Chapter 23
Three days had passed since Honora left Belgrave.
Leopold had stopped pretending he expected the silence to become easier.
It had not. The nursery remained closed.
He found himself passing through the corridor and looking toward the door before remembering there was no reason to open it. Cecily was gone.
So was Honora. He had no idea where they were, or if they were all right. And conveniently, Isolde had vanished. She had left the day Honora had been sent away, claiming a visit to a cousin. But Leopold knew better.
She had lied to him about Honora. And he was sure she had something to do with Honora and Cecily’s disappearance. The former was bad enough. But if his fears about the latter were true, she was downright sinister. That was something he could not abide.
He and Barnaby had spent the three days tracing the carriage route east. They had followed every likely road toward the Penmere properties and sent inquiries to inns, post houses, and stable yards. Nothing had been found.
Leopold had written to the magistrate, requesting support in locating Honora. He had not given the false name she had used, as he did not want to risk her being viewed as a criminal.
He simply said that she had served as a servant in his home, and had not been seen again since being dismissed from his estate. He wrote to the Earl of Penmere, though his letter was a bit less formal.
He explained that Honora and Cecily had been last entrusted to Isolde’s care, and had since disappeared. He made no accusation, as no matter how certain he was that Isolde was responsible for whatever had happened, he knew he had no proof.
And going to Isolde’s family with such grievous speculation and no evidence would be a bigger mistake than trusting Isolde had been. He was uncertain what response he had expecting or hoped for. But it did not matter. No response had come, and the lack of information was becoming intolerable.
He was in the study that afternoon when Mrs. Pritchard entered.
“Your Grace.”
Leopold looked up from the letter he had been rereading without absorbing. “What is it?”
“A letter just came for you.”
“Can it wait?”
Mrs. Pritchard’s silence was enough to unsettle him.
“I do not believe so.”
Leopold took it and opened it quickly, almost tearing the address off the envelope as he did so. His heart threatened to choke him as he read.
The woman and child who were removed from your estate are being held in a house outside Alton.
They are alive. For now.
If you wish to see them returned safely, payment must be made to the address on this letter.
Do not involve the magistrate or any other authority. Any attempt to do so will place the woman and child in greater danger.
The lady who arranged for their removal from your estate promised payment for the work and has failed to fulfill her agreement. We have no reason to guarantee the woman’s and the child’s safety now.
You will therefore understand that this matter must be settled by you.
Bring two thousand pounds to the address. Come alone. Do not attempt to attack us and rescue the woman and child without paying. You will be shot.
The woman and child will remain where they are until payment is made. If we receive no written agreement or payment within four days, and if we do not dispose of them, they may starve to death.
You have every reason to believe that we are serious.
Leopold stared at the paper, trying to process everything it said. But the important parts were very clear: Honora and Cecily were being held captive. And Isolde was the reason why.
“Barnaby,” Leopold said unsteadily.
Barnaby took the letter before Leopold could say more, and he read it in half the time. He cursed under his breath, slamming the letter on the desk.
“We leave immediately,” he said.
Leopold nodded numbly. The guilt threatened to keep him rooted to his chair.
If he had allowed Honora to explain, if he had not sent them away, they would not be in danger.
But because he had been stubborn in his anger and blind in his hurt, they could die.
And suddenly, the thought of losing them was too much to bear.
I love them, he thought, trembling. I cannot lose them now.
Wilfred’s interruption was enough to return him to his senses. He looked at the butler, rising from his seat.
“Yes?” he asked curtly.
“There is a gentleman at the front door.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Bellamy.”
Leopold’s head lifted so quickly his neck popped. “Gideon Bellamy?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Leopold stood. “Bring him in at once.”
Wilfred left. Barnaby glanced at him, his eyebrows raised.
“What is he doing here?” he asked.
Leopold shook his head. He did not have an answer. He barely had any words at all.
A moment later, the front door opened, footsteps crossed the hall, and Mr. Bellamy appeared in the study doorway.
Leopold had never seen a man with an expression so lost and sickly, yet kept alert by panic and guilt.
