Concordia was already halfway down the hall. “Please summon all of the girls to the dining hall. I wish to ascertain that they appear well
nourished and in good health. Call the staff together, too. I shall want to inspect them as well.”
Edith came to a halt in the corridor behind her. “Miss Burke, summon the girls and the staff to the dining hall immediately.”
“Yes, Miss Pratt.” Miss Burke’s footsteps retreated back toward the front hall of the mansion.
The unappetizing aroma of spoiled food, curdled milk and rancid cooking fat guided Concordia to the kitchen. She went through the entrance at a brisk pace . . .
. . . And very nearly fell flat on her elegant bustle when the heel of her shoe skidded across some of the old, greasy residue that had collected on the linoleum floor.
“Good heavens.” She grabbed hold of the edge of the heavy planked table that dominated the center of the room to steady herself. “When was the last time this floor was properly washed down with soap and vinegar?”
Two women dressed in badly stained aprons and caps stared at her, openmouthed. One of them stirred the contents of a large iron pot. The smell was not what anyone would have called mouthwatering.
“Never mind.” Concordia straightened and gave one of the two kitchen servants her full attention. “I am conducting an inspection on behalf of the benefactress of this institution. I intend to start with the cellar. Kindly point out the door.”
“Uh, on the other side of the hearth, ma’am,” the first woman said uncertainly.
“Thank you.” Concordia hurried toward the narrow door.
“But it’s locked, ma’am,” the cook added.
Concordia’s heart sank. “Where is the key?”
“Miss Pratt keeps it,” the second cook offered hesitantly. “She don’t abide anyone goin’ down into the cellar without permission.”
“Miss Shelton?” Edith’s voice rang out loudly from the hallway. “Wait for me, if you please. I will guide you through the school.”
“Watch yerself,” the first cook said in low tones to her companion. “She’s been in a foul temper all day.”
Edith entered the kitchen. She stopped and glared at the cooks. “Go into the dining hall and wait with the others. Miss Shelton and I will be along shortly.”
“But the soup will burn,” the first cook protested.
“Never mind the soup.”
“Yes, Miss Pratt.”
The two women hurried out of the room.
“The key to the cellar, if you please, Miss Pratt,” Concordia said in her most commanding voice.
“Yes, of course.” Edith unhooked an iron key from the chatelaine that hung from her waist.
She tossed the key directly at Concordia, who managed to catch it somewhat awkwardly in her gloved hands.
“Go on.” Edith made an urgent motion. “Open the door. I cannot imagine why you are so keen on inspecting the cellar, but that is your business. I trust you will find everything quite satisfactory.”
Concordia turned cautiously toward the door and slid the key into the old lock.
“Be quick about it,” Edith snapped, closing the distance between them. “We do not have all day.”
Concordia had to use both hands to pull the heavy door toward her. As the opening widened, the light from the kitchen slanted down into the depths, illuminating a flight of narrow steps. The rest of the cellar was drenched in Stygian darkness.
She opened her mouth to call out to Hannah.
Running footsteps sounded behind her.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw that Edith was bearing down on her, teeth clenched, eyes fierce and wild.
Edith had seized a heavy iron frying pan from the long table. She clutched it in both hands as though it were a club.
The woman was intent on murder, Concordia realized. Edith was planning to crush her skull with the pan.
Concordia tried frantically and somewhat awkwardly to get out of the path of the lethal iron pan. Her shoes skidded on the slippery floor. She fell hard onto the linoleum.
The accident saved her life. Edith’s savage blow missed her head by inches.
Edith staggered to an awkward halt, adjusted her aim and brought the pot downward in a crushing arc.
Knowing that her skirts would hamper her, Concordia did not even try to get to her feet. Instead, she lurched to her knees and crawled quickly under the planked table.
She made it just in time. The frying pan struck the table with such
force that the pots and platters on top rattled and clanged. A couple of lids bounced off and fell to the floor.
Edith hissed in fury and frustration. She hurled the pan against the nearest wall.
