Then again.
Everything numbed. Disbelief fought hard against the reality of the words. This could not be true. This could never be true. Not of Mamma, who nurtured him and loved him and stood by him with such conviction in Papa’s innocence.
“Son?”
He flinched at the word. He took a step away from the bed and looked at her—the disarrayed hair, the white and sunken cheeks, the desperate eyes.
A woman he didn’t know.
Had never known.
God?A prayer, but nothing else followed. He crumpled the letter in his fist and watched the different expressions come over her face.
First fear because she knew he knew. Then anger. Then sadness. Then just…nothing. Nothing at all, as she struggled upright and pushed the hair from her face. “I meant to burn that. I thought I had, only I have been so ill my mind is affected.”
He dropped the letter, as if the touch of it burned him. “You killed Lady Gillingham?”
“Yes.”
“You let Papa take the blame for it?”
“He would have it no other way.”
“He knew?” Felton took another step back, then grabbed the edge of the washstand as the room swayed.
Then, from the doorway, “Yes, I knew.” Papa closed himself into the room with a steaming teacup, his hand steady enough it did not even clink against the tray. “It was an accident. Tell him, Martha.”
“Yes.” A cough ripped out with the word. “It was an accident. You believe that, do you not, Son?”
“Why were you there that night?”
“I needed to speak with Lady Gillingham.”
“Of what?”
“It does not matter now—”
“It does matter!”
“Son.” Papa stepped forward. “Do not speak so to your mother. I shall not have you upset her.”
Upset her?Felton nearly cast up the last food he’d eaten. Instead, he forced down the ire and spoke low enough that the words rasped his throat. “What happened?”
“Your mother had a matter to discuss with Lady Gillingham. She has never divulged that to me, and I leave her to her privacy.”
“Papa—”
“Let me finish, Son.” He handed the teacup to his wife and settled on the edge of the bed. “I followed her that night, as she had seemed troubled all evening. I was just nearing the Monbury Manor gates when she was leaving them. She was shaking. I have never seen your mother so afraid and weak.”
“Richard, let us not go through it again.” Tea sloshed onto the bed linens. “Please.”
“We must, Martha.” He squeezed her hand. “She told me there had been an argument. How Lady Gillingham had been in hysterics, and in a slight tussle fell from the window. Little Eliza saw everything.”
“Then?”
“Your mother begged me to do something. She cried that she would kill herself. That she could not bring such shame on our family, not when she knew the child would understand it wrong and murder would be proclaimed.” He pushed both hands through his hair. “When she asked me to go and get the child, I agreed.”
An overwhelming anger swarmed him. He couldn’t look Papa in the eye. Or Mamma. He let his gaze fall on the wrinkled letter on the floor, as his mind played out the scene of little Eliza being kidnapped from her nursery window.
