Her heart sank at his question.
Mrs. Dilwyn had by now joined them also. “No, sir, not that I know of.”
The coachman and the footman both shook their heads. Mrs. Green, however, frowned. “Come to think of it, sir, there was this vagrant. He was loitering in the lane before the house when Mrs. Douglas and I were in the garden. I tried to shoo him away but Mrs. Douglas—her heart is too kind—she had me go to the kitchen and fetch a basket of foodstuffs. And when I brought out the basket, the vagrant, he fell to his knees and thanked her. I didn’t like him clutching her hands, so I gave him a nice shove. He scampered off after that.”
Elissande had thought her husband had driven a stake through her happiness. How wrong she had been. This, this could shatter the very foundation of her new life.
“The vagrancy law is too lenient these days, I always say,” declared Lord Vere, now fully back in character. “And was that when Mrs. Douglas started looking ill, Mrs. Green?”
“That’s right, sir. It was.”
“She is too delicate a lady to be in such rough company.” He shook his head, then took Elissande by the elbow. “Come along, Lady Vere.”
Back at the house, Aunt Rachel’s room was as empty as a robbed tomb. Elissande swayed and caught herself on the doorjamb. A racket erupted downstairs. She took the steps down two at a time. Aunt Rachel had been sighted and everyone was clamoring in relief—it had to be that. It had to be.
But it was only a telegram addressed to Elissande that had been found, among the post that had arrived during the lord and the lady’s absence from the house.
My Dearest,
I have experienced an unexpected yearning for the oyster au gratin served at the Savoy Hotel and have therefore decided to travel to London and stay overnight.
Please do not worry about me, Elissande. Just know that I love you very much.
Your loving aunt
Lord Vere took the cable from her numb hands and scanned its contents. He then read the telegram aloud for the gathered servants.
“See, nothing to worry about,” he claimed. “She’s gone to London, as she said was her plan—and she’ll be back tomorrow. Return to your posts, everyone. Mrs. Green, you may have yourself a cup of tea and consider this a day off.”
“But—”
Lord Vere gave Elissande a look. Elissande unclenched her hand and smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Green. “Her decisions do get a little erratic from time to time, Mrs. Green. We live with it. She will be back on the morrow if she says so.”
Mrs. Green curtsied and went in search of her tea. The other servants also dispersed. Only Lord Vere and Elissande remained in the entry hall.
“Come with me,” he said.
He took her to his study, closed the door, and handed her another cable. “This one came for me. You might want to read it.”
She glanced down at the telegram. The words lurched and staggered, refusing to coalesce into properly structured sentences. She had to close her eyes and then open them again.
Dear Sir,
It has recently come to our attention that Mr. Douglas has been reported missing. Neither his method of escape nor his current whereabouts have been determined. But the authorities would like to alert you to his fugitive status and request your assistance in returning him to custody.
Yours, etc.,
Filbert
“He was the vagrant,” said Lord Vere, inexorably. “He must have instructed your aunt on how to meet him.”
A vise closed over Elissande’s chest. She could not breathe. Four days before his trial, her uncle had hunted down her aunt in broad daylight.
And what had Elissande been doing? Wearing her heart on her sleeve in a ruined castle, trying to woo her unfeeling bastard of a husband.
The same husband pressed a glass of whiskey into her hand. “Drink.”
The whiskey burned a trail down her throat. She tilted back the glass again. It was already empty. “I need more.”
“Not now. You don’t have much capacity for liquor.”
She rubbed the empty glass against her forehead. “I don’t understand—none of this makes sense. She was not alone. My uncle did not grab her by the throat and abduct her outright. Why did she leave to meet him of her own volition?”
“He must have threatened your safety or mine, possibly both.”
“He is a fugitive. He has the law after him. He can’t do anything to harm any of us.”
“You don’t know him as she does.”
She resented his assumption. “I’ve lived with him my entire life.”
He gazed at her a long moment, as if she were some creature about to be led to slaughter. “Would you care for a seat? There is something I need to tell you.”
He had something he needed to tell her. About her uncle?
Suddenly the events of the past few weeks flashed before her eyes. Hundreds of rats finding their way into Lady Kingsley’s house, a very clever man coming to Highgate Court disguised as an idiot, skulking all around, and barely days later the police in possession of enough evidence to arrest her uncle. What were the chances that these had all been random events?
She sat down. Or perhaps her legs simply gave out from underneath her. “You had something to do with it, didn’t you? You didn’t come to my house because Lady Kingsley had a rat problem; you came because you were looking for evidence against my uncle.”
“I see we may skip right over that part,” he said lightly.
“Do you work for the police?”
He raised a brow. “Of course not—marquesses don’t work. Although I might occasionally assist the police.”
She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “What was it that you wanted to tell me?”
“Are you familiar with their courtship?”
“To hear him tell it, it was much charity and compassion on his part. He was a very rich man coming back from South Africa. She was a damsel in distress whose father had died in poverty after his bank failed and whose sister had run away to become a whore. My uncle, of course, swept in and rescued her from a life of drudgery and despair.”
“They might have been introduced only after he returned from South Africa, but I believe he’d been fixated on her since long before.”
Something in her tilted dangerously at his revelation. She had thought for certain that she knew everything she needed to know about her aunt and her uncle. “Why do you think so?”
“The paintings at Highgate Court. Freddie tracked down a sister painting, done possibly in the late sixties. Yesterday I went to Kent to see it. It too had an angel and a man: The angel was all in white and the man on his knees in rapture. The angel had Mrs. Douglas’s face. The artist, whom I believe to be your uncle, sold the painting to finance his trip to South Africa.”
“He went to South Africa for her?”
“Perhaps not for her, but it appears she loomed large in his mind. It was something close to an obsession.”
She rose; she could remain seated no longer. “And then what happened?”
“He failed—your uncle lacks either luck or acumen in business, or perhaps both. But someone he knew found a rich vein and boasted to everyone who would listen. This man was going to voyage to England and glory in his newfound wealth. His name was Edmund Douglas.”
The ugliness he implied—she did not want to hear any more. Yet she must know everything. “Go on,” she croaked.
“I have cause to believe that your uncle murdered the real Edmund Douglas en route from South Africa to England. Upon his arrival in England, he established himself as Edmund Douglas, used the dead man’s letters of credit, and married your aunt under false pretenses.”
She had thought that she was prepared to hear the worst. But the whiskey glass still fell from her hand. It thudded softly onto the rug and rolled away.