Chapter 17 #2
She could have let this all go and focused on her marriage to Darius, but she couldn’t get Mrs. Crell’s face out of her mind.
That poor woman had been so excited about an afternoon tea with Meredith, and Mr. Crell done something to her.
Meredith knew it deep in her bones. And she could not let such a wretched injustice go unpunished.
Mr. Chelsea appeared in the doorway and announced Warren’s arrival. Meredith instructed him to be shown in at once.
Warren soon entered the drawing room, passing his hat and gloves to Chelsea. His usual teasing smile was gone, and in its place was a somber expression that made her feel uneasy.
“Did you deliver the letter without being seen?” she asked once Chelsea had left them alone.
Warren nodded solemnly. “I hid in the woods and saw Crell receive the letter from a footman at the door.”
She absorbed this new information, her plan was coming together.
“What is next in this dangerous plan of yours?” His tone wasn’t exactly disapproving, but clearly he had his concerns.
“If he read the letter, he will be in his garden at seven o’clock tonight,” she explained, twisting her fingers nervously in her skirt. “Next, I will send a note to Mr. Doyle, asking him to wait in Darius’s garden, by the…”
She paused as a flash of a memory hit. Darius stood shoulder to shoulder with her, trying to discern what was transpiring on the other side of the wall. “By the heart-shaped hole in the wall. Then he will hear Crell’s confession.”
“Ideally,” Warren murmured.
“Yes,” Meredith agreed, reaching out to touch Warren’s arm briefly before asking, “And you will be hiding nearby, just in case things do not unfold as I hope they will.”
Warren nodded in understanding, but he did not look pleased.
“Good,” Meredith said. “Then I believe we may just catch a murderer tonight.”
Meredith felt no joy at the thought, but she was determined.
She had to do something for Mrs. Crell, and whatever fate befell her.
Like Minerva Crell, Meredith had felt alone for many years.
Even though Uncle Ben had given her a wonderful home, she’d always felt like a guest there.
She wasn’t Ben’s daughter, no matter how much she’d grown up wishing she was.
A woman alone in the world deserved to have someone care about them, and Meredith cared about Minerva Crell. Even if no one else did.
“Meredith, why does it need to be you who meets with Crell? I would readily take your place.”
“I appreciate that, but it must be me, Warren. As a woman, he will underestimate me. He will be more likely to confess to me, because he will think I have no power to prove his guilt.”
“He will also think that he can easily remove you if you are a threat to him,” Warren countered. “You are exposing yourself to far too much risk, even with Doyle and myself nearby to protect you. Trapped men become desperate, and desperate men are dangerous. Is catching this man worth your life?”
Meredith rubbed her arms and looked toward the drawing-room windows.
“It might make little sense to you, but I believe that Mrs. Crell and I are similar creatures. She was alone, unwanted, and I believe her husband erased her for the crime of being inconvenient. She did not deserve that. Women are often overlooked, hurt, and erased from life by the violent desires of men.” She held her head high as she met Warren’s gaze.
“I don’t want Mr. Crell to get away with whatever he’s done.
If he killed his wife, he shouldn’t be at liberty to live his life, not when he stole Minerva’s. ”
“You really believe he killed her then?” She studied him as he asked this, and she found a hint of uncomfortable resignation mixed with the barest hint of admiration which steeled her spine and her resolve to defend what she was certain had happened.
“Isn’t is possible that, rather than reconcile, they agreed to live apart? He stays with his mistress, and she with relatives? No one wants to draw attention to a broken marriage.”
She shook her head. “The scream I heard the night of the ball was human. I know it was. There’s been too much I’ve seen, too much I’ve heard coming from that house to think that whatever happened between Crell and his wife was innocent.
I saw her flinch when she moved and she mentioned bruises.
I should have known something was wrong. ”
“No one wants to assume something terrible has happened to someone. You cannot take that blame upon yourself.”
“I must catch him…I owe it to her. You believe me, don’t you? That he truly did it?”
She saw a hint of uncomfortable resignation mixed with a hint of admiration when she asked him this, which only steeled her resolve.
Warren took a deep breath. “I believe you.” She hadn’t realized until that moment that she needed to hear those words.
