The Lady Julia Grey Bundle (102 page)

I have known him from childhood, and although I have the power to inform Lord E. that he has accepted employ under a false identity, I have said nothing. I have seen his black eyes upon me, and I know he realises I have recognised him. I have him in my power, and he wonders, even now if I mean to do him harm. He is a
fool. I do not care what becomes of him. He is less than the dirt beneath my feet. Petty revenges will not distract me from my true purpose here: I will make great discoveries this season, discoveries which will ensure the recovery of my fortune, and the Allenby name.

 

I sat up as I read the words. Redwall Allenby rarely noticed anyone whose path crossed his. The fact that he found an enemy in Egypt was highly interesting. That was the season of his disgrace, I realised quickly, the last season he had spent in Egypt before returning home to England, and a premature death. He had been wrong not to fear his enemy. Whoever he was, Redwall had apparently estimated him badly.

I turned the page to read more, but it was blank, and in its place was clipped a photograph, smudged and grimy, but still clear enough. It was a group photograph, the Evandale expedition in that fateful year when Redwall Allenby was disgraced and drummed from Egyptology forever. I found Redwall at once, in the back of the group, tall and handsomely blond, perhaps only a slight twist of the lips betraying his annoyance at not being seated next to Lord Evandale in the front of the group. Lord Evandale’s feet rested on a stuffed lion, and his expression was one of jovial
bonhomie.
Clearly he was no enemy to Redwall; he had not the temperament for it, and his face was like a child’s, open and guileless. He was obviously delighted to be financing an expedition, and he had gathered his staff about him like an indulgent parent. I studied the other faces carefully, but none were familiar, save one. The man standing next to Redwall Allenby. He was muscular and well-formed, perhaps an inch
taller than Redwall. He sported a luxuriant black beard, and across his firm waist stretched a watch chain, its slender length hung with a coin struck with the head of a Gorgon. The reverse of the photograph was labelled in Redwall’s familiar hand, and I only turned it over to confirm what I already knew. Redwall Allenby had identified the tall, dark man beside him as St. John Malachy-LaPlante, the Comte de Roselende. But of course, I knew him as Nicholas Brisbane.

I
stared at the photograph for a long time, feeling oddly light, as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool. I had known Brisbane loathed the Allenbys. He had even told me himself that he had been in Egypt, masquerading as an Egyptologist. Why had I not connected the points sooner? Brisbane had been the instrument of Redwall Allenby’s disgrace and destruction.

Sickened, I closed the journal, shutting Brisbane’s clever, calculating face away. I turned onto my side, thinking hard. The feud between their families was an old one. Sir Alfred Allenby had been responsible for seeing Brisbane’s mother put into gaol where she died. Did Brisbane hold the rest of the Allenbys accountable for what one of them had done?

He must have, I thought fiercely. He had insisted upon
Lord Salisbury purchasing Grimsgrave Hall for him when a dozen other properties might have done just as well if not better. Properties in excellent condition, near to his business interests in London, properties with no ghosts or scores to settle. But Brisbane had chosen none of them. He had insisted upon having Grimsgrave, knowing the Allenby women would be at his mercy, dependent upon him as completely as Mariah Young had been upon the clemency of Sir Alfred Allenby.

And because Sir Alfred had shown no mercy to her, none would be given to the Allenbys, I realised with horror. Brisbane had marked his time, dangling the promise of a snug, pretty cottage in front of them, but forcing them to live under his roof, beholden to him. Until from frustration or anger or thwarted pride, Lady Allenby had attempted his life, giving him the perfect pretext to send her away. That he had not had her hanged ought to have given me a flicker of hope, but it did not. Brisbane was a subtle and clever man with a fair measure of hot Gypsy blood. He had been schooled in blood feuds since childhood. If he wanted an enemy to suffer, a quick snap of the hangman’s noose would be too quick, too easy. How much more terrible to be immured in the stone walls of a convent, knowing nothing more of the outside world, but remembering every day that one’s child and one’s beloved home were still in the hands of a sworn enemy.

The very notion turned my stomach to water, and I was glad I had not eaten dinner. I relived every moment I had spent with Brisbane since I had arrived at Grimsgrave, every anguished glance he had given me, every time he had
demanded my return to London. He did not want me to witness what he had become, to know what monstrousness he was capable of. How many times had he warned me he was bedevilled? And fool that I was, I had not listened. I had believed the passionate kisses, the warm, demanding hand in mine, and I had not believed him capable of real evil. But then, the poets tell us love is blind, I thought bitterly, and for all his sins, I loved him.

And as soon as I had constructed the case against him, I demolished it. “No,” I told myself firmly, “it is not possible. He is no monster.” I had known Brisbane in many and varied circumstances, and even though I knew him to be clever and dispassionate enough to be the architect of a revenge scheme, he was not vicious. I would not believe, even if I heard it from his own lips, that he would truly harm the Allenby women for the sins of their kinsmen.

