Chapter 24
The first thing she felt was the scratch of fabric against her cheek. She blinked her eyes open.
She saw him. Julian lay beside her. The events of the previous evening flooded back at once—Marianne’s husband appearing out of the dark, the way she and Julian had worked together to fend the man off, and the way she had broken down afterwards.
Julian had been there for her. He had held her when she needed holding, and then he had slept beside her.
She was vaguely aware that at some point, when the light outside had already begun its slow battle against the night, she had turned and wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder.
She had known she ought not to. She had been too exhausted from the restless night to do anything else.
She glanced down and saw that her arm still lay across his stomach, his hand resting on top of hers.
She removed her hand and put distance between them. He stirred in his sleep and rolled to his side. Did he know they had slept like that? Curled together, her head on his shoulder, his hand over hers?
She did not know. She was not entirely sure she wanted to.
Quietly, she got out of bed and stepped into the adjacent dressing room.
Water had already been delivered at some point through the separate door as was the custom.
She attended to her morning toilet and dressed herself, and by the time she stepped back into the main room, Julian was awake.
He had likewise already dressed though a slight stubble was visible along his jaw and chin.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she replied. “Did you sleep well?”
He smiled. “As well as can be expected. Which is to say, quite terribly.”
“The same,” she said.
“Well.” He pressed his hands together. “Let us go downstairs and see about breakfast. I cannot promise much from a place like this, but we ought to try. Then the docks.”
“Yes, and we should find Marianne and Nell first to make sure that both they and the children are well.”
“We will do that first. I will speak to Frederick again before we set out. What do you think?”
“A very good idea,” she replied.
They left the room together and made their way downstairs. Breakfast was indeed being served—hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese, assorted cold meats, and small ale. She sat down to eat while Julian went to attend to his conversation with Frederick. Marianne joined her after a few minutes.
“The children are fed. Nell has taken them for a walk in a park nearby. The coachmen are both with her.”
“Good, thank you. Are you well?” Clara asked.
Marianne nodded. “Charlie has been taken by the constables and will not trouble me again. His assault on His Grace will only count further against him.” She paused. “I did have to tell Frederick who you really are, however.”
“Oh,” Clara said. “I suppose he will not be very disposed to help us now.”
Marianne smiled. “I think he is after seeing how His Grace conducted himself last night and you as well. Although I do not think he knows any more than he has already told us.”
“I feared as much,” Clara said and took a bite of the cheese which had already gone hard around the edges.
“I do want to thank you,” Marianne said, “for supporting me last night.” She reached across the table and took Clara’s hand.
“You are most welcome. You put yourself at considerable risk by coming here at all.”
Marianne retrieved her hand. “Perhaps. But it had to be dealt with sooner or later.” She glanced up. “Here is His Grace now.”
Julian slipped into the chair beside Clara and reached for a piece of bread. He pulled off the crust, set it aside, and rolled the center absently into a ball.
“Well,” he said, “Frederick has told us everything he knows. There is nothing more to be done here but go down to the docks and hope we can speak to someone who will allow us to see the ship manifest.”
“Would you like me to come?” Marianne asked.
Julian shook his head. “No. I do not think three people will accomplish more than two at the docks. But if you would not mind, ask some of your acquaintances here about Arabella and the gentlemen who were with her.”
They were in full agreement. After the meal was finished, Julian and Clara set off.
They made their way down to the docks where they managed to speak to the dockmaster. After being paid a handsome sum for his trouble, the man allowed them to look at the ship manifests. They worked from the present backwards, as that was how the manifests were arranged.
“I have her,” Julian said after just a few minutes. “This is her return. She crossed from Calais, and Giacomo was with her. His surname appears to be Vitello. There is a record that a small child was with them, and they are recorded as husband and wife.”
“That makes sense. It would have been safer.” Clara thought for a moment. “I wonder if she goes by Arabella Vitello now. Simply to keep up the pretense.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “I will pass that to Mr. Stanhope and see if it proves of any use.”
They turned back through the many pages to the period when Arabella would first have left England. They sat in the dockmaster’s small office while the man himself dozed on a stool in the corner.
When Clara looked up, she saw dust motes turning slowly on shafts of morning light.
It was quite plain that the office had not been cleaned since the turn of the last century, if not considerably longer.
A stack of ledgers in the corner leaned at an angle that suggested they had formed their own views on the matter and intended to stay as they were.
She glanced at Julian beside her.
He really was not the man he had been. It was not that he had ever been a bad man, but there had been something closed about him whenever she had seen him at assemblies over the years or in company with Arabella.
As though he had built walls around himself so high you could barely make him out behind them.
She had always sensed them. She had never been able to see past them, not entirely, until recently.
Those walls had come down. At least a little.
“Why are you smiling at me?” he asked without looking up from the manifest.
“You are looking at a ship’s manifest. How do you know I am smiling?”
“I can feel your eyes burning a hole in the side of my head.”
“That does not explain how you know what my mouth is doing.”
He turned to her, his head dipped slightly to one side. “Then what is it doing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I was only thinking about last night. About how proud I am of the man you have become. That is all.”
“Oh,” he said and sounded genuinely taken aback. He had clearly been expecting something rather different, something he could parry.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “I suppose I ought to thank you for the compliment.” He paused.
“You have changed rather pleasantly yourself. I was not certain what your time in Scotland would do to you, but I have to say it has made you more capable and more determined than I think you knew you were. I did not think the girl who once nearly fainted from not eating because she wished to fit into a particular costume had it in her to fell an assailant with a candleholder.”
“I shall take that as a compliment,” she said.
“You should,” he replied. Then he glanced back at the ledger and turned a page before stabbing it with his index finger. “There. I knew we were close.”
She got up and stood beside him, leaning over so that their arms pressed together.
There on the page was Arabella’s name. Miss A. Ashford. She had departed England for France eleven months ago.
She calculated quickly. David was now three months old. Arabella had most certainly already been with child when they left. That man had lured her away knowing full well what he intended. He had wanted the child from the very beginning.
She pushed the thought aside. She would not let the same wave of fear and panic that had overtaken her the night before take her again in the middle of a dockmaster’s office. She would not accomplish anything if she did.
“Is there a man listed with her?” she asked.
They looked over the entry carefully. There were no first names at all.
Julian closed the manifest. “That was not as fruitful as I had hoped. I had thought this ship might have listed its passengers by full name as the one they returned on had done. It seems ships may record their passengers as they see fit.”
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Inform our investigator of what we have found and continue searching. We know she was in London after her return. Perhaps we can make enquiries at inns along the road and see if anyone remembers her or Giacomo.”
“That seems unlikely to lead to very much,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “But truthfully, I do not know what else we can do at present. At least this trip was not for naught.”
He looked at her with a small smile which she returned.
She was not quite sure what exactly he meant by that. She suspected it had rather less to do with ship manifests than he let on. And she suspected, if she was being honest with herself, that she felt precisely the same way.