Secrets in the Mist Read online

  I’m not sure how long I had lain there like that, praying for the oblivion of sleep, when I heard the creak of my door opening.

  “Ella.”

  I turned toward the sound of my father’s voice, but I didn’t speak. I was torn between wanting to hear what he would say and wishing he would leave me be. So I held my breath, pretending to be asleep a moment longer.

  But I should have known better. This was a song we’d danced to many times before.

  “Ella,” he whispered louder, opening the door wider and stepping inside. “Ella, are you awake?”

  Father was never going to let me sleep through what he needed to say. In his inebriated state I didn’t think it even occurred to him that his actions ensured that I was awake rather than the other way around.

  I sighed. “Yes, Father.”

  He crossed the room unsteadily and sat on the edge of my bed next to my hip. “Ella, I…” His words faltered, and I could hear him swallow. He inhaled, trying again to get the words out, but he stopped and pressed a hand to his eyes.

  I choked on an answering knot in my throat.

  He grunted angrily and then inhaled a deeper breath. “I…I…I’m sorry,” he blubbered, dissolving into tears.

  I sat listening to his broken weeping, wanting to reach out to him, wanting him to go away. He was my father after all. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him all was well. But it wasn’t. It never was. I’d received too many of these tearful, rambling apologies in the middle of the night to ever fully believe it would all be well again.

  Father would eventually choke out something that resembled a confession—one that at first made me feel guilty at seeing the depth of his emotion, and then, as it became less and less coherent, annoyed—just before falling asleep. I would shake him awake and help him to his room where he would collapse on his bed, completely insensible to the confusion and heartache he’d caused me.

  Inevitably, the morning after he would offer me another apology, this one short and sheepish, along with a promise that he would stop drinking. A promise he would keep for a day or two—although he had once kept it for an entire week—before returning to the bottle.

  I knew what was coming, like following a script written specifically for us. And yet every time I hoped this time would be different. This time he would really mean what he said. This time he would give up his brandy. So when he failed and I stumbled upon him defiantly swigging from a flask or passed out in his chair, an empty bottle at his feet, it was doubly painful.

  It was for that hope that he so tearfully gave me and then carelessly snatched away that I came closest to hating my father.

  And so this time played out like all the rest, overwrought and nearly incoherent, until I was sick at heart as well as to my stomach. After depositing my father in his room, I lay back down and rubbed my abdomen, wondering why I always seemed to suffer more from Father’s attacks of conscience than he did.

  Chapter 12

  I

  watched as my father stumbled through several days without a drop of brandy, and I couldn’t stop the buoyant feeling that continued to fill my chest with every day that passed. Maybe this time truly was different. Maybe this time Father would change.

  So I stashed the letter Mr. Fulton had given me with my grandfather’s and great-aunt’s addresses inside my desk. I knew I would likely regret not writing them immediately, but I could not resist that fickle hope. If this was the time Father finally stopped, then I would repent having exposed our situation to my mother’s relatives.

  I remained at Penleaf Cottage much of the time, thinking that perhaps if I was nearby Father would be less likely to return to drinking. This may have been faulty logic on my part—my presence had never made a difference before—but I convinced myself of it regardless.

  Besides, without a staff of servants to clean and maintain the property there were always chores to be done. Mrs. Brittle and I dusted, scrubbed the floors and windows, stripped the beds to clean the sheets, and pulled weeds in the garden. And all the while we searched the house from top to bottom for any bottles of brandy, empty or otherwise, which Father had stashed about the premises. I took great pleasure in sinking the last of them into the marshes, hopefully never to be seen again.

  I also made a trip into Thurlton to purchase the sugar and lemon Mrs. Brittle would need to bake her strawberry trifle for the church dinner with some of the money Mr. Fulton had given me. She protested when I presented them to her, arguing that she could have made something else, but I could tell she was pleased. Mrs. Brittle was vain about few things, but her baking was rightly one of them.

