Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Charles!”
A voice cried out, raw with terror. Charles reached toward the voice, then it was cut short with the dull snap of bone.
Thick red bled into the blackness as a blurred shape took form—the shape of a woman, her body broken and twisted, her sightless eyes, as black as coal, staring out at him, the flicker of life fading until there was nothing but the dark shroud of death.
But the eyes were not those of his mother. They were the eyes of his wife.
Olivia!
He opened his eyes and sat up, his heart pounding against his chest, sharp pain stabbing behind his eyes.
He blinked, and his vision cleared. He was no longer a child trapped beneath his mother’s body. He was a man, sitting in a wingback chair in the morning room, clutching the arms, his fingers curled into claws, digging into the leather.
But the echo of Olivia’s voice still called to him.
He shook his head to dispel the echo then surveyed his surroundings. Someone sat in the chair opposite, silhouetted against the orange glow of the fireplace. He blinked, then swallowed his disappointment as the shape snapped into focus.
It wasn’t his wife.
Jacob leaned forward. “Anything the matter, brother?”
Charles gestured with his hands. How long have I been asleep?
Jacob glanced at the mantel clock, where the hour hand was approaching four.
“Two hours, maybe more,” he said. “I didn’t realize how loudly you snored. Perhaps you’re making up for being always silent, eh?”
Is my wife back?
“Not that I know of.”
Charles rose and crossed the floor to the window, staring out at the landscape bathed in the soft pink of the setting sun.
Perhaps, if he stared long enough, Olivia would appear—after all, she’d called to him in his dreams. He thrust his hands into his pockets and waited, fingering the smooth surface of his signet ring.
Silence filled the room, punctuated by the ticking of the mantel clock and the crackling of the fire.
Four o’clock.
She should have been back hours ago. Charles approached the bellpull, then, changing his mind, returned to the window.
“Pacing about won’t bring her back sooner.
It’ll only wear out the carpet.” Charles made a gesture, and Jacob laughed.
“I take it you’re thanking me for my advice.
Or you’re telling me to fuck off. Why not take some tea?
Ethel brought some in while you were sleeping, along with some of your wife’s shortbread. ”
I don’t want tea. I want my wife. Something feels wrong.
“Say again?”
Charles let out a huff, then signed again, slowly.
Jacob stared at Charles’s hands. “You think something’s wrong? What sort of thing?”
I heard her cry out. In my sleep.
“That’s just your conscience plaguing you.”
Unease continued to stab at Charles and his gut knotted with apprehension.
Jacob tilted his head to one side. “You really are concerned, aren’t you?
” he said. “I’m sure she and Nicola have just lost sense of the time.
You know how women rattle on. Doubtless your wife’s told Nicola she’s expecting your child.
Women like to share confidences, and Nicola’s sister is Olivia’s maid, so she’ll have seen your wife’s bedsheets. ”
Bedsheets? Devil’s breeches, it was enough of a trial for a man to know about such things, let alone discuss them.
“Susie’s always been loose-tongued,” Jacob continued.
“But she’s much kinder than Nicola. She’ll have plenty of admirers when she’s older, then your wife will be wanting a new maid.
As a young lass, Susie was always prattling on about this or that.
I remember one summer when I was helping Mr. Faulkes with the pigs, I… ”
He paused as Charles raised his hand and signed, Does Mr. Faulkes keep pigs?
“Don’t you listen to anything Mr. Carlton says? He’s always extoling the virtues of Faulkes’s pigs. It was his pork that graced your dining table. Recall the pie your wife baked?”
And sheep?
“Heavens no!” Jacob laughed. “Faulkes comes out in a rash when he goes near a sheep. Always has done. The wool, Mrs. Faulkes said—the late Mrs. Lucy Faulkes, that was, before she died, God rest her soul.”
Lucy Faulkes—the pregnant woman who fell down the stairs and broke her neck…
He has a dog, yes? A collie?
“Mr. Faulkes has never had a dog,” Jacob said. “Plenty of cats, mind you, given that the barn’s overrun with mice.”
Icy fingers tightened their grip around Charles’s stomach as he recalled the overheard conversation.
The bitch and her pup cannot be allowed to live…
Charles signed to his brother. Do you think Nicola is a good person?
Jacob opened his mouth to reply, then paused.
Be truthful.
