Just as she’d told him.
“We brought the child here, and Martha promised she would only talk with the child. That she would take her for a carriage ride, explain everything, then bring her back as soon as Eliza knew the truth—that it was only an accident. Yet when Martha returned, the child was not with her.”
“And you did nothing?”
“What could I do? She said the child was as impossible as her mother. She said little Eliza didn’t understand at all. She said there’d been no choice but to turn Eliza over to her brother, and that David would find a good home for her and—”
“David?” Felton glanced up. “David Bowles? Your brother?”
“Richard, you should not have—”
“I am sorry, my dear. Son, you must not speak of it to anyone. The relationship, I mean. What with the social difference between ourselves and her brother, we have thought it best all these years for appearances’ sake not to mention the blood between them. They both wished it that way, so surely you can understand.”
“I understand nothing.” Heat burned his face, his neck, his ears. He faced his mother. “You surrendered Eliza over to Bowles, who pawned her off on a drunken captain who sank his ship because he was too out of his head with opium?”
“I had no choice.”
“Do you even know who Bowles is? That he is suspected of smuggling?”
“Of smuggling?” Papa leaned forward. “What?”
“You tried to kill her.” Felton swooped the letter back off the ground and narrowed on Mamma’s rapid-blinking eyes. “You knew she would remember, so you called on your brother to get rid of her again. This time for good.”
“Oh Felton.” She dropped the teacup and the hot liquid seeped into the white bed linens. Sobs left her lips. She pressed her hands to her cheeks and shook her head. “Stop it. I cannot bear this. Make him leave, Richard.”
“What is he saying about your brother, Martha? You said you had nothing to do with the attacks on Eliza’s life. You said you knew nothing of them. You promised you were not involved—”
“I lied!” she rasped. “I lied, I lied, I lied. I lied to all of you. Now leave me alone.”
Richard backed off the bed. “But it was an accident.” A whisper. “It was an accident with Lady Gillingham, just like you said…wasn’t it?”
“What do you think?”
Felton flinched at the same time Papa did.
Mamma ripped the tea-stained covers from her legs. She pushed herself higher, lifted her chin, faced her husband with a look wild and frantic. “You believed everything I told because you wanted to believe it. You knew it was not right. You knew it was not truth. But you pretended it was for so long that you believed it yourself—just like you always believed I was good enough for you, despite where I came from.”
“You are good enough.” Choked. “Martha—”
“Lady Gillingham found out about us. My brother and me. She knew about the opium we’d been loading in India and smuggling into China, about the silver and porcelain and silks we’d smuggle back in to Lodnouth. How else do you think my brother secured that house? How else do you think I wore such fine clothes, a mere fisherman’s daughter, when you met me?”
“Martha, stop it. I do not want to hear this. I do not want to hear any more.”
“I am dying now. What does it matter?” Hard coughs ripped through her, and when she moved her hand away from her mouth, blood was splattered across her fingers. “The steward at Monbury Manor. He was the one who caused all of this. He’d been working with my brother and was involved in selling the smuggled goods, but he became frightened. We knew he wanted out even before he arranged a meeting with Lady Gillingham. He must have told her everything.”
Felton stepped nearer to her bed. “Then it was you who hung Minney’s father.”
“My brother, yes.” A dull look entered her eyes. “Despite what you might think of your mother, I have only killed once. And in some ways, itwasan accident. I didn’t go to Monbury Manor that night to kill Lady Gillingham. She was my…she was my friend.” Another cough. She sank deeper into the bed. “I had to convince her she could not tell…that everything we worked for, everything our father had taught us to build for ourselves, would be ruined.”
“But she did not listen.”
“No. We fought. I pushed her through the window, and the rest happened as your father said.”
Silence.
She pulled the covers back over her and pressed her head into the pillow.
Papa stared at the floor. He shook his head a couple of times, wiped at his nose, then turned and left the room. Felton followed him to the door—
