English Trifle (32 page)

Sadie glanced at the safe. What would be the most important day in a man’s life besides the birth of his child?

“I used my wedding day for years as codes for things,” Sadie said absently.

Liam paused and looked at her, then shook his head. “I don’t think my parents’ wedding date meant much to him.”

“Then why keep this?” Sadie said, holding up the page.

“Archiving,” Liam said. “It’s a legal document and it proves my legitimacy—he’d need it to prove I was heir.”

Sadie hadn’t thought about that. She was in the process of putting it back when something caught her eye and everything paused for a moment. Written on the line marked “Bride” was the name Violet Amelia Sorenson. The countess’s bedroom Sadie had left just twenty minutes ago flashed through her mind—shades of purple, the floral print on the duvet and curtains, the word “Violet” stitched into the pillow. Her mouth went dry, necessitating that she wet her lips before she spoke. Liam beat her to it.

“Found it,” he said, heading back to Breanna with the half-sheet of paper in his hand. “It’s June 6, 1946.”

Breanna nodded and began turning the dial.

“Your mother’s name,” Sadie said, still holding the marriage certificate. “Violet?”

“Yes,” Liam said without looking up.

Sadie nodded thoughtfully. “I bet with a name like Violet, people make purple jokes a lot.”

Liam looked at her. “Purple jokes?” he repeated, confused. “She does like purple, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard purple jokes.” He went back to working on combinations with Breanna.

Sadie looked back at the paper and considered telling him the direction of her thoughts, but then quickly talked herself out of it. Mrs. Kinsley had said the earl was fixing up the countess’s bedroom for his lady friend; Austin had said that the earl had never lived at Southgate during the time he was married. “Liam,” Sadie said, trying to sound casual. “I’m curious, what’s your parents’ relationship like these days?”

Liam looked up at her. “Relationship?” he repeated, then shrugged. He seemed a little annoyed that she kept interrupting him. “I don’t think they have a relationship. They hadn’t seen one another for years until I graduated a few years ago.”

“Did they get along at your graduation?”

Liam nodded. “My mom had just separated from Frank—my stepfather; she married him a couple years after my parents divorced. I think it had been long enough that Mom and Dad were over their issues, why?”

It was Sadie’s turn to shrug. “Just curious,” she said, looking back at the marriage certificate. “Um, could I use your phone, Liam?” she asked after a few seconds. “I left mine up in the room.”

“Who are you going to call?” Breanna asked, obviously surprised that after working so hard to get to this point, Sadie was suddenly stepping out of it for something as basic as a phone call.

“Detective Cunningham, I’ve got a question for him,” Sadie lied. She put out her hand for the phone. Instead of Liam complying, Breanna dug her own phone out of her pocket, forcing Sadie to think quick.

“I hate your phone,” she said bluntly. Breanna pulled back slightly, shocked by her mother’s bold statement.

“You hate my phone?” she repeated while Sadie madly compared her memory of Liam’s and Breanna’s phones in her head, trying to come up with any feature about Breanna’s that she could say was inferior to Liam’s somehow.

“Small buttons,” she said triumphantly. “I hate those tiny buttons.” She looked at Liam. “So can I use your phone or not?” When all else fails, be a bully.

It worked. Liam handed over his phone. Sadie thanked him and headed for the door of the library. The hallway was clear but she started heading for the front door when she remembered that no one was there. Rather than making her feel relieved, it was kinda creepy to think she was alone in this great big house. Not wanting to have such an important conversation out in the open, Sadie moved down the hallway to where it ended with floor-to-ceiling windows where she could look out on the gardens and feel like she had a little more privacy. She then opened up Liam’s phone and spent nearly two aggravating minutes trying to access his phone book. Finally she found it and scrolled down until she saw the name she was looking for.

Mom’s cell

After taking a breath, Sadie hit the button that would dial the number, quickly trying to come up with the best way to ask what she had no doubt would be a very difficult question.

“Liam,” a woman’s voice said upon answering the phone, causing Sadie to pause until she realized that his phone number would come up on his mother’s caller ID. “How is he?”

