Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
The bed was too cold.
April’s hand slid across the linen sheets, fingers reaching instinctively toward the space where Theo usually lay.
It was empty. Still warm but empty. She opened her eyes and sat up slowly, brushing back a tumble of curls as she blinked into the morning light.
The silk canopy swayed faintly in the early breeze, and through the drawn curtains, she could hear the call of distant birds.
Two days had passed since Theo returned from his meeting with the Bow Street Runners.
They had begun sharing a bed since their return from London, and Theo would hold her through the night, his arm around her waist, his breath calm and sure against the curve of her neck.
Each night he did the same, as if keeping her close could ward off the dark.
It’s foolish to feel safe just because someone holds you, she thought. And yet, I do. With him, I do.
She rose and dressed quickly with the help of her maid, her mind wandering as fabric was laced and pinned. There had been a moment—last night—when he had kissed her temple before sleep, and she had nearly said it aloud.
I love you.
But she hadn’t. Not yet.
When she descended the stairs, the scent of warm bread and honey wafted from the hallway. The grand foyer echoed faintly with her steps until she reached the last stair—and froze.
Laughter.
Not Theo’s—though his deeper tones followed—but a lighter, more lilting sound, one she hadn’t heard in weeks. Her lips parted in surprise, and a grin curved unbidden. She turned and quickened her pace.
The morning room was filled with golden light, and at the breakfast table sat Eugenia Forest, Dowager Countess of Darnell, draped in a dove-gray shawl and sipping tea like a conquering queen.
She looked up and smiled, rising with surprising swiftness. “April, my dear girl!”
April crossed the room in a few hurried steps and was enveloped in a warm embrace, tulip-scented and familiar.
“I did not hear you arrive!” April said, stepping back.
“I arrived last night, far too late to rouse the household,” Eugenia replied, brushing imaginary crumbs from her sleeve. “But I could hardly wait to see you.”
Theo stood from his chair and moved to pull one out for her. As she took it, he leaned in and murmured, “Good morning, wife.”
April’s cheeks warmed.
“Oh, how tender,” Eugenia exclaimed. “And he smiles! Theo, you’ll ruin your reputation as a stone-hearted recluse.”
He merely lifted a brow, and Eugenia’s expression softened as she turned to April, taking her hand. “Thank you, child. Truly. I feared I’d never see him like this. He has always been my heart—but I despaired he would ever trust another with his.”
April could only smile, fingers tightening gently in the older woman’s grasp. “He makes it very easy to care for him.”
They settled into breakfast, and Eugenia praised the raspberry jam and the flakiness of the croissants until her gaze swept over the room.
“The walls!” she said suddenly. “This was not green before.”
“No,” April said, pleased. “The entire manor has been redecorated. Room by room.”
Eugenia clapped her hands. “Then I must see it. All of it. Tulip!”
The pug in question—round and perpetually unimpressed—trotted into the room with a grunt and took up residence by Eugenia’s chair.
Theo stood as Redmond entered. “Your Grace, the steward from Gloucestershire has arrived.”
Theo pressed a kiss to April’s cheek. “Enjoy your tour. I will find you after noon.”
Eugenia gave a theatrical sigh. “So many kisses. How will I bear the scandal?”
He bent and kissed her cheek as well. “Behave, Aunt.”
She winked. “Never.”
With Theo gone, the ladies finished their tea and rose. Tulip waddled after them loyally as April led Eugenia through the main halls of Stone Hall. The walls of the entrance gallery had been repainted a rich eggshell blue; portraits lined the walls in symmetrical grace.
“This is far more cheerful,” Eugenia said. “In my day, this room looked like a funeral march.”
They passed through the drawing room, the library, and April’s new music room, all freshly appointed with soft pastels and gilded touches.
Eugenia lingered at the windows. “Kent always had the prettiest light. When I was a girl, I spent every summer just outside Tunbridge Wells. The fields smelled of clover, and I fell in love every other week.”
April laughed. “And were they ever worthy of you?”
“Not once,” Eugenia said proudly. “But I enjoyed the practice.”
They continued through the upstairs hallway, viewing bedchambers, and Eugenia took her arm when they descended the servants’ stairs into the lower west wing.
As they passed the small salon, April said lightly, “Gregory and Loretta visited a few weeks ago.”
Eugenia gave her a glance, sharp and measuring. “And how did you find them?”
“I find Gregory rather charming,” April said, pausing by a tall window. “Loretta, however… We had some differences.”
