. Collum had worked, and finally here in Chippenham, where Mr. Collum had supposedly worked for five years.
The butler who opened the door was aged, with wispy, white hair and a stoop to his shoulders. “I regret that Mrs. Boane is unavailable.”
“I have come to speak to Mr. Keable.”
The butler’s thin, white brows climbed toward his balding pate. “Me, sir? Please do come in.”
Bayard entered the house but remained in the gloomy foyer, which was lit only by tapers on the entrance table. “I am Lord Dommick. I was given your name in order to ask about a groom who worked here ten years ago.”
“I am afraid you are mistaken, my lord, for Mrs. Boane keeps no horses.”
This was the inconsistency Bayard had been hoping for. “You have been with her long?”
“For ten years.”
“And there was no groom when you started?”
“There had been no groom since Mr. Boane died.”
“There has been no servant named Richard Collum in Mrs. Boane’s employ? Whether as groom or footman?”
Mr. Keable stiffened. “Mr. Collum? I beg your pardon, my lord, but I was mistaken. Yes, Mr. Collum was Mrs. Boane’s groom ten years ago.”
Bayard found himself nonplussed. “He was?”
“Indeed. He was a good lad, very bright and amiable.”
Bayard was confused and frustrated at the same time. “How long did Mr. Collum work here?”
“Several years.”
“For whom had he worked before?”
“He was hired based on the recommendation of a former servant in this house. Mr. Collum proved to be an excellent worker.”
For a man who had professed not to know anything about a groom ten years ago, Mr. Keable suddenly knew a great deal about Mr. Collum. “You knew him well?”
“Mr. Collum left soon after I began my employ with Mrs. Boane, but he impressed me during the period I knew him, and the other servants spoke highly of him. Mrs. Boane herself wrote his references quite willingly.”
Bayard was at a loss. There was something havey-cavey going on, but Mr. Keable seemed most earnest in his estimation of Mr. Collum’s character. Yet what could Bayard do, short of accusing the man of lying. “Thank you, Mr. Keable.”
“If it is not impertinent for me to ask, I hope Mr. Collum is well, my lord?”
The butler’s question struck Bayard as rather odd for a fellow servant and Mr. Collum’s supervisor. “Yes. He is at Terralton Abbey.”
“Mrs. Boane will be glad to hear of it.”
“Mrs. Boane would remember a groom from ten years ago?”
Mr. Keable looked confused, then said, “Mrs. Boane is most solicitous of her servants.” Which was an even more bewildering answer. “May I help you in any other way, my lord?”
“No. Good day, Mr. Keable.” He exited the house and hurried through the rising wind toward his carriage.
Bayard drove home disgruntled, aided by a cold rain that worsened into a downpour. Perhaps he would need to hire someone else to look into Mr. Collum’s background.
The travelling coach in the gravel sweep before his house was unknown to him. He ran through the rain and up the steps to the front door.
The butler took his wet greatcoat from him. “Lord and Lady Trittonstone have arrived, my lord, along with Mr. Kinnier.”
The rain had not seeped through his coat, but Bayard was suddenly chilled. Why would Alethea’s cousin and his wife be here with Mr. Kinnier, of all people? Was Bayard unreasonably suspicious to jump to the conclusion it had to do with the violin? The timing of their visit was too coincidental.
“I prefer to announce myself, Forrow.” Bayard headed to the drawing room.
As he opened the door, he heard an unfamiliar male voice say, “The papers have been signed.”
Alethea stood opposite the door, and the expression on her face caused every vein in his body to pulse with fear, anger, protectiveness. He had never seen her so white. He had never seen her with such a look of vulnerability, devastation, terror. He knew that whatever had just occurred, her entire world had gone up in flames. Her hand went to her mouth, and she swayed on her feet.
A man standing with his back to the door turned and saw him. “Who the devil are you?” His thin voice was just shy of a whine.
Bayard shot him a look that made him flinch. In a low, snarling voice he said, “I should ask the same, as it is my house and you have upset my guest.”
The man’s brow cleared. “Oh. I am Trittonstone, Alethea’s cousin.” He bowed.
Bayard refused to return it. “What have you done?”
Movement to Bayard’s left had him twisting in alarm. Mr. Kinnier stood a few feet away, his dark eyes gleaming in triumph. He looked like a pale snake about to strike. “Congratulate me, Lord Dommick,” he said. “I have become betrothed to Lady Alethea.”
She had been sold. Again.
She was going to be sick.
Alethea rushed forward, pushing past Wilfred, past Dommick, out the drawing room door. She stumbled on the staircase and nearly fell, but she grabbed the bannister and regained her footing, only to hurtle herself down the last flight.
“My lady!” Forrow cried as she sprinted across the entrance hall, throwing herself against the front door. “My lady, it is raining—”
She unlatched the door and plunged into the dark.
The rain drenched her, shocking her with its cold. The wind sliced through her like an icy bayonet to her stomach, and still she ran into the teeth of the gale, running away and yet feeling as though she were not moving. The gravel of the sweep bit through her thin slippers, and then she was sliding on the half-frozen grass, mud oozing between her toes. She ran on, across the vast lawn, heedless of direction until a faulty step sent her tumbling face-first.
The cold ground bit into her cheek like a serpent’s kiss. She dug her fingers into the mud and pushed herself upright, but could not rise from her knees. She knelt in the grass and pooling water, rain falling upon her shoulders.
She had been sold.
She heard her brother’s voice through the moaning of the wind. Signed the papers this morning. You’ll marry my friend by special license tomorrow and he’ll give me a nice cut of your dowry.
Wilfred had said almost the same words tonight, and with them, had taken away everything. He had the power to force her to his will because she was not yet come of age and he had authority over her. She was twenty-eight years old, and he controlled her life as if she were eighteen. She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into the dirt.
If she ran away again, there was no certainty in her ability to hide from him until she reached her majority. He had the resources to find her.
She had built her dream like an oasis in a desert. She had clung to Italy as the only way she could be happy. And now it was gone.
She was helpless, and hopeless. The dark storm without was the same as the dark storm within.
A sound behind her made her jump and twist around, but it was Lucy with a cloak.
“How did you know I was here?” Alethea’s teeth chattered.
“Forrow found me and sent me. Come inside.”
“Lucy, Wilfred has sold me.”
Her sister’s hands, which had been draping the cloak around her wet figure, tightened in the folds of cloth. “Like . . . your brother?” She did not need an answer, for Alethea’s face said enough. She threw her arms about Alethea and squeezed tightly.
Her sister’s fervent embrace opened the floodgates, and Alethea wept tears that felt like shards of glass slicing her skin. She wept for all she had lost. She wept for all that men had done to her. She wept for the life she would never know.
“Who is it?” Lucy whispered.
“Mr. Kinnier.”
Lucy jerked away, her hands tight on Alethea’s shoulders. “No. No. Alethea, you must run away again.”
“What?” Alethea had never seen her sister look so terrified.
“You must run away. You cannot marry him.”
“I escaped my brother last year because of the accident. I could not hope for something similar again. Wilfred would find me.”
“You will have me with you this time.”
“Richard—?”
“I won’t marry him. Alethea, I won’t leave you alone. We will escape. I will keep you safe from him.”
“What is it about Mr. Kinnier? You must tell me.”
Lucy pressed her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide and stark white in the darkness. “Alethea,” she said, her voice thick with tears, “Mr. Kinnier killed his first wife.”