Head in the Clouds (15 page)

Adelaide returned to the trunks and opened the second one. She sat back on her heels and grimaced. The contents were a mess. Apparently yesterday’s hunt for pretty treasures had been a mite too vigorous. She would probably have to unpack the entire thing to reestablish order. Pushing back up to her knees, Adelaide got to work.

As she refolded the gowns and accessories, she discovered a stationery set and a leather-bound journal. Adelaide set those aside, thinking Isabella might wish to see them. Later, when she closed the lid on the straight-as-a-pin trunk, she carried the paper items back to her desk. Settling into her chair, she contemplated the journal. Perhaps she should place it back in the trunk. If Isabella’s mother had recorded confidential thoughts in the book, Adelaide had no right to pry. Yet the words might bring Isabella comfort and give her a way to reconnect with the parent she’d lost. Did privacy really matter when the author was dead?

Adelaide toyed with the ribbon that protruded from the bottom of the book, marking a page near the end. When her father had died, she would have given anything to hear his voice one more time, even through an old letter. Sheba had filled that need for her in many ways, a physical reminder of her father’s love. What did Isabella have? If Adelaide could find a kind thought penned in the deceased woman’s hand, it could ease Izzy’s grief. Wouldn’t her mother want that for her?

Nibbling on her bottom lip, Adelaide pulled on the ribbon and opened the book. Only two lines had been scrawled across the top of the marked page, the handwriting so scratchy and weak Adelaide struggled to decipher it. She squinted as she focused on the nearly illegible script. As it began to make sense, her throat tightened in an effort to keep her racing heart from escaping her chest.

If Reginald ever finds Isabella, he will destroy her. Protect her, Lord God, for I know he will come after us.

Chapter 18

Adelaide didn’t climb into bed until well past midnight. Even then sleep eluded her. She was too disturbed by what she’d read in Lucinda Petchey’s journal. After stumbling upon that final entry, she knew she had to read it all. Forewarned was forearmed, and she was determined to learn every scrap of information she could in order to defend Isabella from whatever danger her mother believed threatened her. Adelaide had read straight through from the first page to the last, not moving from her desk until she had reached the end.

Now she huddled in her bed, trying to recover from the shock of her discovery. Such vile treachery was difficult to take in. Yet once it penetrated, a devastating ache crept through her body. She hugged her pillow to her chest and rolled to her side, drawing her knees toward her stomach. But comfort eluded her. She wept for Lucinda and the evil she’d been forced to endure and whispered prayers on behalf of her soul and that of her beloved Stuart. But most of all, she prayed for Isabella, for protection from the danger that stalked her.

How could God allow such tragedy to befall his people? It was wrong! Oh, she knew he didn’t
cause
the death of Isabella’s parents. A heart hardened by envy and greed accomplished that feat. Still, God held the power to intervene, to prevent this kind of suffering. So why didn’t he?

Adelaide shivered beneath the coverlet, unable to get warm. Every time her eyes drifted closed, she saw the journal pages fan before her and watched Lucinda’s elegant, flowing script deteriorate into an illegible scrawl. She hadn’t deserved such an end.

Lucinda had started off so happy—a blushing bride with an adoring husband she had affectionately dubbed her reformed rake. Stuart had apparently been quite a rogue in his youth. When he first proposed, she turned him down, telling him she could never marry a man who didn’t share her Christian convictions. She expected him to vanish from her life. Instead, he showed up at the chapel she attended every Sunday morning.

At first, she suspected that he only came in order to woo her into accepting his proposal, so she waited for him to tire of the effort. He never did. Weeks later, she discovered that he was meeting privately with the minister. That’s when she knew his faith was more than pretense. They married the following summer.

The journal had been full of happy anecdotes and loving sentimentality for dozens of pages. The only dark spot was Lucinda’s concern over Stuart’s relationship with his brother. Reginald resented the changes in Stuart and blamed Lucinda. Her husband had tried on numerous occasions to explain to his brother about how coming to know Christ had been the true catalyst for his transformation. Yet Reginald refused to listen. He flaunted his wild way of living and began accruing substantial gaming debts. Stuart excused his behavior in the beginning, telling Lucinda that Reginald felt betrayed and was just lashing out. However, when Isabella was born, Stuart stopped paying off his brother’s debts. The money wasn’t just his anymore. It represented his daughter’s future.

