Page 87 of The Vanished

Geneva was relieved when Christmas dinner was finally at an end and she could escape to her room. These days, it was the only place she could be alone and examine her feelings. She was nearly at her door when she encountered Dennison, who appeared to be waiting for her. He looked angry and agitated, and brandished the watch she had collected from the jeweler.

“Are you quite all right?” Geneva asked as she stopped a few feet from him. Something in his demeanor frightened her, and she didn’t dare come closer.

“Your father gave me this,” Dennison replied.

“Do you not like it?”

She was confused by his reaction, since any employee would be happy to receive such a beautiful and valuable gift. It was a mark of her father’s regard for his valet, a show of gratitude for his excellent service.

“Oh, it’s a fine watch, my lady,” Dennison said furiously. “But I know what it means.”

“What does it mean?”

“I’m to be dismissed. Made redundant.”

Geneva stared at the man, unsure how to reply. “Perhaps I can speak to Mr. Bellamy. Surely he will require a valet if…”

She didn’t finish, but Dennison knew what she meant.

“He won’t,” Dennison snarled. “He has no intentions of staying here. He’ll be gone the minute his lordship breathes his last. All of us put out without notice.”

Geneva balked at this announcement. “Did Mr. Bellamy tell you this?” she asked quietly. Surely Jesse wouldn’t have told his valet of his intentions.

“He didn’t have to. It’s obvious to anyone who cares to look. He’s just biding his time until he can get his hands on the inheritance.”

“I think you’re jumping to unfounded conclusions. It’s not common knowledge yet, but Mr. Bellamy has asked me to marry him. Things will go on as before,” Geneva said with more conviction than she felt. She didn’t want to admit to the valet that nothing had been decided and that his future was now in her hands.

Dennison shook his head. “It’s you who’s jumping to conclusions, my lady. Nothing will be the same, and by this time next month this house will be closed up, everyone gone.”

“I will have a word with Mr. Bellamy,” Geneva promised. “I’ll see that you retain your position.”

“You do that,” Dennison said, his voice low and menacing. “And don’t let me down, or I might have to find my own way to assure my future.”

He stalked off, leaving Geneva shaken. She had never seen this side of Tom Dennison before, and, now that she had, the last thing she wanted was to petition Jesse to allow the man to keep his position. She wanted him gone, dismissed for good. She assumed her father had made some provision for his valet, but she had no intention of asking. It pained her to speak to him of money, particularly now, when her own future and the livelihoods of the people she felt responsible for were still uncertain. At this moment, Tom Dennison was not among them.

Fearing he might return, Geneva hurried to her room and shut the door. She stepped away, hesitated, then turned back and locked it. She no longer felt safe in her room.

FIFTY-SIX

SEPTEMBER 2023

Keswick

Quinn set the earring aside, the memory of Geneva’s unease lingering in her mind. Her encounter with Tom Dennison had been as unexpected as it was distressing. It was understandable that the man would be anxious about his future and might interpret Douglas Bellamy’s gift as a payoff rather than the gesture it was intended to be. He was clearly unbalanced. His war experiences had left him with lingering trauma, but did that mean he posed a real danger to Geneva? That remained to be seen. Still, Quinn could not ignore the possibility; Dennison now had to be added to the list of potential suspects.

She hoped he had not been the one to harm Geneva Bellamy. He had already suffered enough, and he seemed ill-equipped to manage the emotions that overwhelmed him. Yet it would be foolish to dismiss his anger. Murders were often driven by emotion, not reason, and a man who felt slighted, expendable, and afraid could all too easily cross that line, especially when he’d had to contend with nothing but mistrust and derision since he’d returned from the front. He was accustomed to people mocking him and dismissing his feelings, and if Geneva failed to acknowledge his volatility and decided not to champion his cause with Jesse, he just might snap.

Setting the valet’s angry outburst aside, Quinn had to admit she felt a flicker of irritation towards Geneva herself. From Quinn’s vantage point, Geneva’s dilemma did not seem quite as insurmountable as she made it out to be. Had Quinn been in her position, she would have refused both men and gone off to London, free to live as she pleased. But that was the thinking of a twenty-first-century woman. A girl of twenty-one, born just after the turn of the twentieth century, would never have been encouraged to pursue independence. Geneva had never needed to fend for herself and, like most women of her time, had been raised to believe that her sole purpose lay in marriage and motherhood. Striking out alone, with no safety net, would have been terrifying. The only skills available to her were those of a governess or paid companion, and that was hardly a life for a young woman.

Of course it would seem more appealing to become the next Countess of Gosforth, or even to run off to America and help Rory establish himself in his cousin’s business. And then there was Honor. Even if she went away to finishing school and returned at nineteen, she would still need her sister. The girls were close; they wanted to remain together. Who could blame them? Quinn had not grown up with Jo, but she had mourned her deeply despite her betrayal, and still thought of her almost every day.

She was being unfair to Geneva and to Honor alike, she thought. They were products of a different generation, and she could not impose her own values upon them. Yet she could not stop wondering what had become of Honor after Geneva’s death. Given her age, she would have lived through some of the most horrific events of the twentieth century and would surely have been shaped by them. She might have lived to see the end of the century, and it was likely that she had living descendants. Those descendants would be affected by the grim discovery on their family’s land and might have strong opinions about the episode being aired, particularly if it cast one of their ancestors in an unflattering light.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Tired of speculating, Quinn reached for her mobile to call Rhys. He answered right away. “Quinn, are you all right? How’s Max?”

“We’re as well as can be expected,” Quinn said softly. Max was asleep in his cot, and she didn’t want to wake him. She was tempted to tell Rhys about Alex’s harrowing experience but realized she didn’t want to relive it. It had been awful enough the first time. “We’ll be back tomorrow evening. Were you able to learn anything?”