His hair was gray at the temples, his face pale, his coat looking as though he had lost ten pounds since he put it on, and his hand shook around the paper he carried.
“Your Grace,” he said with a voice that was as unsteady as his fingers.
Leopold crossed the room and shook his hand, forgoing stiff formalities. “Mr. Bellamy. What can I do for you?”
The older man looked at him for one long moment. Then he held out the letter. “My daughter.”
Leopold took it. The paper was creased from being opened and folded again, the handwriting on the outside blunt and hurried, and identical to the letter he had received.
Leopold looked at Barnaby, who nodded once.
“We need information,” Leopold said quietly. “This all goes back to Cecily, and we need to know how.”
Bellamy looked from one man to the other. “You do not know?”
“No,” Leopold said. “So tell me.”
Bellamy swallowed.
“Honora had an older sister,” he said, speaking slowly. “Her name was Celestine.”
Leopold nodded, trying to suppress his impatience.
“I recently learned that much,” he said. “Please, go on.”
Mr. Bellamy nodded.
“Honora was my wife’s and my biological daughter,” he said. “Celestine, however, was not.”
Leopold exchanged a glance with Barnaby, who shrugged.
“She was adopted?” Barnaby asked, clearly as surprised as Leopold.
“Yes,” Mr. Bellamy said. “She was born with skin and hair as white as snow and pale eyes. Her own parents, who were friends of my family, were fearful of raising her. So, after some discussion, my wife and I agreed to take her in.”
Leopold nodded again, trying to understand.
“So, Celestine was not a Bellamy by birth?” he asked.
Mr. Bellamy shook his head.
“No. But we all loved her just as if she was. And we were all thrilled when she gave birth to Cecily.”
Leopold blinked, confused. “Yet you left her here after Celestine died, instead of allowing Honora to continue to raise her.”
“Yes.” Bellamy’s voice cracked on the word. “I was a fool. I believed it was best for Honora, as I believed that she needed to focus on marrying and saving our family. I brought Cecily here because I was sure she would be safe, and that Honora would see, in time, that it was all for the best.”
Leopold stared, confused.
“But why did you bring Cecily here?” he asked. “Why did you feel that she would be safe here, specifically?”
Mr. Bellamy paused for a long time. He looked from Leopold to Barnaby, then back to his hands, which he was wrung and pressed together.
“Because she is your family, Your Grace,” he said at last. “My wife and I…we adopted Celestine from your parents. Almost immediately after she was born. No one else knew of her existence then. My wife had struggled to carry a child to full term, and it seemed that we would never have children of our own. When your parents brought us the idea of adopting Celestine, we were only too happy to agree.”
Barnaby glanced at him.
Leopold could barely breathe. “Celestine was my sister.”
Mr. Bellamy looked at him. “Yes.” The word was almost a whisper.
“Your father was most generous, ensuring there was always plenty of money to care for Celestine. A few years later, we were blessed with Honora, and we raised them together as sisters. They did not know any different, and we loved both of them with our entire beings.”
Leopold stepped back. All the pieces began to move at once. The shawl, the private account, the baby, his mother’s silence and the way she had looked at Cecily on the morning she arrived.
“My mother knew?” he asked, feeling the need for that specific confirmation, despite what Mr. Bellamy had just said.
“Yes,” Mr. Bellamy said again. “She and your father were worried about what people would say when they saw a child with such a striking appearance. They were not prepared to handle any gossip or scandal they might endure. My wife and I were just happy to finally have a child of our own to raise.”
Barnaby spoke quietly. “The shawl? Where did you get it?”
“The late duke gave it to me on the day my wife and I took Celestine home.”
Silence settled over the room.
“And your daughters never saw it?” Barnaby asked, still with a gentle, soothing voice.
Bellamy shook his head. “After Celestine outgrew it, I kept it hidden.”
“For thirty years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I promised that I would never tell a soul about what we had done. What the late duke and duchess had done.”
