“Did you gain any clues to her whereabouts?” Bradford asked. He certainly hoped so—the man had read the letters at least three times. “They came from all over—there’s no discernible pattern that I could find.”
Mr. Thornton shook his head, still smiling. “I rather think that’s a clue in itself. But we’ll start with the letters themselves. Again, your Miss Hughes is very smart. Each note was a wonderful, descriptive story for your daughter about her travels. I’m curious–did you read them to your daughter?”
Bradford fought the urge to shift in his seat. He was ashamed of the answer but he had promised the man full transparency. “Yes, I did.”
He hadn’t intended to. The first two arrived and he’d locked them in his desk, determined not to encourage Rebecca’s fixation on her erstwhile governess. Yet Rebecca soon grew despondent that Miss Hughes hadn’t written after she’d promised.
She became convinced that something terrible had happened—a ballooning accident, perhaps. It only took one tear-soaked nightmare on Rebecca’s part before Bradford produced the letters, claiming they’d been delayed on their arrival from Timbuktu.
Mr. Thornton nodded—in censure or understanding, Bradford hardly knew. “As I’ve said, your Miss Hughes is smart. She was never so specific that one could becertainwhich real location she was describing. Still, she did let a few unintentional things slip.” Mr. Thornton stood and picked up the third letter. “This one, for example. I’m fairly certain she was describing the Panthéon in her letter, though she cleverly called it a magical palace. Still, the description neatly matches the Panthéon.”
“She’s in Italy?” He blinked his surprise.
“Not the Pantheon, thePanthéon. Or the Church of Saint Geneviève, as it’s officially known. In Paris,” Mr. Thornton said, his gaze still trained on the paper.
Paris?Dear heavens, Bradford hated the place. It was positivelycrawlingwith French.
“And here,” Mr. Thornton said, tapping the sixth letter. “She’s plainly describing the French dessert Croquembouche.”
“So she’s in Paris.” Bradford hardened his resolve—he would find her, even if he had to deal with a horde of insufferable French innkeepers and eat a dozen mysterious meat pies to do so.
“Not anymore.” Mr. Thornton walked toward the end of the line and picked up the ninth letter. “In this one, she describes a grand castle.”
“So? Are there no grand houses in Paris?” Bradford asked tersely. His headache was pounding, and unlike his guest, he wasn’t energized by the sheer mystery of it all.
If Mr. Thornton heard the impatience in his tone, he didn’t let on. “She’s clearly describing St. Paul’s Cathedral. And several paragraphs later, she specifically describes a building which easily corresponds to the Theatre Royal.”
Bradford slowly lifted his head. “London? But none of the letters were routed through London.”
“And isn’t that curious? Coming from all over, as they did, one certainly should have routed its way through London at some point. Yet none of them ever did. One must carefully examine what’snotthere as closely as whatis.”
Bradford shook his head, stunned. Every time new information came out about Sarah Hughes, it only served to prove how little he knew about her and how much she’d lied. Bradford didn’t know why he should be surprised to find out that the lady had connections to London. Except perhaps he wasstill clinging onto the tatters of hope that something he knew about her was real.
Miss Hughes had claimed to be the only child of a poor clergyman from the south of England. Perhaps Hayes should have known, through her excellent diction, that she was of a finer make than that. He’d known she was well educated, at the very least, butLondon?
Mr. Thornton flicked the back of his fingers against the paper. “It wouldn’t be the first time I drove a week into the countryside, only to realize my quarry resided in my hometown.”
Bradford stood. “Then to London we will go.”
CHAPTER 8- LILY
Lily pressed her fingers to the cold glass of her mirror—a nasty habit she was certain the maids detested. Not that they’d ever say anything, at least not to her. To each other, they most likely murmured little huffing truths about the lot of the Prestons.
That was part of the invisible change that had taken place within her. She’d had the curtain pulled back on how the other half lived. For a time, Lily had been one of them. She certainly didn’t know how to explain to anyone—least of all, herself—that she’d witnessed as much camaraderie amongst the fellow servants of Ballam Hall as she ever had amongst her sisters.
Funny, that she would miss the great stone manor in the north, but she did. There, every room smelled of its own history. She missed the mustiness of generations’ worth of collected books in the library, and the way the kitchens always smelled of fresh bread and the earth of the kitchen gardens beyond—for Cook was always thrusting open the outer doors to get some air. Even the stairwell of Ballam Hall had its own unique perfume—wood polish and veneer, as the servants valiantly battled againstthe inevitable effects of Lord Hayes tromping up the wood steps in his boots.
In her family’s house in London, everything now smelled faintly of fresh paint and varnish. Otherwise, it smelled of nothing at all. It was as if the entirety of their family’s history between these walls had been overwritten, as if the house itself was a fresh sheet of parchment on which to write their new collective story.
Yet thiswasher home, wasn’t it? It always had been, and Lily had always been happy in London. Even back when the chipping paint on the front door proclaimed what Claire refused to admit—that their family had fallen on desperate times—Lily had found solace here. After all, it was in this large row house, amongst her many sisters, that Lily belonged…wasn’t it? But if that were so, why did Lily now feel so out of place?
It seemed like some kind of betrayal to have such thoughts. It had always been the Preston ladies against the world at large. Even when they annoyed one another—and with eight of them, there was plenty ofthatto go around—they’d been a tight familial unit. Like a regiment of soldiers, all dressed in silk.
But then Lily had left for Northumberland, and now her four younger sisters remained behind in Paris. William had drawn a line down the center—as decisive as a knife cutting a cake in half. He’d only brought the four eldest back to London to have a Season. Lily quite agreed with his reasoning. Four Preston ladies out at once was quite enough. Eight would have been sheer madness.
Lily knew that her grand surroundings and the Season ahead were part of William’s effort at erasing everything that had gone so wrong over the past years. He didn’t need to say as much—it was clear to her that was why he always bought his sisters the best of everything. Why, he’d put them up in the entire top floorof London’s finest hotel while the finishing touches were being added to the remodel of the family townhouse!
Still, Lily knew it wasn’t the absence of her four younger sisters or the complete remodel of their family home that made her feel off-balance.