But I had to know precisely what his intentions were toward Ailith and Hilda, and the only way to bring an end to the matter was to clear away all of the mysteries in that gloomy house. There was a legacy of pain and treachery in that place, and there would be no future for any of us if I did not expose it at last.

I closed the cage on Grim and hurried out of the room. The door to Ailith’s room was closed and I tapped on it, shifting my weight impatiently. She called for me to come in, her voice serene as ever.

She was sitting on the floor, arranging dolls in her dolls’ house. I went to her and knelt, startling her.

“Ailith, I wanted to talk to you, about Redwall and Brisbane—”

I broke off as I looked at the dolls in her hands. A pair of babies, tightly swaddled, with identical shocks of golden hair, hair identical to that shorn from the mummified babies in the study.

I rocked back on my heels, thinking hard. “They were yours,” I said flatly. “The babies were yours.”

She did not look at me. She merely continued to fuss over the tiny dolls, stroking their silken locks. “Yes. They were taken away from me as soon as they were born. I never even held them.”

She laid them into the pair of cradles in the nursery she had so lovingly prepared. I felt a rush of horror and sympathy for her. She had given birth to children she had never even been permitted to hold. I thought of Lady Allenby and her flinty pride, Redwall and his horrible experiments.

“Were they stillborn?” I asked her, keeping my voice low and gentle.

She shook her head, her golden hair falling free. It was the first time I had seen her without it bound tightly into a coronet. She looked younger, and terribly vulnerable.

“No. They were alive when they were taken from me. I heard them cry.”

“Who took them?” I asked, although I thought I knew the answer.

Her head came up then, her eyes flashing with anger even after all the years that had passed. “She took them. Godwin knows. He was there.”

She ducked her head again and busied herself with tidying the little nursery of make-believe. I could not quite take it all in. It had been Godwin after all who was the villain.
Father to illegitimate children, doubtless goaded by Lady Allenby, he had been a party to giving them to Redwall to be immured forever, burying their secrets and shame with the bodies. Little wonder he had behaved so strangely when I had confronted him with the ram amulet. It must have been like seeing the very ghosts of his children resurrected. I wondered what would become of Ailith should the truth be revealed. I knew Brisbane would not deliberately harm her, but I could not say with perfect certainty that he would help her either. Perhaps the enmity between their families ran too deeply for that. No, it would be left to me to save her if I could.

I put an arm around her, noting that she had lost weight. She felt little more than skin and bones. My pendant slid out from my neckline and her eyes fixed on it, watching it swing back and forth, like a sleepy child watching a candle flame.

“That is Medusa, is it not?” she asked, putting out a finger to touch it.

I tucked it away and gave her a patient smile.

“Ailith, I wonder if you would not like a little rest. Perhaps we could go away. A trip to the seaside. Would you like that? I have a fancy to see Whitby. It would be such fun if you came as well. And Hilda and Portia. We could invite them, and make it a little party of hens, what do you say to that?”

Ailith shook her head. “There is no money for such trifles,” she said sadly. “There is no money at all.”

“Oh, do not mind about that. I will make all the arrangements. You must come as my guest. Would you like to visit the seaside?”

She nodded slowly. “Someone will have to mind Hilda’s chickens. You will tell her to find someone to mind the chickens, won’t you?”

Her gaze was flat and childlike. I coaxed her toward the bed. “Of course. Why don’t you lie down now, and I will settle everything. Have a nice rest, and we can be gone in the morning. I will even have Minna pack for you. You need do nothing at all.”

She climbed onto the bed and lay atop the coverlet. Her eyelids drooped, but then flared open. She put out a hand to mine.

“You are so very kind, Lady Julia,” she murmured.

“It is nothing,” I told her. “Rest now, and do not worry about anything.”

She nodded and turned onto her side, curling into the pillow. In one hand she clutched the little pair of dolls with the bright gold curls.

I hurried from her room to the poultry yard. Hilda was pouring out fresh water for the chickens who were clucking irritably at her feet.

“Oh, be quiet, you bloody monsters. Can’t you see I am doing you a favour?” she muttered.

“Miss Hilda, I should like a word,” I told her.

She flicked a glance up at me but did not pause in her labours. “If it is about the proposal I have had from Valerius, it is none of your concern.”

I smoothed my skirts. “Your impertinence notwithstanding, I quite agree. I have made my feelings known to Valerius. What he chooses to do is entirely his own affair.”

She straightened, her thin upper lip curled. “Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement.”

