After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(60)

“My good man,” she greeted him. That was how the dowager marchioness spoke, and it always seemed to get results.

He straightened and turned to her. “Yes? How can I help you, miss?”

Theresa tilted her head up and attempted to look down her own nose. It didn’t work, because he was a good six inches taller than she was, and also, her nose was somewhat lacking. She felt herself blushing. “I should like to see the marriage registers for 1864 and 1865, if you please. And if you have a folio for recent marriages, we should like to see that.”

“If you could fill out the request form…” He indicated to her right.

“But of course. I should be delighted to.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Benedict asked loudly. “All stodgy-like? Have you had a stick inserted up your—”

“Shut up,” she responded in a quiet hiss.

A bit of lead pencil, two minutes, and her terrible scratchy handwriting later was all it took to produce the form. The man took it, bowed, and disappeared into the ranks of shelves behind him.

“I’m always amazed,” Benedict whispered at her side, “that they’re willing to give us whatever we ask for just because we fill out some stupid form. Do they have any idea who you are and what you do with things that make you angry?”

Theresa rolled her eyes at him. “Stop being so dramatic. We’re just asking to look at some ruddy pieces of paper. Nobody cares about them, so nobody’s going to make off with them. It’s not as if we’re filing a request to steal the Crown Jewels.”

“Mmm. You’d find a way.”

The man came back with two books under his arm and a sheaf of bound papers.

“Here you are, Miss. You mayn’t take them from the room, of course.”

“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

She and Benedict divided the work between them. Theresa had become almost familiar with the ebb and flow of the reading. The records were divided into books listing name after name after name, alphabetically set forth, with numbers following after that indicating where the full record was kept.

There were no Camilla Worths married in 1865, Theresa found, nor anyone with a last name starting with a W. She tried a few other combinations—Camilla Cassandra, for her middle name, and Camilla Weston, for her mother’s name.

Nothing, and they had gone through weeks of nothing. Boring. Her fingers tapped the table in irritation as she read. She hoped she wouldn’t have to go all the way to death records. That would be inconvenient, tragic, and also? A terrible birthday present for Judith. Even her diseased embroidered crows would be preferable to unveiling Camilla’s tragic, early grave.

“Nothing,” Benedict said, closing his own book. “God, I’m weary.”

Theresa had never been one to give up. Instead, she started on the recent folios. These were easier—pieces of freshly printed bound materials, much thinner since they contained a few weeks’ worth of material each instead of an entire year. There were only a handful of Ws in each sheaf, and she amused herself making stories about some of the people whose names she saw.

Ann Edelbert Wumbler, for instance. She seemed like a solid sort. She owned her own bakery, Theresa decided, but it was actually a sham. Instead, she housed a printing press in the basement, one that produced lewd woodcuts…

“What about this?” Benedict, who had started on his own folio, and who had not been distracted by Ann Edelbert Wumbler, pointed to a record.

The registry index was sparse at best, listing names, parishes, and the location of where the final record was. Theresa followed her brother’s finger and felt her heart begin to hammer.

Winters

—Camilla Cassandra, Surrey, Lackwich, 1b 902.

Oh, God. It…

It could be a coincidence. There was no reason there could not be two Camilla Cassandras in the entirety of England. But… But… She swallowed. She looked over at her brother.

“It’s her.” He said it as guardedly as she did. “At least, it could be? It’s the closest we’ve come.”

It could be their sister.

The moment should have felt more portentous. Drums should have sounded or a raven could have got into the building and cawed in dismay. Instead, the office whirred about them as if they had not just succeeded.

Theresa scarcely remembered her sister.

If that person on the registry was Camilla, it left so many questions unanswered. Why had Camilla changed her last name? Why had she not told her own family that she was marrying? Who had she married?

This last question they could answer on their own. She smiled at her brother. “Here, you’ve seen me do it. You’re the one who found this. You fill out the request for the full record.”

He did. They waited, holding hands so hard that they squeezed each other’s fingers to numbness.

Theresa scarcely knew her sister Camilla. She had a vague memory of a dark-haired laughing girl, swiping Theresa’s face clean and patting her on the head. That was it—one single memory, compared with the millions she had for Judith.

Or the dozens she had for Pri.

Maybe Theresa had been afraid to think too much of Camilla. When Theresa had been young—very young—she had accompanied her father and brother to China. She remembered the trip dimly through the gauze of distance that made all her early childhood memories seem impossibly far away. She remembered standing on the deck of the ship.