"No, milady. There was naught else." Still, Hester did not leave. She lingered by the dressing table, daring to finger Phaedra's fan and her dainty kid gloves. Although she was no longer afraid, the woman was making Phaedra decidedly uneasy.
When Hester picked up the porcelain shepherdess Phaedra had found in the garret, she commanded, "Put that down."
Mrs. Searle's clawlike fingers tightened around the delicate figurine until Phaedra feared she meant to crush it. "Where'd ye come by this?"
"That is none of your concern." She moved to take the shepherdess from the woman, but to Phaedra's outrage, Hester whisked it out of her reach.
"Miss Lethington meant this geegaw for Master Ewan, so she did. How did you come to have it all this time?"
Lethington. That was the name the shopkeeper had mentioned just yesterday. But how strange to hear it fall from Hester's lips. Although she had a strong urge to box Hester's ears and send her packing, Phaedra's curiosity got the better of her.
"Miss Lethington? You don't mean Miss Julianna Lethington?"
"Certainly I do. This here statue was meant for the Emperor of Austria, but Miss Julianna, she vowed to give it to my Master Ewan instead. Only he never got it. He always believed as how someone stole it."
Despite her anger with Hester, Phaedra felt a tingle of excitement. Was it possible after all that her shepherdess was part of the famous Lethington set? Or was this only more of Hester's odious tale-spinning?
As she snatched the shepherdess back from Hester, Phaedra said loftily, "I found this in the attic, so I consider it mine now. And if it is the treasure you claim, why on earth would Julianna Lethington have wanted to give it to my husband?"
Greatly to Phaedra's astonishment, Hester broke out laughing. She could never remember having heard the housekeeper give way to mirth before. It was an unpleasant sound, like the strident cry of a raven.
"I don't see what is so amusing about my question."
"Don't you?" Hester rubbed the back of her hand against her watering eyes. Phaedra marveled that such a mirth-filled gaze could at the same time harbor so much malice.
"I only be surprised, that's all, what with you not being able to bear having the woman's cloak about, that ye should so cherish her china."
Cloak? China? What the devil was the woman talking about? Phaedra stared at Hester.
"Lord bless us, ye really don't know, do yer?”
Phaedra did not know, but as she glanced uneasily from the housekeeper's malicious face to the "figurine, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
"The gray cloak, my dear Lady Grantham," Hester purred. "Ye recall it. The one that belonged to-"
"I know full well whom the cloak belonged to. What of it?"
Phaedra no longer felt disturbed by the memory of Ewan's precious lost love, Anne, but she loathed discussing her former humiliation with Hester all the same.
"We-e-ell," Hester drew the word out, obviously determined to savor every moment of the revelation to come. "The lady who owned that cloak is the same who fashioned the china." She crooked one finger toward the statuette Phaedra cradled so protectively in her hands. "Miss Julianna Lethington was Master Ewan's lost love."
Julianna Lethington had been Ewan's Anne? Dear Lord, no wonder Hester nearly wept from laughing. It was indeed an irony that the figurine that Phaedra so loved should turn out to be but another memento of her husband's lover.
Phaedra turned the golden-haired shepherdess carefully in her hands, almost able to picture the graceful fingers that had wrought the statue's beauty. For years, fear, hurt, and jealousy had stifled her curiosity about the mysterious Anne. But she felt far differently now. That likely had much to do with Armande's whispered words of love. She no longer need feel any envy of a phantom woman whose memory her husband had cherished in her stead.
"So Anne was the daughter of china makers," she mused. "No wonder Ewan never wed her." The proud Grantham family would never have suffered one of their members to marry a girl of such low birth and no fortune. Indeed they had been reluctant to accept Phaedra, despite the lure of her grandfather's money. and the fact that her mother, Siobhan, had been a lady.
"Such a great tragedy it all was." Hester fetched a deep sigh. "Master Ewan, he loved Julianna Lethington so."
Did Hester think to wound her still with that sort of spiteful reminder? Phaedra gave her a scornful glance. "And what would you know about it? You were not even employed here at the time."
"Lord Ewan didn't treat me with the contempt as some in this house do. Oft his lordship would confide in me."
"I doubt that. I knew my husband well. He was never the sort to pass his time of day with the housekeeper." Phaedra placed the shepherdess back on the table and started to stroke the brush through her hair again. She broke off with a gasp as Hester's hand hooked over her shoulder, the woman's nails biting through the gossamer fabric of Phaedra's gown.
"Ye never knew him, nor me, neither," Searle snarled."I was more than just the housekeeper when Master Ewan lived. The same blood flows in my veins as any Grantham. Aye, the Searles be just as good, though we fell upon harder times."
Phaedra struck the woman's hand from her shoulder. Her flashing green eyes met Hester's malevolent black ones in the depths of the mirror. "You'd best go now," Phaedra said through clenched teeth.
"He loved her, he did, not you." Hester stabbed the words at Phaedra as though she wielded a knife. "Loved his beautiful Julianna. She was as fair and delicate as that there china. He never stopped loving her-no, not even after what her murdering brother did to my poor Master Ewan's papa, Lord Carleton."
Phaedra twisted around in her chair. preparing to thrust Hester from her room if she had to. But she blinked as though she had been dazzled by the light of a hundred chandeliers. A light that suddenly made all crystal-clear.
"Lethington ... old Lethe," she said wonderingly. "The old Lethe who killed Carleton Grantham was Anne's brother."