I spread my hands. “Did you expect me to feel differently? You have scarcely uttered a civil word to me the entire time I have been here, and you have made your intentions to marry another man quite clear. Naturally I am concerned if the lady my brother plans to wed is motivated solely by mercenary interests.”

“Mercenary?” She threw the pail to the ground. “Oh, I like that. Val has told me something of your past. Tell me, would you have married Edward Grey if he hadn’t had tuppence to rub together?” she demanded.

“Of course not,” I told her. Her expression of triumph faded to one of astonishment. “I married Edward because we were friends, because I wanted an establishment of my own, because I was tired of being a spinster and a laughingstock. If he had not had money, our paths would never have crossed. I moved then in rather more exclusive circles,” I finished apologetically.

“Well, at least you are honest,” she said, deflating a little.

“One ought to be, when speaking of such things,” I replied. “And in perfect honesty, I do not wish you to marry my brother because I think you cannot make him happy, and I believe he would fail you as well. His intentions are of the very best sort, but he is a somewhat unhappy young man because he has no proper occupation for his time. Until he is settled within himself, he will be no sort of husband. That is my opinion, but I meant what I said. I have spoken to Val, and now I have spoken to you. I will say nothing further on the matter, and if you choose to marry, I will welcome you as a sister.”

She curled her lip again, a singularly unattractive expression, and I longed to tell her so.

“Very well, believe me or don’t. I do not care. I am more concerned about Miss Ailith.”

Her eyes widened, but her gaze slid from mine. “Why?”

“I believe she is quite fragile at present,” I said slowly. I did not know how much Hilda knew of her sister’s ordeal, but it was not my place to disclose it. I must tread warily. “She has been in low spirits since your brother died. I think the departure of your mother has had a dampening effect upon her, and I detect signs of melancholia. I proposed to her a rest cure at the seaside. I would like you to come as well, as my guests, of course,” I finished hastily lest she refuse on monetary grounds.

She stooped to retrieve her pail. “That is good of you,” she said grudgingly. “But I think not. It would be best if Ailith stays here.”

She drew an apple core from her pocket and tossed it to the hens, clucking softly at them.

“Hilda, I must disagree. Your sister seems changed, childlike. She must be looked after.”

Hilda turned then and fixed me with a pitying stare. “Looked after? Ailith is more capable of looking after herself than anyone I have ever known. The devil himself could not stand against her.”

I blinked. “You do not understand. I am not at liberty to reveal everything, but I can say that your sister suffered a tragedy when your brother was lost, and the recent upheavals in your family have not helped in her recovery. She needs gentle treatment and a rest cure if she is to be restored.”

Hilda’s little hands fisted at her sides. “The only treatment my sister needs is a hangman’s noose.”

She clamped her mouth shut as if to bite back the words. I moved toward her.

“What do you mean?”

She dropped her head, but I took her shoulders in my hands and shook her hard. “What do you mean?” I demanded again.

Hilda wrenched her arms from my grasp. “She was the one who attempted Brisbane’s life, not Mama. She was the one who put the mushrooms onto his plate. She took a toadstool from the wood and sliced it up and mixed it with the mushrooms Mama bottled last year.”

Blackness crept into the edge of my vision and I blinked it away. I felt terribly cold, as if I had just swum in a lake of icy black water.

“Why?” I whispered.

She shook her head, her expression mutinous. “I have said too much already. But you must go. Leave this place and make Brisbane go with you.” Her voice broke on a sob. “I know I cannot marry Valerius. You will not want to have your brother connected to a murderess. I know her for what she is. I have always known her. She will not harm me, but she hates Brisbane. And you as well. I beg you, leave.”

I pressed my temples to stop the roaring inside my head. “I cannot believe this. I thought her vulnerable—”

Hilda gave a ragged sob then, and to my surprise, she permitted me to embrace her. She cried like a child, great gasps of emotion that tore at my heart. There was so much raw feeling under that brusque exterior, it was like holding some newborn, quite awkward thing.

I held her until she stopped. She pulled back suddenly, wiping the moist places of her face on her sleeve.

“I am sorry,” she said finally. “I do not know what came over me. I am not usually such a blubberboots.”

“I don’t imagine you give way to emotion very often,” I ventured.

“Not unless it is anger,” she agreed. “It is so much easier that way. I am so tired, you see. So tired of being here, year after year of my life just unrolling behind me with nothing to show for it. I’ve no education, no career, no family or home of my own. Nothing to show that I have ever set foot on this earth. When I am gone, there will only be a stone to mark that I was here, and even that will crumble in time.”

There was no pity for herself in her voice, only the flatness of resignation, and I realised she and Valerius shared precisely the same affliction. They both wanted desperately to matter in a world that took no notice of them. Perhaps they were better suited than I had thought.

But this was no time to worry about their romantic prospects. I needed to talk to Brisbane, and the sooner the better.