A Dreadful Splendor (42)

He refilled the glass, emptying the bottle this time. He was laborious in making sure he decanted each drop. I looked at the white-and-pink carpet and marvelled that it wasn’t peppered with drops of red wine.

For an unexplainable moment, I imagined Audra lying here in a pool of blood. Her blond hair out of its pins and splayed around her head. Her tiara askew, her lifeless eyes staring up, wide open and accusing. The vision was sharp and took me by surprise. I moved closer to the mantel, putting more space between myself and William.

I picked up one of the candelabras and went to the bookshelves, searching for a heavy enough novel to throw at William if necessary. I was in a locked room with a man who, from every meeting I’d had with him, was full of bitter resentment. Mr. Lockhart had even admitted to believing William could have been responsible for Audra’s disappearance.

There was a large portrait on the wall that must have been Audra’s mother, Lady Chadwick. She was much younger here than in her picture in the Gallery Hall, closer to my age, I suspected. There was a definite family resemblance, especially the blond hair. However, instead of Audra’s confident radiance, her mother had an unyielding hardness behind her soft features. I grew uncomfortable under her stare, as if she were ridiculing my poor posture. She posed grandly in a rose garden with a dog on her lap. Her lips were full but unsmiling. The artist had captured more empathy and life in the dog’s deep brown eyes than in hers.

“You believe she still exists, then?” William asked. There was a slight slur to his words. But the collapse of his countenance led me to believe the grief was affecting his articulation as much as the wine. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as the empty glass dangled from his fingertips.

“In spirit,” I answered.

“Spirit,” he whispered. A mournful grimace pulled at his young features, aging him before my eyes.

I needed to tread carefully. I wanted to bring up the eve of the wedding and ask him how he’d gotten into her room, but that would mean admitting my eavesdropping. I needed to be clever with my questions. “Why are you here?” I asked him again, sensing that if I kept him talking, he might divulge some of his secrets.

William put down the empty glass and went to the window. He pulled back the thick curtain, letting the moonlight spill in. “I ask myself that question every morning I wake and remember the love of my life is dead and I am not.”

I nearly dropped the candelabra. Of all the things he could have told me, that was the least expected. It took a few heartbeats to find my voice. “Lady Audra?” I asked carefully.

He nodded.

I tried to make sense of what he’d just revealed. How was it possible? He was a ward of the family, and she was the lady of the estate. I studied him, trying to visualize Audra on his arm. There was too much desperation about his situation for him to be considered a suitable match for her. Even in appearance they were opposites. She was elegant and prim, where he was unmannered and rough around the edges. As much as I concentrated, I could not muster a believable image of them as a couple.

His breath made foggy shapes against the pane. “I grew up in the orphanage in Wrendale, until I was thirteen and began an apprenticeship with the blacksmith, Mr. Sutterly. He adopted me, but I was more of a worker than a son.”

He faced me again, but this time there was a gentleness in his features. “Every night for the next two years I went to bed with muscles aching, my hands full of blisters from the hot irons. And then one day Mr. Sutterly left and never returned. He was headed here, to the stables at Somerset. The parish constable told me he was found beaten to death and left on the side of the road. Mrs. Donovan arrived shortly after, saying I was to be taken in by Lord Chadwick himself. I certainly had no grief over the blacksmith. And who was I to turn down this chance at a better life. I thought I’d found heaven, Miss Timmons.” His wistful expression melted. “Little did I know I was destined for hell.”

Destined for hell? I glanced at the dog in the picture and raised my brows. “What happened?” My tongue was heavy with a thousand questions, but I thought it best to keep leading him with vague prompts.

He pushed himself off the windowsill. “Taking me on as a ward was not motivated out of kindness. Lord Chadwick had a plan, one that would take years to fulfill. And by the time he brought the entire scheme to its disastrous conclusion, both he and Audra were dead.”

The flames of all the candles flickered in unison. “What was his plan?” I whispered.

“Audra could not inherit Somerset Park. He needed a son. He groomed me for years, preparing me for a lifestyle that becomes a Linwood. He planned to claim me as his rightful heir once he found the proof he needed.”

All the air left the room at once. I struggled to take a breath, nearly dropping to my knees. The candelabra hit the floor, extinguishing the tiny flames. “Lord Chadwick was your father?” I choked out.

William walked toward me. “I had no idea until he confessed on his deathbed. And by that time Audra and I had been secretly in love for two years.”

“And the proof?”

He shook his head, the epitome of a tragic figure. “Gone forever, it seems. Audra was the only other person who knew the truth.”

I stood and put a hand on the mantel. As I absorbed these new facts, a theory began to piece itself together. All this time I imag ined Audra had been in love with Mr. Pemberton. He was handsome and rich enough, and most important, he would inherit the title to Somerset. Rumors of a family curse aside, what could consume Audra with enough torturous misery that the only solution was to jump to her death to the rocks below?