“Well…” Jacob hesitated. “To be honest, meaning no disrespect, Nicola was none too pleased when you returned after the old earl passed. She said that you’d have been better staying on the Continent.
At the time I thought it was just because this house has always had the specter of death hanging over it.
But she then seemed overly keen on pushing me forward as your heir. ”
It’s what you want, isn’t it?
“Fuck no!” Jacob laughed. “What—to have to deal with all the comings and goings of lawyers, bankers, not to mention placating the staff and the tenants who think I’m some puffed-up nothing merely because I have the title?
I’d rather do a proper day’s work anytime, which is why I could never offer for Nicola.
She doesn’t want me as I am. I’d stake my arse on her only wanting to be the next Countess Devereaux.
Ha! Put her nose right out of joint when you turned up with that lovely little bride of yours.
Made her sick with envy. It was then that I realized Nicola wasn’t the girl for me.
I always wondered why she made such a show of befriending your wife when… Holy cock, brother, are you all right?”
Charles let out a groan as he shuddered, and he gestured to Jacob, his hands trembling.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Jacob said. “Sit down and let me get you a brandy.”
Charles gestured more slowly. My wife’s maid. Send for her. And John.
Jacob nodded and rang the bell. Shortly after, the young footman appeared and, after a brief exchange, scuttled off, then returned with the young maid.
She looked even younger than when Charles had last seen her, her eyes large and wide in her pale face.
“No…” she whispered, and she stepped back, trembling, and lifted her hand to her mouth. “Sweet Lord, no!”
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Susie,” Jacob said. “My brother just wants a word with you.”
Her expression glazed with fear, she glanced about, like an animal readying itself to flee.
Hold her.
“What?” Jacob said.
Devil’s bollocks, why could nobody understand him?
Then the maid darted past the footman, but collided with John, who’d appeared in the doorway.
“Mind how you go, young Susie,” he said, catching her wrist. “Hasn’t Mrs. Brougham said that…” He glanced at Charles. “What the devil’s happened, sir? You look as if someone’s died.”
The knot of fear in Charles’s stomach turned to ice as he motioned with his hands.
My wife’s missing. I think this girl knows where she is. Do not let her go.
John steered the maid into the room.
“Let go, you’re hurting me!” Susie cried.
I’ll do a damned sight more than that if my wife’s in danger.
She stared at Charles’s hands, then burst into tears.
“It wasn’t me!”
“What wasn’t you?” John said.
She glanced from John to Charles and back again. “I-I mean…wh-whatever it is you think I’ve done.”
“What do you think we suspect you of having done, Susie?” Jacob said.
“Please don’t hurt me!” the girl cried. “I-I didn’t mean no harm!” She glanced toward John. “Mr. Richards, tell the master I’ve been with you all day seeing to the mending. You saw me, didn’t you? I don’t want to die!”
Charles approached her, and she burst into tears.
“Excellent work, brother, frightening a child,” Jacob said.
“What, by merely looking at her?” John said. “You don’t know your brother at all, if you think he’d stoop to hurting a girl.”
“B-but she s-said he’d…” Susie began.
“She?” Jacob said. “You mean your mistress?”
“No, Lady Devereaux’s never said a word against the master. It w-was my sister.”
“Nicola?” Jacob said. “What did she say?”
The maid shook her head, her trembling becoming more violent.
Charles moved his hands. Fetch the child a brandy before she faints.
“Bring a brandy for Susie, would you, Colin?” John said.
The footman nodded and disappeared.
Let her sit, John. Then ask her where my wife is.
The valet steered the maid to a chair.
“I can’t sit in the master’s presence!” she cried. “Nicola said—”
“Nicola has been saying a great deal too much, Susie,” Jacob interrupted. He kneeled beside her and took her hand. “Why don’t you tell us what you have to say?”
“I…I can’t.”
“At least tell us where your mistress is,” John said. “That’s all we want to know.”
Colin reappeared with a half-filled brandy glass and Jacob held it to the girl’s lips. She swallowed a mouthful, then spasmed into a fit of coughing.
“Now speak,” Jacob said. “You’re not in any trouble.”
“B-but the necklace… Nicola said the master would beat me to death if he knew I took it, and that she’d tell him if I told on her, a-and—” She broke off, sobbing, and Jacob pressed the glass to her lips once more.
