Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Andrew had not expected his countryside estate to look unchanged.
It was foolish, perhaps. Houses did not alter their windows, their chimneys, or the curve of their avenues merely because a man returned with his life in disorder.
Yet as the carriage passed beneath the bare branches and drew up before the familiar stone steps, he felt a strange resentment that the estate should appear so calm.
The child slept in the crook of his arm.
She had protested much of the journey, then exhausted herself into that heavy infant sleep which made her seem at once impossibly fragile and impossibly trusting.
Her little cheek was warm against his coat.
One fist had closed around the edge of his cravat with the air of a general claiming territory.
Andrew looked down at her.
“You have strong opinions about travel,” he murmured.
The baby made no answer. The front door opened before the footman could reach it.
Mrs. Turner appeared first, her cap slightly crooked from haste, with Mr. Turner close behind her.
Both stopped upon the threshold at the sight of him.
Their eyes moved from Andrew’s face to the child in his arms, then to the carriage behind him, as though expecting Frances to descend next.
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Turner said, recovering herself first. “We did not look for you so soon.”
“No,” Andrew replied. “I imagine not.”
Mr. Turner stepped down at once to take Andrew’s hat and gloves, though his gaze remained troubled. “Is Her Grace not with you?”
The question was simply asked. It struck too hard.
“She remains in London.”
Mrs. Turner’s expression changed. There wasn’t only surprise in there, but also understanding, and something very much like sorrow.
“I see,” she replied.
Andrew doubted that she did. He doubted anyone could see the shape of what had happened unless they had stood in his study and watched Frances’ face close against him.
He shifted the baby carefully. “The nursery must be prepared.”
“It is ready enough,” Mrs. Turner said at once, moving toward him. “Give her here, Your Grace. Poor lamb, she’ll want feeding after the journey.”
Andrew hesitated. It was only a moment, but Mrs. Turner noticed. She always noticed more than was comfortable.
Her face softened. “I will not take her far, Your Grace.”
He surrendered the child with reluctance he did not bother to conceal. The baby stirred, whimpered once, then settled against Mrs. Turner’s experienced shoulder as though she had never belonged anywhere else.
“There now,” Mrs. Turner murmured. “You are home, little one.”
Home.
Andrew looked away. They entered the hall, where the air smelled faintly of wood smoke, beeswax, and the damp earth carried in from the grounds.
Everything was familiar, from the worn runner upon the stairs and the portraits along the wall, to the carved table where his father had once thrown letters he did not wish to read.
It should have steadied him. Yet, it did not.
Mr. Turner closed the door against the cold and followed him into the small morning room, where a fire had already been lit.
Mrs. Turner took the baby upstairs with one of the maids, but Andrew knew she would return.
There were questions in her, and neither she nor her husband had ever been skilled at pretending ignorance when duty was involved.
He was standing by the window when they came in a quarter hour later. Mrs. Turner shut the door. That, more than anything, told him they meant to speak plainly.
“You have had trouble,” she told him wisely.
Andrew gave a faint, humorless breath. “That is one word for it.”
Mr. Turner remained near the hearth, with his hands folded before him. “Has it to do with the gossip, Your Grace?”
“Yes.”
“And Her Grace?”
Andrew turned from the window. “Lady Ravenshaw approached my wife.”
Mrs. Turner’s brows drew together. “Lady Ravenshaw?”
“She gave Frances a letter. One meant to suggest that Mary’s child is mine.”
Mrs. Turner went very still. Mr. Turner muttered something under his breath which sounded distinctly unfit for a morning room.
Andrew’s mouth tightened. “Indeed.”
“But the child is not yours,” Mrs. Turner said.
“No.”
“And Her Grace knows that?”
“I told her so.”
Mrs. Turner watched him. “And did you tell her the rest?”
Andrew said nothing. The answer was apparently clear enough.
Mrs. Turner drew herself up. “Your Grace.”
“Do not.”
“I must.”
“No,” Andrew said, more sharply than he intended. “You must not.”
The room fell silent.
Then Mr. Turner spoke, more quietly than his wife but no less firm. “Mary asked you to protect the child.”
“I am aware.”
“She did not ask you to destroy your marriage.”
Andrew’s gaze cut to him. Mr. Turner did not look away.
Andrew crossed to the mantel and laid one hand upon it.
He could still see Mary’s face in the upper chamber of this very house: pale, damp with fever, eyes too large in a face already emptied by pain.
He could still hear her voice, faint yet urgent.
Protect the child. Let no one know.
“She was afraid,” Andrew reminded them all. “Not merely ashamed. Afraid. She told me the father was a married viscount and that if his name were spoken, the child would be in danger. She died with that fear in her.”
Mrs. Turner’s expression softened, but not enough to yield. “I know.”
“I gave her my word.”
“And you have kept it.”
“Not well enough.”
“You took the child in. You gave her your name’s protection. You stood between her and scandal.”
“And now scandal has found her, regardless.”
“Because someone else is twisting the silence,” Mrs. Turner clarified. “That is my point.”
Andrew looked at her.
She stepped nearer. “Your wife deserves the truth.”
He closed his eyes for one brief moment. There it was again, the truth, spoken as though it were a simple key and not a blade that might cut in every direction.
“When I have proof,” he told them, opening his eyes, “she shall have it.”
Mrs. Turner’s mouth pressed into a line. “Proof?”
