The door opened, and Oliver entered the dining room, wearing a puzzled frown. He shut the door behind him and leaned back against it.
“What is it?” she asked as she rose to her feet.
She turned to help Michael, but he’d already followed her, and put a hand on the table to steady himself.
“Mrs. Ellison knows where Jennette is,” Oliver said slowly, wiping his hand down his mouth.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Penelope’s family hired her.”
Cecilia blinked in confusion, feeling a distant sense of unreality, a prickling of unease. “Excuse me? How could we have heard nothing of this, not seen her in Enfield?”
Oliver shrugged. “Could she have been hiding, for fear I’d send her away from the only people she knows? I might have, too,” he added grimly. “I was certainly frightened enough. Mrs. Ellison says she thought nothing of Jennette’s being hired by the Websters because the girl said she felt overwhelmed here and needed to work in a smaller household.”
“This would have been three years ago, am I correct?” Michael asked Oliver. “And both of you have visited?”
“Numerous times,” Cecilia insisted.
“And never saw Jennette or heard about a baby in the servants’ hall?”
“Three years ago ...” Cecilia suddenly murmured. “Hannah was still alive! She would have told me if she’d known anything about it.”
“Why would she have told you about hiring your servant?” Michael asked. “Perhaps she was even embarrassed, as if they’d lured the girl away.”
“But ... none of this makes sense,” she insisted.
“It seems we have a mystery,” Michael said in his most impassive voice.
Her unease wouldn’t go away. “Do you think Jennette stayed nearby to wait for the right time for revenge?”
“What?” Oliver demanded, stepping closer. “You think Jennette—” He broke off as the color drained from his face. “You think she came after you because of me?”
“Perhaps to implicate you,” Michael said. “There are not many ways to punish an earl after all, unless the crime is murder.”
Chapter 21
First thing in the morning, the three of them set off on horseback for the Websters’ manor, barely a mile away. Michael still felt angry that Cecilia refused to remain at home, but he trusted himself to defend her more than any of the servants, so he’d relented at last. She’d been determined to reunite with Jennette, needing to look into her face for herself and see the truth. And perhaps Jennette would speak more freely to another woman.
Michael didn’t bother telling her that sometimes evil could mask itself as good and get away with it. Either way, they were probably going to have to involve the constable eventually.
The sky was overcast, and a breeze chilled them. He watched his wife, who, although wearing a cloak, seemed unaffected by the weather, her expression set with determination, ready to fight the world in defense of her brother, as she’d been doing her whole life. Appertan alternated between looking pale with mortification and grim with the knowledge that his behavior could have cost Cecilia her life. Revelation of his deeds would either improve him or ruin him. Michael vowed to make sure it was the former, for the sake of both Mallory descendants—and for their father.
The manor itself was a two-story stone building, surrounded by a white fence with climbing vines that had begun to brown with the encroaching autumn. Trees swayed in the wind near the house, and a gardener could be seen working in the side garden.
After they’d been admitted to a small entrance hall, a maid went to fetch Mrs. Webster, since Mr. Webster wasn’t at home. Michael surreptitiously glanced past three doors that opened off the small hall, seeing a library, a sitting room of some sort, and a corridor to the back of the house. He tried to imagine the layout in his mind, wondering where the maid Jennette would be working at the moment—and where she kept her child.
Mrs. Webster hurried from the back of the house, flustered in her plain brown day dress and crooked lace cap. She peered at them above the spectacles perched on her nose. “Oh, dear, my lord Appertan, Lady Blackthorne, Lord Blackthorne, I cannot believe you weren’t shown to the parlor! Please, please, make yourself comfortable.”
Michael followed his wife and her brother into a small parlor, decorated with family stitchery and amateur watercolors between traditional paintings. He remembered meeting Mrs. Webster at the dinner party, but the woman had left little impression on him except for her obvious devotion to Miss Webster, and the glowing pride she’d evidenced at how well married her daughter would soon be. But, of course, Miss Webster was the only child they had left. He couldn’t imagine how it must have felt to lose their oldest daughter in such a tragic drowning.
When they were all seated in the cozy room, Mrs. Webster smiled overly brightly at Appertan. “My lord, it is good of you to call upon Penelope. Luckily, she is at home.”
The young earl cleared his throat. “Mrs. Webster, although I would be pleased to see your daughter, we have come on another matter. I understand that you have a maid working for you who once worked at Appertan Hall.”
“Why, yes, we do,” she said without embarrassment. “Jennette. A quiet girl, who has suffered terribly. We felt it right to hire her, when she was too embarrassed to remain at Appertan Hall.”
Mrs. Webster didn’t seem to suspect that Appertan was involved in the maid’s abrupt departure.
