The Selfless Sister (25 page)

You are a fool, Rose
, she said to herself. Now there was no hope at all and she had lost him for good. But the trouble was, she loved Douglas with all her heart and when you love someone you want to see them happy.

And it was plain to see that for Douglas, happiness meant Miss Lucinda Linley.

Chapter 16

Papa left for home the next morning, satisfied his second daughter was in good spirits and filled with new resolve.

After he was gone, Lucinda pondered what to do. Although she had no intention of permitting herself to fall back into her previous state of indecision, she was hard put to decide what should happen next. One thing she knew she must do
—inspect that attic at Ravensbrook Manor. But how? She needed sage advice, but from whom? Surely not Pernelia, who needed no remainders of the past, nor vacillating Jane, nor—what a thought!—Sarah, who was everything unpleasant.

There was only one person in the vicinity of York who could give her sane advice, and that was Lady Perry. She would visit her that very afternoon. She must be very careful, though. Gregory had been, still was, the love of Lady Perry’s life. Even though Douglas hadn’t said, Lucinda assumed his revelation about Gregory was in confidence. Even if it wasn’t, far be it from her to be the one to deliver the stunning news that the man Lady Perry had thought dead for twenty-five years was still alive.

* * *

“How awful for Alethea,” said Lady Perry as she poured her visitor some tea. She had listened with growing consternation to Lucinda’s retelling of the events which led to Alethea’s hasty removal to Scotland.

“I doubt I shall ever see her again,” Lucinda finished sadly.

Lady Perry pursed her lips with sympathy. “Edgerton is a brute and a bully. Is there nothing you can do?”

Ah, the perfect opening. Lucinda set down her untouched cup of tea and proceeded to relate her entire dilemma, stressing Pitney’s confession that the attic had never thoroughly been searched. “I could be wrong, but I have this strange feeling that the attic at Ravensbrook Manor could hold the answer to the tragedy.”

Lady Perry had listened with growing interest, a look of amazement spreading across her face. “But how appalling! We all simply took for granted that the attic had been gone over thoroughly.”

“Well, it wasn’t, and now I want to see it, but I don’t know how. Both Douglas and Alex are in London. Meanwhile, I, being a Linley, could hardly knock at the entrance to Ravensbrook Manor and ask to be admitted.”

Lady Perry nodded in agreement. “The butler would never allow you in.”

“But I have this...this singular feeling that if I searched the attic I might find some trace of Marianne. Just imagine what would happen if I did.”

“Gregory’s name would be cleared,” Lady Perry answered in a voice poignant with longing.

“And the curse that has hung over Ravensbrook Manor all these years would be lifted forever.”

“So you believe there’s a chance you could prove Gregory’s innocence?”

“It’s possible, but the problem is, I have no way of getting into Ravensbrook Manor, other than trying to sneak in, and I could hardly do that.”

“Why, that’s not a problem at all.” Lady Perry’s face creased into a sudden smile. “I would die happy if I could but clear Gregory’s name.”

Lucinda felt a stab of guilt that she had not revealed the shocking truth about Gregory. She was tempted, but stopped herself, knowing she could not break Douglas’s confidence. “But I didn’t mean for you to be involved,” she said. “Aside from the difficulty in getting in, there’s the attic itself which is bound to be quite dusty and dirty, and dark, and then there’s the matter of the ghost of Sir Giles which I most certainly don’t believe in for a moment, but still...”

“Don’t bother, Lucinda.” A look of joy suffused Lady Perry’s face. “Gregory has been gone for lo, these many years, yet I still yearn to clear his name. You and I are going to Ravensbrook Manor where we shall scour every inch of that attic, ghost or no ghost. Say nothing further, if you please. I can hardly contain myself as it is.” She arose from the settee, the tea forgotten. “What are we waiting for? I shall get my bonnet.”

“You mean we are going now, this moment?” Lucinda asked, slightly dazed.

“What better time? Come, my dear, we’re about to visit the attic at Ravensbrook Manor.”

* * *

Lucinda’s heart
thumped madly as she and Lady Perry mounted the marble steps of the main entrance to Ravensbrook Manor. “Are you sure we can get in?”

