Through the Smoke (24 page)

Rachel was so sure it was the storm that disturbed her sleep, she almost rolled over and drifted off again. Rain slashed the windows and wind howled through the eaves but, despite the intense weather, she heard a far more subtle sound: a key, turning in the lock on her door.

At first, she thought the earl was coming in. He’d been awake when she left the study. But she couldn’t figure out why he’d be entering from the hall. She almost called out his name, but a sense of foreboding snatched her words away. She didn’t even have the chance to sit up before the hinges on the door whined.

Mouth dry, pulse racing, she blinked repeatedly, trying to make out the shape of her intruder. She wanted to believe it was Mary coming to avoid the dampness of the attic. But when a bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky outside her window, she realized who her visitor was.

“Wythe?” she whispered.

He moved more quickly once he realized she was awake and knew he was there. “What you’re trying to do will never work,” he whispered harshly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was drunk again. She could smell the alcohol on him, remembered how he’d treated her that night she’d been coming up the road from Creswell. She hoped this wouldn’t be a repeat performance.

“You think you can pretend to be a
lady
? That some coalminer’s daughter can keep company with the Stanhopes?”

She drew the covers up under her chin. “You have no business here. Get out.”

“Or what?” he taunted. “You’ll call my cousin? Do you realize how easy it would be for me to break your neck? I could throw your body into the ocean and tell my dear cousin that you ran away in the night.”

“Except I wouldn’t believe you.” The earl’s voice shot through the darkness. It came from the far corner of the room, but Rachel couldn’t see him.

“My lord?” she said.

“Go back to sleep, Rachel,” he replied. “You have nothing to fear. I will walk Wythe to his own room. It appears that drink has gotten the best of his judgment once again.”

At first Wythe seemed too stunned to speak. But he soon rallied. “You are making a mistake, Truman. She’s a poor village girl, not worth what she will cost you.”

“I will be the judge of that.”

“But you’re not thinking with the correct part of your anatomy. She will lead you right to the noose!” he responded and stormed out.

Rachel jumped when the door slammed, but only because she was on edge, not because she was still frightened.

“My lord?” she whispered to make sure
he
hadn’t left too.

“I’m here.”

“How did you know he would come?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “That’s what worries me.”

Before she could say more, the door opened and closed between their rooms and he was gone.

The next morning Rachel was almost sure she’d dreamt that incident in the night. She couldn’t believe Wythe would threaten her
life
, whether he was drunk or not. She also couldn’t believe that the earl had been in her bedroom. How long had he been sitting there? And why?

She planned to ask him the next time they were alone, but he didn’t send for her that night or the next. He and Wythe seemed to be gone, possibly overnight. She listened for his return, especially late, when she typically heard him next door, but there was only the usual movements of the servants.

When the earl did reappear, his cousin wasn’t with him—a fact that seemed of particular interest to Mrs. Poulson.

From where Rachel hovered at the top of the stairs, just out of sight, she heard the housekeeper ask after Mr. Stanhope. She also heard the earl reply that he was lodging with the Fore-Overman at Cosgrove House until he could bring his drinking under control.

“
You put your cousin out?
” the housekeeper asked in shock.

“I made it clear that his behavior needs to change,” he responded and handed his coat to one of the footman.

“For
her
sake?”

Rachel didn’t have to guess who Mrs. Poulson meant; she knew she was the subject of that question.

“For
his
sake,” the earl replied and started up the stairs.

Rachel waited until he reached her. Then she stepped forward.

When he noticed her, he paused. “Let me see your hands,” he said without preamble.

She held them out for his inspection.

“Better. Already. You are looking healthier every day.”

“Thank you, my lord. But…”

His eyebrows slid up when she didn’t finish.

“I do not want to be a problem for you.”

A rare smile broke across his face as he fingered a lock of her hair. “
Be
a problem? Dear Rachel, you feel like the antidote.”

Their eyes met for a second but then he pulled away. “If you will excuse me, I have a commitment in town and must change.”

As soon as the earl left, Rachel pulled on a heavy cloak, slipped out the back and walked to town. It took over an hour to get there, which meant it would also take considerable time to get back. But she was desperate to accomplish two things: She wanted to pay Elspeth a visit, and she wanted to go to her former home and pick up the ledgers. Before her mother died, she’d seen for herself that the bookshop hadn’t been making a profit. She’d been over and over the accounts. It was that one extra payment each month that had sustained them. So who’d been helping Jillian—and why?
Had she been receiving hush money
? Is that what that one payment had been?

