Chapter Eleven The Hunting Lodge #5
Then he moved with surprising speed, wrenching sideways into the broken rack.
A panel splintered. Dust and old shot spilled across the floor.
Sebastian grabbed him, but the man twisted free of his coat, leaving it in Sebastian’s hand, and bolted down the rear passage.
Tom gave chase. Roberts staggered up and followed.
A door slammed. Shouts crossed the yard.
Sebastian turned to Marianne. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“The packet?”
“Safe.”
He looked at her hands, at the powder horn, at her face. “You struck him.”
“He reached for the testimony.”
“You struck him with a powder horn.”
“It was nearest.”
A breath escaped him that might have become laughter in a kinder house. “This is becoming a pattern.”
“Then men should stop attacking me near useful objects.”
Tom returned a few minutes later, furious and muddy. “Lost him in the trees, Your Grace. Had a horse tied beyond the stream. Roberts saw the direction but not enough to follow. Beg pardon.”
Sebastian looked at the coat in his hands. “He left this.”
Inside the pocket they found nothing but a scrap of paper bearing a single initial: C.
Cale.
Or a trap shaped like Cale.
At Eastmere Lodge, even answers hid themselves carefully.
They left within the hour. Not because the search was complete, but because Evangeline’s testimony had been found and could not risk another minute inside the house.
Sebastian insisted on sealing the room first. Marianne insisted on copying the wardrobe marks before leaving.
He waited while she did so. Neither spoke of the near kiss.
Neither needed to. Its absence travelled with them as surely as the oilcloth packet.
On the return journey, Sebastian held the packet for part of the way, then gave it back to Marianne.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because if I hold it too long, I will read it again before Helena can witness it.”
“And if I hold it?”
“You will not.”
“You are certain?”
“No. I trust you.”
The words were simple.
They changed the carriage more than any touch could have done.
Lantern House received them in a silence that broke only when Mrs Finch saw the mud on Tom’s coat and said, “Not again.”
Tom, who had clearly been waiting for praise, looked wounded.
Helena was in Lady Theodosia’s study. She stood when they entered. One look at Marianne’s face, then Sebastian’s, and she did not ask whether they had found something. She simply closed the door.
Marianne laid the oilcloth packet upon the desk.
Helena’s hand went to her throat.
“Evangeline?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Helena sat before reading, perhaps because some instinct warned her she would not remain standing otherwise.
Marianne read aloud at first, then Helena took the pages and read the rest herself.
Sebastian stood by the hearth, one hand on the mantel, eyes fixed on the fire.
Mrs Finch entered without being asked and remained near the door, tears already bright in her eyes though no one commented.
Clara came quietly. Beatrice too, pale for once and silent.
The study filled not with noise, but with witness.
When Helena reached the line — Let him know I was not ashamed until they told me my truth was inconvenient — she made a sound Marianne had never heard from her.
Not a sob exactly.
A break.
She pressed one hand to her mouth, but the tears came anyway. Quietly at first, then with a grief too old to be neat. Helena Vane, who had held Lantern House together through threats, scandal, fire, and suspicion against her aunt, bowed her head over Evangeline’s pages and wept.
Marianne stood beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
No one spoke for a long while.
At last Helena wiped her face with a handkerchief Mrs Finch thrust at her with suspicious roughness.
“My aunt had a note attached to Evangeline’s packet,” Helena said unsteadily.
“Not the first one. A second. It was sealed beneath the lining. I found it last night while searching for references to the lantern mark, but I did not open it. I thought…” She stopped.
“I thought perhaps I was afraid of what else she had hidden.”
Marianne’s hand tightened gently on her shoulder.
Helena drew open the japanned box, removed the green-ribboned packet, and lifted the loosened inner lining. From beneath it she withdrew a narrow folded note sealed with plain wax.
Lady Theodosia’s hand marked the outside:
After her own words are found.
Helena broke the seal.
The room held its breath.
She read silently first. Her face went still.
Then she read aloud.
“The truth of Evangeline Rookwood will require a public witness. Find the woman who wore grey.”
Marianne looked up.
“The woman who wore grey?” Beatrice whispered.
Sebastian turned from the fire. “Who is she?”
Helena folded the note slowly, though her hand was not entirely steady.
For the first time since Marianne had known her, Helena looked not merely burdened by secrets, but ashamed of having kept one.
Marianne felt the next door in Lady Theodosia’s maze appear before them, still closed, already waiting.
“Helena,” she said softly. “Who is the woman who wore grey?”
Helena looked at Evangeline’s testimony, then at the shawl over Lady Theodosia’s chair, then at Marianne.
“I had hoped,” she said, “not to tell you yet.”
And beyond the study windows, as evening settled over Lantern House, the lamps in the square began one by one to burn like small, watchful flames.