Haunting Violet (27 page)

I do not wish to be a paper doll.

Surely you can see that I am stronger than that. I don't give a fig for the scandalbroth or the gossipmongers. Let us remove to Paris, where no one knows us to care and where they dine on scandal with éclairs every morning.

You will say again that it is impossible but I refuse to believe it. I know with every touch of your hand on mine, with every stolen kiss, that nothing is impossible.

Perhaps love isn't meant to be simple. Perhaps this is merely a test, such as Psyche went through to prove herself to Cupid. Would you have me count lentils, beloved?

And as you claim I have the most to lose, I pray you will let me decide for myself what it is I want and need.

Which is you.

Not silks or lobster soup in crystal bowls or diamonds around my neck.

Just you.

You say again and again that you love me.

Prove it.

I lowered the letter. “He's in love.”

“I reckon that explains the mad weeping.”

I turned to stare at him. “This can't be a coincidence. Rowena showed me a letter at the séance last night. She jilted Peter and wanted to marry someone else.”

He stared back. “
Travis
? Rowena Wentworth was in love with that morbid beanpole?”

“Perhaps he wasn't morbid before she died.”

He shook his head. “Daft. She's an heiress. I guess he was jealous she was going to marry Peter? Some lover.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don't think that's it. Her father gave her his permission,” I added, tapping the letter on my thigh. “So he can't be the murderer. At least not for that reason.”

“Maybe she tired of him.”

“Maybe. Or maybe Peter found out and flew into the boughs. Elizabeth said he has a nasty temper.”

Colin frowned. “He's a high flyer, no doubt. Going to be an earl and all that. His pride might've driven him off his nut when he found out.”

“How's Caroline involved?” I wondered. “She lit that lamp on purpose. And Rowena threw a dead trout at her last night.”

“No wonder she chose you. Between pastries and fish, no one's safe.”

A scratch at the door interrupted us. Colin dropped and rolled under the bed again. One of the maids poked her head in. “Miss?”

I tried not to look as if I was hiding a handsome young lad under the mattress.

“Yes?”

“Lord Jasper sent me up to see if you need help getting ready for the ball.” She smiled proudly. “I have a fair hand with a curling iron.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I needed to get Colin out before I ended up naked in the middle of my bedroom. “I, um, could I get some hot water? To wash my face?”

“Certainly, miss. I'll have the footmen bring up the bathtub, if you like, before all the fine ladies start calling for their own baths.”

“That would be grand, thanks.” I'd never actually been in a full reclining tub before. We had a battered hip bath in the kitchen.

The maid curtsied and closed the door behind her. I let out a breath. Colin crawled back out. “They need to sweep under there,” he said, sneezing. “I'll keep an eye on Peter for a while,” he added before slipping out of my room.

By the time I was bathed, coiffed with my hair in long ringlets, stuffed into a ball gown, and finally left alone in my chamber, I'd lost the rest of the afternoon. The ball was about to begin and I had no time to find Colin. Lord Jasper was waiting for me and I couldn't be rude, not after everything he'd done for me. I'd have to put in an appearance and hope I could lose myself in the crowd as soon as possible.

The ballroom was even more sumptuously decorated than it was last week, with glass vases full of orchids and glass lanterns hung on jeweled chains from the painted ceiling. The orchestra was playing something liquid and beautiful, and couples danced in perfect circles. I curtsied to Lord Jasper, then kept my back to the wall, creeping behind the chairs set out for chaperones and wallflowers wishing someone would ask them to dance. I couldn't see Elizabeth anywhere, or Peter, or even Tabitha—and she loved these events.

I snuck into the corridor, wondering what to do next.

And walked right into Mr. Travis.

“Miss Willoughby.”

He looked so weary and sad, I instantly felt sorry for him. In the space of one letter he'd turned from sinister to tragic. I felt horrid for stealing something so precious from him. I opened my reticule and pulled out the letter.

“I believe this is yours,” I said quietly.

He snatched it away instantly. “Where did you find this?”

“Was it from Rowena?”

He stilled in the act of putting it in the inside pocket of his formal coat. “What?”

“It's all right. I won't tell anyone,” I assured him, even as I watched for his reaction. He didn't look guilty, just slightly bewildered.

