Page 67 of The Vanished Sister

“My mother—probably could have been more attentive. But that’s not her fault. To run a house as well as she does, a house with seventy indoor servants and fifty outdoor ones, takes up all her time and energy. And my stepfather—I blame my old governess. Something must have happened to her in her youth, the poor dear. She was always telling me about the proper distance I must keep from my stepfather, and I did. It wasn’t until I returned to Noble House a widow that I got to know him better. I can say with absolute certainty he sees me as nothing more and nothing less than a daughter—I wish I’d realized that sooner.”

“What about to your brother and stepbrother?”

Mrs. Wellesley sighed again. “The three of us would probably be considered very worthy children, had we been born or brought up in other households. But all of us put together are still not enough to outshine either my stepfather or my mother.

“That is less of a problem for Charlie and myself. But Reggie, being the heir, had to deal with more disappointment, especially on Papa’s part. My mother could have shielded him a little more, but I also understand why she didn’t—sometimes it’s better to let men deal with each other without a woman’s interference. What respect Reggie wanted from Papa, he had to earn himself.”

“Did he ever earn that respect?”

Mrs. Wellesley sucked in a breath. “Sometimes it is what it is.”

Not really then.

“Have you heard from your stepfather since you returned to London?”

“Oh, yes, he writes us every day.” Her voice softened. “It’s the roughest on him—he loves her so much.”

Livia’s heart pounded. And had pounded ever since the postal clerk handed her a letter. She’d stared stupidly at it for a minute, as if she herself hadn’t asked for mail addressed to Mr. Tobias Hedge.

“Miss, is everything all right? I did give you the correct letter, no?” the clerk had asked when she’d failed to yield her place at the window.

“Yes, you did. Thank you,” she’d said dumbly, spun around, and marched out of the General Post Office as fast as she could.

Mrs. Carstairs had written “de Lacey”—or Lord Bancroft passing himself off as de Lacey. What did this mean? Stephen had left London but thank goodness Charlotte was in town. Livia had leaped into the first hansom cab that had come her way and promised the cabbie a hefty tip to deliver her to the environs of Regent’s Park posthaste.

She asked to be set down a quarter mile from Upper Baker Street—best not have the vehicle stop much closer to number 18. As she covered the remaining distance, she kept glancing behind herself, not caring that she must look like a fugitive. As she at last neared that familiar black, lacquered door, she stopped behind a town coach and pretended to rummage in her handbag—one last check for whether anyone had followed her.

A woman’s voice, high-pitched with incredulity, shot out of the half-open window of the coach. “What do you mean we are half siblings? That can’t be true. Papa can’t be my actual father.”

Mrs. Wellesley.

Twenty-Two

Pews overflowed at Mrs. Whitehill’s funeral. Locals turned this way and that, studying mourners who had arrived from beyond Boxton. Most of the strangers sat with their heads bowed, their faces somber and contemplative; some stared at the enormous spray of lilies and blue delphiniums atop the decisively closed casket.

Mrs. Watson’s head throbbed. It hadn’t stopped throbbing since Miss Olivia burst into the parlor at 18 Upper Baker Street the day before, clutching the letter Justina had written to Tobias Hedge. Acknowledge with notice in Times, it had said. Or rather, the message had been followed by a jumble of letters and Miss Charlotte had determined that it was a repetition of the same words encoded into a Playfair cipher with times as the key.

Mrs. Watson had hoped for another sign from Justina that she was alive and well. But not this. Anything but this.

Then Miss Olivia had remembered what she’d overheard outside 18 Upper Baker Street and Mrs. Watson had nearly suffered an apoplectic attack. Had Rebecca Wellesley asked Reginald Carstairs why he’d not raised the matter of marriage with her when they’d been younger—and been told that she was in fact Everett Carstairs’s natural daughter and therefore his half sister?

That had to be a mistake. Mrs. Watson could believe many things of her sister but not this kind of tortuous impropriety.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Miss Charlotte, seated beside Mrs. Watson, motioned toward the front of the church with her chin. Mrs. Watson looked in the direction she indicated and saw every single person they’d spoken to about Mrs. Whitehill, which was hardly remarkable at the latter’s funeral. But good gracious, was that Emaline Carstairs?

She shouldn’t be so surprised: It made sense for Emaline Carstairs, who had thrown in her lot with Mr. Broadfield, to stand by his side at a most difficult moment. After all, who was going to hold her back? Her guilt-stricken husband, her vanished stepmother-in-law, or her father-in-law, who, as of yesterday, was still in High Burrow?

Inspector Treadles arrived and gratefully took the spot they’d saved for him. “The crowd is spilling out onto the steps outside.”

Miss Charlotte pointed out Emaline Carstairs—two pews back from Mr. Broadfield and several seats to the side. Inspector Treadles’s brows waggled a little, but he made no comments. Instead he reported on the whereabouts of Lady Vardon.

Before Lord Ingram called on 18 Upper Baker Street, he had visited, among other places, Lord Wrenworth’s estate in Derbyshire where a lavish house party was in progress. There he found Ladies Avery and Somersby, Society’s leading gossips whose encyclopedic knowledge he consulted from time to time on Miss Charlotte’s behalf.

Ladies Avery and Somersby recalled Lady Vardon right away. Or rather, they remembered her because—and only because—of Mr. Carstairs. Lady Vardon herself, the widow of a soldier who had been knighted, was a milquetoast of whom there was nothing to say, other than that briefly she’d somehow caught Mr. Carstairs’s attention.

Now Mr. Carstairs, there was a much-lauded gentleman, devoted to his beautiful second wife. The gossip ladies admitted to having sniffed around the couple, but as far as they could tell, Mr. Carstairs had been resoundingly faithful.

Until fourteen or fifteen years ago, that is, when he began to pay court to Lady Vardon. Lady Vardon, all aflutter, was completely unable to hide her excitement at the flirtation. Then, just as suddenly, she emigrated to Bermuda and Mr. Carstairs returned to being an unimpeachable husband, the reversal happening so fast that Ladies Avery and Somersby, eyewitnesses to his rather public extramarital pursuit, wondered if they hadn’t hallucinated it all.