Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (40 page)

At first they did nothing but admire the layout of the conservatory and comment on some of the exotic plants, but when the housekeeper served tea, and they were sitting down, the conversation turned to recent events.

Gwyn learned that she’d been right about how Gracie escaped Harry at Heath Cottage. But Gracie didn’t know that he’d killed someone else by mistake, and Gwyn didn’t enlighten her.

“I didn’t know where to go,” said Gracie. “Then I thought of Mrs. Cleeves, you know, the housekeeper here. I knew she would help Lady Mary. And guess what? Lady Mary was already here.”

“Sending me to Rosemount,” said Lady Mary, “was more than I had hoped for. Mrs. Cleeves grasped the situation at once. She knew that my nurse was keeping me sedated and switched the bottle of laudanum for a mild restorative. I was becoming stronger every day. As for Gracie,” she smiled at her maid, “we passed her off as my housekeeper’s niece, and no one was the wiser.”

“Well,” said Gracie, “my own mother wouldn’t have recognized me with my mobcap pulled down around my eyes. And I was only the scullery maid. I rarely went upstairs.”

Gwyn hadn’t known what to expect when she came face-to-face with Lady Mary. She’d thought her ladyship had suffered a breakdown, and she’d feared that her mind might be affected. Now she understood why
Lady Mary seemed so well, better than well. There was a sparkle in her eyes, her skin glowed with happiness—and maybe a touch of rouge—but that was a good sign, as was the fact that her ladyship had taken a great deal of trouble with her appearance. Her dark rose gown and paisley shawl were very becoming.

“And,” said Gracie, “when her ladyship was more herself, we were going to get her away from here, me and Mrs. Cleeves. But that nice man, Mr. Maitland, was here, and he arrested the nurse and that nasty footman who kept the key to her room.

“If only Johnny, if only Johnny …” Her face crumpled, and she fished in her pocket for a handkerchief to dry her tears.

Lady Mary said gently, “Gracie, why don’t you go and sit with Mrs. Cleeves. I’m sure she’d like your company.”

Still sobbing into her handkerchief, Gracie left the room.

Gwyn watched her go.

Lady Mary said softly, “You’ve hardly taken your eyes off Gracie since you arrived. I think you must have feared that something dreadful had happened to her.”

“No,” said Gwyn. “Not since last night. But before that …” She grimaced. “I was worried out of my mind.”

“Mr. Maitland said that if it hadn’t been for you, things might have turned out very differently for Gracie and me. My dear, I never wanted to involve you in this. But I can’t say that I’m sorry. Will you accept my thanks?”

Gwyn said, “I didn’t know anything. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even understand the importance of the box until yesterday.”

“I’m afraid,” said Jason, “it has been knocked about a bit, but it won’t take much to fix it.”

“Ah, yes, Williard’s box.”

Lady Mary ran her fingers over its surface and carefully opened the lid. She stared at her own faded portrait for a long time, lost in thought, then looked up at Gwyn. “I remember the day Williard painted it. We were so happy. He said that every time he opened the box, he would see me. There’s no portrait of Williard, I’m afraid. But the gardens here are his. They are better than a portrait. And his artist’s box with his sketches. He left it here because it gave him an excuse to come back to the house. But I’m ahead of myself.” She smiled faintly. “Let me start at the beginning, though I’m sure you’ve worked most of it out.

“Williard and I were in love, of course. We didn’t want to fall in love. We knew my father would never allow the match. You had to know my father to know why Williard decided to overcome his scruples and get me away from here.”

Her voice became more halting as she went on to describe how she and Williard decided to elope and start a new life, as far from her father’s reach as possible. “Of course, everything went wrong.”

Her father, she said, had made up his mind that she was to marry Hugo Wheatley, as he was then known, a man she thoroughly detested and feared. She begged, she pleaded, to no avail. Hugo was in the process of changing his name to Gerrard and they would be made to look ridiculous, her father said, if the wedding did not go forward.

“But I never mentioned Williard’s name. I was too afraid of what my father would do if he found out. So Williard and I made our plans. We would elope when he got back from Bristol. He’d found a house for us. I was of age, and once we were married, there was nothing my father could do.”

Lady Mary closed her eyes momentarily and said
in a shaken tone, “But Williard was murdered in Bristol and all my hopes and dreams came to nothing. After that, I didn’t care what happened to me or whom I married. So I married Hugo. It never occurred to me that my father and Hugo were ever aware that I had loved Williard and was going to elope with him. They never spoke of him to me, nor I to them.”

“Then,” said Jason quietly, “you found evidence that implicated your husband and your father in Williard’s death?”

“Yes. Right after my father died. That was more than ten years ago. His valet found the envelope tucked into one of my father’s hats, and he gave it to me. I think my father kept it deliberately in case he ever needed it to keep Hugo in check. But of course, Hugo was his devoted slave. He would never have done anything disloyal. You can imagine how shocked and angry I was. But, God forgive me, I was also afraid. I didn’t think there was enough there to make a case against Hugo. I just didn’t know. And it wouldn’t bring Williard back to me. So I didn’t do anything except hide the evidence in Williard’s box, and I covered it up with the leather lining.”

“Then what,” asked Jason, “made you change your mind?”

