Page 96 of Lady Edith and the Registry Office
“Please tell my father Lady Louisa and I have gone to Thorne’s Lending Library with Lord Wycliffe.” She was glad to see her maid Mary rush down the main staircase, two cloaks in hand. “Thank you, Mary.”
The women donned their outerwear while Lord Wycliffe stood nearby, scowling.
“We’re ready!” She brushed by the viscount and through the front door held open by a footman. “Come along, my lord!”
* * * * *
The first thing Nathanielfelt upon awakening was a pounding in his skull. He was lying on hard-packed earth, shivering, the cold seeping into him like a festering wound. Rolling to his side, Nathaniel sat up gingerly, realizing his hat was missing. Reaching a hand to the back of his head, he felt a knot on his scalp and something sticky. Probably blood.
Squinting in the low light of his enclosed space, he suspected he was in the mausoleum. There was a mound of blankets nearby on the marble floor and a coil of rope. Beyond those items, the wooden door to the crypt stood open.
“Thank heavens!” He didn’t know what he would have done if he were locked in. Shout until someone heard him, or until he lost his voice, he imagined.
Nathaniel stood up slowly, reaching out a hand to steady himself on a stone shelf. There were no coffins visible in the small building. He closed his eyes a moment, feeling dizzy. Opening his eyes again, he slowly made his way to the open door, one hand sliding along the shelf and the wall to help him remain upright. When he made it to the door, he grasped the door jam, feeling a wave of nausea overtake him. Nathaniel leaned over and cast his accounts. Breathing deeply of the damp earth around him, he looked up, blinking, into a bright day.
How long had he been unconscious? He’d obviously spent the night in the mausoleum. Alicia would be worried. Nathaniel took a deep breath and looked around him. His tall beaver hat was a yard in front of him, his walking stick near his feet. Steeling himself, he bent down to grasp the walking stick with the hand that wasn’t clutching the wooden door jam.
“Oh heavens.” He felt the nausea again but breathed in and out rapidly. Walking stick in hand, he released the door jam and stepped forward.
He neither saw nor heard anyone around him save the chirping of a nearby swallow perched on a gravestone. He slowly made his way to his muddy hat and picked it up. Visibly trampled on by one or more people, it looked unsalvageable. He stumbled back through the churchyard to where he’d seen the carriage he’d followed yesterday.
It was no longer there, but Nathaniel recognized the one now replacing it: Cecil’s unadorned black town carriage.
* * * * *
“St. James’s Street,” Lord Wycliffe called to his coachman as he assisted Edith and Louisa into the carriage.
She sat beside Louisa, and the viscount took the bench across from them.
“Lady Edith, you had a servant lie to your father.” Lord Wycliffe’s bemused expression was easily visible in the sunlight streaming into the coach from the uncovered windows.
“If I hadn’t, he would not have allowed me to accompany you to search for Lord Harbury.” Although she spoke calmly, Edith wasn’t comfortable lying to her father.
There followed several minutes of silence until the coach came to a halt.
“We’re in front of White’s,” Louisa said with a grin as she looked out the carriage window. “On a street where ladies should not be seen.”
A knock came at the carriage door. Lord Wycliffe leaned forward and opened the door; Mr. Bones stood outside.
“Lord Harbury is not in any of the clubs, my lord, and has not been seen by any of my contacts.”
“Well done, Bones. I’ll see you on Curzon Street this evening.”
“Very good, my lord.” Bones shut the carriage door. They could hear the man tell the driver to proceed to Mortlake, and the coach rolled away.
“Alicia told us the church was the only employment reference our Mrs. Stafford used.” She added after a moment, “And you checked her reference, Lord Wycliffe.”
“She was the parish secretary for almost two years. I spoke with the vicar who had nothing but praise for the woman.”
“Which leads one to wonder why she needed another position,” Louisa replied.
“I asked the vicar why she was no longer working at his church, and he said he’d recently married, and his wife had assumed secretarial duties for the parish.”
She accepted that the explanation was a good one.
“How far is the church?” she asked Lord Wycliffe to fill the awkward silence.
“Several miles from St. James’s Street. It will take well over an hour to get there.”
