Page 28 of Silence of Deceit
“Lord Rumsford claims her handwriting and spelling were equal to that of a young child’s when they parted ways at Shadewell, so Delia being the author of the blackmail letters is out of the question.”
Audrey crossed the room, toward the darkened windows. Her reflection surprised her; the new gown she wore for the opera looked far too elegant and chic for this discussion. For some inane reason, seeing herself in something so refined made her feel less substantial, as translucent as what she saw in the glass pane.
“Does Teddy—I’m sorry, Lord Rumsford. Does he know anything about this other blackmailer?” she asked.
While at Shadewell, Audrey had suspected that Teddy was a professor or academic, but a viscount made more sense. He was always well put together and unfailingly polite. Like many of the men Audrey had met in the peerage, he remained standing until all the ladies had seated themselves around the library table for their studies. Though Audrey did not need the lessons that he offered some of the others, she found his eloquent voice soothing to listen to from where she sat in a chair, paging through everything she could find on the library’s inadequate shelves.
“No. He can’t think of anyone from Shadewell who might stoop to such a ploy, and he was especially cut up about Delia’s betrayal and death.”
Audrey must have made an assenting expression, because Hugh crossed his arms and said, “You are as well.”
“No,” she blurted out before she could think twice. But then, she grimaced. “Maybe a little. We weren’t close, and when we met again in September it brought back so many memories that I’d wanted to let go of. But…”
Like two strings of tangled yarn finally loosening enough to pull free from each other, Audrey realized why she’d been so unsettled since all of this began. She turned to Hugh, who waited for her to continue with a narrowed, attentive stare.
“I was there for two years,” she whispered. “Sometimes it felt like I would be there for my whole life, like Lady Gladdington, this sweet older countess who truly did need to be there.” Lady Gladdington had roamed the corridors and rooms, singing and laughing to herself. “But there was a short time, for about four or five months, when a few of us would meet in the library. It wasn’t anything official. We’d just show up, and we’d read and discuss books, look at atlases, and listen to Teddy.”
The room had been a reprieve from the rest of the austere, cold rooms. And the same faces showing up day after day had become a much-needed routine. Something she had lost since being forced away from her home at Haverfield.
Audrey reached for the nautilus shell that sat upon the windowsill in her study. The rough outer layer of the rounded shell had been thoroughly polished, to a smooth pearlescent surface, and her brother James had etched a woodland scene on both sides. Trees, vines, a hare, a bird, the rack of a buck hidden within the foliage. He’d given it to her as a gift shortly before the fever that took his life, and she still treasured it. She took it with her whenever she and Philip changed residence, treating it like a talisman of sorts. Now, she turned it over in her palm, and it calmed her.
Hugh joined her at the window. “Who else?”
She gripped the shell and peered at him. “What?”
“The others in the library at that time. Who were they?”
Of course.The library. Delia, Teddy, Mary, and herself. They were all part of the same circle at the library. It wasn’t just Shadewell that connected them here and now, in London. It was the library itself.
She set the nautilus back onto the windowsill, the wide opening to its spiraled inner chambers balancing it upright. She paced away, toward the hearth, the cogs and gears in her mind working. “George usually trailed Teddy everywhere, and he would come to the library most days.”
“I would have thought men and women would be kept separate,” Hugh interjected.
“They were for the most part,” she said. “However, we were allowed to commune in the library and during meals.”
“And this George fellow,” Hugh went on. “His name might not truly be George?”
Audrey sighed. “Exactly. There were a few other women—Estelle and Tabitha come to mind. However, Tabitha…” A pang of heartache struck like a viper, sneaking up on its prey. It had been years since she’d thought of the poor woman. One more memory of that dreadful place that she’d worked so hard to forget.
“There was an accident.” Audrey’s knees trembled along with her voice, and she moved to the sofa and sat down as nonchalantly as possible. “She somehow stole out of the building and off the grounds one night. The next morning, a search was launched, but they found her in a bog pool. In the dark, she wouldn’t have seen it coming. Her legs must have become stuck and in her struggle... Or perhaps she did it on purpose. That’s what everyone whispered, at least.”
Hugh glowered, as though he’d like to box an opponent at Gentleman Jack’s. “Did that sort of thing happen often?”
Audrey shook her head. There were precautions taken to keep the patients from harming themselves or others, and the ones who were serious about it were watched every moment of every day. She had not thought Tabitha at all inclined.
“You mentioned an Estelle. Any idea who she might be?” Hugh asked, but Audrey shook her head. She had been refined. Definitely highborn. Audrey and some others had been suspicious that Superintendent Warwick had taken a shine to her, and she to him. But any sort of relationship with the doctor was untenable and impossible.
“After Tabitha’s death, I didn’t see her often. A short while later, she announced to us that she was leaving. That she had been discharged.”
“So, if Delia knew Mary Wood was truly Mary Simpson, and that Teddy was Lord Rumsford…and your true identity too,” he said, “it stands to reason she or the blackmailer had access to records, where the patients’ true identities would be listed.”
It did make sense. How else would the person have found the former residents back in their regular lives? But why now, years later?
Audrey wanted to stand but her legs still felt strange. Her heartbeat was still a little too rapid. Deep inside, she’d known allowing Delia into her life would pierce the firm boundary between her world now, and her time at Shadewell. A time she’d made every effort to forget.
“Did you speak to the duke?” Hugh asked, his voice soft.
“I did.” The instant cinching of her stomach made her trembling worse. She was glad she had not attempted to stand. “He paid out nearly one hundred pounds over the last two months.”