“Indeed. I was quite fond of her once,” Eugenia replied, tapping her cane gently on the floor. “But over time, she grew into her ambitions. Deceptive little ways. I stopped inviting her altogether once I noticed how carefully she chose her company.”
April nodded slowly. “Do you think… Theo might have ever—”
“Heavens, no!” Eugenia interrupted. “He tolerated her. That was all. My sister raised Theo to be polite, so he never declined her company. But fondness? Affection? Never.”
That answer eased something tight in April’s chest.
They exited through the rear doors into the garden, the morning sun already warming the stone steps. Tulip barked once and padded off into the rose bushes.
“Your gardens are much improved,” Eugenia said as they sat on a wrought iron bench beneath a blooming arch. “You’ve made this place your own.”
April gazed out over the trimmed hedges, the lemon trees, the neat rows of late-blooming violets.
“I only wanted it to feel like a home.”
Eugenia placed a gloved hand over hers. “And so it does. You are doing beautifully, April. And whatever ghosts linger here, I think you may just be the one to banish them.”
If only I could be sure which ghosts are still walking, April thought, and which ones have yet to rise.
Eugenia looked around the garden, her gaze drifting to the hothouse at the far end where sunlight glinted off the glass panes like old silver. “Caroline, Theo’s mother—rest her soul—adored her plants,” she said softly, a faint smile curling her lips.
“She defied every rule of propriety to tend those little flowers herself. Rare orchids, some of them. She had a special fondness for snowdrops. Once, she snuck out during a dinner party just to check whether her morning glories had opened.”
April’s brows lifted with quiet delight. “Did she?”
“She did. Your husband’s stubborn streak? That is all her doing.”
April smiled, imagining a much younger Theo running after his mother in the gardens. “Theo does not speak much of her.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Eugenia said, her eyes far off. “Her death carved him up. But she was a bright woman—soft-spoken, yes, but with a spine of steel. She loved all her children with the kind of devotion that terrifies you because you knew she’d tear the world apart if anything happened to them.”
April was quiet a moment, letting the image sink in. “Rebecca?” she prompted gently.
Eugenia’s expression shifted, her smile touched now by something deeper.
“A firecracker. That girl was never still. Always running, climbing, shouting. She laughed like a banshee and sang like a songbird. Once, she rode a pony through the halls of Stone Hall, shrieking like an . She had a way of making everything feel like a story. Every game a battle, every teatime an event.”
April laughed softly. “She sounds impossible not to love.”
“She was,” Eugenia said, wistful now. “Her absence left a hole. One of the noisy kinds, if you understand me.”
“And Nathaniel?” April asked gently.
“Too small to know much of,” Eugenia replied. “But Theo adored him. Would carry him everywhere. He had this way of humming to him—some half-remembered lullaby that always worked. It was a tender thing, watching him become a brother.”
They sat in a moment of soft silence, the kind that didn’t need filling.
Then Eugenia let out a long breath and looked out toward the trees that ringed the garden. “I thank God Theo lived.”
April turned to her, curiosity stirred. “What do you mean?”
“There was a summer—he had come home from Eton—he was sixteen, I think. Strong and proud, full of all the bravado that comes with that age. One evening, we were dining outdoors. He raised his glass and went white. Collapsed right there at the table.”
April’s breath stilled. “What happened?”
“Fevered, trembling, he drifted in and out of sense. The surgeons bled him until he was grey. Leeches, purging, the whole awful arsenal. Nothing worked. And then—” Eugenia paused, shaking her head as though it was still a marvel, “—a young farmer appeared. Barely more than a boy himself. Claimed to know his herbs though I suspect he had more knowledge than all the so-called professionals combined. He brewed a vile, steaming tea that made the whole house stink of roots and bark. It saved him.”
April blinked. “You mean… Theo was poisoned?”
“They never found out what it was,” Eugenia said. “But all agreed it had to be poison. Something insidious. He’d been unwell all day, and we’d thought it was summer heat. But no. It was something meant to harm him.”
April’s hand tightened in her lap. “And no one was caught?”
“Not a soul,” Eugenia said. “It vanished as quickly as it came. We told no one beyond the estate. The family had been through too much already. But I watched him teeter on the edge for three days, and now, I watch him hold steady because of you.” She reached over and took April’s hand. “You make him lighter. Do you see it?”
April nodded faintly, but a chill had begun to coil at the base of her spine. She looked out across the garden where Tulip was waddling determinedly after a butterfly, her soft snorts blending with birdsong.
Theo was poisoned, and I was pushed.
The thought pressed against her chest like a stone. Could these two events—years apart—truly be coincidence?
Is it possible these things are related?