Silence settled again and she ran her hands over the black crepe skirt she wore. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams. She smelled the faintest hint of roses in the air.
One of her grandparents sighed and she looked up to them.
“You must be tired,” her grandmother said. “You should rest for bit. Perhaps later we may all talk? There are so many questions we have. So many unanswered questions.”
Emily nodded and stood as her grandmother did.
“Good. Come follow me. Your mother might not have ever found her way home.” A smile dimmed the weariness on the older woman’s face. “But at least you have.”
* * * * *
Later that evening, Emily sat again in the same room, in the same chair. Though this time there was another person present. Another that made her wary and had her stomach tied in knots. A male.
Her uncle, Rayne Warring, propped one arm on the mantle and regarded her with hooded dark eyes. His black breeches encased long legs. He seemed dressed for an evening with a dark overcoat and gray waistcoat. An intricately knotted cravat sat perfectly under his squared chin. His glance shifted to her grandparents. The candlelight played over his face, strong arrogant jaw, dark brown hair, cropped short, a hawk like nose, and a bearing of authority. The man made her nervous, and he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw his horse, so he had told her.
When she’d entered the room on her grandfather’s arm, Edward had been almost apologetic in his earlier cold attitude. Whatever had been in his letters had erased any doubts he had harbored. Her grandmother was just as kind and gentle as before.
Not so with their youngest son.
“Rayne, quit glaring and sit down.”
“I find standing suits me at the moment, Mother.” His fingers drummed ceaselessly on the mantle, a soft rap-tap-tap that was driving her to distraction.
Her grandmother looked at her with apology.
“Ignore him, we never did succeed in teaching that boy manners,” Edward grumbled. “Always the Doubting Thomas.”
“For God’s sake, Father. Every member of the
ton
from here to the West Indies and probably the East Indies as well, knows the
Warrings
have a wayward daughter. The scandal is still whispered about. It would hardly take any imagination at all for someone to be coached.” His coal black eyes skewered her. “I must congratulate you, madam. My family is not easily duped. But if you think I’m the only doubting one, you’ve yet to meet my brother or sister.”
When she said nothing, merely held his stare, he continued. She’d learned that silence often taught her more than anything else, and gave her an advantage. People often misjudged a quiet woman.
“Your talents are obviously wasted. I suggest you go back to Drury Lane, or wherever it is you hail from.”
Was this truly the easy, laughing boy her mother had told them of? Of course when her mother—the oldest at nineteen—had left, Rayne—the youngest—had only been eight. There was no laughter it seemed in this man.
Carefully, she waited.
“Well?” he all but barked, straightening away from the fireplace.
She gave nothing away. Finally, she said, “What is it you’d have me to say? You’ve apparently worked it all out.”
For the briefest of moments he looked taken aback. “That’s it? You give up that easily?”
“Though I do wonder what happened to the mischievous little boy my mother often told us of.” Emily stood and walked to the piano. Thank goodness for all the stories. “Like the boy who hid behind the curtain.” She lifted the lid from the pianoforte and stared at the ivory and ebony keys. Looking back to him, she asked, “Which is middle C?”
Rayne cocked a brow. “Middle C? Aren’t you accomplished? We all know Elizabeth was. Would not her daughter, or as you claim, daughters be as well?”
Emily inwardly sighed. “No, Neil never allowed music other than what was sung in our congregation. But Mama taught us other songs when he wasn’t around.” When Uncle Rayne still stood unmoving, she swallowed past the fear and asked again. “Middle C?”
He strode to her and pressed the key in question. His hand was not far from hers, close enough to clasp, but she knew he wouldn’t welcome such a touch, and she wouldn’t be brave enough to initiate it in any case.
“Why do you not still call her
Lizzy
?” she asked him.
A frown appeared between his brows. Ignoring him, Emily bent down and pressed the keys on either side of the one she was interested in. There. She could barely see them, but the black lines were there all the same. With a smile she whispered, “There it is.”
“What is?” Rayne asked, his voice gruff as he tried to whisper.
