Page 45 of Silence of Deceit
“I have not been quite honest with you, Mr. Starborough,” Audrey interjected. Lies would only close that door again. “And you have not been quite honest with me.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I know that Esther was in Northumberland five years ago at a place called Shadewell,” she said, finished with tiptoeing around the truth.
The maid’s rounded eyes and gasp were artless and telling.
“How dare you—” he began.
“I am not here to cause havoc, Mr. Starborough, I assure you. And I have no intention of making your wife’s placement there known to anyone. But I must ask—has anyone else come here recently, inquiring about Esther? Or perhaps intending to extort money from you?”
The man gawped at her. “What nonsense is this?”
The genuine reaction assured her that he had not been a target of the blackmailer. But then, why would he lie about Esther’s death?
“I would like to speak to Mrs. Starborough,” she said with as much ducal poise and firmness as she could manage.
The man before her stood taller, his shock simmering over to anger. “I have told you, Miss Smith—she is dead!”
Again, his reaction was utterly genuine.
“But not in childbirth,” she pressed.
His nostrils thinned as he inhaled deeply and then ripped off his spectacles. “No. How do you know this? Who are you?”
“I knew Esther at Shadewell,” she admitted. “And I also know she was discharged and sent home.”
“You know nothing at all,” he replied, his agitation heightening. “She did not come home!”
His voice broke on those last words, and a pang of shock and sadness tolled in Audrey’s chest. She was now the one gawping at him. It made no sense. Esther had come to them in the library. She had said goodbye.
“I should never have sent her there,” Mr. Starborough continued, his voice strained with emotion. The maid touched his arm lightly. “I thought it was the only way to help her, to stop her from harming herself after the baby died. I refused to send her to Bedlam, that awful pit. Esther’s doctor suggested Shadewell. Said it was a better place. Secluded and safe…”
He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You did what you could, sir,” the maid said softly.
“It didn’t stop her!” he all but screamed. The maid retracted her hand, and Carrigan took a step closer, as if preparing for Mr. Starborough to lash out. But he didn’t. Instead, he seemed to crumple.
Audrey drew in a deep breath and chanced another question. “How did she die?”
To her relief, he did not anger. He calmly placed his spectacles back on. “She managed to escape the building one night. In the darkness, she couldn’t see where she was going.”
A bubble of alarm began to rise in Audrey’s esophagus. Hot with confusion, she listened to the rest of Mr. Starborough’s all-too familiar sounding account.
“A search was launched for her at dawn when they found her bed empty. They think she must have fallen into one of the bogs in the surrounding moors. Her cloak and hat were found in the mire, but they said her body could not be recovered.”
The front hall filled with thick silence. Audrey’s throat went dry as she recalled the circumstances around Tabitha’s death. They were a match to what Mr. Starborough had been told about his wife.
“Who told you this?” she asked, just as a thumping sound from the upper floor pierced the quiet. As if something heavy had been knocked over. Audrey looked up the stairs, to the landing. Mr. Starborough followed her gaze, as did the maid.
“The superintendent, of course,” he answered, seeming to regain a bit of his annoyance with her. “In a letter. There was no body…” He sniffed and straightened. “Now, Miss Smith, if you will kindly take your leave. My new wife is upstairs and is not feeling well. I must go to her.”
The maid’s eyes widened as he limped to the door and held it open. It was incredibly rude to turn someone out so hastily, but Audrey supposed she had also been quite rude in her manner while questioning him. She moved on numb legs, Carrigan still at her side. “Of course. My condolences, Mr. Starborough.”
There was nothing left to say to him, or to learn from him. As she left the residence and Carrigan helped her back into the carriage, she pored over what Esther’s husband had revealed.
He believed his wife had walked out onto the moors and drowned in a bog. Just as Tabitha had a month or so before Esther had bid Audrey and the others a farewell, explaining that she was being discharged to return home. And it had been Doctor Warwick who had informed Mr. Starborough of the unfortunate circumstances.
