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Edward opened the small door and stood, one hand on the door, barring the entrance.
“If there was urgent correspondence inside and you knew it…why would you not tell me?” he asked.
Olivia would not look at him.
“Well, I came upstairs to gauge your reaction. I did not expect the Spanish Inquisition. I will let you go to your study and read the letter in concern. If you still wish breakfast, I will have it sent up to you as usual.”
With that, she turned on her heel and hurried from the room. Edward was intrigued, almost deciding to follow her but changing his mind and hurrying along the dark passageway that led to the Duke’s Study. He emerged into a stone-walled room equipped with a bureau, many bookcases, easels, paintings, and maps. A single chaise provided a touch of comfort and small, leaded windows provided daylight, though filtered through dust and cobwebs.
The room smelled of old paper, paint, and must. A set of clear footprints showed where Samson had come and gone with correspondence, clearly making more than one trip.
I have been remiss not to have checked. There is my father’s standing order that the Duke’s Study correspondence is not announced.
There was a small pile of envelopes on the bureau. As Edward approached, he saw that there were two on top of the pile that were written in an identical hand. Both bore the same local postmark and were addressed simply to Wrexham. Curious now, he picked up the first and used a letter opener to tear open the flap. The paper within was coarse, the kind of stationary found in a common boarding house or farmer’s residence.
The hand was elegant, betraying education, though clearly scrawled in some haste. As he read, Edward’s face darkened. Before he reached the end of the missive, he had crumpled it into a ball and tore out of the Duke’s Study.
“Rebecca!” He yelled at the top of his voice.
Am I too late, even now? Has she gone?
CHAPTER 25
Edward raced along the hallway that ran through his private wing of Wrexham Castle. At the end of the hallway was a staircase that connected the floor on which his rooms were occupied with those his Aunt and sister lived in. Rebecca lived on the floor below Olivia, herself on the floor above Edward. He descended the staircase two at a time, almost colliding with a maid who was ascending the stairs with her arms loaded with linen.
“Rebecca!” he roared, as he reached the Castle’s second floor and wrenched open the door. The hallway beyond was decorated in pastel shades, with floral print wallpaper and paintings depicting animals and landscapes. All Rebecca’s personal choices. On one side of the hallway was a succession of doors. One led to her chambers, the others were storerooms and linen cupboards. Windows opposite overlooked a private courtyard within the gardens, accessible only to the family wing, not to any of the public rooms.
He opened the middle of the three doors without knocking, strode through the anteroom, and then through an inner door that led to Rebecca’s sitting room. Olivia sat at Rebecca’s dressing table, with hands folded calmly in her lap, waiting.
“You knew!” Edward said accusingly.
“I knew that the child had gone. But I did not know what she was planning. Not until I saw the note she had left.”
“I have a letter from that impudent rogue, Worthingham, announcing that Rebecca will not be forced into marriage and that as I have not responded to his demands, she will leave my house forthwith! I have never heard the like!”
“The note informed me that a letter had been sent, appealing to your better judgment. When it was ignored, a second letter was delivered, giving you notice of their intentions,” Olivia said calmly.
Edward hurled the ball of paper that was still clenched in his fist, across the room so that it bounced off the window.
“And what are their intentions?” he demanded.
“I do not know. It was not stated in the note,” Olivia replied, still maddeningly calm. “What I do know is that this precipitate action is your fault, Edward.”
Edward rounded on her. “My fault? Mine? How on earth is it my fault. All I’ve done is arranged a match with a man who will be one of the richest and most powerful in England when he inherits. Their children will be brought up alongside those of the Regent himself, so well connected will they be.”
“She did not want him. She has been playing along all this time, hoping that you would see sense.”
“Playing me, more like!” Edward raged.
“This has nothing to do with you, Edward,” Olivia said, pinning him with a stare. “This is to do with your sister and her lover…”
Edward had been pacing across the room and now stopped dead.
“Lover?” he whispered. “Please, assure me that you do not mean that word in the full sense?”
Something seemed to break through Olivia’s calm. She looked away, looked at her hands, and cleared her throat.
“Well, it is not the sort of thing an Aunt should know about I think. But, I have always had a close relationship with Rebecca. In the absence of my own children, you understand. And as she is without a mother. So, I do know…certain things.”