“
E.W. and C.D. forever
.” Her mother had told her the story many times. It was one of Emily’s favorites. How her mother had carved her initials along with her beau’s into the side of the key. She’d called it “their” key. The “key” to their hearts.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Rayne whispered. Leaning down himself, he turned and their noses almost bumped. He straightened. “But it proves nothing.”
“What are you two whispering about?” her grandmother asked.
“Oh, just something my mother put here.”
“It still proves nothing,” Rayne said again, but perhaps with less conviction.
“No? Well, then, what of the fact I know you were hiding behind the curtains while she did this and threatened to tell on her until she reminded you that if you told about her secret she’d tell yours.”
“Mine?” Yet, something in his eyes shifted, and the corners lifted with his grin.
“What secret?” Edward asked.
“That he was the one who broke…” She looked pointedly at Rayne.
“Who broke great-grandfather’s Chinese vase.” His shrewd eyes skimmed over her face and down over her.
“I also know how you really got the scar that runs down the inside of your right knee,” she pressed. Emily thought it might be better to just let it go and let him think what he would, but at the same time, she wanted his belief.
His eyes flashed in surprise, but that was it.
“He fell off the fence at Blackstone when he was a boy,” Victoria said. “But the wound became infected and he was so ill. I prayed we wouldn’t lose him.”
She only looked at her uncle. “Actually, he was riding Edward’s new stallion, Cyclops.”
“What?” her grandfather asked. “Cyclops. That horse was a damn menace. I should have tanned your hide.”
“Undoubtedly,” Rayne agreed. “Elizabeth covered for me. I still have no idea why.”
“She was always partial to you,” her grandmother said on a sigh.
One long moment passed. Finally, Rayne tilted his head and said, “Why are you dressed in black? And where is my sister?”
Emily looked away from his gaze and turned, sitting on the piano bench. Oh, she didn’t want to go into this.
Rayne leaned back against the piano, and she could feel his eyes on her.
“I’m a widow. As for your sister, I have no idea where she could be. I’d always thought she was here.”
“What do you mean
always
thought?”
Emily rubbed her forehead. “I haven’t seen my mother in almost eight years.”
“Why?”
She bit down.
Just tell it
. Like if she was telling any other story. Her fingers pleated the material of her gown. Taking a deep breath, she dove under the cold dark waters of the past. “My mother decided she’d had enough. Neil wasn’t always easy to live with and later it was worse. He had become very angry earlier that day.” No need to say it all started with her and a child’s innocent act. “He left around noon and was supposed to have gone to another town for a ministers’ meeting and stay the night and most of the next day. We were packing to leave when he came home.” She stopped remembering the day. Her mother had planned to leave as soon as it got dark so no one would see. “It had started to rain that afternoon and apparently he returned on account of the weather.”
Ice cold fear lanced through her still at the memory of his face when he’d looked from the three of them at the table to the bags by the door. Emily rubbed her arms. “He was not p-pl-pleased.” There would be no point in black details. “Later that evening Anne and I awoke during the storm. We went down to see if Mama was all right because she usually came up to check on us, but she hadn’t you see.”
Images sharp and bright flashed in her mind as the lightning had that night so long ago.
She shrugged. “There was no sign of her. None. Things were broken in their room. And there was…” The bloody hand print. Emily swallowed past the emotion squeezing her chest. “The horses and cart were gone. We sat up all night, wondering, scared. And when he came back early the next morning, he made it clear we were not to even speak her name.”
The silence weighed through the room. Emily wondered what they were thinking.
“Why-why do you call him-him, Neil, if I may ask?” her grandmother inquired.
Emily shifted. “It was all I was ever allowed to call him. I learned that at a very young age. He’s always been Neil to me.”
“Was he as cold toward your sister?” Victoria asked.
“No, she called him ‘Papa’. I never understood it and then I no longer cared.”
“Why was she trying to leave him?” her grandfather asked her. His dark eyes, much like her own, straight and demanding the truth.
Emily returned his stare, not blinking and raised her chin. “He beat her, my lord. Mostly when he was heavy in his cups, which later became more and more often. Sometimes so badly she could barely move for days.”