For several years, things were better. Reginald seemed to learn restraint, and an awkward peace fell over the family. Then he started gambling again—heavily—and his losses greatly outnumbered his wins. He used guilt, family obligation, and even the argument of Christian charity to wheedle money out of Stuart. His brother had no choice but to cut him off before he ran the family into the ground. He rewrote his will. Reginald would remain the heir and inherit the family title and entailed estates, but all the money would go to Lucinda and Isabella. Stuart bequeathed his brother a generous monthly stipend, but Reginald refused to be mollified. He raged when he learned what Stuart had done. The hunting accident occurred less than a month later.

Adelaide opened her eyes and stared at the darkness. She didn’t want to think about such a dreadful thing, but images spawned from Lucinda’s terse description played over and over in her mind.

Stuart staggered out of the forest into the clearing where the women were playing croquet. Blood stained the left side of his shirt. I screamed. He reached for me, then fell to the ground. I ran to him. Reginald got there first.

The entry had not been recorded until two months after the event, once the fog of grief had begun to clear, and it marked a decided shift in tone for the rest of the journal. From this point on, the writings consisted of facts and questions and deductive reasoning. Lucinda was no longer keeping a diary of precious memories. She was documenting evidence. Evidence condemning her brother-in-law of murder.

He raced out of the woods, leapt off his horse, and cradled Stuart’s limp body in his arms. I remember that when I finally came upon them, the first thing I did was press my hand over Stuart’s wound. Which means Reginald had done nothing to staunch the flow of blood before my arrival. Then, every time Stuart tried to rasp out a word, Reginald told him not to talk, to save his strength. It seemed like a caring gesture at the time, but now I wonder if he was afraid of what Stuart might reveal.

There was so much blood, and his chest rattled like the chains of death each time he took a breath. I knew my beloved Stuart wouldn’t survive, so I whispered words of heaven in his ear as tears coursed down my face. He closed his eyes and seemed to find a measure of peace amid his pain. Then Reginald gained his attention with a loud promise to take care of me and Isabella. Stuart’s eyes shot open, the terror in them unmistakable. My only concern was calming him again, so I didn’t dwell on his reaction. However, I have thought of little else lately. Stuart feared for me and our daughter. Even with the rift between the two brothers, my husband would have no reason to fear for our safety unless something had convinced him that Reginald posed a dire threat.

What would be more convincing than a bullet fired into his chest from the barrel of his brother’s rifle?

Adelaide moaned and curled into a tighter ball. Cain and Abel. That’s what this was. Cain and Abel. She’d known the Bible story since she was a child and understood that jealousy could twist love into hate, even between brothers, but she’d never personally been exposed to such venom. It made her ill. She didn’t want to believe it.

If only the journal had been full of emotional rants and wild accusations. Then she could have rationalized that Lucinda’s grief had led her to misinterpret the situation. However, the woman’s cool logic seemed irrefutable. Even so, Lucinda had no proof, only speculation, and Adelaide considered dismissing the woman’s theories for her own peace of mind if nothing else. But she couldn’t. Because what the journal revealed next only solidified Lady Petchey’s hypotheses.

Lucinda remained at their country home after the funeral, knowing Reginald wouldn’t forfeit the excitements of London for long. After he left she and Isabella slowly began to recover from their loss.

Then Reginald returned, claiming his brother’s death had changed him. He charmed the servants, the neighbors, and even the local vicar with his solicitous attitude toward her. They all remarked on how fortunate she was to have such a caring relative to see to her needs. What truly surprised her, though, was that he kept up the pretense in private. So much so that she began to doubt her own conviction that it was all a ploy. Then he started offering to take over her financial responsibilities in an effort to relieve her of the tiresome duty. That’s when she knew her first instinct had been correct. He was after the money.

She refused his offer of assistance three times before he finally stopped asking. However, his kindness did not abate, further confounding her. And when she became violently ill a week later, he stayed by her side. Reluctant though she was to accept any favors from him, she found herself relying on his strength more and more as her body turned traitor on her. She vomited off and on for weeks, the cramping fierce and debilitating. Unable to keep any food down, she grew steadily weaker. Her physician diagnosed an inflammation of the stomach and intestines and left her several packets of medicinal powders. The medicine left a bitter taste in her mouth but alleviated her symptoms to the point that she was able to eat again. Yet when the packets were gone, her illness returned.

Lucinda requested her maid see about replenishing her supply of powders, but the maid insisted that she was still mixing medicine into her lady’s tea every morning and evening, just as the doctor had instructed her. Lucinda trusted the maid’s honesty yet couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She no longer tasted the bitterness of the doctor’s remedy. That’s when the maid explained that, according to the viscount, the doctor had recommended returning to the previous treatment. Therefore she had gone back to using the white powders that Lucinda had taken before the physician visited her. According to the maid, the viscount was so worried about his sister-in-law’s condition, he had instructed her to increase the dosage every week if there was no evidence of improvement.

