Chapter Sixteen #3
She didn’t answer immediately because suddenly, without warning, images began flooding her vision—memories long suppressed rushing back with devastating clarity. Her mother on the study floor, blood pooling beneath her golden hair. Lord Wentworth standing over her corpse.
Before that scene, she saw her father reaching for the heavy silver candlestick, moving with terrifying swiftness as her mother tried desperately to flee. The sickening crack as it connected with Lady Wentworth’s skull. Her mother crumpling like a broken doll.
Rose whimpered as another memory surfaced. Her father ripping the mask from the lifeless body, holding it aloft like a trophy as he whispered, “You have done this to yourself.”
“I remember,” Rose whispered, her voice barely audible.
Vertigo seized her, and she could no longer stand. Her knees buckled, sending her tumbling onto the damp grass at Sebastian’s feet.
He immediately knelt beside her, his voice urgent with concern. “Rose, what do you remember?”
She clutched desperately at her silk skirts, still trapped in that long-ago night. The study had reeked of candle wax and her father’s cigars. “He used the candlestick. She tried to escape, but he was too quick, too strong.”
“You witnessed it?”
“Yes. I saw everything.” The suppressed memories felt like shards of ice in her chest. Until this moment, she had forgotten. Her mind had protected her from the unbearable truth.
“Where were you hidden? Why weren’t you abed at such an hour?”
Excellent questions. How had she seen them? Why had she been awake? She closed her eyes, forcing herself to return fully to that terrible night.
She had awakened because of noise from the ball below, disoriented and frightened in the darkness.
“I woke wanting my mother. I went searching for her and ended up in Father’s study.
But I heard them approaching down the corridor, arguing violently.
I didn’t want them to discover me there and face punishment, so I hid in the closet. ”
Her eyes flew open as the full horror returned. She trembled so violently her teeth chattered together. “Oh, Sebastian, I watched it all happen.”
“Tell me,” Sebastian said gently. “I’m here with you. He cannot harm you now. I know it’s agonizing, but let the memories play out.”
She nodded, steeling herself to witness it all again. Through the wardrobe’s narrow slats, she had seen her parents before his desk, voices raised in furious argument.
“I know what you’ve done,” Lady Wentworth said, her usually gentle voice sharp as steel.
“What is it you believe you know?” Lord Wentworth replied with deceptive calm.
Lady Wentworth lifted her chin, delicate features drawn tight with righteous fury.
“I overheard White tonight, boasting of how vast his wealth has grown and why. You’re his partner in this smuggling venture?
French brandy? Oh, Richard, how could you?
Lord Ashford told me everything he’s suspected of you this very night.
You’ve deceived me all these years, used Papa’s money to fund criminal enterprises. He would be appalled.”
“You’ve enjoyed a comfortable existence, dearest. Why should you care how I provide it?” His voice turned to flint. “How dare you flaunt Lord Ashford before me.”
“It’s my inheritance you’ve squandered, or have you forgotten you were penniless when we wed?”
“Women cannot hold property, you little fool. Everything belongs to me now. You exist to bear me an heir and look decorative. Neither of which you’ve accomplished satisfactorily.”
“Rose should be sufficient. She’s perfect in every way.”
“She’s not a son.”
“You’re avoiding the subject, as always. What if I were to inform the magistrate of everything I’ve learned? What then?”
Lord Wentworth sighed, shaking his head as if she were a child throwing a tantrum. “No, you won’t risk that. You’d lose everything if I were arrested.”
“You would lose everything. Not I. I have Rose, and she’s all I require. I’d rather live in poverty than with a criminal.”
And then he moved, swift as a striking serpent. He reached behind him for the heavy silver candlestick, the one Rose had been warned never to touch lest she drop it on her foot.
She could still hear her father’s labored breathing as he stood over the motionless body. He crouched beside her mother for a long moment, tilting his head as if examining a painting, then violently stripped the mask from her neck.
In the wardrobe, Rose’s small fingers clamped over her mouth, her tiny chest rising and falling in panicked, silent gasps. Mummy. Mummy.
Lord Wentworth pried up the loose floorboard and thrust the mask into the hiding place before replacing the wood. Finally, he walked from the room as casually as if he were merely fetching his evening tea. She heard his footsteps fade down the corridor.
“He concealed the mask beneath a floorboard, then simply left her there,” Rose said to Sebastian, tearing herself from the past. “I crept from the wardrobe, desperate to reach Mummy, but Mary appeared. She told me not to touch anything and hurried me upstairs. She rushed me to my chamber and made me promise never to tell anyone what I’d seen.
She said I must forget it all, that everything would be well again. ”
“But it wasn’t,” Sebastian said softly.
“Mary must have heard the entire confrontation and rushed in to protect me from discovery.”
“We were right. She knew more than she admitted,” Sebastian said.
“She was only thirteen herself—barely more than a child.”
Sebastian took her trembling, gloved hands in his steady ones. “Two children who witnessed something so heinous that at least one of you buried the memory to survive it.”
“I remember everything now.” The words felt like liberation and condemnation combined.
“If we can locate that mask and convince Mary to accompany us to the constable with your testimony maybe we can finally have justice.”
A voice cut through the night air behind them, coldly precise and calculating: “How very touching.”
Rose spun around in horror.
Baron White stood at the garden’s entrance. His mask had been discarded, revealing a face flushed with exertion and drink. Yet, his eyes were sharp, predatory, entirely sober.
“I must confess, I’ve been listening for some time,” White said conversationally, stepping closer with measured precision.
“Such a fascinating tale. Lord Wentworth’s confession overheard on the terrace.
Your recovered memories of that tragic night twelve years past. The location of crucial evidence.
” His smile was reptilian. “Most illuminating indeed.”
Rose’s blood turned to ice as understanding crashed over her. He had heard everything.
“You see, my dear,” White continued, his tone almost pleasant, “you’ve just provided me with the most valuable currency in existence—information that could destroy your father completely. The question now becomes—what shall I do with such power?”
Sebastian stepped protectively in front of Rose, but White merely chuckled.
“No need for heroics, gardener. I’m not here to harm anyone.
Quite the contrary. I’m here to make a proposal.
” His gaze fixed on Rose with calculating intensity.
“You see, Lady Rose, I no longer require your father’s partnership.
With what I’ve just learned, I can control him entirely.
His smuggling operation, his fortune, his very freedom. All mine to command.”
“What do you want?” Rose whispered.
“Ah, the pertinent question.” White’s smile widened.
“I want you to marry me tomorrow, exactly as planned. You will be the perfect, dutiful wife. You will never speak of what transpired tonight, what you remember, or where any evidence might be hidden. In return, I will allow your father to live out his days in comfortable ignorance rather than at the end of a rope.”
Rose felt the trap closing around her. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I shall present everything I’ve heard tonight to the proper authorities.
Your father hangs for murder, you face charges as an accessory after the fact for concealing evidence, and your precious gardener here meets the same fate as his father.
Though this time for the very real crime of trespassing and conspiracy.
” White’s voice remained maddeningly calm.
“The choice is entirely yours, my dear. A comfortable marriage to me, or the gallows for everyone you hold dear.”
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant sound of laughter from the ballroom. Rose realized with growing horror that White had outmaneuvered them all. He didn’t need violence or threats. He held their very lives in his calculating hands.
“I’ll give you until tomorrow morning to decide,” White said pleasantly. “Though I suspect you already know there’s truly only one choice, don’t you?”