CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX #2
The word entered the room and sat there. Ceci remembered the girl at once. Too young. Too silent. Sleeves too long over thin wrists. The tea tray held with both hands because it had been nearly too heavy for her.
“Gone where?” Ceci asked.
Margaret looked at her then, and the severity in her face shifted into something harder to bear.
“Home, according to the message.”
Duncan’s voice lowered. “What message?”
“Her mother sent for her before dawn. A boy came from the village with a note. Said there was illness in the family.”
Archie’s expression lost all ease. “Was there?”
“No.”
Margaret’s answer was immediate.
Duncan stood. “You’re certain?”
“Nell’s aunt died two years ago. Her grandmother is in service near Chester and stronger than most men.
Her mother has three younger children and no habit of sentiment where wages are concerned.
” Margaret’s voice roughened at the edge.
“She would not have pulled that girl from a steady post unless something frightened her or paid better.”
No one spoke.
Then Sabrina, who had been standing near the shelves with a stack of invitations in one hand, said, “Or both.”
Margaret looked at her. “Yes.”
Ceci’s stomach turned.
The library seemed suddenly too warm, too polished, too full of people who had the privilege of being shocked. Duncan’s face had gone still. “When did Nell last enter this corridor?”
“Thursday morning. Coal scuttle. West passage.”
“The morning before the ladder.”
“Yes.”
Archie slid off the table. “Could she have seen someone?”
Margaret’s eyes moved to the ladder rail, then to the door.
“She might have.”
Duncan reached for the bell pull, then stopped himself. “Send for her.”
“I did,” Margaret said.
That made it worse.
Duncan turned back.
Margaret lifted her chin. “I sent Thomas after her as soon as I heard she had gone. He came back alone. Her mother says Nell is no longer available for service.”
“Available,” Ceci repeated.
The word tasted foul.
Margaret’s hand tightened once at her waist. “There was money in the house. More than a family like that keeps in a drawer. Thomas saw it when the mother opened the cupboard.”
Archie’s voice came quiet. “How much?”
“Enough to make leaving look like good fortune to anyone who does not know what fear costs.”
Ceci sat down before her knees made the decision for her.
The girl had been there. A child with a tray, eyes lowered because the house had taught her where to put them.
She might have seen a stranger near the library.
And someone had known enough to remove her before anyone in the drawing rooms thought to ask.
Duncan moved toward the door. Archie caught his arm. “Where are you going?”
“To bring her back.”
Margaret spoke before Archie could.
“No.”
Duncan turned. “Margaret.”
“No,” she said again, sharper. “You go down there as Captain Carlton of Hawarden, and that woman will shut the door, hide the girl, or send her farther off before nightfall. She has money now and fear behind it. Both make people stubborn.”
Duncan’s jaw tightened. “Then what do you suggest?”
Margaret looked at Ceci.
Ceci startled. “Me?”
“You noticed she was a child.”
The room quieted.
Margaret’s face did not soften exactly, but something in it opened.
“You were angry about it,” she said. “Most ladies are not. Most gentlemen do not see it unless asked to trip over the child in question.”
Duncan flinched.
Ceci saw it.
So did Margaret.
“If anyone speaks to Nell,” Margaret said, “it should be someone who understands she is frightened, not disobedient.”
Archie looked at Ceci then, and the admiration in his expression had no flirtation in it at all.
That made it worse.
Ceci swallowed.
“I’ll go.”
Duncan’s answer came too fast. “No.”
She looked at him. “You do not get to order me out of every dangerous thing and then call it protection.”
The room inhaled around them.
Duncan’s face changed.
Archie’s brows lifted slightly.
Sabrina looked delighted for one dangerous second before she remembered to be afraid. Ceci stood. “If Nell saw something, she matters. And if Voss frightened her family, then we need to know how.”
“This may be exactly what he wants,” Duncan said.
“Probably,” Archie said.
Everyone looked at him.
He did not smile.
“The ladder was access. Nell is leverage.”
Duncan’s anger did not fade. It became something more useful. Sabrina set the invitations down.
“Then we do not send Ceci alone,” she said. “We send her with me.”
Duncan looked as if the day had been designed to insult him personally.
Sabrina smiled without warmth.
“I know how to speak to women who have been paid to pretend money is comfort.”
Margaret nodded once. “I will send Thomas quietly ahead. To watch whether anyone else is watching.”
Ceci’s hands had gone cold. Archie moved close enough that his sleeve brushed hers.
“You do not have to be brave in every direction at once,” he said.
“I’m not brave.”
“No,” he said. “You are furious. It will do.”
Duncan’s eyes moved to Archie’s hand near hers. For once, he said nothing. The room had stopped arranging itself around manners. It had begun arranging itself around Voss.
Nell would not come back. That was the first thing Ceci said when Duncan met them in the hall. His face closed before she could finish.
“She is safe for now,” Sabrina said. “Or as safe as poverty allows, which is not the same thing and should make every person with a title feel ill.”
Duncan looked from Sabrina to Ceci. “What did she see?”
Ceci drew off her gloves because her hands needed the task.
“A man by the west corridor. Thursday morning. She thought he was a guest because he stood like one.”
Archie, at the library door, went still. “Stood like one?”
Ceci looked at him. “As if he expected the house to make way.”
Duncan’s eyes darkened.
“She didn’t see his face clearly,” Ceci continued. “Only his coat. Dark. Good wool. Gloves. One finger stained red.”
“Blood?” Duncan asked.
“No. She thought wax. Or paint.”
Sabrina looked toward the library.
“The photograph,” she said. “The seal on the envelope it fell from.”
Archie’s voice went quiet. “Or the gate.”
Ceci felt the chill move through the hall. No one said Voss’s name. They did not need to. Duncan turned toward Margaret. “Send money to Nell’s mother. Quietly. More than Voss sent.”
Margaret’s face changed. “For what purpose?”
“No purpose. No request. No condition.” His voice hardened. “If he is using money to frighten them, then we use it to make refusal possible.”
Margaret looked at him for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
Ceci felt something in her chest shift.
Duncan was angry, yes.
But he had listened.
Archie saw it too. His expression softened, almost painfully, before he looked away. Sabrina reached for her gloves.
“Well,” she said. “That was grotesque. Shall we ruin him now or after tea?”
No one laughed.
That made the question feel less like wit and more like a promise.