Chapter Six
“Constance? Are you well?”
Solomon’s concerned voice broke into her misery like a knife. She was sitting on the edge of the bed feeling as if she existed only of nausea. But as soon as he spoke, she jumped up, smiling.
“Just thinking,” she said, and began to walk jauntily toward the washstand.
He caught her hand, holding her back. She had to look at him, so she lifted her brows as though surprised by his reaction. He was frowning. “You did not seem well yesterday, either. Perhaps the Harveys’ doctor—”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
Still, he didn’t release her hand or her gaze. “Constance…you are not keeping something from me, are you? For what you imagine might be my own good?”
It was a reasonable assumption, considering. But she laughed and bent to kiss his forehead. “Of course not, daft man. I am hale and hearty and ready to investigate. Or I will be with some clothes on.”
To her relief, his brow smoothed and he let her go. “Then I’ll race you. Last person dressed questions the servants.”
She immediately splashed water over her face and heard him laugh softly as he padded across to his dressing room. The door closed behind him, and she reached for the towel.
What are you doing, Constance? She had crossed that invisible line between keeping her own counsel and lying. To Solomon.
She was keeping something from him, something she had told herself she had to be sure of before she told him, something that was unexpectedly hard to think about and she didn’t know why.
She patted her face and neck dry and set about completing her ablutions while mental chaos did nothing to calm her physical discomfort.
It was time. Why was she keeping this from her own husband?
Because she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.
With something like longing, she remembered their honeymoon in Venice and the few hours when she had believed she might be carrying Solomon’s child.
Happiness had flooded her, helping her endure the dreadful sickness of poisoning.
Realizing the truth had made her cry with disappointment and grief for what had not been.
And yet now that she knew, now that new life really was forming inside her, she felt overwhelmed with uncertainty, with fear. She didn’t even know why. She was just aware she could not deal with it now. She was not ready. She didn’t know what it meant for her, for Solomon, for Silver and Grey.
And so she said nothing, when she owed him everything.
Telling him was the only option, so why keep so stupidly silent?
Because it was not the only option. No one knew more than Constance about avoiding conception. And along the way, she had inevitably gathered other information about what to do when it was too late.
Her stomach gave a dry heave that forced her to stagger away from the washstand to the dressing table, where she sat down on the stool blindly, by feel. Dear God, what is the matter with me? I am carrying a child, Solomon’s child. My child.
And yet she couldn’t pretend the thought, however shocking, had not entered her head. Why am I not happy about this?
Tentatively, she placed one hand on her flat abdomen. Her secret, her wonder, that she was not yet ready to share, even with him. Was she happy? In the midst of nausea that got worse every morning and every time a carriage bumped and rattled her?
I am afraid.
Well, it was sensible to be afraid. Childbirth was the most dangerous experience most women ever faced.
But that wasn’t what she truly feared. She was afraid of the change this infant would bring—to the adventure of her life, the dangers she walked into when she only had herself to consider, most of all the changes to her relationship with Solomon.
When the child would come first, when their time alone together was over. There would be three, not two.
How much she had longed for that! An unspoken longing until Venice, when she had considered the real possibility.
And yet now, with the reality, she was frightened, uncertain, torn, like some of the poor girls she had rescued off the street.
Like Lizzie, now Lady Maule. Lizzie, living then husbandless in poverty and squalor, had had cause to fear both present and future. Constance did not.
And yet she felt it. The idea that the woman called Old Nursie had even entered her head. That frightened her more than anything else.
She became aware of her white face gazing back at her in the glass. At some point, she had donned her underwear and the autumnal-brown dress. There was little she could do about the shadows beneath her eyes, but she bit her lips to brighten their color and ungently patted her cheeks.
She had to sort this out and tell Solomon. Not necessarily in that order. Only how was she supposed to think with her stomach like a boiling cauldron of—
Solomon emerged from the dressing room, smart and elegant, almost dapper, from his neatly brushed hair to his shiny black shoes.
He picked up her hairbrush. “Breakfast. And then you get to question the servants.”
