Page 55 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
She turned her back on Hester once more and tried to resume brushing her hair, annoyed to see that her hand trembled. Perhaps Hester’s sneering suggestion was correct. Perhaps she had been a little afraid, as suggestible as any of the children Hester loved to terrify. Phaedra was oft haunted enough by her own past. She didn’t want to add anyone else’s grim story to the collection.
But Hester’s voice dropped to its low, sinister pitch, and Phaedra could not seem to stop her. The crone peered over her shoulder again, her haggard image hovering, nigh mesmerizing Phaedra with her witch-black eyes.
“It was in a springtime of long ago, it was,” Hester droned. “That my handsome Master Ewan declared his love for his Miss Anne. Fair she was, a maiden all gold and roses, so dainty she scarce reached the master’s shoulder. He could neither eat nor sleep for thinking of her, and he vowed to make her his bride despite the difference in their stations.
“That pleased neither the Granthams nor the Lethingtons. Oh, yes, they were proud as Lucifer, too, Miss Anne’s mama and them brothers of hers who were no more than street rabble. James and Jason. But it would have taken more than the likes of them to have stopped Master Ewan getting what he wanted. It was his father Lord Carleton as done that. And all because of you.”
Hester fairly spat at Phaedra. Phaedra lowered the hairbrush, the bristles digging into her palms as she held it clenched tight in her lap.
“By then your grandfather was dangling prospects of fortunes afore Lord Carleton’s greedy eyes, offering to pay off the family debts. The Granthams, they were always in debt. And then, of course, you were the daughter of an Irish lady.” Theterm might well have been an insult the way Hester pronounced it.
“The match was clapped up without consulting Master Ewan. He’d never been strong about opposing his father—Carleton Grantham was the very devil of a man. But for the sake of his sweet Anne, Master’d have defied them all. Lord Carleton, he figured he’d find a way to buy Julianna Lethington off-or maybe frighten her away. And the devil succeeded.
“He got his way, all right. There came a night-the girl had a tryst planned with Master Ewan. She was supposed to be coming and to bring him that little statue as a pledge of her love. But she vanished from the face of the earth.”
Phaedra’s gaze traveled to the fragile porcelain figurine, which would be so easily crushed—just as the delicate girl who made it could have been.
“Master Ewan was brokenhearted,” Hester continued. “But that brother of hers, that James, fetched after Lord Carleton in a perfect fury.”
“I well imagine that he might,” Phaedra said warmly. “And if Ewan so loved the girl, he should have done the same.”
Hester’s mouth pinched, but she otherwise ignored the slur upon her beloved Master Ewan. “Mr. Weylin and Lord Carleton were below in the study going over the details of the marriage contract, not knowing James Lethington had followed Lord Carleton here. All the servants were gone that eve. They’d been given a holiday. So it was an easy matter for old Lethe to creep into the hall unseen and take his choice of weapons. He took the mace down from where it had hung on the wall and waited?—”
“Aye, so he did,” Phaedra interrupted impatiently. “James Lethington killed Lord Carleton and was hanged for it. But what of Julianna? Was she never found?”
“Only a few of her belongings, her shoes and her purse left laying upon the river bank not far from the spot where they say she chose to end her life.”
Phaedra frowned. She sensed there was more than one detail missing from this tale that Hester spun for her with such wicked delight. It seemed far too convenient that Julianna would have obliged Lord Carleton by committing suicide-unless Ewan’s father had terrified her into doing so. If Julianna had killed herself, how did the missing shepherdess come to be abandoned in her grandfather’s attic?
“What became of Julianna’s mother and the other brother?” Phaedra asked.
Hester shrugged. Apparently, having committed no gruesome murders, Jason Lethington held little interest for her. The housekeeper tried to resume her grisly detailing of the death of Lord Carleton.
“A most wicked heavy weapon that mace was. Capable of crushing a man’s skull with but a light blow?—”
“That will be all, Mrs. Searle,” Phaedra said sharply.
Hester’s eyes snapped to hers in a hate-filled glare. “Oh, aye, aren’t you the one for dismissing’ me after ye’ve heard all ye care to hear. The great lady with yer fine peach silks and cream satin bed.”
Phaedra jerked to her feet and stalked over, pointedly opening the bedchamber door. She must have been mad to have listened to Hester even this long.
“For all yer airs,” Hester said. “Yer naught but a poor relation, same as me. Only I grub and truckle fer a living’ on the pittance yer grandfather flings me. Ah, but he’s too kind, letting me have the used tea leaves to sell fer a little extra. Since I be lacking other things to peddle, such as ye bear.”
Phaedra flushed a deep red. “Get out of here!”
“First flinging’ yerself at that drunkard Danby and now at the marquess with my poor Master Ewan not buried a year.”
At the mention of Danby, Phaedra stiffened at the realization. “You! You were the one who locked me into the Gold room with Lord Danby.”
Hester did not even bother to deny it. She merely laughed.
“By God, this is the final straw,” Phaedra cried. “I will have you dismissed without a character?—”
But Hester interrupted her angry threat with another cackle. “And how will ye accomplish that, milady? By carrying tales of what happened to your grandpapa? Ye wouldn’t dare.”
Phaedra nearly choked with the effort to suppress her fury because she knew Hester was right. She could hardly complain to her grandfather about what Hester had done without having to try to explain what she had been doing alone with Lord Danby in that bedchamber.
Hester looked so maliciously smug, it was all Phaedra could do not to slap her.