Leopold looked toward the door. He did not know if he believed what he was hearing. Yet something deep within him knew that everything Mr. Bellamy said was true, just as with Barnaby’s account of Honora’s true identity. It made too much sense not to be.
“I kept this secret for thirty years,” Mr. Bellamy said, a sob bubbling its way to the top of his throat. “And now my daughter and granddaughter are being held because of it.”
Leopold looked down at the ransom letter. Cecily was his niece. Celestine had been his sister. And Honora was just as innocent and clueless as he had been.
She is more innocent than me right now, he thought, swallowing a lump in his throat. Her only sin in any of this was loving Cecily enough to do anything to protect her, while I sent her away to what might be her death.
He thought of the nursery floor, the fever, Honora’s face when he told her to leave. For one moment, the guilt was enough to bend him. But he forced it aside. There would be time for guilt later. Right then, he needed to act quickly.
Leopold turned toward the door. “I would like to speak with Mother.”
Mrs. Pritchard was summoned, and she went to fetch her.
Within minutes, his mother entered the study.
She stopped when she saw Mr. Bellamy. For the first time Leopold could remember, his mother looked as though she had been caught without a plan.
Her eyes went to Mr. Bellamy, then to the ransom letter, then to the shawl.
She did not speak.
Leopold pointed toward the desk. “Tell me whether he is telling the truth.”
The dowager duchess’s face was pale. She looked at the shawl. Her hand trembled once. He did not elaborate or explain. He was sure he did not need to. She glanced at Mr. Bellamy, who surprisingly held her gaze. She took a shaky breath and looked back at Leopold.
“Yes,” she said.
Leopold stared at her. “Celestine was your daughter.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”
“My sister.”
“Yes.”
“You sent her away.”
She opened her eyes. “I did. At three days old.”
“And you never told me.”
His mother looked at him. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting yourself. I know about Celestine’s unique condition and your vile reaction to it.”
She did not argue.
Leopold looked at the woman who had raised him and felt, for perhaps the first time, that he did not know her.
“Cecily is my niece.”
Her face changed, showing Leopold something else he had never seen in her before. Grief. True, genuine grief. “My granddaughter,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said with exasperation, holding up the ransom note. “Now, she is locked in a room somewhere because Isolde arranged it.”
The dowager duchess went very still. “Isolde?”
“She sent Honora away in a carriage.”
His mother stared at him, then at the letter, then at Mr. Bellamy, seeming to understand all at once.
“What will you do?”
“I will bring them home.”
For the first time since Cecily’s arrival, the dowager did not argue with her son. Leopold pointed toward the writing desk. “The birth record.”
Her eyes lifted. “It is in the bureau.”
“Give me the key.”
Reluctantly, she reached into her pocket and handed him a small key. “The top drawer.”
Leopold took it. He crossed to the bureau, unlocked the drawer, and found the record exactly where she said it would be, reading the name, the date, his mother’s name, his father’s name. Nothing further needed reading. The truth was in his hands.
He closed the drawer.
Barnaby was already moving toward the door. “I will have the horses saddled.”
Leopold turned. “What does the ransom letter say about the location of the house again?”
Barnaby picked it up. “It has an address.” He read it. “To a house outside Alton.”
Leopold’s heart thumped so fiercely, he could have sworn it was restarting. “Then that is where we go.”
Barnaby nodded and was out the door before Leopold reached the hall.
Leopold followed. At the entrance, he paused only long enough to put on his gloves. Behind him, Bellamy stood beside the study door.
Leopold looked back at him. “I will bring them home.”
Bellamy’s face tightened. “I know.”
Leopold stepped outside. The horses were already being brought around.
Barnaby mounted first. Leopold swung into the saddle and gathered the reins.
For one moment, he looked back at Belgrave.
The house stood exactly as it had three days before.
But everything had changed. Then, he turned east. He and Barnaby rode hard down the drive and toward Alton.
As Leopold turned east, one thought steadied him against the fear: Honora had given the kidnappers his name because some part of her still trusted him to come. He would not fail that trust again. He bent low over the horse’s neck and rode to bring Honora and Cecily home.