“How did you know?” He grabbed my hand as if I'd made to walk away when I hadn't actually moved. The music from the ballroom poured into the hall. “Can you really see her? I knew you could. Is she here now?” His eyes were a little wild.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “She's not here. I can't call her up at will. She's very stubborn.”

He smiled his rare smile. “She was exceedingly stubborn. How else would an earl's daughter make provisions to marry a tailor's son with no bloodlines to speak of?”

“She loved you.”

“She didn't drown,” he said grimly.

“I know,” I replied, equally grimly.

“But I have no proof. Even a year later.”

Before I could ask him any questions, a footman stopped in front of me, holding a silver tray. “Miss Willoughby?”

“Yes.”

He bowed. “A message for you, miss.” He lifted the tray to offer me a folded note with my name scrawled across the front. I took it, tendrils of curiosity and dread unfurling like a poisonous plant inside my belly. I skimmed it briefly, then frowned. “That's odd.”

“What is it?”

“It's from Caroline,” I said. “She's waiting for me by the hedges out front.”

I rushed down the hall and pushed out of the front doors and past the flickering torches on the lawn on either side of the white gravel drive. I ran to the hedges where Caroline waited, Mr. Travis on my heels. Caroline's hair was frizzing out of its strict bun and her eyes were wide with worry.

“What's wrong?” I asked her.

“Please.” I could tell she was trying not to cry. “You have to come. It's Tabitha.”

CHAPTER 23

S
he's been weeping all day and won't speak to anyone. But she finally asked for you and couldn't be convinced to leave it until morning.” She looked determined and ready to haul me bodily away, even though her lips trembled. “It was today, you know.”

“What was today?”

“Rowena!” she burst out. “She drowned last year on this day, didn't you know?”

A shiver went through me. “I didn't know that.” I looked at Mr. Travis. He nodded.

“You must come with me!” Caroline insisted.

I paused, focusing on my third eye, lifting the lid slowly. Rowena hovered anxiously behind Caroline, throat bruised, expression pleading. She wanted me to follow.

I could think of a hundred things I'd rather do than follow a possible murderess and the ghost of her victim.

Rowena, however, was insistent.

“I don't know what you think I can do,” I said as we hurried across the lawns.

“I don't know either, but if she wants you there, I mean to bring you to her.”

“Miss Willoughby, wait!” Mr. Travis chased after us. “You can't go to Whitestone. It isn't safe.”

“I don't have a choice.”

We raced over the dark hills until my lungs burned. The pond was still but the white lilies on its banks seemed etched in silver. We didn't speak again until we reached the manor house, and then it was only Caroline panting, “This way.” The house was full of shadows, lit only with the odd oil lamp in the wide hallways.

“What does her uncle have to say?” I whispered, following Caroline up the stairs.

“He's been drinking all day.”

Up the dark stairs, Tabitha's door was painted with pink roses.

And it was locked.

Caroline frowned, trying the handle again. “Dearest, you must open the door.”

Tabitha didn't reply but we could hear muffled sobs.

“Tabitha, please,” Caroline begged, clearly concerned. A cold draft skirted around our ankles but I couldn't see Rowena anywhere. I wasn't certain what to think of that. Clearly, as distraught as Tabitha might be, there was a greater danger Rowena was protecting her from, or she'd have been hovering by her twin.

Caroline tried the door again, to no avail. I wondered if it was meant to keep her out specifically. I put a little space between us.

“Why has she locked you out?” I asked.

Caroline was shoving her shoulder against the door.“I told you,” she panted, pushing harder. “She's upset.”

“Is she afraid of you?”

Caroline paused. “What? Whyever for?”

“You tell me.”

She was looking at me as if I were mad. “Miss Willoughby, what exactly are you implying?”

I ignored her, speaking through the wooden door. “Tabitha, it's Violet.” I knocked softly. No response. “Are you hurt?”

I couldn't very well stand about a dark house all night, especially not next to a woman I had reason to know was hiding something. I remembered what Elizabeth had said about hairpins and locks. I pulled one of the pins from my hair and dropped to my knees. I slid the pin into the lock and pressed my ear to the brass plate securing the handle to the door. I jiggled the pin, listening carefully for a
click
. It took longer than I'd expected, but eventually I heard a satisfying
snick.