Lady Mary flashed him a shy smile. “I visited the Ladies’ Library to hear a lecture on English landscape gardening. I had not known that such women existed as I found there. The more I talked with you, Gwyn, and Lady Octavia, the more I realized I wasn’t without hope. If other women had succeeded in making a new life for themselves, then I could, too.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “All I wanted was enough money to live quietly and peacefully far away from Hugo and his temper tantrums. So I made my
plans with the help of Johnny and Gracie. I had to leave my gardens behind, but I wasn’t going to leave Williard’s sketches. So I loaned them to the library, knowing that I could retrieve them at any time. And, of course, the evidence against my husband. I hadn’t thought of betraying him to the authorities. As I said, I didn’t think that there was enough evidence to convict him. And it all happened thirty years ago.”

“Blackmail?” said Jason, smiling faintly.

“Persuasion,” she replied. “Of course, I wasn’t a fool. I wasn’t going to tell him anything until I was safely away. But he caught me, and I threatened him. But I didn’t tell him everything. I told him that the ring and his note were with my portrait.” She hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly what I told him. At that point, my only hope was that Johnny would get help. I told him that if anything went wrong, he was to tell Lady Octavia to open the lining of my box and take what she found there to the authorities. And if he couldn’t find Lady Octavia, he was to go to you, Gwyn. Gracie has since told me that Johnny tried to reach Lady Octavia, but he was sure she was being watched, and he was afraid to approach her.”

“So he came to my house,” said Gwyn.

“That’s what Mr. Maitland thinks.”

“And when he didn’t find me at my house, he went on to Mr. Sackville’s party, hoping to find me there.”

“Mr. Maitland said he made one other stop, to pick up his wages.”

Gwyn looked at Jason. “Gracie told me that! In the library. She was talking of her friend. But she told me so little.” She turned to Lady Mary. “It was Lady Octavia she wanted to see, and no one else.”

Lady Mary smiled. “Yes. Gracie was very impressed when Lady Octavia came to the house and refused to leave until she had seen me. I don’t remember it at
all. At any rate, I didn’t tell Gracie about the box. I thought that the fewer people who knew about it the better. And she is nervous and frightens easily.”

Jason adjusted his long length in the chair. “Sounds like you put a great deal of trust in Johnny,” he said.

“Oh, I did. You see, I promised him a bonus of one hundred guineas the day I took up residence in the cottage in Hampstead. Poor Johnny. He really wanted that bonus. If only I’d known what extremes Hugo would go to, I would never have left him.”

After a long silence, Gwyn said, “What will you do now?”

“I haven’t given it any thought. I think I shall just enjoy the beauty Williard created for me here. Then, we’ll see.”

They spent an hour admiring the house and gardens, but could not be persuaded by Lady Mary to stay the night. Gwyn was anxious to get home to her son, she said, and there was no arguing with that.

Only one small thing remained to be resolved and that was the return of her own coat, the coat that Gracie had run off with after the library’s Open House.

Gracie’s hands flew to her mouth. “I … I had to throw it out,” she said. “I mean, it took me a week to get here. I walked most of the way. And I was sleeping under hedgerows. The coat was filthy, and when I washed it, it shrank. It was no use to anyone.”

Gwyn’s smile never faltered, but Jason was aware of her disappointment, and he waited until they were settled in the carriage before mentioning it.

“You shouldn’t be hurt by Gracie’s offhandedness.”

“What?”

“To Gracie, you’re only that nice lady she met at the library. She doesn’t know all the torments you’ve suffered on her behalf. So your coat has no more significance for her than, well, a coat. Whereas to you, Gracie’s coat became as sacred as the Holy Grail.”

She laughed, a genuine laugh. “There’s something in what you say, but that’s not why I’m stewing. What you don’t realize is that I’m the only woman in England without a coat to her name.”

“I’ll buy you a dozen coats when we’re married.”

“And I’m going to hold you to that promise. But I warn you, I don’t come cheap. Ten thousand pounds, Jason, that’s the sum you’ll have to pay to clear my debts. I’m talking about the legacy. It’s legally mine now, so I can’t give it back. But I shall expect you to return the capital to the donor, if we ever discover who the donor is.”

“The legacy!” he said. “I’d forgotten all about it!”

“You saw the attorney yesterday! You said you would.”

“No, I saw his clerk, and put the fear of death into him. Judith Dudley. That’s the name he gave me.”

“Judith,” she said. “I should have known it!”

Lady Mary wandered into the dining room and gazed at the portrait above the mantel. The girl in the portrait smiled down at her. She hardly recognized herself.

What will you do now?

She dwelled on Gwyn’s question for a long time. There was so much she had wanted to do once, so much she had never attempted. The question was, was it too late to begin? She was fifty-four years old. She wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence. She didn’t have a surplus of friends. She’d always been naturally shy. Williard had seen something in her that nobody else had.

The world is your oyster, Mary
, he’d once told her. That was how he’d lived his life. He’d been such a vital, compassionate man. He’d made her want to share his eagerness to embrace life.

And now look at her.

If Williard could see her now, he would chide her. What would he say? He would say … he would say that she’d taken on one of the cruelest men in England, and she had won. That ought to count for something.

But if it hadn’t been for Gwyneth …

The world is your oyster, Mary
.

But her world was so small.

Or was it? She had friends at the Ladies’ Library. And the need was great. There was never enough money to help women in distress, and never enough helpers to do the work. And if Lady Octavia’s ambitions to change the marriage laws of England were ever to get to parliament, it would take a great deal of money, and energy, and single-mindedness, and purpose …