Swiss Vendetta (Agnes Luthi Mysteries #1)(67)
“You said she had a strong sense of being an outsider.”
“We both do … did. My parents never come to London, they’d left the townhouse closed for years, and when I moved to the city you’d have thought I was going to a foreign war. We’re strictly gentleman farmers and my father takes it seriously. My sisters ride to hounds and will marry other farmers and all will continue as it has forever. I think my going to work for Mother’s cousin about caused a divorce. I offered not to be paid—’course that woke the old man up. He’s no objection to money, and an auction house isn’t ‘trade.’” Thomason laughed bitterly. “We’re practically on the border of Scotland and as isolated as we were a hundred years ago. That’s what I meant by being an outsider. Felicity came to London after she was on her own. Her guardians took care of her and she had every advantage growing up—in terms of school and traveling and all the usual stuff. They don’t like England, but felt an obligation to rear her there. She felt they resented her tying them down when she was young. It was the feeling of affection that she said she missed by not having her parents. That was important to her. That was what we had together.” His voice cracked with emotion.
Agnes glanced at Vallotton, who raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak. Over his shoulder Petit’s eyes were wide with interest. Agnes hesitated to share more of what she knew. If Thomason didn’t know Felicity’s parents were alive, what else didn’t he know? Using a different name was one thing. After all, many people dropped or added nicknames, but clearly he didn’t know that her education was more of the street-smart variety than of a girl carefully chaperoned through museums by her cold but very proper relatives. Agnes marveled that Felicity had been able to pull it off. How had she created a new person, correct in all the details, out of her past? Agnes knew how hard it was to assimilate. She had been born in Switzerland yet didn’t feel Swiss. There were too many deeply ingrained customs that weren’t part of her parents’ household. Somehow Felicity Cowell had broken into what was by all accounts one of the most insular clubs in the world: the British landed gentry.
“Had you set a date for the wedding?” she asked before Petit could blurt out what he knew. She wanted to learn from Thomason, not tell him what they knew. Not yet. Thomason gulped slightly and didn’t reply. “Had she met your parents?” She hated herself for thinking that his parents might have suspected Felicity’s background. He had painted their picture very effectively and she sensed they might suspect something was odd about their potential daughter-in-law.
“No, we were planning to, but they live so far north, and it was difficult.”
Particularly if one of you has so much to hide. “If she wasn’t close to her guardians, your mother would have filled that void, the interest in the details of the wedding. I imagine your family, steeped in so much tradition, would have wanted something special.” She didn’t know exactly what she was probing for, but she wanted to draw him out about their plans and his relationship to the dead woman. Had his parents suspected something even before they met her?
“We hadn’t set one.” Thomason fiddled with an empty coffee cup, his thumb looped through the handle. Agnes was afraid the delicate china might break, he was so tense. He took a few short, deep breaths and seemed near to tears, then he spoke in a burst. “Sod it. We weren’t absolutely engaged. I asked her and she wanted time to decide. She was worried about my parents. I think I’d made them sound too cold, and told her too many stories about my sisters locked up there in the north, ready to marry men just like my father. Maybe she thought I would change once we were married. She knew that I would eventually inherit Harley House, but I promised that we could always live in London. I swore to her we would stay there, but maybe she was right, maybe I would have changed my mind and wanted to live on the estate once it was mine.” He turned to Vallotton, his voice shaky. “You understand. Why can’t it be both ways? Who wouldn’t want to live there? I would go back and make my mark and I wouldn’t have to be like my father. She and I could have put our own stamp on the place. But she was worried, she wanted time, and I gave her that time and now she’s dead and I know we would have been married. I know she would have said yes.”
Anguish aged his face and for a moment it appeared that he would lose control, but he placed the tips of his fingers on the edge of the dining table and focused on them. He took a deep breath and blinked several times then looked at Agnes. She hesitated and felt Vallotton shift in his chair. She knew what he wanted; they had to tell Thomason the rest, they couldn’t justify keeping these details from him. Thomason had to be near thirty, but she could tell that he had lived a sheltered life and for him love was simple and sweet. This would be the final blow to his innocence. This would in some ways be worse than death. She drew a deep steadying breath.
“The local police in Britain have spoken with Felicity’s parents and her sister.” Agnes spoke forcefully, but was careful to keep her voice emotionless. “I’m sure the family will want to meet you once you return. They had been estranged from Courtney—that was her birth name—for years, at least a decade. They don’t know anything about her life in London. The news of the promise of a happy future with you will be a double-edged sword. Sorrow for what is lost, tempered by the thought that their daughter had the chance at happiness.” She doubted Courtney’s family and the young man in front of her would find anything in common, but it wasn’t for her to decide.