AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A smile lifts the corners of my mouth. “Not quite. There’s still the matter of Robert.”
“I believe Benjamin mentioned a private investigator tracked Robert Tulley to Ireland. Is that not correct?”
“It’s correct.” I pull out another sheet from my folder and lay it down. “That’s the PI’s report. But we’re going to take a little detour before we get to Robert.” I grin at her. “Remember, I said this might get confusing.”
She reaches for her tea again, watching me curiously as she takes a sip.
“I got these records from the shipping line that owned theVictoria. It’s the insurance payouts to the survivors. About eight hundred people survived, while seven hundred perished. Their payouts varied. First class passengers received much more— ”
“Wankers,” Sophie grumbles.
“Right? But the lower classes were well compensated, or at least they would’ve felt that way judging by these sums. It was enough for a lot of these folks to transform their entire lives. Build a new life in America. Anyway, we’re getting into the weeds. I pored over the list of survivors, and one name jumped out at me. It made no sense at first. I assumed it was a coincidence.”
“What was the name?”
I hand her the paper. “I highlighted it in yellow.”
“E. Farnham,” she reads out loud, then lifts her head. “And that is?”
“Josephine’s younger sister. Evelyn.”
Eyes widening, Sophie says, “She was on the ship?”
“It appears so.”
Sophie skims the list again. “What do the numbers in parentheses mean? For example, here, it says J. and C. Forbes, with the number two in parentheses. M. Gregory, parentheses one. E. Farnham also has a one.”
I beam at her. “I had the same exact question. I couldn’t figure it out at first, so I went back to the passenger manifest, the list that William—and, by extension, whoever he was traveling with—wasn’t on. After a lot of cross-referencing, I discovered that the numbers in brackets refer to children. For example, M. Gregory is actually Marie Gregory, who boarded the ship with her husband and young son. The husband died, but she and her son survived. Forbes is Joseph and Charlotte, and the two corresponds to their two daughters. The kids’ names are on the manifest, but for the insurance purposes, they’re just numbers.”
“So Evelyn Farnham had a child with her?”
“Evelyn Farnham was fourteen years old when theVictoriasank. I highly doubt the child was hers.”
The teacup rattles the saucer as Sophie sets them down. I can see her growing excitement as understanding dawns.
“Josephine.”
“Yup. I suspect she and William were passing the child off as her sister’s, at least while on the ship. But once they arrived in America, I bet they planned on raising their son together, with Evelyn as the baby’s nurse. That’s why she came along.”
“Their son?” Sophie raises a brow.
I smile. “We’ll get there soon.”
“But how did Josephine have a baby without the duke or duchess knowing about it? Especially the duchess. Josephine was her maid. She wouldn’t have been able to hide a pregnancy.” Sophie pauses. “Well, no, perhaps I’m wrong. She certainly could have hidden the fact that she was pregnant. But not the birth.”
“I believe she hid the pregnancy until the last possible moment. And I think this is why William raced to get them passage on that ship. She likely gave birth in secret, and they packed up in the middle of the night and left with Evelyn and their son.”
I reach into my trusty folder for several more sheets of paper.
“Now this is where it gets wild,” I tell the rapt Sophie. “I got these family documents from Ruby Farnham’s cousin. They only raised more questions, as usual, so I stayed up all night yesterday hunting down the information I was missing. This is what I found. Ready?”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been more ready in my life. This is extraordinary.”
“Just you wait.”
Grinning, I pull out my carefully constructed family tree. Not the one for the Tulleys, which I agonized over for months. But a new one I created last night.
“This is the Farnham family tree.” I don’t hand it over yet, reading from it instead. “Josephine had two siblings, Matthew and Evelyn. Ruby is a descendent of Matthew’s—he’s her grandfather. Ruby’s cousin Catherine Kerr, however, is a descendent of Evelyn’s.”