  In exchange, Mrs. Brittle handed me a note that had been delivered while I was gone. It was an invitation from Kate in her always exquisite handwriting to dine at Greenlaws that evening.

  Please, Ella, you must come.

  Monsieur Reynard is visiting again, and I vow I cannot sit through another insufferable dinner with only that odious man and my brother for company. If word of his obnoxious presence sours your appetite, as it does mine, then at least come to save me from myself.

  Impaling myself on the silver never appeared so tempting.

  I smiled at Kate’s melodramatic commentary. I was not particularly fond of Monsieur Reynard either, especially given the fact that he was Olivia’s cousin, but Kate’s dislike ran far deeper. I’d never asked why, figuring that if I’d been forced to spend as much time in his company as she had, then I would probably loathe him too. I was eager to see Kate, for I’d been absent from Greenlaws for almost a week and we rarely spent more than three days apart, but still I was tempted to decline, anxious about leaving Father.

  Mrs. Brittle must have guessed at the content of the letter and correctly deduced my hesitation. “Go,” she told me. “Ye canna’ hang aboot here all the time.” She picked up the sack of sugar to carry it to the pantry. “I’ll look after yer da.” When still I dithered, she shooed me with her hand. “Go!”

  I thanked her and hurried to wash off the sweat and grime of the day. My lavender sprig dress was by far the nicest and cleanest gown I owned, even with the patches where the color was beginning to fade. It was far from an evening dress, but the only one of those I owned no longer fit, and Mother’s had long since been sold. Fortunately, Robert and Kate had never been ones to dine in strictly evening attire, so they would not care what gown I wore. Monsieur Reynard would likely make a derisive comment, but his opinion mattered little to me anyway. I twisted my hair up onto my head and pinned my mother’s brooch securely to my bodice before setting out.

  The residents of Greenlaws House had always observed country hours, partaking of their meals far earlier than those in town. When Olivia first arrived at Greenlaws she had complained about this endlessly, finding it abominably unfashionable. It had been one of the only things I knew of that Robert had fought her on. He insisted that he rose from bed far too early to hold breakfast until midday and retired too early to eat dinner after sunset. So we supped while the sun was still high in the sky in the summer.

  Monsieur Reynard was just as contemptuous of the practice, and was in fact bemoaning the Rocklands’ bourgeois tendencies when I entered the drawing room. Kate’s blatant annoyance and Robert’s long-suffering expression would have been humorous if I had not been confused as to why they continued to endure the man’s presence.

  “Ella,” Kate exclaimed, making no effort to hide her relief to see me. She bounded across the room to me in a lovely amber and ivory lace confection that put my own gown to shame. “I’m so glad you could join us.” She embraced me briefly and then pulled back, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “You remember Mister Reynard.” Her words were all sweetness, but for the mocking title.

  Reynard scowled but did not bother to correct her, knowing it was no use, nor did his proper title matter in such company. Mister Reynard was in fact Monsieur Reynard, or more accurate still, the Comte de Reynard, though he and his family had lost much of their consequence when they fled France
during the Revolution when he was just a boy. In an attempt to make polite conversation, I had once tried to ask him about his family’s history and the story of their flight to England, thinking he would be happy to boast of his importance, but he had rebuffed me. I didn’t know whether this was because it would be too painful to discuss or if he felt the tale would be wasted on me. I had always strongly suspected it was the latter.

  His eyes flicked up and down me contemptuously. “Miss Winterton, lovely to see you,” he said in such a way that I knew he meant the exact opposite.

  I smiled tightly and replied in the same voice, “Likewise.”

  Robert greeted me far more warmly, even going so far as to take my hand. “I apologize about the other day,” he leaned in to say. “I could have sworn Kate had told me she was going to visit you, but apparently I wasn’t attending properly.”

  “There was no harm done,” I assured him with a dismissive huff of laughter. Though I had no reason to be, I felt uncomfortable with Robert’s familiarity in front of the others. Particularly when Reynard narrowed his dark eyes in speculation. The Frenchman was too strong a reminder of Olivia.