A frown deepened the lines across her grandfather’s forehead before he erupted. “Bloody rotten—”
“Buggering sod,” Rayne finished.
“I’ll kill him.”
Their anger was palpable. Emily stiffened and remained silent. She didn’t think they would harm her.
But they were angry.
“I am sorry. I had not intended-intended to have to tell you…to bring you sad news. I’d thought she’d be here. She’s supposed to be here. Anne’s supposed to be here. Where is she?”
“Where is your esteemed father?” Rayne bit out.
“Dead. He was drunk and fell off a horse while looking for my sister. He never woke up.”
“What a pity,” he said very quietly. Rayne cleared his throat, his arms crossing over his chest. The pose was relaxed, but his black eyes burned and a muscle bunched in his jaw. “What changed her mind that day? His…treatment of her was nothing new?”
Emily opened her mouth to answer, and looked away. Shame washed through her. If not for her, Neil wouldn’t have been angry that morning and Mama wouldn’t have turned his anger on her.
“No, it wasn’t.” she answered his last question.
“You’ve not heard from her in all this time?”
Emily sighed. “No. At first, we thought he might have actually killed her. I wouldn’t put it past him.” But she’d had years and years to think about it. “But for some reason I never really believed that, told Anne not to believe it. About two years ago, Neil was about to marry my sister off as he had me. She was at our house at almost dawn telling me she was leaving. Neil had let it slip where he had taken our mother. Apparently he’d drunk a large amount the night before and told my sister.”
“Where did he take her?”
Emily finally looked up at Rayne, away from the pattern on the carpet that had held her sight. “I don’t know. My husband came out at that moment and told Anne she needed to go home. Anne claimed she had walked over to borrow a bit of flour for Neil’s noon bread. She hadn’t realized they’d run so low.”
“She didn’t tell you later?” Rayne asked.
Emily shook her head. “No, she left. No one ever saw her again. I thought she might write to me, but if she did, I never saw the letters.”
“Why didn’t she tell your husband? Surely he would have helped,” her grandmother said, quietly, wiping her hand over her eyes.
The thought of Theodore helping was laughable. Or might have been. She couldn’t help but smile, even as she knew it held no amusement. “Theodore Smith help? No, madam, he would not have helped. He was a much older man, with his own set of rules. He would have turned fifty-five this year,” she said absently. Shaking off the wayward thought, she ignored the twisting in her stomach at the mere mention of his name, and gripped her hands tightly. “Theodore believed Neil was a good and just man who had saved his daughters from being influenced by a whore.”
“What the devil do you mean?” her grandfather demanded, pacing to the windows.
She tried to smile and knew she failed miserably. “The two were much alike, my lord, and had rather low views of women.”
Her shoulder still throbbed and exhaustion was pulling. Absently, she rolled it, wincing at the tight constant ache.
“What did you mean? Can no one just speak one’s mind anymore?” her grandfather barked.
There was no way she could answer his question. She wasn’t ready for that yet. Not yet.
Emily rubbed her forehead.
“You’re pale, dear, are you feeling all right?”
She thought about lying, but decided she’d told enough deep dark secrets for one evening. Smiling slightly, she looked at her grandmother and said, “’
Tis
the truth, this has been a long day. I was ill after a carriage accident on the way here, or I’d have been in London weeks ago.”
“Carriage accident?” her grandfather and uncle asked at the same time. “What carriage accident?”
Not more explanations. She decided on a shortened version. “We were held up. But I’m all right now.”
“Well, you don’t look just the thing, dear.” Her grandmother stood and walked over to her in a swish of skirts, wiping her eyes again and clearing her throat. “Rayne, be a dear and have tea sent up to Emily’s room. Come along. I think you need some rest. It’s been a long day for all of us. We can talk more later.”
Emily looked around the room and felt a twinge of guilt for hiding, but she really wasn’t feeling well.
At the door, her grandfather’s voice stopped her. “Emily.”
She turned. “Yes, my lord?”
He shook his head. “Stop ‘my lording’ me. I’m your grandfather. My grandchildren call me Grandpapa.”
She smiled. “Good night.”
“Good night.”