Mist of Midnight (26 page)

Whitfield's business is his own,
I thought,
and not mine
.
Though I'd wished it would be, had hoped it would be.
It did not make sense. I could not have so mixed up his intentions, nor the way we'd felt when we were together. Could I have? Perhaps this was yet another skill I'd missed whilst growing up in India.

It was, for once, a night in which no mist rose from the ground, which was equally cold with the air. The late-September moon was full, and I could see, clearly, all the way to the graveyard.

Wait. There was a man in the graveyard!

I blew out my lamp so I could get closer to the window without being seen, and so that the light from my room would not blur my vision.

It was Luke. Without a doubt. I had studied him, I knew him from afar. He had moved so that he faced the only perfectly straight grave in the graveyard; the others were leaning a bit to left or right, as graves did, when the ground heaved with age.

It was her grave. The woman who had claimed to be me! Luke knelt before it, head resting on it. He pulled his head back to look at it from farther away, and then rested his head against it again. After two minutes or so, he began to turn around and I quickly drew my curtains so he would have no idea, I hoped, that I had been watching him.

I undressed and slid beneath the bed linens. In earlier days, when I'd thought we were affectionate and close, I might have gone to him and asked. But not now. Things, after Delia's ride with him, had somehow changed. I wasn't sure what he intended for me, for us.

What had he been doing out there?

T
he next morning at breakfast, I asked Mrs. Blackwood, “Do Captain Chapman's guests remain at the guesthouse?”

“Yes, I believe so, for another day or so.” She looked at me pointedly. “Perhaps he's catching up with acquaintances before leaving for foreign shores. Like Captain Whitfield.”

After breakfast, I walked upstairs, where Michelene finished my hair. “I shall need some steady walking shoes,” I said. “I am going to visit Headbourne Chapel today.”

Michelene dropped a pin. “Why is that,
chérie?
So sad,
non
?”

“It is sad,” I agreed. “But it's time.”

She removed some of my clothing from the wardrobe. “To alter, in my room, and sponge press,” she said. Before she left, she replaced, in my chest of drawers, some gloves she had already mended and cleaned, including the beloved yellow pair from Matthew. I'd wear them, for courage.

The autumn air was chill and I drew my shawl around me as I made my way down the steps and between the two stone lions. Had Chapman's comment about the lions, and Luke, been but a jest? Dry leaves swirled around my feet as I passed the coach house, where Daniel laughed with some of the younger grooms. I should miss them, all of them, when they left. Perhaps they would want to stay on. I did not know how many I could afford to keep. It was probably high time I began to look into hiring my own small household. I'd send for Mr. Highmore and ask for his recommendations, and also for an accounting of my father's investments. I needed to know what I had to live on.

Several minutes later I arrived at the edge of the graveyard, which preceded the church, itself built of chalky stone. I was on
the precipice of discovery, and, I somehow knew, at the point of no return.

I moved forward, and touched a gravestone. I ran my finger over the name and date; it startled me to see my father's name on a grave, Charles Ravenshaw. But of course it was not his, but that of a long-dead relative, perhaps his great-grandfather.

I touched a few other stones and was relieved that I did not feel horror and darkness, but connection. They were my people. I was theirs. They belonged here. As did I.

One did not.

I walked just a little farther and finally faced the straight grave, not old enough yet to be subject to the freeze and thaw of the ground. The grass grew sparsely over it; it had had but one season, after all. The ground was flat and someone had planted a few small flowers to the side of it. I found that touching, someone had cared enough to see it was light and pretty. Cook, perhaps.

But nothing could have prepared me to see the stone itself.

REBECCA RAVENSHAW, 1834–1857

DAUGHTER OF GOD, DAUGHTER OF INDIA,

DAUGHTER OF HAMPSHIRE

REST IN PEACE

I ran my fingers over the name. Who had this woman been? Why had she died?

For Headbourne
, came a sharp whisper inside.
She died for Headbourne
. I knew that was right, fully believed it was truth with a certainty I could not shake.

Below the name, I found something truly startling. The headstone had been somehow defaced. Something just below it had
been scraped out. What had it said? Why had it been scraped out? Defacing a grave, even the grave of a suicide, was most unusual and strange. The back of my neck prickled.

I walked into the church. The side door had swung open to the elements; leaves had blown in, to gather and clot and rot together. The stone crumbled here and there, leaving a chalky residue on the floor. The altar bowed with neglect.
I should repair this,
I thought
, even if I continue to attend church in Winchester. I owe it to my family.
Luke, who had done so much to complete the house renovations, had done nothing to the church.
Call me Thomas,
he'd said.

I sat down on a pew. “Thomas, Thomas . . . Luke!” I whispered. “I loved you. I love you. Let me see your goodness with my own eyes.

“
His welcome when I first arrived, that was good,” I answered myself in the hush of the chapel.
Or, perhaps he'd meant to trap me. Time and again, in actuality.

“The sitar, that was goodness.”
Ordered early on, as a test to prove you could not play.

“The statue. The new carriage so I might attend church.”
Both of which you might as well pay for
,
came the voice from the mazy fold.