Hester regarded her with the contemptuous patience usually reserved for the village idiot. "That's right. James Lethington. He be the one. The same tale as I've tried to tell you many a day, but ye've always been too high-minded to hear it-or perhaps too afraid."
"I've just never had any interest in a past that does not concern me.”
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." The term might well have been an insult the way Hester pronounced it.
"The match was clapped up withou
t 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.
“’Course, ye need not worry so much about protecting your reputation. It won’t matter a jot in the end. Ye'll never be no marchioness. That Lord Varnais don't love ye no more than Master Ewan ever did. He'll but use ye-"
"I said get out!" Phaedra advanced upon Hester, not quite sure what she might have done had the housekeeper not at last shown the good sense to back away from her. She bobbed an insolent curtsy.
"Aye, just as ye wish, yer ladyship."
As the woman marched out the door, Phaedra sank down upon the gilt chair, cursing herself. She had allowed Hester to get the better of her again, drive her to anger just when she had fancied herself immune to the woman's vicious barbs.
The creature must indeed be a witch, searching out Phaedra's heart with her hag's gaze. When one tender area had healed, she knew just where to direct a new thrust. That Lord Varnais don't love ye ... he'll but use ye.
Phaedra slammed the palm of her hand upon the dressing table. She would let no more of Hester's poison enter her heart. The housekeeper was nothing but an embittered, jealous old woman. Phaedra would not allow one particle of her happiness to be snatched away by Hester’s grasping fingers.
She tried to resume brushing her hair. But she found herself staring at the golden-haired shepherdess perched before her. It was as though Hester's malice had tainted even her enjoyment of that, the figurine's eyes appearing sad, the hue of the lips as crimson as a slash of blood. Phaedra seized the statue and buried it deep in the dressing table drawer.
Chapter Twelve
The memory of her quarrel with Hester clung in Phaedra’s mind like finely spun cobwebs, refusing to be brushed aside. Even days later, as she jounced through London in the faded splendor of a hackney coach, she found herself thinking about Mrs. Searle.
Perhaps it was the evening fog that swirled about the carriage, turning the familiar streets of London into a nightmare world of illusion, of lurking mists that kept reminding Phaedra of Hester. Or perhaps it was the knowledge of the risk she took in being out alone, on a mission of just the sort of secrecy the spying housekeeper would most have liked to discover.
Nervously, Phaedra patted the packet that contained the writing she soon hoped to deliver into Jessym's hands. She was supposed to be taking tea with Jonathan. Her plan was to drop off the packet and continue on to Jonathan's house in Cheapside before her absence could be noticed. She knew her friend would willingly lie to cover her activities, but Phaedra had no desire to place Jonathan in such an awkward position.
She did not intend for her business with Jessym to take long. Phaedra adjusted the heavy veil over her face, trusting that the fine black silk would obscure her features when she thrust the manuscript out the coach window. She would not alight from the carriage, thus keeping Jessym from studying her at any great length.
Leaning forward, Phaedra risked a peek out the hackney's grimy window to see if she could determine how close they might be to Fleet Street. But the fog blanketed everything, drawing down the curtain of night far sooner than she had anticipated. The few other carriages that dared risk travel on such an evening clattered past her and disappeared like shadow riders into the thick mists; even the clop of the horses' hooves was muted into a dreamlike unreality.
Many of the town houses had already lit their oil lamps, which the law required them to burn above the pavement in an effort to discourage the rogues who roved London's streets by night. This eve, the lamps flickered dimly in the graying haze. The illumination did not even reach the center of the street where the hackney coach ambled, leaving Phaedra feeling cut adrift in a sea of darkness far from the welcoming beacon of any shore.
She huddled back against the seat, wondering why she had not asked Armande to accompany her, why even now she did not trust him enough to tell him the truth of Robin Goodfellow's identity. She was
certain he was no longer angry about the article she had written maligning his pose as the Marquis de Varnais. She had never even heard him mention Robin Goodfellow again since that day they had met by the bookseller's in Oxford Street. Then why not confide in him as she had Gilly and Jonathan?
Perhaps it was because, deep down in her heart, she feared Hester was right. Armande did not love her, was indeed planning to use her for some sinister purpose of his own.
No! She nearly cried aloud in her vehemence to deny it. How could she yet doubt the soft glow she had seen in Armande's eyes when he looked at her, the tenderness of his kiss? She would think no more about what Hester had said. The woman's malicious whispers about Armande were more of the poison festering inside Hester's own wretched heart.
Phaedra was thrown slightly off-balance as the coach lurched to a stop. Through the haze she glimpsed a plain, straight building of ugly red brick, grim' and uninviting. The hackney driver swung down from his perch, yanking the door open.
"This be it, milady. The address where you asked to be set down."
"No, I didn't," Phaedra protested, the mist threatening to seep into the hackney's interior, leaving her damp and chilled."I mean, could you please knock at the door and request a Mr. Jessym to come out to me?"
The driver scowled, and it took a great deal of effort to persuade him-almost as though he feared Phaedra meant to make off with his cab and horse the minute his back was turned. By adding a considerable tip to the fare, an expense she could ill afford, she convinced the coachman to fetch Jessym.
When he had gone, she fussed with her veil, making sure not so much as one strand of red hair was showing. Her fingers felt slick with perspiration within her tan kid gloves. What if Jessym, accustomed to dealing with Gilly, refused to have anything to do with her?