Chapter 2

“Romley, change the cattle at our townhouse stable and tell Atticus he’s to be our postillion when we leave. It will be his responsibility to see that our horses get returned to London tomorrow,” James instructed as he handed Cecilia out of the carriage in front of Mrs. Montgomery’s rented London townhouse. “Before you go, I have an errand for you.”

“Aye, sar?” Romley said, making an adjustment to one of the horses’ traces.

James pulled a note from his jacket pocket. “Take this to Dr. Nowlton at Malmsby House and await his reply.”

Cecilia looked up at her husband in surprise. Dr. Merlin Nowlton was the youngest son of the Duke of Malmsby. Society gossip said the young man had chosen to become a doctor after his mother had passed away following a long, painful illness. His goal in life had become to help others in honor of his mother. Not at all the proper occupation for a duke’s son, the wags whispered. Cecilia disagreed. She thought it quite fitting for a duke’s son. More fitting than to think the church or the military were the only honorable occupations.

“When should I come fetch ya, sar?” Romley asked as he took the envelope from Sir James.

James shook his head. “We will walk home. It is but two blocks and we will be riding in a carriage for the rest of the day. The day is mild, and we could use the bit of exercise.”

Cecilia nodded in agreement, though surprised to hear James encouraging exercise and not continuing to treat her as an invalid. She’d been sick too long.

“Mrs. Dunstan will be wantin’ to hep,” Romley warned, speaking of their London townhouse housekeeper.

James laughed. “Yes, set her to preparing a basket for us of food and beverage so we don’t have to wait for a coaching inn’s fare.”

“Aye, sar,” George Romley said, tugging at his forelock.

Lady Cecilia and Sir James Branstoke climbed the stairs before the Montgomery townhouse as Romley drove away.

“You do know,” Cecilia said quietly, “the cook at Summerworth Park already provided victuals. The basket is under the seat.”

“Yes, I know, but, as George said, Mrs. Dunstan likes to help.”

Cecilia grinned at her husband. “You are thinking less mischief this way.”

“We have a most earnest household,” he observed.

She stilled his hand as he would raise the door knocker.

He looked down at her.

“Why contact Dr. Nowlton?” she asked.

“I am concerned for you,” he said.

“James, I am well now.”

“And so you appear to me as well, but with that continued cough, I need a doctor’s assurance, Cecilia. Women rarely travel when carrying a child, and not two weeks ago, you were extremely sick. I am worried for you. The entire household is worried for you and our babe. Allow me to be the cautious husband,” he said.

“For the impetuous wife,” she said drily.

His small smile in response as he grabbed the door knocker had Cecilia smiling in turn.

A moment later, they were being escorted into the house and the butler was conducting them up the stairs to a small drawing room.

While the property lacked the paintings and other ornamentation found in an owned home, Cecilia thought the townhouse neat and well-maintained, the furniture had the high polish only attainable through carnauba wax, bees wax, and industrious polishing. Judging by what she saw as they followed the butler, the décor was done primarily in beige and cream with chocolate-brown accents. She preferred more color in her décor. How sad one couldn’t be choosy in a rented property, she mused wryly.

Mrs. Montgomery, dressed in mourning black, rose from the sofa as her butler opened the drawing-room door. She rushed toward them. “You’re here! Thank heavens, you’re here!” she cried. She grabbed Cecilia’s hands. Tears glistened in her blue-gray eyes.

“Yes,” Cecilia said soothingly as she gently led the distraught woman back to the sofa and sat beside her, willing an incipient cough to subside. James pulled a chair closer to the sofa and sat down.

Mrs. Montgomery dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief she’d kept grasped in her hand. “We were so happy,” she said softly, “until this nightmare.” Her eyes threatened to spill more tears. She looked up at Cecilia and then over at James.

Cecilia exchanged glances with James.

“Please give me a moment to settle my nerves now that you are here. I am not typically a woman given to emotional displays,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “I left instructions with Curling, my butler, to see that tea and coffee were served when you arrived. He should be here soon.”

“Take your time,” James said in his calm manner. “We are here now, and rest assured, we will help.”

She nodded. “Alastair said you would in the letter he wrote me.” She smiled wanly.

Cecilia noted the use of the earl’s first name. As she surmised, there was a relationship between this woman and the man all society referred to as the dourearl else she would not have addressed him by his first name. She patted her hand as she studied the woman. Her thick, dark mahogany-colored hair showed strands of gray at her temples, and faint lines bracketed her eyes, reflecting a person who typically smiled more than they cried in life.

“I’m not sure where to start, to be able to explain everything to you,” she said helplessly.

“Perhaps if we said what we know, which isn’t much, might that help?” Cecilia suggested.

“Yes, please,” Mrs. Montgomery said, her breath coming out in a deep, painful sigh.

She paused as the door opened to admit a young maid with tea and coffee. After they’d been served and the maid had left, Cecilia continued.

“We understood from you when we met you at Lady Amblethorpe’s musicale last December, and from what the Earl of Soothcoor has told us, you knew him from his childhood Scotland visits to Laird Murdoch Graeme, his maternal grandfather.”

She nodded. “He came every summer. He was a good friend to Malcolm—that’s my late husband’s name. The two of them would be off fishing, hunting, and hiking together throughout the summer, and I was the little girl who chased after them. I so wanted to do what they did,” she said, a gentle smile ghosting her lips.

