Secrets of Sloane House (33 page)

“But that was all she was. She was only a servant.”

Veronica folded her arms over her chest. “You must have hurt her feelings if she left so abruptly. Where did she go?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I gave her enough money to go anywhere she wanted.” Brushing a piece of lint from the arm of his suit jacket, he eyed the rest of the room. “Wasn’t that enough?”

Reid had thought he was far beyond being shocked. Obviously he was wrong. He stared at Douglass while his insides twisted. How had he ever become this man’s friend?

At last, Mr. Sloane stood up. His face was a mask of disdain, but whether it was for Reid bringing the tragedies out in the open or for his son’s admittance without remorse that he’d violated at least two women, Reid wasn’t sure.

“Mrs. Armstrong, Reid,” he intoned. “Rest assured this, uh, situation will soon be resolved. However, it would be best done in the privacy of our home, at the discretion of this family.”

They’d been dismissed.

Reid wanted to leave. He ached to leave. But he had promised Rosalind that he’d see her quest through. And that meant he could never leave the house without bringing up her sister.

“What about Miranda Perry?” he asked baldly.

“Miranda?” Douglass raised his brows. “What concern is she of yours?”

“Miranda was my sister,” Rosalind blurted. “I mean, she is my sister.”

“Your sister?” Olympia Sloane said. She looked genuinely confused, reminding Reid once again that many of the employees of the great house weren’t really seen as people by the Sloane family. Instead, they were warm bodies assigned to do a job to make the family’s lives easier. “I’m sorry, did we know you were related?”

“Not at all. I came to Sloane House to search for her. Secretly.”

“I don’t understand. Are you really stating that you only entered our employ to discover information about your sister?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That was a bit extreme, don’t you agree?” Douglass sat back down, resting one foot atop his knee. “Any number of things could have happened to the girl.” He waved a hand. “Most likely, she fell in love with a peddler or something.”

“No,” Rosalind retorted. “That is not what happened.”

“What do you think did?” Veronica eyed her with a wary expression.

“I’m not sure. I . . . I’m still trying to figure that out.” Unable to merely sit and answer questions, Rosalind stood up. “But . . . I think someone in this house had something to do with her disappearance.”

“Such as?” Veronica asked.

Oh, but this was hard! Facing the whole family together was far more difficult than she ever would have imagined it to be. But she had Reid and his mother there. And she was stronger too. Far stronger than she’d been just a few weeks ago.

She also felt the reassurance of the Lord deep inside her. He had sent her on this mission, and he was pushing her forward. She knew it with every fiber of her being. That gave her all the strength she needed.

“I’ve heard from several people that Douglass paid a lot of attention to her. Some of the staff said Miranda had been warned to keep quiet, but I think Douglass and Veronica were angry with her because she was going to talk. She was going to go to the police or even go to some of the other servants in other homes.”

Looking around the room, she added, “There was talk, you see. I think she was in danger.”

“Are you trying to say I did away with her?” Douglass looked completely incredulous. “I certainly did not do any such thing.”

“What kind of talk?” Mr. Sloane blustered.

Veronica slumped against the cushion of the sofa like a petulant child. “Oh, Father. Have you really been so oblivious to anything but work? Douglass’s reputation for violence and poor treatment of women stopped being whispered speculation over a year ago. Now it is regarded as common knowledge. No one decent calls on either of us anymore.”

Her father shook his head. “What your brother did shouldn’t have mattered. You have the Sloane name.”

“A name means whatever people want it to mean,” Veronica pointed out. “At the moment? It means many bad things.” She glared at Reid. “But you were my hope. I thought you, at least, would see me for who I am. Not that I was tainted by my brother’s reputation.”

“I wasn’t in love with you. I had already given my heart to someone else.”

Rosalind saw the softening in Reid’s gaze. Knowing that he was most likely speaking of Eloisa hurt. She’d seen how concerned he’d been about her, how much he wanted to help her. A combination of jealousy and despair spiraled inside of her as she realized that Reid Armstrong could never be hers.

She pushed aside the pain as Mr. Sloane’s booming voice broke the sudden silence. “Did you violate Miranda, Douglass?”

He squirmed. “I didn’t violate her . . .”

“But you did compromise her,” Reid pointed out.

Douglass raised a brow. “Can a maid be compromised? I’m not sure.” He cleared his throat. “Regardless, she was an uppity thing too. Threatened to tell all sorts of people.” He laughed. “She actually said she had proof that I’d molested other women as well.”

“What kind of proof?”

Douglass’s expression tightened, but it was obvious that he was determined to act blasé. “She said she’d talked to other women . . . and even a lady. That they were willing to damage their reputations to bring out the truth. They were even going to tell the police, if you can believe that.”

Rosalind stepped forward. “What happened next to her?”

“Nothing,” Douglass blurted. “She made all these threats . . . then one day she was gone.”

Looking at Veronica, Rosalind said quietly, “Do you know what happened?”

“I know nothing.”

“But Nanci said her belongings were left here. She wouldn’t have left on her own without her clothes.”

Veronica shrugged. “I truly have no idea what happened to her, Rosalind. I knew Douglass had made her his latest conquest, but that is all.” She looked at her mother after a split second. “Do you know, Mother? I now remember Nanci telling me that you went to their room and boxed up Miranda’s clothes for the workhouse.”

Mrs. Sloane’s expression tightened, but she said nothing.

“I remember you threatening her,” Douglass said to his sister. “I remember you continually asking her to deliver your breakfast tray and that she was often white as a sheet whenever she left your room.”

“If I challenged her, I was justified,” Veronica said. “If I reminded her once or twice about our family’s power? Well, it was nothing more than the truth.”