Lucinda questioned her maid further and discovered that Reginald had started her treatment roughly the same time as her symptoms first appeared. There could be only one possible conclusion.

Poison.

Lucinda was smart enough not to voice any accusations. If Reginald guessed she had found him out, there was no telling what he might do. Protecting Isabella outweighed all else, and until Lucinda regained a measure of strength, she was at his mercy. Therefore, she kept her mouth shut and simply stopped drinking her tea. She poured it into a potted plant near her bed when she believed no one watched. However, Reginald must have learned of her deceit, for the sickness continued to worsen. She stopped eating altogether then, fearing he had begun adding the poison to her meals. She sneaked down to the kitchens to pilfer food during the night, and occasionally Isabella would smuggle her a treat. But she couldn’t stave off the effects.

Arsenic. It had to be. The white powder fit the maid’s description. Colorless. Tasteless. It would explain the lack of bitterness she’d noted after the doctor’s packets had been depleted. Decades before, arsenic had even been known as the
inheritance powder
by heirs who wished to speed along the arrival of their share of a relative’s estate. It was exactly the type of weapon her scheming brother-in-law would choose.

Reginald had murdered her husband and was now killing her. She had to get Isabella away from him. Lucinda had no family with whom to take refuge, no one to protect her daughter when the poison finally won. So she plotted and planned until nearly every contingency was accounted for. God would have to take care of the last detail—to provide a guardian for Isabella before Lucinda breathed her last. She trusted, and the Lord proved faithful. He sent Gideon.

The blackness outside Adelaide’s window lightened to a charcoal gray as the early morning sky prepared to greet the sun. The household would soon begin its routine, unaware of the staggering truths she had uncovered while everyone slept. The others would still be delighting in the sweetness of last night’s party, and she didn’t want to dim their pleasure. But Isabella was in danger. Something must be done.

She might not understand why God had allowed such an atrocity to take place in Isabella’s family, but Adelaide grudgingly admitted to herself that he had not abandoned them, either. The hand of the Lord had been at work through it all, fashioning good out of the devastation the enemy had wrought. He helped Lucinda piece together the truth about her brother-in-law and gave her the strength to escape. He provided an able protector in Gideon and a place of refuge where Isabella could find sanctuary far away from Reginald’s grasp. And though Adelaide had a tendency to rail at him for being unfair when life didn’t work out the way her precious fairy tales had led her to expect, God managed to use her, as well. He led her to the journal and placed an urgency in her soul that didn’t diminish even when the hope of a new day crested the horizon.

Exhausted from her sleepless night and heartsore from reading Lucinda’s tale, Adelaide pulled the blankets over her head and blocked out the predawn light that filtered through her window, wishing to postpone the inevitable. But her paltry attempt to forestall her responsibility proved about as effective as her blanket at holding back the sun.

Why couldn’t she have had another day or two to enjoy the closeness that had sprung up between her and Gideon last night? She could still see the admiration in his gaze and feel his touch on her arm as he teased her during blindman’s bluff. Such feelings were meant to be savored, not shoved under the rug after only a few hours. Yet pouting would do no good. The Lord’s timing was perfect, and she had to have faith that there was purpose behind it. The cloud that had led her to Westcott Cottage was still hovering nearby. Only now it had darkened to an ominous gray. A storm was approaching, and Isabella was standing directly in its path.

Adelaide pushed herself up and dragged her legs over the side of the bed. She sat slumped for several minutes, her shoulders curled forward and her spine wilted as a prayer tumbled out of her spirit.

“Lord, your ways don’t always make sense, but I believe you brought Isabella to Gideon and me for protection. Whatever comes, give us the wisdom and courage to see it through. And if we fail, please intervene on her behalf. Don’t allow evil to triumph over her already wounded soul.”

With a heavy heart and equally heavy limbs, Adelaide peeled off her white cotton nightdress and slipped into a clean set of undergarments and a loose-fitting ivory wrapper. During their conversations at the party the previous evening, Gideon had hinted that he would be amenable to having her join him for a morning ride down to the river. She had planned to meet him in the stables. Now it seemed better to meet him in the hall. He would need privacy and time to digest the passages she had marked.

Adelaide splashed some water on her face and fashioned her hair into a simple plait. She knew she looked limper than a wrungout dishrag, but she was just too tired to exert any significant effort on her appearance.