Lady Perry nodded briskly. “Leave it to me.”

Lucinda marveled at her friend’s confident manner. How they could possibly gain entrance was beyond her.

Carter, wearing his butler’s impassive face, answered the door. When he saw who it was, surprise flickered in his eyes, but only for a moment. “Yes?” he asked imperiously, peering down his nose. “His Lordship is not at home, nor is Mister Alex.”

Lady Perry stepped forward. “Indeed, I am aware of that, Carter. We have come because Lord Belington has sent us here to collect some items from the attic. Come, Lucinda.” Boldly, looking neither right nor left, she stepped past the nonplused butler and swept into the entry hall. “Do we need a key, Carter? I quite forgot to ask Lord Belington if the attic door is locked.”

“No, it is not, madame.” Carter looked confused. “But I don’t
—”

“Is there much light up there?”

“I wouldn’t know about that, Madame, having never set foot up there myself. The ghost, you know. May I ask what you are looking for?”

“Oh, just some things,” said Lady Perry, raising her hand and airily wiggling her fingers. Will you be so kind as to get us each a lighted candle, Carter? Just in case it’s too dark up there?”

Lucinda watched in disbelief as the butler, still looking confused, reluctantly set off to get the candles. “You were marvelous,” she whispered. “Wherever did you get the nerve?”

“‘Tis a nerve born of desperation,” Lady Perry whispered back. “If we could shed light on what happened, we might at last know why Gregory took his own life and with it the life we had planned. If only I could clear his name!”

Soon, each holding a pewter candle holder with a lighted candle, they climbed the narrow steps and stopped at the door that led into the attic.

“My stomach’s in a knot,” Lady Perry confessed. “My legs are shaking. Drat! This isn’t like me.”

“So you do believe in ghosts.” Lucinda managed a small grin.

“Nonsense! Well, let’s have at it, shall we?”

Lucinda whispered, “If it’s any consolation, my legs are shaking, too.” And her heart was pounding. The very thought of seeing this attic at long last put her excitement to a fever pitch. She did not believe in ghosts, either. It was the thought of what she might find that was making her tremble. She placed a firm hand on the attic door. “Here we go,” she said and gave the door a shove. The door swung open with a loud, grating creak. “It sounds as if it hasn’t been opened for years.”

“It probably hasn’t,” Lady Perry answered. “I recall Gregory telling me how the servants were afraid to come up here.”

They stepped inside and stood a moment, holding their candles high, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the dim light that was also provided by shafts of sunlight shining down from narrow windows high above. “Oh, it’s huge,” Lucinda commented, “and full.” There was enough light that she could distinguish furniture piled high—wooden crates—pictures—old saddles—a bit of everything, all jumbled together, with no sense of organization at all.

Curious, Lady Perry set down her candle and unrolled an ancient-looking tapestry revealing a hawk and its kill woven in the foreground with a river and classical ruins beyond. “Upon my word, a Flemish Verdure,” she announced reverently. “Seventeenth century, at the very latest. And look at this.” From a crate she pulled a silver ewer. “French Provincial.” She examined it closely. “See the coat of arms? I would guess sixteenth century.” She looked around the vast room in awe. “There must be all kinds of treasures up here. I could spend a week, a month
—” she suddenly turned solemn “—but that’s not why we’re up here, is it?”

“I fear not.”

“Then tell me, just what are we looking for?”

Lucinda had never put the dreaded thought into words before, but now was the time. “What I was thinking was that perhaps for some reason Marianne found her way up here that day. She could have been playing a game of some sort, perhaps hide-and-seek. Somehow she crawled into something
—I’m not exactly sure what, an old trunk, perhaps—and she became trapped and couldn’t get out. So if the attic wasn’t thoroughly searched at the time... Do you see what I am thinking?”

With a heavy sigh, Lady Perry nodded. “Then let’s get started, shall we?”

Lucinda looked around the vast attic filled with the debris of centuries. She could see that parts of the attic had been partitioned off, so that there were nooks and crannies, and rooms apparently within rooms. Her spirits sunk. “It’ll take hours and hours to go through everything.” She put resolve into her voice. “But we may as well get started.”

