Page 39 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Madhouse.
The words bounced in Jack’s head as he and Leda mounted the hired chaise and set out on the road to Swindon.
It would be past dusk by the time they arrived, an invitation to gentlemen of the road, were any lurking, but he could not ask Leda to stay in Chippenham. She was in agony after the confrontation with her sister. Jack had wondered what could overset the unflappable Mrs. Wroth, and now he knew.
A sister. It seemed Leda’s family was alienated from her just as much as Jack’s, and for similar reasons: because she had disgraced them.
She was locked up for a time, Ives had said, almost off-hand with the knowledge.
For murder?
Was he riding in a carriage with a woman who had killed a man?
Leda stared out the front window of the chaise into the falling night. He had given her the right side, with the clearer view, since the post boy, a compact man old enough to be someone’s grandfather, rode the near horse. After her sister swept awaywith her back straight as a rod, Leda had paced the courtyard of the Angel while Jack supervised the loading of their luggage onto the post chaise. The sister lived nearby, mistress of some great house—the ostler had given her a deferential nod—but she clearly harbored no intentions to invite the travelers to her home to entertain them, nor interrogate the sibling who had risen from the grave.
“Mrs. Crees,” the innkeeper had greeted her cordially. “How was your excursion today? The horses sweet goers? I hope our carriage served while yours was being repaired.”
Emilia had been gruff in her answer and ascended the cabriolet waiting for her, the ribbons held by the man in dark livery who had accosted Leda earlier. The one who had addressed her as Mrs. Toplady, which, Jack now realized, was her married name.
Leda had done in her cruel husband by some means, then bundled her cook and maid, and the maid’s bastard baby, away from the house. So they could not be made to testify? The nephew had taken over her home, and Leda had been locked away. In a madhouse.
She was no longer in the madhouse, but she’d been hiding from her family—and the nephew—all this time.
The sister had mentioned a murdered babe.
He was taking this woman to his home. To meet his child.
It was as if she read his thoughts, or the agitation rippling from him. Leda stirred and drew a breath that fluttered the scarf tucked into the collar of her smart riding jacket. Jack tore his eyes from her bosom and trained them on the back of the post boy.
“The babe is alive,” she said. “You met him. Ives.”
The weight of fear left his shoulders. A wren trilled and chirped from a beech as they passed. Jack didn’t see many wrens around Holme Hall, but he remembered an odd fact about theirmating habits. The male wren made nests around his territory, and the female chose him for the accommodations he could provide. When she consented to be his mate, they selected a nest for breeding and lined it together.
Exactly what Jack had hoped for from Leda Wroth when she agreed to come with him.
“Why would your sister believe the child was murdered?”
“They said so at my trial, and we let everyone believe it. We hid Ives so that my husband’s nephew could not find him. We feared what he might do.”
At least she had not killed a child. He also wanted to know if she had murdered her husband, but he wanted the other mystery sorted first.
“Your sister thought the child was yours.”
‘That is what we let the world think. After Bertram…when Betsey fell pregnant, I was still childless. Despite his best efforts,” she said, bitterness lancing her tone. “It was an outrage to me that he meant to turn off my maid and a babe of his blood, instead of accounting for his actions. So.”
She drew a deep breath. “I pretended to all, including to him, that I was pregnant. Betsey and I increased together. We had no country estate to hide at, and I could not go to my parents or sister, so we kept to my rooms. Bertram—worsened. I think he suspected what I was about, and it set off some demon in him.
“Then the babe came early, and it was difficult. Betsey nearly died. In the middle of the uproar, my husband’s nephew arrived, and they quarreled. I do not know what about—Eustace was upset he would no longer be the heir, made no secret of it. Even his own family hated my husband. I remember standing in the kitchen, making a tincture for Betsey, and then…”
He waited. The chaise dipped and jolted over a rut. One of the horses snorted and tossed its head, jangling its harness, andthe postilion scrubbed its neck. A tawny owl called from a hollow in his oak,too-wit, too-wit.
“I don’t know what happened.” Leda looked at her hands, tugging her fingers within their gloves. Her voice was a wisp of smoke. “I woke up in my shift, covered in blood. There was a pool of it in my bed. I was barefoot, and my prints traced from my bed to the front parlor, where—” She gulped and struggled. “Where my husband’s body lay. Then my tracks led away, into the hall. And I was holding the carving knife that had plunged through Bertram’s heart.”
Jack said nothing.
“And neck,” she added, as if pressed to confess all. “And stomach as well. He had several wounds. The coroner—” Again she struggled. “The coroner said this was characteristic of a crime committed in a fit of madness. And since I could remember nothing, what could they conclude but that I had killed him?”
“You would have been hanged if you were thought sane.” A tight band constricted his throat.
