Page 3 of The Vanished Sister

“I did not wish to make this trip,” said Justina softly. “Not that I didn’t want to see you, but I did not think you would be amenable to Mr. Carstairs’s request.”

A chill crept across Joanna’s heart. “But you made the trip nevertheless.”

Justina exhaled. “Do you recall how we wished to meet gentlemen when we were girls?”

Memories inundated Joanna. The two of them in their mother’s old dresses, floating down the staircase of the vicarage, taking turns being the belle of the ball or the ardent swain waiting at the newel post.

“But gentlemen in reality,” continued Justina, “especially the masters of the manor who need to answer to no one, are a different species from you and me.”

This was too sweeping a statement, but Justina wasn’t all that far off the mark. As long as a gentleman did not cheat at cards—that is, defraud his own kind—he never stopped being a gentleman. Given that sort of latitude, it was a miracle that some of them did not turn out entirely rotten.

Joanna regarded Justina warily. “So what edict has your husband handed down?”

“He asked me to remind you that your happiness and security—as well as Penelope’s—rests on the flimsy foundation of a man’s belief that you are the mother of his child.”

Air disappeared from Joanna’s lungs. Fear, like lead, sank slow and dark through her bronchi.

The world already considered women like her to be without honor or decency. What would it take to plant a seed of doubt in the duke’s mind? A rumor? A few rounds of gossip? One man openly ridiculing one of the duke’s sons about it?

Ironically, it was not cheap being a demi-mondaine. A fallen woman had to spend a small fortune to look elegant and expensive, so that a man wouldn’t conclude that her services cost merely a few frocks and a good supper now and then. Joanna had some money put away, but not enough to protect Penelope and herself from the predations of the world. She needed the settlement that the duke had promised her—promised but not yet signed over.

But more than that, she did not want to test the duke’s trust in her—or his character. She had seen what other gentlemen had done when they believed their mistresses to have strayed and it had not been pretty.

She must have looked stricken. Justina regarded her solemnly. “I’m sorry. You’re right: Your profession did not impede my very advantageous match. Yet in return, you must share in the cost of my marriage.”

She rose. “Let me at least have the grace to make myself scarce. I apologize again, Joanna. Good luck.”

Joanna stared at her sister’s lithe figure until she disappeared. And then she moved jerkily to the window to watch Justina’s gleaming town coach, the very image of propriety and refinement, roll away down the street.

Did she believe Justina’s claim that she’d come at the behest of a narrow-minded husband? Maybe. Maybe Mr. Everett Carstairs of Noble House was just the sort to be bothered by the thought of an illegitimate niece. But the direction of the attack, the threat against Joanna? A woman had thought of that, a woman who understood the fragile nature of female credibility.

And Justina had always cared, down to the least minutiae, how she appeared to others.

Joanna stood in place until she heard whimpers from the nursery. Her tears fell freely again. How she had looked forward to the first time her baby would call her Mamma—and all the sweet repetitions of that most beautiful appellation. But now she would never have it. Now her child would mourn for some other woman when Joanna stood right there, unable to tell her the truth.

“I’m coming!” She permitted herself to say it for the very last time. “My love, Mamma is coming.”

One

August 1890

On the coast of North Devon

What a perfect day, thought Mrs. Watson drowsily.

A breeze billowed the sails of the gaff-rigged sloop. To the starboard stretched the sunlit waters of the Bristol Channel, the silhouette of Wales faintly visible in the distance. On the other side reared the magnificent coastal bluffs of North Devon, carpeted in purple heathers.

They were sailing due west, but the green-lensed carriage specs Mrs. Watson sported—a fashionable gift from her dear Penelope—blunted the strongest rays of the afternoon sun. Across from her, Miss Charlotte Holmes examined the inside of their picnic hamper with the solemn concentration of an archeologist.

Mrs. Watson wanted to laugh—the dear girl would not find much. They’d sailed to Lynmouth this morning and, despite Miss Charlotte’s preference for the newly constructed cable railcar, zigzagged up the steep path on foot to the clifftop hamlet of Lynton.

From there they’d explored the otherworldly Valley of Rocks, noted for its unusual rock towers, and walked past the abbey to Woody Bay before returning to the outskirts of Lynton for a picnic luncheon.

The picnic hamper, which had traveled up the cable railcar in the care of Mr. Mears, Mrs. Watson’s butler, had seemed a veritable cornucopia. Yet it had proved barely sufficient for the appetites of six hungry ramblers in addition to Mr. Mears himself. Mrs. Watson, who usually watched what she ate, had indulged in two large servings of a glistening tart, topped with wild raspberries they themselves had harvested near Lord Ingram’s seaside cottage.

“I thought there was nothing left of the food,” said Miss Olivia Holmes from the bow of the vessel, where she sat next to Mr. Marbleton.

“It’s all gone,” replied Miss Charlotte. “I am but surveying the scene of the carnage. Does anyone want limeade, by the way? If we finish that, too, then we can claim total victory.”