“The flowers, the blossoms, the hard kisses, our sign.”
Charm is deceitful
, Scripture was quoted.

The laughter, the dance, the touch of his hand against me, the taking of my hair in his hand, gently.

What about the glove? The tincture? The evil proverb written in henna? I turned my thoughts heavenward into a silent prayer.
If it's there, then,
Lord, let me see, without a doubt, his dark, troubling character to which so many allude. Open my eyes so I may clearly see.

Outside, I paused at her gravestone once more, reaching out to touch and trace. Dust came off on my finger. It had been defaced recently or the rain or mists would have washed it away.

Last night, the night Luke had knelt before her gravestone, had been unusually dry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I
sent a note to Mr. Highmore asking if he could come soon to meet with me, and his secretary replied that he was on holiday but could visit in a week's time or thereabouts. I had slept restlessly since visiting the graveyard, I told Michelene a few nights on.

“That's to be expected,
poupée
,” Michelene cooed. “It's very troubling to see one's name on a grave. To then know that someone was . . . left life too early. Well”—she snapped her fingers—“that would cause ill rest for anyone.”

I nodded, unwilling to share with her the true nature of my unease. Did anyone else visit the graveyard? Unlikely, with the exception of, perhaps, Cook. So no one else would have noticed the scratchings. Had Captain Whitfield's guests seen him leave for the chapel yard, so very, very late at night? Surely Thornton had noticed.

Chapman's guests were back again tonight; I'd seen two carriages arrive and Cook had sent over supper baskets.

“Perhaps a little laudanum?” Michelene poured the golden cup nearly to the brim and handed it to me, waiting, it seemed,
for me to drink it in front of her. “As I shall leave for my day off as soon as you are settled.”

I set it down on the bureau and stared at it. “I'm not sure,” I said. “I'll consider it later.”

“I think it would be best.” Her voice was gentle and motherly, and she picked the cup up and handed it to me. “I'll be back tomorrow evening.”

“I'll take it in an hour's time.” I had no intention whatsoever of taking the laudanum, in fact; in spite of its beguiling soporific charms, my mother's warnings about not overusing laudanum had come back to me, and I felt the pull to drink it perhaps too often.
I must push away now or begin to be ruled by it.

“All right, then,” she said, brushing out my hair. “Make certain you do. And then soon, very soon, we shall return to Winchester together to pick up your fancy outfit for the ball,
n'est-ce pas?
”

I nodded. Attending the Ledburys' ball was much less enticing now that things had cooled between Luke and me. He had not dined in the house since his ride with Delia. There had been no socializing at Headbourne, no invitations extended to me. He'd had guests, and was busy preparing to depart. He had, in the main, kept out of my way. I would do likewise.

I'd attend the ball. I supposed I needed to maintain my social relations with everyone in the area and this was as good a way as any to do it. I realized, too, that Luke would be required to be there and it might be the last time I'd see him. I wanted to see him, to say good-bye.

I read some ladies' magazines for a while, and then a section of Scripture, before turning out my light. I turned this way and then that, tangling myself in the linens. I could not sleep. Finally, near midnight, I slid out of bed and returned to the bureau, which
held the laudanum, and also was near the window that faced the guesthouse.

It was misty again but the moon was still nearly full and it lit the area. I looked out the window, hoping, to my chagrin, for a glimpse of Luke in the windows of the guesthouse, but I did not see him, though I could see the lights were on in the valet's quarters, and there looked to be a guest carriage nearby.

I looked beyond, to the graveyard. There, in the midst of the dark stones, shadowed by the dim lamp she held before her, was a woman.

A woman!

My own lamp was off, so I moved to the edge of the window where I could continue to watch while hiding behind the thick velvet curtains in case she looked up at me as well.

Oh, the mists! I decried the fact that they were back and I couldn't see the woman more clearly. Her dress was dark, and expensively cut. She kept her face turned from the house and the window but turned, regularly, toward the guesthouse, keeping her back mostly toward me and the main house. She tarried a few minutes more, then turned the lamp off and began to walk toward the guesthouse before I lost track of her in the dark mist. A few minutes later, back still turned, she lit the lamp again, very softly, and made her way toward the chapel. Was it some kind of signal? To whom?

I was about to put on my cloak and go out and look—or at least call for Landreth to investigate—when I saw someone new, a man. He left the guesthouse and began to walk quickly. I pressed close to the cold pane and its chill seeped into my skin, firming the flesh, and then into my jaw. Was it Thornton, Captain Whitfield's valet? It was hard to tell.

Then I could see.

It was Luke.

He came from behind her, wrapped his arm around her intimately and protectively, and they went together into the church. All went dark.

I returned to sit on my bed, squeezing my head in horror, pain shooting from my center through every extremity. A sob stuck in my throat, shock weakened my limbs. Tears came and I did not stop them, though I held the counterpane to my mouth to quiet my sobs. In my mind's eye I saw, again, his arms around her, but I felt them around me, as I wished them to be, in an embrace of love and desire; knowing I'd never again truly feel them around me made the pain intense beyond the point of easy bearing. I got up again, pressed my face against the glass—the coolness of it calmed my hot skin and soothed me a bit—but I saw nothing further. I pulled the curtains shut and returned to bed.