The automatic question only cemented Sadie’s suspicions. “Mrs. Martin?” she asked, then remembered that Violet had married again and Martin would no longer be her last name.

“Who is this? What’s wrong?” Liam’s mother asked. “What’s happened to Liam?”

Of course she would assume that’s why someone was calling her on her son’s cell phone. Sadie hurried to explain herself. “Nothing’s happened to Liam,” she said. “My name is Sadie Hoffmiller; Liam has been dating my daughter.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Yes,” the woman responded carefully.

“I apologize for contacting you like this, and I’m sorry for the abruptness of what I’m about to ask you, but I beg of you to be honest with me and trust me when I tell you it’s absolutely imperative that you tell me the truth.”

Violet said nothing for a few seconds. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she finally said. “Is Liam with you?”

“He’s here,” Sadie said, not wanting to get off track with this conversation. “Well, not right here, but here in the house—he’s in the library with Breanna.” She paused for a breath before continuing. “Violet,” she began, hoping she wouldn’t offend the woman by using her first name, “were you seeing Liam’s father again?”

The line was silent for several seconds, long enough that Sadie feared the other woman had hung up or was shocked by the very suggestion, but then she heard a sniffle which turned into a quiet sob. It was all the answer Sadie needed.

~ ~ ~

I’m so sorry,” Sadie whispered as Liam’s mother broke down three thousand miles away, her own heart breaking for the loss this woman had experienced. Sadie lowered herself into a leather armchair while she listened to Violet cry. The secret must have weighed a thousand pounds, getting heavier as the earl’s illness progressed. It was almost a full minute before Violet started talking, but then she didn’t stop, telling Sadie how she and William had begun talking every few weeks after Liam’s graduation. Within six months, they were talking every few days. A year later, William came and spent two weeks with her in Virginia. Fourteen months ago, they met in Paris for ten days.

“He asked me to marry him again during that trip,” Violet said. “He said that we were both grown-up now, that we could simply love one another the way we should have back then.”

“Why didn’t you tell Liam?” Sadie asked when Violet paused for a breath. “He has no idea. The staff knew the earl was seeing someone, but Liam knows nothing about it, let alone that the someone is you.”

“We were both just so scared to get his hopes up—anyone’s hopes up, even our own. We took it slowly, knowing that we needed to trust each other completely and have absolute confidence in a future together before we told anyone—especially Liam. We didn’t want to break his heart again if we were wrong about us for a second time.”

“What did you say?” Sadie asked, watching the first raindrop hit the window. She cast a glance up at the clouds. Once it decided to rain here, it rained buckets. “When William asked you to marry him, what did you say?”

“I said I wasn’t ready yet,” Violet responded sadly. “But then we talked about living at Southgate instead of London, where we could be away from his sister, away from the noise and intensity of the London life. He agreed; he even moved his office to Southgate. In June we met in New York and he asked me again. This time I said yes.” She sniffled again.

“June,” Sadie said, trying to calculate everything in her head—June had been more than six months ago. “Did you set a date for the wedding?”

“February first,” Violet said in a soft voice. “It would have been our thirtieth wedding anniversary. William was going to invite Liam to come out for Christmas, and I would already be there when he arrived. We anticipated a beautiful moment where we would be a family again—it was our Christmas present to Liam and to each other. And then everything went horribly wrong,” she continued. “I had my flights arranged so I’d arrive a few days before Liam would; William and I were talking every day, planning the wedding, anticipating the holiday. Then Liam called me and said William had had a stroke—that’s how William’s father died, you know. Liam had wanted to go right out, but couldn’t arrange for the time off. I wondered if I should go, but with Austin there and Hattie hanging around, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. No one knew about William and me, and for Liam’s sake I thought maybe that was best.”

“I can understand that,” Sadie said. She’d have likely done the same thing in Violet’s position. Though a grown man, Liam was still Violet’s son, and she would want to protect him from painful realizations. Sadie also noted that Violet still believed William had had a stroke—Liam hadn’t shared either his suspicions or his conclusions concerning his father’s health. Sadie didn’t want to be the one to break the news. “I’m so sorry.”

