“I should have said no. I can’t agree to that; I can’t not know. Because what if the rumors are true? What if he did kill her? And what if he kills me?”
Silas stared at me for a long moment, his face creased with deep unhappiness. His characteristic smile was absent when he asked, “Did I ever tell you I was at Markham Hall the night Violet died?”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, I turned and stared at him. “I didn’t know. Nobody ever mentioned…”
“There were a lot of well-known people there that night, but Julian and the local police very thoughtfully excluded our presence from public knowledge to spare our reputations.”
“I can’t believe Mrs. Harold didn’t tell the entire village,” I said, more to myself than to Silas, thinking of Mrs. Harold’s calculating gossip.
“Mrs. Harold?”
“The rector’s wife?” I prompted. “Young with blonde hair? Slender? Talks incessantly?”
His eyes widened with recollection and something else—something that flashed all too briefly in those blue depths and then vanished. “I remember now,” he said. “You know, she’s grown up in the county too. She always had a thing for Julian, even after he married. Even after she herself got married. She’s always finding excuses to hang around Markham Hall, I suppose hoping that Julian would finally notice her and give her all those things in bed that her feeble pastor cannot.”
“Anyway, what I wanted to tell you,” he said, steering the conversation back to his revelation, “was that night, I saw how deeply unhappy Violet and Julian made each other. He had almost completely reformed himself for her—celibate while he courted her those three months, swearing off any other women. But she didn’t care. She wanted only to be back in London again, to be the belle of the town again.”
“And she was pregnant,” I blurted. I hadn’t meant to tell him, hadn’t meant to bring it up at all, but it was such a shadow at the back of my mind, a shadow that changed everything.
Silas didn’t look surprised. “I know,” he said darkly. “I learned it that night.”
“You did?” I knew it couldn’t have been common knowledge, or Mrs. Harold would have told me all about it.
He nodded. “They fought at the dinner loudly, angrily. He wanted a divorce, she threatened to kill herself if he tried to sue for one. It was quite uncomfortable to listen to, so I suggested the other guests and I move into the parlor, farther away from them, and we all did, to give them more privacy. I was the last to leave the room, and so I believe I was the
only one who heard her tell him.”
“About the baby.”
“Yes,” he said, looking troubled. “About the baby.”
“How could she threaten to kill herself when she knew she was pregnant?” I asked. “Even Violet is not that selfish.”
“You know what I think? I think she was desperate. Think about it—both she and Julian knew the child couldn’t be his. If he divorced her and let that be known, the shame would have destroyed her. Her life would have been over, and while I know Julian would have provided for her, she would never be able to show her face in society again. But if she remained married, she’d still have the status of Markham Hall in addition to providing—what the world would believe to be—a firstborn heir. She could still find a way to escape and go back to London through more polite, traditional means.”
“So she had to stay married to him. No matter what.” I chewed on the pad of my thumb as I pictured it all—Violet’s fair face alight with fear and rage, Mr. Markham’s rigid with anger and rejection.
“But she hated him,” Silas reminded me. “Had it simply been a question of accepting his wife’s sin—a sin that happened before their nuptials—then I have no doubt he would have accommodated. Raised the child as his own. But she made him acutely miserable, made it clear that she hated him and hated being married to him. She called him names I’ve never heard—even at school—not to mention she’d been sleeping with his valet, Gerald.”
“Gareth,” I corrected. “Why on earth does Mr. Markham keep him employed? Surely that would be grounds for letting him go?”
Silas gave me another smile, rueful this time. “I suppose there was a sense of brotherly suffering. You never saw Violet in her prime, did you? She was relentless and devastating and the mistress of the estate. No gentleman could have refused her. Certainly no servant in her employ. I think it was apparent from fairly early on that he had been coerced by the nature of his position to capitulating, and Mr. Markham felt sympathetic to that. Given that Violet had seduced and hoodwinked him as well.”
It was all so complicated, this mix of loyalties and betrayals. I couldn’t keep track of who deserved my sympathy and who deserved my disregard, and I certainly couldn’t keep straight how much fear I should allot to Mr. Markham.
And as much as I wanted to trust Silas, as much as I instinctively liked him, he was Mr. Markham’s oldest friend. They shared a bed and they shared women—would they also not share and keep each other’s secrets? How could I be certain that Silas wasn’t deluded—or worse, lying to protect my future husband?
The sun was truly dawning now, pink and orange streaks radiating past the pitched roofs and gables of the city. More people crowded the streets, the din of wheels and voices beginning to soar above the paving stones to mingle with the birds chirping and the wind blowing past swinging signs and creaking branches.
“I am telling you this,” Silas said, as if tuned into my thoughts, “because most people don’t know, but I think you deserve to. And Julian deserves your trust. See, after that horrific fight, she vanished. Disappeared. Julian joined us in the parlor, saying that Violet had gone to her room to rest, but would be down shortly. She never came.”
“Did you look for her?”
“Yes. He didn’t want to highlight her absence, so he waited until the guests had left, and he and I searched the house and grounds. The housekeeper helped too. That’s when he told me that Violet had taunted him about her and Gareth, threatened to sleep with Gareth that very night to prove Mr. Markham’s impotence when it came to following through on his threats of divorce. He was furious, expecting to come upon the two in every corner, and also terrified, because Violet had really sounded hysterical enough to hurt herself, and he worried for her safety.”
“How could she say such things?” I wondered. “About Gareth, I mean, when her position was so tenuous? Surely she would be more calculating than that.”
“She was like a cornered animal, ready to lash out at anything and anyone. For what it’s worth, it deeply wounded Julian. Fidelity is something he prizes himself on—don’t look so surprised, Miss Leavold—and he was unfailingly faithful to both Arabella and Violet.”