Concordia scrambled out on the far side of the table, hoisted her skirts and managed to get to her feet.
“You’ve ruined everything.” Edith’s face was a mask of rage. “You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”
She yanked a massive carving knife from the knife board.
Concordia stared at the blade, mesmerized with horror. She was trapped between the long table and the wall. Edith advanced on her.
“Not so bold now, are you, Concordia Glade?”
“You know who I am?” Concordia swiftly assessed the clutter of pots and skillets on the table. She grabbed the only object that looked as though it might function as a defense against the knife: the large, heavy lid of a roasting pan.
“Oh, yes, Concordia Glade. When Hannah showed up here earlier today she mentioned you.” Edith’s smile could have been carved in ice. “When I put her into the cellar she kept saying that you would come for her. I never doubted her for a moment. You found out how valuable she and the others are, didn’t you?”
“You killed Alexander Larkin last night, didn’t you?”
“I had to kill him. He betrayed me.”
“How on earth did he do that?”
“I discovered that he intended to marry one of the girls.” Anguish and rage twisted through the words. “After all I’d done for him, he was
planning to take one of them as his wife. He didn’t even care which of the girls he got so long as she was a respectable virgin with good social connections. He wanted the same sort of well-bred lady a
real
gentleman of means would take for a wife, you see. He didn’t care that I loved him.”
Concordia edged around the end of the table. For some reason she was suddenly aware of the unwholesome smell of the soup. It was starting to burn.
“Why would Larkin want to marry a penniless orphan, even if she was well bred?” she asked, desperate to stall Edith as long as possible. Surely someone would eventually return to the kitchen to see about the delay.
“But they’re not penniless.” Edith’s voice was thick with disgust. “They’re
heiresses.
All four of them. Worth a fortune each. It was my plan, right from the start, you know.”
“
Your
plan?”
“We were going to auction them off to the highest bidders, you see. There’s any number of fortune-hunting, social-climbing gentlemen who would jump at the chance to move up in Society. Nothing like marrying an heiress from a good family with a pristine reputation to help a man better his station in life, now is there? And the beauty of it was that they could pay for their wives out of the young ladies’ inheritances.”
Understanding jolted through Concordia. “I thought the girls were going to be sold off as courtesans.”
“Bah. There’s whores aplenty in the world. Respectable heiresses, on the other hand, are always in short supply. The plan was simple enough. The girls were made to disappear temporarily. They were
presumed dead by their greedy relatives, who rushed to claim their money and properties.”
“But after the auction each of the missing heiresses was to miraculously reappear, respectably married to a gentleman who would be in a position to claim the lady’s inheritance.”
“Precisely,” Edith hissed.
“It sounds like something out of a sensation novel, one of those stories about secret marriages and missing heirs.”
Edith snorted. “There certainly would have been a great sensation when the girls were found, safe and sound and respectably wed. But the press and the public would have loved it, and the girls’ positions in Society would have been secure because they had not been ruined.”
“That was why you went to all the trouble of creating a proper boarding school when you were forced to remove the girls from Winslow. You had to protect them from scandal at all costs.”
“Ruined heiresses would have been valuable, of course, but not nearly as valuable as those who were still respectable.”
“Did you kill Mrs. Jervis?” Concordia asked.
“That stupid woman and her friend Bartlett figured out that the girls were intended to turn a profit. The fools tried to blackmail Cuthbert. Alex had his men take care of both of them.”
“But you needed someone to take Bartlett’s place at the castle, didn’t you?”
Edith’s mouth twisted. “Alex insisted that the girls’ reputations be protected at all costs. I thought it was because they would be worth
more that way. But later I found out that it was because he wanted to be certain that
his
bride was unsullied.”
“You went through Jervis’s files and you found me.”
“Jervis had made some notes about you. Did you know that she knew your great secret? Oh, yes. She was well aware that you were the daughter of the founders of the Crystal Springs Community.”
“Jervis knew about my past?”
“She no doubt planned to use the information to blackmail you at some future date. But thanks to me she never got the opportunity.”