Perhaps I'd imagined it. As I'd imagined the stall shutting behind me when I'd first arrived home? How about seeing Mrs. Ross in the woods whilst Luke and I had been fishing? She'd never claimed to have been lurking. That memory brought an ache, the two of us together, at the beginning of all things good.

I knew, though I wished I could dismiss it as fantasy, that I had well and truly seen Luke and the woman together just minutes earlier, and she was in his embrace. I'd asked to see the truth with my own eyes, and I quite literally had.

Who was she? Perhaps Delia had found out the truth about him and another woman, and had confronted him with it. Maybe she'd threatened to tell me and that's why he'd withdrawn.
Perhaps she had arrived in one of the guest carriages still present and they'd met in the chapel to avoid the eyes and ears of the servants and other guests. I could pull on my boots and walk to the chapel and see who it was.
But, the truth
was . . . I did not want to see him
in flagrante delicto
. I did not want to provide my mind with fresh nightmare images. I promised myself, though, that he would answer for it, for the way he led me, and left me, in the end. Had he done that with my imposter, too? Had she “caught” him? I'd insist on an answer in cold daylight when I was quite prepared.

I cried, off and on, planning, in calmer moments, for a quiet life of good deeds and charity, usefulness, till wan light wriggled through the small spaces between and around my curtains. Then I fell asleep.

I
couldn't have been asleep long when I heard a sharp knock at my door.

“Michelene?” I called out.

“No, Miss Ravenshaw, she's got the day off as you'll recall.”

“Oh, Mrs. Blackwood.”

“Captain Whitfield is here to see you, miss,” she said. I heard the hope in her voice. “Shall I tell him you'll be down soon?”

I hurriedly got out of bed and looked at my clock. It was nearly noon! I glanced in the mirror. My hair was tangled and my face puffy and swollen from crying. I would not be able to master my hair in a short period of time, not alone, and it would take several hours and cold compresses to smooth my skin. I would not let him see me so discomposed. That would not give me equal footing at all.

“Please let him know I am slightly unwell, and shall call upon him soon,” I said with finality.

“But, miss . . .”

“Thank you, Mrs. Blackwood,” I insisted. If she could see me, she'd agree, I was certain.

Later that afternoon, when I'd gotten myself assembled and put on one of my better dresses, I headed downstairs. I gently waved away an offer of tea and pulled my gloves midway from elbow to shoulder. I allowed Landreth to assist me in putting on a warm cloak and I slipped my hand into a white fur muff. I realized, with a pang of pain, that I'd last worn it when we'd gone shooting.

Midway through the gardens between the house and the guesthouse, I noted a large pile of brush, mostly dead twigs and leaves, branches that had been pruned. The stack appeared to await the gardener for autumn clearing. Strangely, though, there appeared to be a ribbon atop it. I walked closer to inspect.

There, gently set on top, rested a small bouquet, still fresh, of white blossoms clinging to cool branches. Jasmine season was months past, but white autumn camellias had just come in. They alone bloomed when all else was dying.

Who but Luke would have gathered a white bouquet on the property, and for what purpose other than to give it to me?

“But of course,” Michelene had said. “Now that you are the heiress, the wooing must begin.”
Had he been wooing me or Headbourne? When I was with him I felt his love and affection emanate from what seemed deep inside him. But when we were apart, the doubts rained down steadily, unstoppable. He'd been warm. And then cold. Now, perhaps, warm again?

I let the flowers lie for the moment and made my way to the guesthouse.

There were all sorts of strange persons milling about, people I did not recognize, carriages and carts that were unknown. When I got to the front door, a man unknown to me was conducting an orchestra of servants going in, boxes coming out.

“Is Captain Whitfield available?” I asked. “I'm Miss Rebecca Ravenshaw.”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry. Captain Whitfield has left for London.”

London. I could not believe it. In the span of only a few hours since he'd come to call? “Has Thornton accompanied him?”

“Yes.” He was not very forthcoming.

“When will he return?” The wind began to blow around me; I felt cold coil at my legs atop my boots.

“He won't be returning, miss.”

I gasped. “He's not coming back?”

He shook his head. “No, miss. Lord and Lady Ledbury sent us to finish packing his belongings.”

“Oh.” I stepped aside so a man with a large trunk could get by me. “Thank you for your help.” I kept my voice steady. He bowed, and made his way back to directing the flow of personnel.

I walked slowly back toward the house; on the way, I stopped to claim the white bouquet. I took it in hand, fingering the ribbon, knowing his hand had likely tied it. I touched the cut tips of the stems. They were damp, had been freshly cut. I held a blossom to my lips.

I had, perhaps in pride, set aside the last chance for us to talk at length; he had, perhaps in pride, set aside his last gift to me without leaving a note. He had been cool to me, and I to him.
I do not know whether to pray to see him at the ball or not. So I ask only Your will be done.