They began to search, diligently, although it was difficult for Lady Perry, who, as a collector of antiques, found herself “in antique heaven,” as she called it, as she came across lovely old brass candelabra; crates full of ancient clothing; portraits, some of ancestors dressed in sixteenth- and fifteenth-century garb. There was a Dutch cherry brass bucket, a Florentine giltwood frame. “Oh, this is too much!” Lady Perry cried, nearly overwhelmed. “When all this is over, I must come back. Douglas can name his own price.”

Lucinda raised her head after a fruitless look into a hide-bound leather trunk. “When all this is over, you may not ever want to come up here again.”

“Oh, dear, I had not thought.” Greatly subdued, Lady Perry continued the search. An hour, two hours went by. They had opened trunks, safe boxes, armoires, any place a little child might hide, and found nothing. They were getting dusty, dirty, and discouraged.

“I’m beginning to think this is all for naught,” Lady Perry said as she closed the lid of yet another empty trunk.

“At least we haven’t encountered Sir Giles,” Lucinda said lightly, trying not to show her discouragement.

Lady Perry smiled. “Perhaps he’s taking his nap, or doing whatever ghosts do in the late afternoon.”

They kept searching. Lucinda spied a door, half hidden behind a pair of walnut cabinets and a massive mahogany bed, tipped on end. She was drawn to it immediately. At the door she grasped the rusted hasp that held it shut and pulled it open, wincing at the harsh, grating creak emanating from rusted hinges. She squeezed into a small room and peered around, trying to make sense of the dark shapes of all sizes that filled the room. She couldn’t see. She raised her candle. It was still too dark. “Felicia,” she called, “Can you bring your candle over here?”
Hurry
, she thought as her friend slowly groped her way into the room. For some reason, she could not explain way, her heart was jumping in her chest and she felt as if her breath was near cut off, all because of an overpowering need she felt to search this little room.

Felicia took both candles and held them high. As the candlelight erased the shadows, the murky objects began to take shape. A giltwood table, an ancient oak butter churn, a set of dining chairs, a child’s doll, a marbled armoire...

The armoire. It caught Lucinda’s attention instantly. Tyrolean painted, of a leafy green, it sat in a corner farthest from the door. It was a beautiful piece of furniture, quite heavy, she could tell, with a delicate frieze above two paneled doors painted with roses. Branches entwined with roses ran down the sides. There were two drawers underneath.

“Hold the candles high, Felicia,” Lucinda advised, her voice deliberately calm, “I want to look in that armoire.”

The path to the armoire was fairly clear, requiring no climbing over objects in its path. A little girl could easily have reached it and climbed in.

Standing in front of the paneled doors, Lucinda felt a most powerful, prescient feeling creep over her. Half in anticipation, half in dread, she had to take a deep breath to steady herself before she turned the latches and swung the doors wide.

“Oh, dear God.”

The candles shed just enough light that Lucinda could recognize the little red velvet dress, embroidered with wreaths of laurel leaves, the bottom flounced with a gold tassel fringe. “Move the candle down, Felicia,” she softly said. Yes, there were the little white kid shoes. Of the child, only bones remained, but enough that Lucinda could see she had curled on her side into a sleeping position, both hands tucked beneath her cheek.

Felicia peered over Lucinda’s shoulder. “It’s as if she just fell asleep,” she whispered.

Shaken to her very core, Lucinda examined the insides of the doors. Smooth, no latch of any kind. “She must have crawled in here to hide.”

“Perhaps she was playing hide-and-seek.”

“She pulled the door shut after her, not realizing she could not get out.”

In an anguished voice, Lady Perry declared, “Imagine being all alone, crying for help over and over again, but nobody came.”

“But it looks as if she was sleeping at the end,” said Lucinda, her voice trembling. “We can only hope she died peacefully. Come, let us leave. I cannot bear to look any longer.” She gently closed the doors, leaving the remains of little Marianne undisturbed. “Now we must decide what to do,” she said when they reached the main part of the attic again.