Reid sighed. “I’ve heard enough. Rosalind, let’s go to the police. If we talk to them, maybe now they will, at the very least, consider investigating Miranda’s disappearance.”

Mrs. Sloane stood up. “Reid, you cannot involve the police.”

“We have no choice,” Mr. Sloane murmured. “As much as it pains me to admit it, there is a good chance that something untoward happened to the girl. It is in everyone’s best interests if we all cooperate.”

Mrs. Sloane looked from her husband to her daughter in obvious panic. “I think not.”

“We have no choice.”

“Of course we do. If we continue on as if nothing happened, no one will ever suspect anything.”

Mr. Sloane paused. “What do you mean, as if nothing happened?”

As Rosalind stared at Mrs. Sloane and saw a flash of guilt cross her features, she realized that she’d underestimated the formidable lady. “You’ve known what happened to Miranda all along, haven’t you?” she whispered.

“I’ve known what I needed to do to protect this family,” she replied.

Reid leaned forward. “What are you saying?”

She sighed. “I’m saying . . . I’m saying that our family’s reputation means more than each of us.” Turning, she glared at her children. “We’ve given you everything, but you didn’t understand the depth of your good fortune. Douglass, you let your spoiled, selfish nature threaten to ruin everything generations of Sloanes accomplished. And you, Veronica? You haven’t even been able to make a match. I had to do something.”

Silence filled the room as each person stared at her in shock.

Finally, Mr. Sloane asked the one question Rosalind assumed they were all thinking. “What did you do?”

“I got rid of her,” Mrs. Sloane bit out. “I took her down to the pier. By the lake. I pretended to fall. And then, when she bent down to assist me? I picked up a rock and hit her on the back of the head.”

Douglass jumped to his feet. “Mother!”

“I had to do something. Miranda was going to ruin you and Veronica. She was going to taint our name. Our reputation! And the fair had just opened. Anyone who is anyone was here in Chicago and would have heard about it. We could have been ruined.”

It took everything Reid had inside him to force out the next words. “What did you do after you hit her?”

“I dumped her into the lake.”

Her husband’s color turned ashen. “What?”

“I had no choice, Clayton. We had to protect our name.”

As the rest of the group stared at Mrs. Sloane in dumbfounded silence, Rosalind felt her heart break. She was almost too proud to show her tears, almost too proud to let them know just how overcome she was. But she couldn’t help but let out a sob. And then Mr. Sloane, of all people, reached over and handed her one of his monogrammed white handkerchiefs.

She knew those small pieces of cloth well. Had ironed dozens of them during her time working at the home. When she’d first arrived at the mansion, the linen had intimidated her. She’d never imagined something so fine could be used for wiping tears and noses. But as she crushed the fine linen in her palm and brought it up to her eyes, she realized it meant nothing to her anymore.

Now all it did was allow her tears to fall.

At last, she’d gotten an answer. She swiped her eyes again, tried to tell herself that the news was what she had expected. Truly, it had been the only thing that had made sense. She had never really thought headstrong Miranda could have been snatched from the streets of Chicago. It wouldn’t have been like her.

Besides, the secrets of Sloane House had been powerful, calling all the time from beneath a veneer of privilege and wealth.

And then the reality of it all sank in. And it became too much. Her sister had been molested. Murdered. Her body had been dumped. With a lurch of her stomach, she stood up. Tried to run from the room. But all she really was aware of was the floor spinning and her head pounding.

At last, she’d discovered the truth. But instead of giving her freedom, it only served to make things worse.

Her sister was gone, and she was never coming back.

CHAPTER 34

R
eid barely had time to reach for Rosalind before she fell to the floor in a faint. With her body limp in his arms, he gently eased her to the carpet, situating himself so that he could cradle her head. Worry for her, mixed in with the blow of what Douglass and his mother had just admitted, made him feel almost as weak as Rosalind. Their admissions rang through his head as he smoothed her hair from her brow.

“Oh, Rosalind,” he murmured. “I am so sorry.”

He was barely aware of someone in the room calling for smelling salts until his mother was kneeling by his side. After sharing a worried glance with him, she opened a vial and waved it underneath Rosalind’s nose. “Don’t worry, Reid,” she murmured. “It’s just a faint. She’ll come around in a moment.”

To his surprise, Veronica appeared at his side with a glass of water. “This will help when she wakes,” she said simply.

Seconds later, Rosalind’s eyes fluttered open. She coughed a bit, then studied her surroundings. She looked at him, at his mother, at the floor on which she was reclining, in confusion. And then it was obvious that reality consumed her again. A weary look transformed her expression.

And broke his heart. “I’m so sorry,” he said again. It was inadequate, but at least it encompassed everything he was feeling.

She blinked and lifted one shoulder, conveying so much.

“I’ll tend to her, dear,” his mother said.

Reid rose to his feet and walked to Mr. Sloane.

The man looked like he’d aged ten years, and as if he, too, were in danger of passing out. Reid wouldn’t have blamed him in the slightest. The latest revelations had gone far beyond his wildest imaginations.

Reid cleared his throat and did what he needed to do. What he hoped his father would have done if he could have been there himself.

“Sir, we need to contact the police,” he said baldly.

Mr. Sloane nodded. “Yes. I’ll send a footman to the nearest precinct.” Looking beyond Reid, the man motioned toward Hodgeson, who looked as if he, too, was trying to stay steady on his feet. “Send Jerome to the police.”

Hodgeson nodded. “What would you like him to say?”

Mr. Sloane’s expression was so dark, Reid almost smiled. But of course, he understood the butler’s question. Nothing—especially not information like this—left the house without the Sloanes’ approval.

Mr. Sloane glanced at Veronica and Douglass, who were sitting separately, each some distance away from the other and from their parents. They looked as shaken as the rest of them.