Caroline pushed past me before I could stop her. Tabitha was huddled in the corner, her straggling hair sticking to her damp cheeks. She didn't flinch away from her governess. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

“Tabitha,” I said softly. I had no idea what I was expected to do. Tabitha didn't even like me. She was clutching the pearl ring I had found in the pond the day she'd threatened to set the dogs on us.

“I didn't want to believe you,” she croaked. She'd clearly been sobbing for hours; her voice was raspy, her eyes swollen. Her pulse was fluttering frantically under the thin china of her skin.

“It's my fault,” Caroline wept into her hands.

“I knew it.” My temper flared.

Tabitha blinked wretchedly. “Caro, what are you saying?”

“We knew it was wrong, but we couldn't help ourselves.”

“Peter?” I asked. “Tabitha, come away.”

Caroline nodded miserably. “I love him,” she said. “I never meant for it to happen. You don't choose these things.”

I gaped at her. “You do choose whether or not you drown some poor girl in a pond, you daft cow.”

“What?” She looked confused.

“You and Peter killed Rowena! The trout landed on you!”

She had the gall to look insulted. “I most certainly did not!”

Now I was the one who was confused. “You didn't?”

“No!”

“Then what's your fault exactly?”

“Peter. We had an affair.”

Tabitha sat up a little straighter. “You? And
Peter
? And what about the fish?”

At least that explained why Peter had been so rough with me the night of the séance. He'd been protecting his lover, no doubt afraid I knew more than I should.

“We knew it was wrong.” Caroline sniffled. “He was engaged to Rowena and I'm just a governess. But she broke off the engagement … and then she drowned, and I swore to myself I'd take the best care of Tabitha that I possibly could.”

“I don't understand,” I said finally. “If you didn't kill her, who did?”

“Kill her? It was an accident.”

“No, it wasn't.”

“It's not safe here,” Mr. Travis said urgently. “We have to leave, all of us. Right now.”

Tabitha blinked. “What's he doing here?”

“We have to go,” Mr. Travis said again. He turned to me. “Rowena threw the dead trout at her uncle. It slid toward Caroline—maybe Rowena was taking a poke at her because of Peter—but it started in front of Sir Wentworth.”

Bollocks.

He was right.

Tabitha began weeping again. “She was in love.” She rocked backward and forward, as if she were still in the cradle, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hands clutched tightly together. I could see where the ring made a dent in her skin. “You seemed so certain,” she sobbed at me. “So I went through her things. I hadn't been able to, until today. I just couldn't bear it. She was my best friend.” She sobbed harder, her words incoherent.

“Tabitha,” I leaned over her, shook her shoulder. “Tabitha, you have to focus.” I tried to find the balance between stern and compassionate.

“I went through her hope chest.” She hiccupped. She was still pressed against the wooden chest. Rowena's name was painted across the front, with little daisies. “I found love letters.” She pushed a bundle of paper toward me. I glanced at Mr. Travis. His fingers twitched as if he longed to grab them from her.

“I've been trying to pretend everything is normal, but it's not. Uncle's been drinking more and he won't even consider letting me go to London. I've been cooped up in the country for months. I don't think he'll ever let me get married; he wouldn't even let Frederic and Peter visit. He got so mad. And today he's … different.” She showed us the ring again. “It was Rowena's favorite.”

“I gave it to her,” Mr. Travis murmured.

“I asked my uncle for it after the funeral. He said she was wearing it when they buried her.”

“So he lied to you about it.”

“Yes. And when I asked him about it this morning, he got so angry. I've never seen him like that. I didn't know what else to do, so I locked myself in here and had Caroline fetch you. I was so scared he'd …” She stopped, gagging on more tears. “And I'm so tired.” She blinked at me, smiling foolishly. Caroline and I frowned at each other.

“Is she ill?” I asked.

Caroline shook her head. Tabitha giggled, then burst into tears again. I crouched in front of her. “Tabitha, look at me.” She looked up obediently. Her pupils were constricted, her skin clammy. “She's taken laudanum,” I said grimly. I'd seen Mrs. Gordon and Miss Harington in a similar state often enough.

Caroline didn't look shocked. “She takes laudanum for her nerves. Her uncle's been giving it to her for a couple of weeks now, because of her sister. She's distraught. Not surprising, this time of year.”

