Chapter 2 #2
At last the maid came close enough and said in a whisper, “You ought not be down here, miss.”
Honora lifted her head. “Did you see who took her?”
The maid glanced toward the door, then back. “Not exactly.”
“Did you hear anything?”
The girl hesitated.
Honora straightened. “Tell me.”
She swallowed. “Mr. Bellamy gave instructions late last night. I was in the passage when he spoke to the groom. He said the child was to be gone before morning.”
Honora’s fingers gripped the edge of the chair. “Gone where?”
The maid looked troubled. “I only heard the name once.”
“Whose name?”
“The Duke of Belgrave.”
Honora stared at her.
“Belgrave,” she repeated.
“Yes, miss.”
Honora sat still.
The Duke of Belgrave.
She had never truly heard of him—perhaps a name spoken in passing at table, or glimpsed in a newspaper column and forgotten by tea. She did not know what connection he had to her father, or why Gideon Bellamy would send Cecily to a duke she had never met.
The maid looked at her uneasily. “Miss?”
Honora stood at once, too sharply. “No one is to know you told me this.”
The maid nodded quickly. “No, miss.”
Honora reached for the little purse at her waist, took out what money she had, and pressed it into the maid’s hand before the girl could protest.
“You did nothing wrong,” Honora said.
The maid looked as if she might cry. “Thank you, miss.”
Honora was already walking away.
She did not go back to her room at once. She went into the parlor, then the hall, then upstairs, then back again, as though moving might somehow produce a better answer. None came.
At last, sometime after midnight, she returned to her room and shut the door.
She packed before dawn.
There was not much to take. A dress she could travel in.
Her cloak. A little food wrapped in cloth.
Her spare gloves. A comb. The money she had hidden beneath the sewing box.
She paused only once, at the small drawer beside the bed, and took Celestine’s locket, wrapping it in a square of linen before she tucked it into the bottom of the bag.
By the time she tied the reticule closed, the first gray light of morning was beginning to show at the window.
She listened once at the door, heard nothing, and slipped into the passage.
No one stopped her.
That should have frightened her more than it did.
She left the house before her father woke. She did not leave a note.
The coach was old and rattled badly on the road, but it was what she could afford, and the man who hired it did not ask questions so long as she paid in advance. Honora had enough money for the fare and a week at an inn if she was careful. She intended to be careful.
She rode for three days away from her father and Wiltshire.
By the second day, her shoulders ached from the cold and the stiffness of sleeping upright in a coach seat; by the third, every field and village looked like the last. She ate bread when she could, drank weak tea at roadside stops, and held her bag on her lap as though someone might try to take it from her.
She did not cry.
She did not allow herself to think in full sentences.
She thought in fragments instead.
Cecily’s fingers on her sleeve.
The empty cradle.
Sweet baby girl.
Gone.
Belgrave.
By the time she reached the village nearest the estate, she was too exhausted to feel much of anything at all. She took a room at the inn, paid for a basin of water, and sat on the bed without removing her boots until nightfall.
The inn was warm, noisy, and full of people who were pleased to mind their own business. Honora ate in the common room because she could not bear to sit alone in her chamber with her thoughts.
At the next table, two women were speaking in lowered voices with the delighted confidence of those who believed the subject mattered to everyone in hearing distance.
Honora would have ignored them, except for one phrase.
“A baby on the duke’s doorstep,” one of them said.
The other gave a little gasp. “I heard it was found in a basket.”
“That is what I said. Left there all wrapped up. The poor little thing.”
“Is he keeping it?”
“So they say. And if you ask me, it is probably his.”
Honora’s hand stilled on her spoon.
The first woman leaned in. “They say the baby is dark-haired and has gray eyes. And the shawl—”
“The shawl?”
“The shawl had his house emblem on it. Imagine that.”
A hard ache bloomed beneath Honora’s sternum.
The women went on talking, but she heard very little after that. By the time she rose from the table, she knew three things.
Cecily had been brought to Belgrave.
The duke had found her.
And the whole county had already begun to decide what story to tell about it.
Back in her room, Honora set down the candle and stood motionless for a long time.
Then she took out her bag again.
If Cecily was there, she would go there too.
She would claim her niece and leave before anyone asked questions. She would figure out a way to slip into the house and just take Cecily.
That was the plan.
It was a simple plan, foolish perhaps, but simple. She knew how to lift a child, quiet her, hold her when she woke afraid, leave quietly, and lie when she had to.
She told herself that was enough.
She packed that night with hands that had finally begun to shake.
At the bottom of the bag she placed Celestine’s locket once more.
She opened the clasp. Looked at the little painted face. Closed it again.
Then she said softly to the empty room, “I am coming for her.”
There was no one there to answer.
***
The morning was raw and pale when she reached the Belgrave estate gate.
By then, she had realized how dangerous her simple plan was.
She could try to break into the Belgrave estate.
But if she was caught, she would be arrested before she could ever grab Cecily.
So, she had come up with one more plan, even simpler than the first. She would merely ask.
The house rose beyond the drive in gray stone and winter light, broad and formal and larger than she had expected. Honora stood outside the iron gate with her heart beating hard enough to hurt.
She had rehearsed what she would say most of the night.
I am here for my niece.
You have no right to keep her.
I mean no harm. I only want the child.
She had the words ready, each one set in order like coins in a row.
The footman at the gate had just gone to fetch someone when the front door opened.
A housekeeper came down the steps at a brisk pace, a thin woman with neat gray hair and the kind of manner that could make a stranger feel foolish without raising her voice. Her eyes went over Honora once, then returned to her face.
“Good morning,” the woman said. “May I help you?”
Honora drew in a breath. “I have come for the baby.”
The housekeeper’s expression did not shift. “The baby?”
“Yes.”
Something in the woman’s face changed then, not much, but enough.
“Are you Miss Phoebe Redmond?” she asked.
Honora blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The nursemaid from the agency,” the housekeeper said. “We were expecting her this morning.”
Honora stared at her.
The words did not make sense at first. Nursemaid. Agency. Expecting.
She had come to claim Cecily and leave. That was all. She had not planned for questions, or a door already opening before she had spoken. She had not been prepared for a lie to be offered to her, one with which all she had to do was nod and agree.
The housekeeper was still holding it open.
Waiting.
Honora felt the moment tip under her feet.
She had rehearsed what she would say.
But the answer was already required, and before she could stop herself, before she could think at all, she heard her own voice say, “Yes.”
The housekeeper stepped back at once. “Then please come in.”
Honora’s breath caught.
She looked past the woman into the hall beyond, all polished floors and cold light.
Then she crossed the threshold.
And before she understood what she had done, she was inside the house.