  “I hope Robert isn’t blaming me for his mistake,” Kate leapt in to say. “It’s not my fault he doesn’t listen to his younger sister.”

  He glowered at her. “I claimed responsibility. Though you could have made certain I heard you.”

  “You nodded in understanding,” she protested.

  “That doesn’t mean I was actually listening.”

  “What’s this about?” Reynard interjected before the siblings could resort to fisticuffs.

  “I came looking for Kate a few days ago and Robert told me she had gone to Penleaf Cottage to visit me,” I explained.

  “But I hadn’t,” Kate pointed out unnecessarily, still glaring at her brother.

  Reynard swirled the drink in his glass. “Which day was this?”

  Robert turned away suddenly, crossing the room to the sideboard to refill his drink. “Monday, I believe.”

  “Ah,” Reynard replied in his nasally voice, as if that meant something.

  I glanced between the two men, confused by their exchange.

  Reynard lounged back in his dark evening kit, with one elbow propped on the back of the russet settee, and offered me a secretive smile.

  Kate rolled her eyes at this display. “Let’s adjourn to the dining room, shall we?” she suggested and then linked her arm through mine, snubbing Reynard, who should have escorted her. Not that the man truly cared. He seemed amused by Kate’s aversion.

  I had dined at Greenlaws more times than I could count, and every time I was struck by how elegant but restrained the dining room was. Somehow Kate’s mother had managed to create the perfect balance of beauty and comfort. It was the one room in the house that Olivia had been content to leave as it was.

  The walls were papered in Chinese silk with azure-blue birds perched on golden branches. The curtains flanking the wide picture window were almost a perfect match to the birds, and seamlessly guided the eye toward the expansive view. The table and furnishings were ornately carved in warm oak, and the chairs upholstered in gold. Their stiff appearance was deceiving, though, because once you sat in them you realized how well cushioned they were. At least, they were far more padded than the hard seats remaining in the dining room at Penleaf Cottage.

  “So, Ella, how have you been spending your days since we saw you last?” Robert asked as a bowl of Lorraine soup was placed before each of us.

  “Helping with the inventory and overseeing the cleaning of some of the rooms we don’t often use. Just household management. Nothing very interesting,” I fibbed, taking a sip of my soup. Robert and Kate knew that Mrs. Brittle was our only servant, and it must have been obvious she was more family at this point than a member of our staff, but Reynard did not need to know that.

  Kate groaned. “I dread inventory. Every time, I wonder why I can’t allow Mrs. Griggs to handle the matter entirely.”

  I offered her a grateful smile, for I knew she did just that, barely taking the time to listen to her housekeeper’s final report. She could have cared less whether there was a set of sheets missing or if one of the rugs needed to be replaced.

  “The riveting life of domestic bliss,” Reynard mocked. “But tell me about this illustrious anniversary dinner the church in Thurlton is having tomorrow. I hear your humble village may be graced with the presence of an archdeacon, and perhaps even a bishop.” He arched his eyebrows over his wineglass in feigned astonishment as he took a sip.

  Robert frowned.

  “I haven’t the least idea who shall actually attend. But I imagine it would be deadly dull for someone as riveting as yourself,” I snapped sarcastically.

  “Nonetheless, I look forward to it.”

  I looked up at him in perplexed annoyance. Why did he wish to attend the Church of All Saints anniversary dinner? To amuse himself with our provincial quaintness?

  “I hope you can give me a tour of this 600-year-old building, Rockland. The sanctuary, the vestry, the bell tower, the cellar. Olivia always talked about how charming it was.”

  Robert looked like he’d bitten into a bitter piece of onion. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”

  I stared across the table at Kate, wondering if she was just as bewildered as I was. She appeared to be doing her best to ignore them, scowling into her bowl. I was curious what bothered her most—Reynard himself or his calculated mention of Olivia. Robert’s late wife certainly hadn’t found the church, or anything here in the fens for that matter, charming. I knew that for sure. So why was he bringing her up now?