“I will not accuse the wrong man because suspicion suits my wishes. I will not speak Mary’s story into drawing rooms because it would ease my own position. And I will not break faith with the dead without certainty.”
“No one is asking you to speak it into drawing rooms,” Mrs. Turner urged. “Only to your wife.”
“My wife would ask questions I cannot yet answer.”
“Then answer what you can.”
“I have.”
“Have you?” she asked softly.
The words found their mark with dreadful ease. Andrew turned away. For a moment, no one spoke. The fire shifted low in the grate. Somewhere above, the baby cried once, then quieted, and all three of them looked toward the ceiling. That small cry seemed to settle the matter more firmly in him.
“I will not give her up,” Andrew assured them.
Mrs. Turner’s eyes filled, though her voice remained steady. “No one here would ask it of you.”
“If Ravenshaw is the father–”
“Then he is a dangerous man,” Mr. Turner finished.
Andrew looked at him. “Mary said the father would harm the child if the truth came out.”
Mrs. Turner’s face had gone pale. “She told you that?”
“Not in those exact words, but near enough. I think Ravenshaw’s wife came to Frances with a forged or altered letter. I think Mary said the father was a viscount. I think Lady Ravenshaw had reason to fear the truth.” His hand tightened upon the mantle. “But thinking is not proof.”
Mr. Turner nodded slowly. “Mary left few things behind.”
“I know.”
“They are still upstairs,” Mrs. Turner said. “In the old blue room. I could not bring myself to send them away.”
Andrew looked at her.
“She had a chest,” Mrs. Turner continued. “Only clothes, mostly. A prayer book. A little novel or two. Some ribbons. Nothing of consequence, I thought.”
“Nothing is of no consequence now,” Andrew replied, but he knew that could easily change.
That afternoon, he went to the old blue room.
It had been Mary’s during her final weeks, because it looked east over the orchard and caught the gentlest morning light.
Now the shutters were half-closed, and the air smelled of cold linen, lavender, and dust. A narrow bed stood against the wall.
The coverlet had been folded away. The washstand was bare.
In the corner rested the chest. Andrew stood before it longer than he wished to admit.
He had faced creditors at twenty. He had managed failing estates.
He had buried both parents. He had held a dying woman’s hand while promising to protect a child he had never intended to love.
Yet opening that chest felt like intrusion.
At last, he knelt and lifted the lid.
Mary’s belongings lay inside in careful order.
Mrs. Turner’s doing, no doubt. He found a folded grey gown, a shawl mended neatly at one corner, two caps, a blue ribbon, faded nearly white, a small bundle of letters tied with thread, which were all ordinary—just notes from a cousin, a receipt, a scrap of verse copied in an uncertain hand.
Andrew examined each item with care and found nothing. There was no confession, no name and no proof.
He searched beneath the lining, inside the sleeves of gowns, between folded linens, and found nothing but the plain remains of a woman who had owned very little and lost even that.
Then, at the bottom of the chest, he found a book and took it out. It was a worn little volume of poetry, with the corners softened and several pages dog-eared. He opened it without expectation. The spine cracked faintly.
A letter slipped out and fell to the floor. Andrew went still. For a moment, he did not reach for it. The paper lay face down upon the boards, folded once, sealed no longer but still marked faintly where wax had been broken. When he lifted it, he saw the impression.
A raven.
It wasn’t cleanly preserved, but it was clear enough.
Ravenshaw.
His pulse slowed until it seemed each beat came with effort. The letter was addressed in a firm masculine hand.
Miss Mary Collins.
Andrew unfolded it. The words within were brief.
Mary,
You will be silent. If you have any regard for the child you carry, you will not speak my name to Sinclair, to his servants, or to any other living soul. Do not mistake his charity for power. He cannot protect what he does not understand.
If you force my hand, the child will not live long enough to trouble either of us.
Remain where you are. Say nothing. Destroy this.
R.
The room seemed to empty of air. For several seconds, he could hear only the faint rasp of paper beneath his fingers and the distant caw of rooks beyond the orchard. Sunlight lay thin and cold across the floorboards. Dust moved in it like ash.
There was no room left for doubt. The father had blood, rank, and a wife who could never know.
A married viscount. Daniel Carrington, the Viscount of Ravenshaw.
Andrew’s hand closed slowly around the letter, not crushing it, though the desire to do so passed through him with violent force.
Mary had kept this hidden in a book, perhaps too frightened to destroy it, perhaps hoping someone would one day find it if she did not live.
She had been right to be afraid. She had not been foolish, nor weak, nor needlessly secretive.
She had been threatened. And Andrew, in keeping her secret, had allowed another lie to take root around Frances.
He rose.
The old blue room, silent since Mary’s death, seemed suddenly full of her fear.
He felt it in the folded gowns, the faded ribbon, the little book left behind.
He felt it in the words on the page, in the cold certainty that the child sleeping downstairs had been marked for danger before she had even drawn breath.
No more.
He would not expose the baby to gossip if he could prevent it. He would not throw Mary’s name to the wolves of society. But Ravenshaw would answer for this. The man had hidden behind his wife, behind Andrew’s silence, behind the vulnerability of a dead woman and an infant no one could defend.
Andrew folded the letter carefully and placed it inside his coat. Then, he went to the window and looked out across the estate, toward the long road that led back to London.
Frances deserved the truth. And now, at last, he had proof enough to give it.