Page 9 of A Housekeeper for the Earl of Drinkwater
“Where is Father?” he asked. “Why does he not have that letter?”
Clarke sighed, and it took him longer to speak. He picked up his own cup of tea, finishing it in one long gulp, before addressing Edward once more. However, this time, he would not meet his eyes.
“I am truly sorry, milord,” he said, his voice cracking. “This is very difficult for me to say.”
Edward wanted to demand that the old man speak, but the pain was evident on his face. Some part of him knew what the butler was going to say. But he never could have dreamed how horrific the explanation for his father’s fate would be.
“After receiving news of your brothers’ deaths, your parents fell into a terrible depression,” he said. He paused, clearing his throat, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief he pulled from his coat sleeve. “Your mother ran through the mansion, screaming for days. She tried to tear down the tapestries and tore apart rooms, breaking the furniture, smashing the plate. After a time, she seemed to become tired, and she took to spending most of her time in her room, coming out only to call repeatedly for her brothers, going throughout the house, for hours every day.”
Edward put his face in his hands, trying not to envision his beautiful mother in such a state.
“Why did Father not fetch the physician?” he asked.
Clarke sighed, shaking his head sadly.
“I’m afraid to say that your father went a bit mad, himself, milord,” he said. “With your brother’s dead, you gone, and his wife hysterical, he, too, went on a destructive rampage. He broke chairs, and he even tried to set fire to the house by pouring paraffin all over his study. And he started trying to fight with the male members of the household staff. Half of them left within a month. The remaining half were too afraid to come out of the servant’s quarters for weeks. Until. . .” he trailed off.
“Until what?” Edward asked, struggling against a wave of nausea. “Until what, Clarke? Answer me.”
The butler drew a shaky breath, his head dropping in shame.
“Your father took to locking himself in the wine cellar,” he said. “It took days for me to figure it out, and then I had to stay awake all night, outside the door to his bedchambers, and follow him when he awoke one morning. When I saw what he was doing, I rushed to the door to try to stop him. But he cursed at me and slammed the door in my face.”
Edward shook his head. He tried to speak, but no words would come. The silence was heavy, and when Clarke spoke again, Edward wished he hadn’t.
“It is my fault,” he said. “I do not know how many days passed before I noticed that your father had not left the wine cellar. It was only after one of the maids told me there was a foul smell wafting up from beneath the door that I realized.”
He paused again, sobbing. “As soon as I realized, I ran to the shed and fetched an ax. I chopped down the door, screaming your father’s name, but I got no answer. I rushed down the steps, thinking to save your father. But he lay dead, in a pool of vile liquid and whiskey, surrounded by twenty empty bottles. According to the medical examiner, he had been dead for several days.”
Edward leaned forward, his stomach rejecting the tea he’d just drunk. He moaned, pushing away the handkerchief the butler offered him.
“No. . .” he cried, shaking his head. “Not Father.” Tears blurred his vision. “It can’t be true.”
Clarke reached out and put his arm around Edward’s shoulders. The men were silent for a moment, and Edward did his best to compose himself.
“We tried to protect your mother from the news,” the butler said at last. “But she saw the physician as he was on his way out. She fainted in front of him when he told her, and he carried her up to her bedchambers. She has not moved or spoken a word since.”
Edward closed his eyes, his mother’s limp form coming to mind immediately. He gagged again, but his stomach was empty. When the retching was done, he covered his face with his hands.Wake up, damn you,he told himself as his body began to tremble.This is nothing but a horrible dream. . .
But when he opened his eyes, and the butler stood staring at him with pity and regret, he knew it was true. Everything Clarke had said was true. At that moment, he wished that he, too, had been killed in the war.
Chapter Five
“Thank you for returning on such short notice,” Serena said curtly as she motioned for Mr. Tate to enter her home once more. “I did not know if you would get my letter this morning, since I only posted it yesterday afternoon.”
“Not at all, Miss Serena,” he said, his voice dripping with honey in a way that made Serena’s skin crawl. “I received your letter as soon as I arrived at my office this morning. And I am always happy to come running whenever a client is in need.”
And how many of your clients do you wish to marry? she thought bitterly. She said nothing, however. She simply led the solicitor to the drawing room, where they had met before.
She had sent for him via Evelyn, but with great reluctance. The last thing she wanted was to see the solicitor again, let alone so soon. But she still held out hope that the missing records might, if produced, hold a magic solution to her predicament.
She entered the drawing room, the solicitor following just behind her. Evelyn brought up the rear, taking up a place on a chair beside the doorway, for the sake of propriety. But Serena was glad not to have to be in a room alone with Mr. Tate. In fact, the sooner she could get her answers, the sooner she could be rid of him.
“Dare I hope you summoned me here because you have reconsidered my proposal?” he asked quietly enough for Evelyn not to hear, taking the seat Serena gestured at.
Serena blanched, ignoring his question as she sat across from him.
“I noticed earlier that some of my father’s papers and ledgers are missing from his study,” she said. “I asked you to come to give you this list of them; I assume you have them. I ask that you return them to me as quickly as possible.”