  I listened absently as Robert and Reynard discussed their mutual acquaintances and the events happening in London—people and places I knew nothing about. Kate was able to add small comments, for she’d at least been to the city on short trips, but even she was mostly silent. I did notice that Robert tried to steer the conversation away from talking about the war or matters abroad. I guessed this was out of courtesy to me because of Erik, but as much as I appreciated it, shielding me in such a way was futile. I might not visit London, but I sometimes read the London newspapers Robert had delivered to Greenlaws. I wasn’t oblivious to what was going on elsewhere.

  When the meal was over, Robert and Reynard elected to forgo their usual glasses of port and join me and Kate in the drawing room for tea. I can’t say that we were altogether pleased by this. I suspected my friend was as eager as I was to chat privately, and to escape the obnoxious Frenchman.

  However, Reynard had other ideas. “Rockland, why don’t we adjourn to the music room instead?” he suggested as we rose from our chairs. “Then we can hear how well this new pianoforte of yours sounds. A rather tattered old thing. Not sure why you bought it.” He turned toward me with a far too innocent expression. “Miss Winterton, do you play? If I remember correctly, Olivia told me you were quite tolerable. Of course, my cousin Sophie is an exquisite pianist, so I’m afraid I’m ruined for even acceptable performances. But beggars should be no choosers.”

  I scarcely heard the last of his words or registered his insult, for my ears were still buzzing from what he’d said about the pianoforte. A tingling sensation ran up my limbs as I turned to Robert and Kate. The panic stamped across their features told me all I needed to know.

  I moved toward the door, ignoring Robert when he called for me to wait. I lengthened my stride as I turned down the corridor toward the music room, not wanting the quick patter of Kate’s pursuit to catch up with me until I’d seen for myself.

  “Ella, please. Wait!” she cried.

  I threw open the door and there sat my mother’s pianoforte, tucked between their Broadwood grand and a harp. My face flushed hot and tears stung my eyes as I stared at the evidence of how very far my family had fallen. At the proof of my dearest friends’ knowledge of this—and their deception.

  “Ella,” Kate gasped as she reached me. She touched my shoulder, but I brushed her aside. “El
la, please. We were going to tell you, but we didn’t know how.” Her eyes were stricken with guilt. “We never meant to hurt you,” she added in a hushed voice as Reynard and Robert entered the room.

  Robert was glaring at Reynard, his color high, while the Frenchman could only offer me a self-satisfied smirk. I could do nothing to hide my upset, to arm myself against his pleasure at my discomfort. But at least he was honest. At least I knew where I stood with him.

  I dropped my gaze, unable to meet Robert’s and Kate’s eyes. Now Robert’s behavior that day made sense. I had likely arrived at Greenlaws through the marshes just as the pianoforte was being delivered via the road. My lips twisted bitterly. “You must have been horrified by the sight of me climbing the hill that day.”

  Robert glanced at his sister before having the grace to admit, “It was somewhat of a shock.”

  “And I suppose Kate told you what lie to feed me.”

  “Ella,” she pleaded, reaching for me again.

  I side-stepped her touch, and pushed passed Reynard through the door, unable to stand there a moment longer. Shame burned inside me, hot and all-consuming.

  “Ella,” she called again. But Robert said something to stop her before I escaped out of earshot. I wasn’t certain whether I was grateful for his interference or angry that he didn’t care enough to let her come after me or pursue me himself.

  I dashed down the front steps, and then hesitated, uncertain where to go. I didn’t want to return home through Thurlton, not when there might be people about to witness my distress, but I also didn’t want to venture out into the marshes. Not after what had happened the last time I’d been there. The Lantern Man’s rejection and amusement were still too fresh in my memory. So I turned my feet toward the road that led west to Chedgrave.

  My mind turned round and round as my feet churned up the dust, carrying me farther and farther away from the embarrassment and the pain. It seemed lately I was always fleeing, for good reason, and this time I was contemplating continuing to do so until both Penleaf Cottage and Greenlaws were just a distant memory.