“You used the information instead, though, didn’t you? That was how the headmistress at my former school discovered my real identity. You informed her of my past and made certain that I lost my post. Then you sent me the offer of a position at the castle knowing I would be desperate.”
“I made the mistake of assuming that because of your situation you would have the good sense not to give us any trouble. But it seems that I was wrong on that count.
Damn you
.”
Edith hurled the carving knife across the table. The distance was so short, she could not miss.
Instinctively Concordia flung up the hand in which she held the roasting pan lid.
The blade struck the iron lid with a bone-jarring clang and clattered to the floor.
Edith whirled and rushed back to the knife board.
Concordia clutched her skirts in one hand, hauling them up above her knees, dashed around the end of the table and ran toward the stove.
Dropping her skirts, she grabbed a thick dishtowel. She used it to protect her palms when she grasped the handles of the soup pot. It required all of her strength, more than she realized she possessed, to lift the heavy iron pot.
When she turned back she discovered that Edith was almost upon her, the point of a carving knife aimed at her heart.
She swung the pot off the stove, dashing the contents straight at Edith.
Too late, Pratt understood the danger.
“No . . .”
With a howling shriek, she dropped the knife and raised her arms in front of her face to protect herself from the cascade of scalding soup.
She managed to turn partially away before the steaming liquid struck, but she screamed when the soup splashed across her hands and arms and spattered her face.
She groaned and sank to her knees. Sobbing with pain and fury, she frantically used her skirts to wipe the soup off her hands and face.
Footsteps pounded in the hall. Concordia heard Ambrose’s voice, hard with urgency and command.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
“In the kitchen,” Miss Burke said. “But Miss Pratt gave very strict orders. No one is to disturb her conversation with Miss Shelton.”
Ambrose slammed through the doorway into the kitchen. Stoner, Felix and a uniformed constable followed close behind.
“Mind the slippery floor,” Concordia warned.
Everyone except Ambrose halted and looked at Pratt.
“Bloody hell,” the constable muttered. “Will you look at the size of that knife.”
Ambrose reached Concordia and pulled her into his arms. “Tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m unhurt. We must find Hannah.”
Ambrose looked past her toward the entrance to the cellar. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
She turned quickly and saw Hannah standing in the opening to the cellar. Her face and hands were smudged with coal dust and her new gown was filthy, but she appeared unharmed. She stared at Concordia with solemn eyes.
“Hannah.”
Concordia went to her and gathered her into her arms. “My dear girl, I was so worried about you. You must have been terrified.”
Hannah hugged her tightly and started to cry.
“I knew you’d come, Miss Glade. That’s what I kept telling myself all the time I was down there. And I was right.”
The constable dug out a little notebook and pencil. He looked at Concordia and cleared his throat. “Who might you be, ma’am?”
Stoner watched Ambrose tuck Hannah under one arm and wrap Concordia close with the other.
“Allow me to introduce Miss Glade,” he said. “She’s the teacher.”
T
hey gathered together in the library later that evening. Ambrose poured brandy for Felix, Stoner and himself. Concordia accepted a glass of sherry. Hannah, Phoebe, Edwina and Theodora got tea. Dante and Beatrice settled down in their customary position in front of the hearth.
Ambrose took his glass and went to stand behind his desk. He took a healthy swallow of the brandy. He needed a restorative more than anyone else in the room, he thought. He had come so close to losing Concordia, he could not bear to contemplate it.
Felix looked at Concordia. “Pratt’s plan was to bash you on the back of the head while you concentrated on getting the cellar door open, Miss Glade. You would have fallen down the steps and wound up dead from a tragic household accident. If necessary, Pratt would have followed and given you a few more blows to finish you off. She really did not anticipate any great difficulty in disposing of you.”
“The school was her realm,” Concordia said quietly. “She ruled it
without question. The students and the staff were terrified of her. No one would have dared to suggest that my death had been anything other than an accident. In any event, there would have been no witnesses except Hannah because Pratt sent everyone else into the dining hall at the far end of the building.”