empty save for one envelope. It was addressed to his lordship, the Earl of
Devbridge, and it had been sent from London. I pulled out one piece of foolscap
and smoothed it out on the desktop. I read:
December, 1817 My lord:
Edward Jameson has just arrived in London. I await your instructions.
Your obedient servant, Charles Grafton
I just sat there staring down at those words. My father was in London, as of the
eighth of this month. It was now the seventeenth of December. Where was he? What
was he doing? And most importantly, why did Lawrence care?
What bloody instructions? Why would Lawrence give instructions about my father
to this man named Grafton? I read and reread the two lines, trying to make some
sense out of them. It was no use. I had so urgently sought to find some clue, to
discover the answer to this deadly game I was trapped in. Now the clue I had
searched for was in my hand, and still I did not understand. Then I realized the
date of the letter was only three days before someone had put that horrible
barbed circle of wire under Small Bess’s saddle.
I put the letter down and pressed my fingers against my temples. At least now I
knew, knew that my father’s warning was against Lawrence, my husband. That was
why he was so shocked and dismayed at my marriage. But what had my father to do
with all this?
I felt as though I were trapped in that marvelous maze at Richmond, only in this
maze I didn’t know if I would be able to find a way out.
I slowly placed the sheet of foolscap back into the envelope, and put it exactly
in the same place it had been when I opened the drawer. There was just no away
around it, my husband was the one who wanted to make me pay for all of it. But
why? Why then did he marry me? What had I done to deserve his hate?
Was he also the evil that Lord Waverleigh had said still lived here? In the
Black Chamber?
I stared about me. I had been here all too long. Someone might come in. I closed
the drawer only to realize that I had to use the hairpin again to move the
inside little lever. I moved the pin back and forth until, finally, mercifully,
the lock clicked back into place.
I quietly closed the small narrow door, and walked quickly out of his bedchamber.
I had taken only three steps when I saw someone, the shadow of another person,
and then they were gone, around the corner that led to a servant’s staircase. I
sincerely hoped it was Boynton, John’s valet, keeping an eye on me. But if it
was Boynton, why had he run? I heard a noise from just behind me. I whirled
around so fast I nearly stumbled on my skirt and went down. Another shadow, a
face, looking at me from around that corner, and now it was gone. I raced to the
corner, around it, and dashed up another back staircase, calling out, “Who is
there? Come back here. Damn you, who are you?”
Chapter Twenty-six
No one answered. I stood there, heart pounding, wondering what the devil I was
going to do now.
I quickly entered my room, and locked the door behind me. The Blue Room had
never seemed so welcome. George looked up and wagged his tail for a bit before
he took two drinks out of his water bowl and went back to his nap. I sat down in
the winged chair close to the fire. It felt wonderful. I hadn’t realized I was
so cold, both on the inside and the outside. I stared into the flames. I
wondered why Lawrence had married me and brought me here, to his home, only to
terrorize me, to tell me that I would pay for all of it. I knew it involved my
father, but how and what, I still had no idea. I had to see John. Perhaps he had
learned something.
He wasn’t in his bedchamber. He wasn’t downstairs, either. No one had seen him.