“Or else he's keeping her biddable.” I stood up, suddenly unable to be still. I hadn't suspected him at all. He was Rowena's uncle and a lord of the realm. There must be some mistake. Mr. Travis must be wrong to suspect him, as I'd been wrong to suspect Mr. Travis. I started to pace, stopped to peer out the window. The gardens were dark and quiet. “It doesn't make sense. Why would he do that?”

“I don't know,” Caroline replied, bewildered. “He's always been jovial enough, likes his wine and his cards, has black moods certainly, but nothing unusual for a gentleman. He's overprotective of Tabitha, but that's to be expected. He's already lost one niece, after all, and he is their guardian.”

“He wants the money,” Mr. Travis said quietly. “Rowena wondered if he was the one who found her letter to her father. We were going to elope. I went off to secure us a hackney in town, one that wouldn't be recognized. I shouldn't have left her alone. She wanted to tell Tabitha so she wouldn't worry. I should have stayed with her.”

“He's a second son,” I added slowly, “with no land to inherit and money only from the Whitestone estates, which, evidently, is very wealthy.” I couldn't credit that an uncle would kill his own niece, but I didn't seem to be able to reach any other conclusion, not now. “We have to get out of here.” I shook Tabitha lightly but she was limp and distracted. “We have to get the opium out of her. Get some water.”

Caroline rushed over with the jug of water from the washstand. I held it up to Tabitha's lips. She swallowed a couple of times and then pushed it away peevishly.

“Tabitha, you have to drink more.”

“Don't want to.”

“You have to. We have to flush the drugs out of your system.” I forced her to drink some more, even though half of it dribbled down her chin.

“I don't understand,” Caroline said, wringing her hands. “What are you two talking about?”

I glanced at her. “Wentworth murdered Rowena because she was going to elope. He knew she didn't want to marry Peter and would have waited as long as possible to marry, so he wasn't worried about the betrothal. An elopement is another matter.”

Tabitha started crying again, so abruptly and wildly I feared she'd make herself more ill. She was green under her pallor.

“She needs to keep drinking,” I instructed, handing her the jug and going to the window. I pulled it open, peering out. The ground seemed very far away. “We can't wait for Tabitha to get better,” I said grimly. “We have to go right now, before he realizes we know.” Mr. Travis and I tried to get Tabitha to her feet but she went limp, curling into herself.

“Tabitha!”

No amount of shouting was going to help apparently. I didn't know what else to do. We couldn't very well escape if she was hysterical and drugged.

I slapped her across the face. Caroline shoved me aside. She stroked Tabitha's arm and made soothing noises, all the while glaring at me. Tabitha, at the very least, had stopped crying. “Leave her be. This isn't her fault.”

“I know it's not her fault,” I said with very deliberate patience. “But we have to get out of here.
Now
.”

Tabitha pushed her hair off her face. “She's right,” she said with a hiccup, shrugging off Caroline's hovering.

I knew her lucidity might only last a moment, so I waved them over to where I was standing.

Caroline's eyes widened. “The window? You can't be serious.”

“We can't risk going through the house. He might hear us.”

I had to admit it wasn't my favorite idea, but it was the only one I had.

Mr. Travis's hands fisted. “I'll keep him distracted.”

Caroline looked at him in horror. “He's twice your size. He'll kill you.”

“As long as he does it slowly and gives you time to get out of here,” he said. “Rowena would want her sister to be safe.”

“I'm not sure—” There was no point in finishing my argument; he was already gone.

The breeze fluttered the curtains. I could see I was going to have to go first if I expected Caroline and Tabitha to follow me. But I couldn't climb in my ball gown—it was far too restrictive. I wiggled out of it until I was in my corset, chemise, and pantaloons. Caroline stared at me as if I were mad.

I stuck my head out of the window. The stone ledge was narrow and long, running the length of the building. I might be able to follow it to the balcony, hop out over it, and then shimmy down the trellis on the other side.

Or I might just plummet to the flagstones below.

I took a deep breath to steel myself and stuck one leg over the sill, then the other. I pulled myself out, my grip white-knuckled. Another breeze ruffled the treetops, which were too close to eye level for comfort. An owl flew by on silent wings. I envied him. He wasn't about to fall to his death.