The Secret of Pembrooke Park(118)

Louisa appeared in the corridor at that moment, looking pretty and fresh in one of her new day dresses. “Good morning.”

Miles turned, bowed, and then beamed at her. “Miss Louisa, how lovely you look this morning.”

“Thank you.” She looked from one to the other, her smile thin. “Back at my sister’s door already, Mr. Pembrooke? I can’t say I like that.”

“Yes, well . . . Abigail’s room is very . . . popular.”

Louisa’s brow puckered at that, but she said pleasantly, “I was just on my way down to breakfast. Have you two already eaten, or will you join me?”

Miles smiled. “I would love to join you, Miss Louisa. May I call you Louisa . . . ?”

Thank goodness for her sister and her ability to manage men, Abigail thought, sending Louisa a secret smile over Miles’s shoulder. Shutting her door behind her, Abigail followed them down the passage and out into the gallery. When they began descending the stairs, Abigail remained at the railing. “You two go ahead,” Abigail called down to them. “I remembered something I need to . . . finish first.”

When the two had disappeared down the stairs, Abigail returned to her room. Nerves jangling, her mind whirled through possible ways to sneak Mr. Chapman out of her bedchamber now that her family was beginning to rise. Especially when she’d deceived Mr. Pembrooke, carefully wording her reply to suggest Mr. Chapman had already left.

She quietly opened the door to the secret room, eager to ask what he might suggest.

But the room was empty.

Befuddled and feeling foolish, Abigail looked inside her wardrobe and under her bed just to be sure, but no. He was definitely gone.

Thank heavens, Abigail sighed in relief. The parson was faster than she would have given him credit for. He must have slipped from her room as soon as she left with Miles and Louisa and gone down the back stairs without her noticing. She hoped he knew his way belowstairs and out the servants’ entrance. She also hoped he didn’t give Polly a fright or earn himself a tongue lashing from Mrs. Walsh for daring to enter her domain. But no, the housekeeper doted on him and no doubt happily aided—or at least overlooked—his escape.





Chapter 26


To avoid making Miles even more suspicious, Abigail joined him and Louisa for breakfast as promised. During the meal, she felt Miles’s gaze on her often and did her best to enter into the conversation as though nothing unusual were going on. Father joined them, and the two men chatted a long while. Finally Abigail was able to excuse herself.

She returned to the secret room and closed its hidden door behind her. Stepping to the nearest shelf, she tripped over an upturned corner of carpet. She bent to straighten it, then began looking more closely at the things left piled on the shelves. The bandboxes, which she very much hoped did not contain hats. Stacks of paper and what looked like a jeweler’s box. She felt like an intruder. Nearly like a thief. Tenant or not, these things were not meant for her eyes.

As she stood there hesitating, the hidden door behind her creaked open. Heart leaping, she gasped and whirled.

There stood Leah Chapman.

Abigail sputtered, “Leah! You frightened me. Come in and shut the door. Did William tell you we found it?”

Leah nodded, avoiding her eyes.

Abigail studied her expression. She said tentatively, “But you . . . already knew where it was, didn’t you.”

Leah’s chest rose and fell in a deep breath, then she looked directly at her. “Yes. I played here as a child. My first father showed it to me, and helped me transform this forgotten storeroom into a secret hideaway. He and I were the only two who knew about it, as far as I know.”

“And Mac?”

Leah’s gaze flitted around the room. “Not until I showed him where it was. We hid here that night when . . .”

When her words trailed away, Abigail prompted, “The night the valet returned to report that your . . . Robert Pembrooke had been killed?”

Leah nodded again and turned, her focus landing on the portrait on the back of the door. She stilled, arrested, mouth falling slack. Then she stepped nearer to look at it more closely.

Seen together now, Abigail could see differences in the two faces. But even so, the resemblance was remarkable.

“Mamma . . .” Leah breathed. And Abigail for the first time fully grasped that the living, breathing woman before her, whom she knew as Leah Chapman—Mac and Kate’s daughter and William’s sister—was in fact Eleanor Pembrooke.

She tried the name on her tongue. “Eleanor . . .”

Leah turned sharply, her eyes meeting Abigail’s, then softening into vague focus somewhere beyond her. “No one has called me that in years. It barely seems like my name anymore.”

She looked at the shelves, the small window, then pointed to the child-size chair and cushions on the floor. “Oh, the hours I spent here, reading and playing dolls . . .” She pressed her eyes closed. “If only all of my moments here had been as pleasant . . .”

Abigail asked, “Can you tell me what happened that night?”

Leah shrugged. “I can try. I was only eight years old at the time, but the scenes are still very real in my mind. And now and again over the years, I have begged Papa to fill in the missing blanks for me, which he has done very reluctantly. Even so, he could tell it better.”