Warren stepped up to the window next to her, his expression full of unexpected tenderness, like that of an elder brother, or what she’d always imagined having an elder brother might feel like.
“And, might I add, you aren’t alone. Perhaps you were once, before you came here. But now? Even if you weren’t marrying Darius, you would always have a home at Devil’s Square with all of us.”
Those words were everything to her. She finally believed she could have the life she’d always dreamed of having, with Darius at her side and in her heart. The thought sent another pang of guilt through her chest, knowing she’d betrayed his trust by keeping silent on her plan.
“If you haven’t learned by now, we protect our own. And you most certainly are one of us.” He gently squeezed her shoulder in that same brotherly way, which melted her heart. “Never doubt it, Meredith.” His smile returned as he winked. “I should be back at dusk.”
* * *
Meredith spent the remainder of the afternoon discussing her trousseau with Frances and assisting Mr. Chelsea with wedding arrangements.
“Do you think we should hire a housekeeper for the townhouse?” she asked the butler, wondering if he might take offense at the idea.
“I would quite appreciate that, Ms. Montague,” the butler confessed in a rare show of openness.
“Your Grace has Mrs. Ledbetter in the country, but I am on my own here and not getting any younger. After his father died, our previous housekeeper left, as she did not wish to take care of a young bachelor duke, believing that his title and wealth would go to his head as it does many young men. It did not however, as you can see, His Grace is the epitome of good manners and does well with economizing. But we could certainly use a housekeeper’s expertise now that I imagine we will be entertaining with a lovely young duchess in the house. ”
She blushed at the butler’s sweet compliment.
“Then I shall ask Darius to hire one. In the meantime, Frances and I can assist you in whatever is required.”
“I would like to have charge of the menu for the wedding breakfast and the dinner reception the night before the ceremony,” Mr. Chelsea replied, and began to describe what he thought would be enticing courses.
Not for the first time, Meredith felt truly accepted by Darius’s staff.
When she first arrived, she had only hoped to be tolerated by them, yet they had been as welcoming as Darius’s friends.
Mr. Chelsea trusted her and agreed with her decisions, just as any good butler would for the future mistress of his household.
I will make this home even more wonderful for Darius and everyone else, myself included, she thought with pride. She’d had a decent amount of practice helping Uncle Ben’s housekeeper run a household and believed she would do well here.
* * *
Warren and Mr. Doyle arrived shortly before seven o’clock.
It was time to spring her trap and catch a murderer.
Doyle listened patiently as she explained her intentions and, with a nod to Warren, took up position by the heart-shaped hole in the wall.
Warren climbed over the garden wall and caught Meredith when she followed him, setting her gently on the ground.
“Where would you like me to hide?” he asked as he searched the gardens for a prospective hiding spot.
“Perhaps inside the shed? I know it’s a ways off, but everything else is too exposed, and you can see through the window without being noticed.”
“Very well. Be careful,” Warren said.
Meredith held her breath, her fingers twisting against each other as she waited to see if Crell would come.
She paced in a tight circle, then stopped, stared up at the evening sky, feeling stiff and a little cold as an evening chill settled in the air.
Surely it was half past seven o’clock now.
The light was fading, and the gardens were now wreathed in purple shadows.
In that seemingly endless span of time alone, doubts began to creep upon her. What if Warren was right? What if Mrs. Crell was alive and living somewhere else to keep their separate discrete?
Darius had abandoned trying to catch Crell, and had gone on with his life.
Should she have done the same? What if this was all some fevered dream she’d had after first meeting Minerva Crell in the gardens?
What if the fighting she’d overhead and the unhappy marriage she’d witnessed through the windows of the Crell house had been a violent fantasy she’d conjured when peering through those opera glasses and not the truth?
No. The memory of that scream she’d heard was too real to be imagined. The circumstances of Crell’s move away from the city too suspicious. Something terrible had happened to Minerva. She couldn’t let herself be convinced otherwise.
But what if Crell didn’t come? She had no other way to catch him without finding evidence, evidence he had certainly disposed of given that Doyle’s search of the gardens had come up empty.
A soft step on the path jerked Meredith from her inner thoughts. She strained to see the figure that emerged from behind a rhododendron bush at the far end of the garden.