Page 53 of Evidence of Evil
“All over again,” Constance said suddenly, staring at the butler.
“I beg your pardon, madam?”
“You said,It would have broken his heart all over again. When was the colonel’s heart broken by her the first time?”
“When she died, of course.”
“Oh no,” Constance insisted. “You were talking about before she died. Worcester, we need the truth before we can end all of this.”
Without permission, Worcester sank onto the chair by his desk, as if his legs would no longer bear his weight.
“It’s not my place to say. Family secrets should remain in the family.”
“Not if an innocent woman is hanged to keep them. Not even if only her reputation is spoiled, which would be to the severe detriment of herself, her husband, and her children.”
The poor man looked even more miserable. Constance felt unspeakably sorry for him. After all, he was still trying to do the right thing. Frances had left him very little room to do so.
Something seemed to shift in her head, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place.
She could have saved Solomon a journey if only her brain moved faster.
“I believe I can guess,” she said slowly. “All you need to do is nod. I should have suspected from the suddenness of the colonel’s decision to whisk everyone off to India. Only, it wasn’t everyone, was it? John was sent to school in England. His father and sister didn’t go directly to India either, did they? They stopped off somewhere no one knew them while Frances gave birth to her illegitimate child.”
There was a pause. Very slowly, he nodded.
Frances had not been looking for scandal in Elizabeth’s past. She had been looking for her own baby, no doubt taken from her and put up for adoption, as Elizabeth’s had been. And like Elizabeth, she had hurt for the loss. Was that the source of the change several people had noted since her return from India?
A resurgence of pity filled Constance. Despite the fact that the girl had still behaved unforgivably to Elizabeth and Humphrey after that.
“Who was the baby’s father?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know.”
She held Worcester’s gaze. “Mr. Darby?”
He gazed back.
“Rennie, the old head groom?”
Still he said nothing.
“Worcester, this man might havekilledher. However badly she behaved, no one had the right to do that to her. To her family. You have to tell me. Or the police will have to be involved.” They might well have to be anyway, but she didn’t want to think about that just yet.
“It could have been either of them,” Worcester said hoarsely. “She was running wild, driving her father demented. Rennie took liberties, but she also rode over to Shelton Hall a good deal more often than Mrs. Darby knew. It was Miss Frances’s maid at the time who told me her mistress was with child. I had to tell the colonel, and arrangements were made at speed. All the servants were let go, so that any nasty rumors they spread would be taken as sour grapes and disbelieved. But in reality, the only people who knew—me and the maid—never said a word.”
“Where is that maid now?”
“With a new mistress in London. She was given a glowing character. I believe she just wants to forget her time at the Grange. It wasn’t happy for her.”
“Did the father know about her pregnancy?” Constance asked urgently.
“I have no idea. But I doubt it.”
Unless Frances cast it up when she came home again—another threat to hold over someone, whether for a practical reason or just to feel important. It could have been her death warrant.
Rennie had gone, but Darby was still here, and still married to a wife who thought he only flirted with other women.
More to the point, Sir Humphrey was still here, too. And he would not want his beloved Elizabeth to know he had fathered a child with Frances. Was that what Frances had meant whenshe’d told Elizabeth she was carrying Humphrey’s baby? That shehadcarried it five years ago?