What does a necklace have to do with my wife’s disappearance?
“Susie, Lord Devereaux only wants to know where his wife is,” John said.
“I-I can’t tell you…”
“Can’t, or won’t? Do you wish to be dismissed? Lord Devereaux cares nothing for a necklace, but he does care for his wife. Where is she?”
“N-Nicola said she was just playing a joke on the mistress, seeing as they were such good friends. Like sisters, she said.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” Jacob scoffed.
“What joke, Susie?” John asked.
“Th-the marble,” Susie said, before bursting into tears again. “I’m sorry! I’m sure she never meant for the mistress to come to no harm.”
What do you mean?
The maid stared at Charles’s hands.
“He wants you to continue,” John said. “What marble?”
“Th-the marble on the stairs. When the mistress fell, I wanted to tell her about the marble, but Nicola said she’d tell on me about the necklace, then she’d push me down the stairs so that I’d end up like Ma Lucy, or the old mistress.
The master was away, and I wanted to tell him when he returned, but that was when Nicola said he’d…
” Her breath caught and she dissolved into tears again.
Charles’s gut twisted in horror.
The marble he’d spotted at the top of the stairs…
Sweet Lord—was that why Nicola had lied about her stepmother’s death?
And my Olivia is outside somewhere, alone with her.
“Sweet fucking hell,” Jacob cursed. “You foolish girl! Where are they now?”
“I…”
Charles grabbed Susie by the shoulders, and she let out a whimper.
“N-Nicola said she was going to take her to the forest, and…”
She trailed off, and icy fingers squeezed Charles’s heart as he recalled the image of his wife tumbling over the edge of the ravine as she had almost done before.
But this time, he was not there to keep her safe. This time her only companion was the woman who had, most likely, brought about her stepmother’s death, and who saw Olivia as an obstacle to her ambitions.
What if she intended to remove that obstacle?
He leaped to his feet, then sprinted out of the house toward the stables, where Destriero stood patiently in his stall. Charles motioned to the stable boy to saddle the horse, then mounted swiftly and set off toward the forest at a gallop.
Fear swelled in his mind—a thick, black wave of terror that threatened to burst. He spurred Destriero on, and as they plunged into the darkness of the forest, the wave crested and burst. He tilted his head upward and a roar came from his lips, pushed to the surface through ten years of silence and the terror that the thing he loved more than the mother he’d lost—more than his own life—was lost to him.
“Olivia!”
His voice reverberated through the forest as he tore ahead, the branches of the trees whipping across his face. Then he heard the rush of water, angry, boiling water, a great beast waiting to devour its prey, and he reined his horse in. With a scream, Destriero pulled up, just shy of the precipice.
His throat aching, Charles summoned every ounce of his strength, then roared out again.
“Olivia, my love… Olivia!”
His heart hammering, he leaned forward as the world before him blurred and he clung to the reins to steady himself, willing the pain in his head to subside, praying that she would be safe.
But he was met with silence, save for the angry voice of the river below, mocking him with its vicious vitality.
He dismounted and, shaking, approached the edge and looked over. Then an invisible knife sliced through his heart as he caught sight of a shape at the bottom of the ravine.
It was the body of a woman—broken and twisted, lying at the water’s edge.
Olivia…
He dropped to his knees and dug his hands into the earth, curling the fingers into claws. Then he lifted his head and let out a roar, cursing the world where the cruel and envious thrived but the virtuous and kind were destroyed.
It was a world he no longer wished to live in—not without his beloved Olivia, the woman who, despite his being so undeserving, loved him without condition, without expectation.
He’d never been able to tell her how much he loved her. And now, his chance had gone.
Charles…
Her softly whispered voice slipped into his mind. Devil’s breeches. Was he being taunted by her ghost?
“Wh-who’s there?”
He stiffened and looked up.
It was her voice.
He crawled toward the edge, his stomach knotting at the prospect of seeing her broken body once more. His last memory of her should be her smiling face, her beautiful eyes filled with love.
Then he peered over, his gaze drawn to the angry, swirling river below and the lifeless form at the water’s edge.
Conquering his fear, he leaned farther over, casting his gaze along the wall of the ravine.
Then he almost cried out as he caught sight of a white face looking up at him from about six feet below.
Clinging to a sapling that protruded from the rocks was his wife.