Violet sniffled again. “I also worried about Liam if Hattie knew.”

“Hattie—Lady Hane?” Sadie repeated. “William’s sister?”

“I can’t stand the woman,” Violet said without hesitation. “And she didn’t care for me either. She saw me as an interloper, a stupid American who had muddied up their blue-blooded line.”

Sadie’s eyebrows lifted. “Really?” she said. Austin hadn’t given that impression at all, either on his behalf or his grandmother’s. Neither had Liam.

Violet continued. “It was something William and I fought about a great deal when I was still in England. I swore Hattie was working against me, gossiping about me to people in our social circle so that no one would let me in, throwing me into situations where I didn’t know how to behave. Back then William defended his sister—insisting I was using her as an outlet for my own frustrations. I came across as spoiled and pouting, when I was really just overwhelmed and so horribly out of my element that I did nothing rather than risk doing something wrong. Lately, he’s come around to see that it’s entirely possible I was right. Hattie was definitely one of the reasons I left—only, I thought William would follow me.” The sadness had returned to her. “I didn’t understand how much England was a part of him. It took a long time before I realized that I had given him an impossible decision—me or the earldom. I would not let him have both, and he could not respect a woman who didn’t honor what he felt duty bound to fulfill.”

“But he was duty bound to you as well,” Sadie added. “He was a husband and father.”

“I’m not saying he was right,” Violet clarified. “But neither was I, and once our differences began to burn we both threw so many logs on the fire that it was our own Guy Fawkes Day—with a blaze we simply couldn’t put out until all the fuel was burned away. When we met up again at Liam’s graduation, we understood ourselves and each other better than we had before. We were able to build on that this time, rather than tear one another down because of it. I felt strong enough to come back to England—Hattie and all—and William was prepared to stand up for me this time rather than tell me to stop taking things so personally.”

“But you were worried about Liam if Lady Hane found out about the two of you,” Sadie said. “Why?”

“William and I could have cushioned him from anything Hattie might have said or done in response to the fact that we were getting back together. But William’s stroke left both of us powerless. Liam’s the heir and Hattie can’t do anything about that, but he didn’t need her anger directed toward him. There is no doubt in my mind that Hattie was enraged by the fact that her husband’s title went to a distant cousin, while her father’s title would land squarely on Liam’s shoulders—she treated him well enough, but I believe that she never considered Liam worthy of the title. He wasn’t a real Englishman in her eyes and he never would be.”

Sadie absorbed all of the information. “Violet,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “did you ever think Lady Hane would hurt him?” She implied that she was talking about Liam, but she meant William as well. Someone had orchestrated this conspiracy, but finding a motive had been tricky. Yes, Austin had a management position and a relationship with a kitchen maid to protect, but was that enough to warrant all of this? Grant had said they were forging documents—could that have been Lady Hane’s idea instead of Austin’s?

Violet was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” she said. “When her husband died, Hattie was left with less financial support than she’d have liked. William generously supplements her income so that she’s been able to retain her lifestyle. He’s also allowed her to live in his London house. I don’t think she’d do anything to jeopardize that. However, there is something sinister about that woman—and I don’t say that only because she didn’t like me. There’s simply a conniving way about her, a quiet watchfulness that is usually interpreted as simple aristocratic arrogance. William was beginning to see it for what it was, though—anger and resentment.”

“Really?” Sadie asked. “What exactly did he see?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Violet said. “He was very protective of me that way, but there was something he was looking into, something important that he said would bring big changes to the earldom.”

“Did he ever mention the Martin family Bible?” Sadie asked, wondering if perhaps that was part of what he was figuring out.

“Well,” Violet said thoughtfully, “not recently, no.”

“But he’d mentioned it before?”

“Oh, years ago,” Violet said in a tone that implied she couldn’t imagine how it would be important now. “After we returned to England, when his father was dying, he wanted to put Liam and me in the Bible but couldn’t find it.”