If Rachel could determine that, maybe she could also learn enough about the mystery of Katherine’s death to prove Lord Druridge wasn’t responsible. She didn’t want to do anything that might besmirch the memory of her dear
mother, which was why she’d let the matter go until now. It was easier not to think about it, or to assume that mysterious income had no correlation to the fire. But if her parents had done something wrong, she didn’t want to perpetuate their mistake. The memory of that argument between Lord Druridge and Mr. Linley had been wearing on her. She couldn’t ignore what she’d discovered, not if it might stop an innocent man from being hanged.

Her errands were simple. She hoped they’d also be quick because she felt a deep sense of foreboding when she reached the edge of town. Other than her former neighbor, Mrs. Tate, she had no friends in Creswell. She hated the thought that she might run into the blacksmith’s apprentice. Lord knew how much his opinion of her must’ve changed. She didn’t want to see Mr. Cutberth either. Or anyone else. She no longer trusted them, and they no longer trusted her. When she’d proclaimed her innocence mere weeks ago, no one would believe her. Imagine what the villagers thought now, after hearing she’d been installed in the room adjoining Lord Druridge’s. Her most recent accommodations would seem to suggest that they’d been right about her.

For all she knew, even Mrs. Tate had turned on her. Considering what the poor woman had probably been told, Rachel couldn’t blame her.

Keeping her hood up and her head down, she blew out the lantern that had guided her steps so far. Any household facing the main thoroughfare had to put out a lamp from dark until eleven, so she no longer needed her own. She preferred to conserve her oil and stick to the shadows. Although it was dark, it wasn’t late. She could easily encounter someone she’d rather avoid if she wasn’t careful.

She could smell chimney smoke and food cooking, see light gleaming around the shutters of even those cottages that were off Creswell Proper, but as she made her way to her former home, the streets were, thankfully, quiet.

The shop had been locked with a heavy padlock and chain, and someone—the earl’s solicitor?—had posted a notice that trespassers would be prosecuted. The sight of it looking so forbidding reminded her of how drastically her life had changed in the past month. But there was no time to dwell on her losses. At least Geordie was in an enviable situation.

Voices rose on the night air, coming from down the street. It sounded as
if two men were walking her way, so she ducked into the alley. She had to go around to the house anyway.

The small, wooden cottage where she’d grown up was as dark and empty as the bookshop. The memory of returning, so recently, to find her mother dead made Rachel’s breath catch as she stepped into the garden, but she pushed the pain aside. She’d come here for a reason; she couldn’t think too much or she’d get nowhere.

She had the key out of her pocket, ready to open the front door, when she realized that a key wouldn’t be necessary. The door wasn’t latched, let alone locked. But that wasn’t how she’d left it. The day the earl rescued her from the mine, he’d brought her home to pack a bag and collect her brother. She’d locked both the house and the shop.…

A prickle of unease crept up her spine. Someone had been here since. Was it Mrs. Tate on some innocent errand? Or was it a thief? Had someone stolen their simple furnishings, and what had been left of their candles and coal?

That was hard to believe of the high-minded people who’d turned on her. But she supposed anything was possible. Maybe her former friends thought she owed them whatever was left.

The door creaked as she pushed it wide. “Hello?”

She heard nothing in response.
No one’s here
, she told herself—and yet she hesitated, too nervous and unsettled to go farther. She feared what she might find, but she’d stowed the ledgers under the loose floorboards in the bedroom. If she didn’t get them now, maybe she never would.

Inside it was even darker than outside, but she didn’t want to go to the time or trouble of relighting her lamp. She left it at the entry so she could grab it as she left and slipped into the main room. She should have been able to navigate such a familiar place with ease, but it no longer felt familiar. The smell—cold and damp without a fire for so long—wasn’t even the same. She bumped into several objects that weren’t where they were supposed to be before she managed to reach a window and open the shutters.

The moonlight that filtered through made it possible to see why she’d been having difficulty.
Nothing
was where it was supposed to be. The entire place had been ransacked.

Why? From what she could tell, nothing had been stolen—except,
maybe, the ledgers. She’d hidden them in the bedroom, but she had no idea how thoroughly it had been searched, whether or not someone had found those loose floorboards.

Careful not to trip, she made her way to where she and her family had slept and opened the shutters in that room too. Someone had scattered and overturned everything here as well. Obviously whoever it was had gone through the whole house.

What had they been looking for?

She feared it was what she’d come to claim herself. Perhaps she’d been right to return. Perhaps the ledgers held some clue as to who had fired Blackmoor Hall—or at least could offer the earl proof that he hadn’t done it himself.

The floorboards hadn’t been disturbed, but her chest tightened in spite of that.

“What have I gotten myself into?” she murmured as she pried them up. She couldn’t see inside the hole, but when she reached in, she felt the telltale bindings and let her breath go. “Thank God.”

She was just climbing to her feet when she heard someone at the front door. A moment later, she saw a light. Whoever it was had a candle. She didn’t want to be caught with the ledgers for fear they’d be taken from her, but there was no time to put them back.