“So I do,” she managed, closing her eyes while he brushed out her hair in a soft, soothing rhythm. Surprisingly, breakfast sounded good. She opened her eyes and hastily wound her hair up and applied the pins. Anne, her maid, would not have been happy with the results, but it would do.
Solomon kissed her nape, making her shiver, and fastened the few hooks she had missed. Then he offered her his arm, and they went down to breakfast.
*
Almost as soon as she swallowed the first bite of dry toast, she began to feel better.
Which was fortunate, because they did not have the breakfast parlor to themselves.
Although Mrs. Harvey had remained in her room, Richard was applying himself to a large plate of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and kidneys, giving the impression that he was eating merely to fill in the time until they arrived.
It was his way of coping, of course. He had to do something, instruct people, focus on the arrest of his son’s killer rather than on the tragic death itself.
“What are your first steps to be?” he demanded.
Solomon, sitting down with a more modest plateful than his host, replied, “We must discover your son’s movements on Thursday, when and how he came to Channing, whom he saw, where he went.”
“Then I suppose you will want to call on That…on Adelaide Jenkins?”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll come with you,” Harvey stated. “Immediately after breakfast.”
Carefully, Constance did not look at Solomon. She spread a thin layer of butter on her second half slice of toast and reached for her cup of tea.
“To be blunt, sir,” Solomon said, “our inquiries are more likely to be successful if you are not with us.”
Harvey bristled.
“People won’t always tell the truth in the presence of a grieving father,” Constance said gently. “We will, of course, keep you closely apprised of anything we learn and ask you for assistance when necessary.”
“And for permission,” Solomon added. “To begin with, may we speak with your servants?”
Harvey blinked, his brows twitching. “Servants? Why would you want to speak to them?”
“They often notice things,” Solomon said vaguely.
“And they are often close-lipped about the family they serve,” Constance said, “so if you could instruct them to cooperate with our inquiries, the matter would be simpler. We don’t want them to imagine we suspect them of wrongdoing, or that we are looking for salacious gossip.
Anything we learn will be kept in confidence, if at all possible. ”
Harvey closed his mouth. Clearly, he hadn’t thought of such things, and couldn’t see the point, but eventually he nodded curtly. “I’ll tell Davis.”
Davis was the butler, so presumably word would trickle down. Harvey, however, seemed slightly forlorn. He didn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t occupied with the inquiry. Constance scratched around in her head for something worthwhile he could do.
“Perhaps you could look into his finances?” she said. “The banks will not talk to us, as strangers. And you will know what is in the house.”
Harvey set down his knife and fork and pushed his plate away. “I’ll write this morning and look in the safe too.”
“Thank you.”
“But you should be addressing the Jenkins woman,” he burst out.
“We shall,” Solomon assured him. “And your other neighbors. Was Percy particularly friendly or otherwise with the gentry families in the area?”
Harvey gave a shrug. “There’s really only Everett over at Larchford.
His family have been the squires here for generations.
Always been a decent fellow, but Percy claimed he looked down his nose at us—because we made our fortune in trade, he said.
I told Percy that was daft, since it was the Everetts that dug the canal and still run it—for trade! Even if it’s not exactly profitable.”
“So Percy and Sir Felix Everett did not like each other?” Constance asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Harvey said. “He dines with us occasionally. He and Percy just weren’t particular friends. Not surprising—Everett’s older, a widower, bit of a staid fellow. The opposite of Percy, really.”
“There are no other gentry families nearby? Don’t you have a vicar?”
“Yes, yes, young Thomas, but the vicarage is in the town, next to the church. Percy wasn’t a great churchgoer.”
“Were he and Mr. Thomas not friends either?”
“I doubt Percy noticed him much, and I suspect Thomas disapproved of Percy. He’s not a lively man, Thomas. A bit…ineffectual, you might say, practically speaking. But an excellent man and an excellent vicar in his own quiet way.”
“Did Percy keep lower company in Channing? People he might not invite here?”
“I daresay. He liked a glass of beer at the Duke’s Arms.”
“If he changed horses on the journey to London, is that where he would leave his horse? Or would he ride it all the way to Channing House?”