Chapter Eleven

P hilippa awoke to complete darkness. Her head ached abominably, and a dozen other little aches and pains were making themselves known. Pressing her hand to her forehead, it came away sticky with blood. Memory rushed back to her. The confrontation with Mrs. Baynard outside Devon's room had ended abruptly because the not-quite-dead Miss Hawley had appeared and struck her.

Cautiously, she wiggled a bit and found that she could not fully extend her legs, and if she raised her hand more than six inches above her face, she encountered nothing but wood. She was in a box of some sort. A trunk perhaps? Another thought crept in, unbidden and terrifying. Was it a coffin?

"Do not be hysterical," she told herself, whispering the words. "Stay calm and collect your wits."

"You're awake!"

The voice came from outside the box, but it was chilling in its child-like enthusiasm. "Miss Hawley, I have no idea what this is all about, but you must let me out immediately!"

"No," she replied, her hand rapping sharply on the top of the box. It did answer one question for her. That rap had been muted, as if the box were wrapped in cloth. Or leather. It was a trunk.

"I will not let you out. You'll stay in here forever. You'll be nothing but a withered husk when they find you," she said. "If they find you. You see, only Auntie Miriam and I know about this place. And she knew about it from her mother because she'd been in service here too. We, the women in my family, have a long history of falling desperately in love with the masters of Peregrine Hall."

"And if the master of Peregrine Hall does not love you?"

The lid to the trunk flew open and Miss Hawley loomed over her. Her eyes were alight with covetous rage. "He will. He will love me. Until you came along and distracted him, he was consumed with guilt and grief at the thought of my death!"

"Do you think he would have welcomed you with open arms when he discovered your death was nothing but a ruse intended to manipulate him?"

Miss Hawley smiled, a wicked and predatory expression that made her look quite terrifying. "My aunt was to help me with that... We were going to wait, you see? Let him get truly foxed one night, and while he was dead asleep from drink, I was to slip into his bed and await discovery."

"He does not drink to excess!"

"Not knowingly," she replied. "But then you arrived. Started dining with him. Breakfasting with him in the morning. All while that mewling brat went on and on about how wonderful you are."

Miss Hawley walked away and retrieved an item from a nearby table, the broken gateleg propped up by a stack of dusty old books. When she turned back, Philippa recognized the doll that Elizabeth had only recently lost. Its porcelain face was now cracked and broken, its hair shorn off entirely and its dress in tattered rags.

"Stealing from a child?"

Miss Hawley pulled a long sharp knitting needle from the back of the doll's cloth body. Then she stabbed it again furiously. "She named it after you! You've ruined everything. All of my plans, all of my dreams for a future as the lady of this house! Everything!" The last word was shrieked even as she pulled the knitting needle from the doll's back once more.

Philippa looked on in horror as the woman raised the knitting needle high above her head as if it were a knife and began to charge at her. Frozen for a split second, she finally moved. Rearing back instinctively, far away from the makeshift weapon, she raised her legs and pressed her feet into Miss Hawley's abdomen, pushing the woman with enough force that she not only stumbled backwards, but fell to the floor.

Climbing out of the trunk, Philippa was at a disadvantage. She was obviously in an attic, but Peregrine Hall was a rabbit warren. She had no notion of how to escape. But as she heard Miss Hawley struggling to her feet, Philippa knew that running was her only option.

*

It had taken considerable effort to move the wardrobe. It had taken more effort still to make the small opening large enough for a grown man to fit through. Had Miss Hawley not been of the same diminutive stature as her aunt—something that should not have escaped his notice—she'd never have been able to squeeze through it.

Maneuvering through the opening, Devon did not wait for the footman to follow. He followed the sounds he'd heard through the labyrinthine twists and turns. And when he reached the end of the passage, there was a flight of stairs—narrow, steep, and treacherous.

Reaching the top, he found himself in one of the attics. He didn't know much about them, in truth. He'd never been permitted to explore them as a child, and in the six months since he'd taken up residence at Peregrine Hall, there simply had not been time. But he knew, from having heard others speak of it, that the attics were like a maze. That was simply what happened when one lived in a home that had been cobbled together over centuries.

Creeping cautiously along, he tested the boards with each step. He had no idea how sturdy they were, and he also didn't know which ones did and did not squeak. Alerting Miss Hawley to his presence, especially if she had Philippa, could be disastrous.

One room opened onto the next. And that room was occupied. Miss Hawley was there, dressed in black, carrying a broken doll and a knitting needle that she wielded as though it were a knife.

"Come out! I know you're hiding in here," the former governess taunted in a sing-song voice. "Trapped like a rat. Like the one I left on your bed. Do you know how I killed it, Miss Thomas? I wrapped it in layers and layers of clothes, so tightly that it would never be able to claw or chew its way out. Then I put in a bucket of water and watched it drown. I'd intended to do the same to you, but you kept snooping!"

"What purpose do you think that would serve?" Devon asked, stepping forward. She whirled toward him then, nearly the full length of the room between them. "My rejection of you had nothing to do with Miss Thomas. I rejected you, Miss Hawley, because of your coldness and cruelty."

Her face twisted with rage. "Why? Why her? What is so special about her? I was here for months with you, and you couldn't even look at me! She's here for less than two days and you're kissing her passionately in your chambers!"

Over Miss Hawley's shoulder, he saw movement. Philippa peered out from her hiding place, a stack of trunks along the wall. Knowing that it was vital to keep Miss Hawley's attention on him, he gave her an answer. "I cannot say why. I can only say that from the very first moment I saw her, I recognized that my entire world had just changed. I do not think one chooses such moments."

She sneered back at him. "Am I supposed to believe that this is fate? That the two of you were destined for each other? I love you! I would have done anything for you!"

"You faked your death to manipulate my feelings, to try and make me bind myself to you out of... what? Some sense of guilt or obligation?" he demanded. "What man, Miss Hawley, would ever wish to tie himself to such a scheming harpy? Hiding in the attics and peering through the peepholes into people's rooms! Both you and your aunt belong in the gaol."

By the time he said the last, she was beyond furious. She raised the knitting needle once more and charged at him, screeching like a banshee. But halfway there, she fell, pitching forward onto the floor with a groan as the needle flew from her hand. Standing behind her, holding an oar from some long-lost boat, was Philippa. She was a bit petite for the role of Valkyrie, but she looked like one nonetheless.

A commotion on the stairs told him the footmen had finally found them. Likely by doing as he had and following the sounds. "Bind her hand and foot and take her downstairs to the study. Summon the magistrate. Both she and Mrs. Baynard will be removed from this house and charged with whatever we can possibly use against them."