“As we got older, my feelings for Alastair changed. I wanted him to see me as a young woman, not as the pesky girl who trailed after them. Finally, the last summer he came, I was of age. I wore my hair up and was looking forward to being introduced to Scottish society in the fall. And Alastair admitted he’d noticed me. Always had and had been waiting for me to grow up. I was afire for I’d loved him for years. He said he returned my feelings. We were so happy that summer,” she said, smiling at her memories.

Then she grew serious. “But when Alastair approached my father, my father forbade the match. He would not allow any daughter of his to marry a Sassenach, even if he was only half-tainted by English blood. He said he had already arranged with Ewan Montgomery that I would marry his son, Malcolm.”

She shook her head at the memory. “I was devastated. Yes, I liked Malcolm well enough as a friend, but to marry? No!”

Cecilia smiled. “You seem rather emphatic for a woman who has had three children from the man.”

Mrs. Montgomery nodded slightly. “You see, though we were all friends, there was always something different about Malcolm,” she said, her voice apologetic.

“Different?” Cecilia prompted.

She nodded. “Sometimes he could seem…different. It was why most people in the area only tolerated Malcolm. They were a bit afraid of him, I think. I didn’t know why.”

“But you weren’t?” James said.

She shook her head. “Our families were close. It just seemed part of Malcolm, of who he was. And Alastair liked him, even if sometimes Malcolm did act differently.”

Cecilia smiled and nodded. “Alastair would.”

“But what about your father? Did he see anything odd in Malcolm?” James asked.

“My father was a good friend of Ewan Montgomery and only saw what he wanted to see: a fine Scottish match for our Montgomery and Fraser families.”

James nodded his understanding. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair. “Can you tell us more about Malcolm and his strangeness?”

She compressed her lips together for a moment, then took another sip of her tea, set her cup down, and folded her hands in her lap. “I suppose I must if you are to understand,” Mrs. Montgomery said, “though it has long been carefully hidden and quietly denied,” she explained softly.

Cecilia and James frowned. Cecilia set the cup she’d been about to drink from back in her saucer and leaned forward to listen.

Mrs. Montgomery’s brow furrowed as she looked between Cecilia and James. “Malcolm was smart, yet he was ever a timid soul. Growing up, he was strictly tutor-educated and rarely traveled anywhere. He did not want to go away and resisted the efforts of his father to encourage a greater experience in life. And ultimately, when he did try, he couldn’t handle boarding schools or, later, university.”

“He was bullied,” James suggested.

Mrs. Montgomery shook her head, denying this logical summation. “One would think so, but no. The headmaster at the first boarding school Malcolm had been sent to told Mr. Montgomery that Malcolm had an evil, violent streak in him.”

“Evil and violent?” Cecilia asked incredulously.

She nodded. “It was a surprise to everyone and considered more the fault of the headmaster than Malcolm. When the Montgomerys brought him home, to us, and everyone else, he appeared the same pleasant boy who had gone off to school. After a time, they tried enrolling him in another boarding school. He didn’t last long there either. No one could understand what these prestigious boarding schools were saying. Malcolm, evil? Violent?”

“Quite at odds with the timid soul you knew as a child,” James suggested. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees as he listened intently.

She sighed. “Yes. Malcolm angrily refused to try a third school, so tutors were hired instead. Malcolm had a keen intellect, and he liked learning. Ultimately, Vicar Douglas became his educator and Malcolm calmed down and felt happy.”

“So, at a young age he was considered—in some way—defective,” Cecilia said. She frowned. “That sounds harsher than I mean it to.”

“But it is true, in its way,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “Ewan Montgomery—quite unlike my own father—liked Alastair Sedgewick for Alastair did not mind Malcolm’s occasional odd behaviors and strangeness, and he seemed able to pull Malcolm out of his timid self. Malcolm enjoyed the adventures Alastair suggested. Mr. Montgomery trusted that Alastair wouldn’t lead either of them into mischief. They would simply enjoy the summer outdoors.”

Mrs. Montgomery paused and plucked at the folds of her gown. “Alastair told me Malcolm felt damaged,” she said softly, “splintered like a log with an ax embedded in it. He said sometimes they would talk for hours at a time about how Malcolm felt. Malcolm informed Alastair that he had blocks of time that he could not account for. He did not know where he’d been or what he’d done. It was like he’d been in a walking, waking sleep.”

Cecilia and James again shared concerned glances.

“Abiding by my father’s wishes, I married Malcolm.” She smiled gently. “In the early years of our marriage, we were content. We did not have a love match. We were friends and that helped. Malcolm seldom displayed his strangeness. It was whispered that it was to be hoped he’d outgrown whatever malady occasionally afflicted him. He had only a few times of losing his sense of self and time and that pleased him, too.”

She picked up her teacup but did not sip her tea. She stared into the cup as if it were a memory mirror. “Then, sometime after Sorcha, our second child, was born in 1800, he started changing.”

“Changing?” James prompted.

Mrs. Montgomery compressed her lips for a moment. It was obvious she didn’t quite know how to continue. She licked her lips. “He became more than one person,” she said in a rush, a red blush rising in her cheeks.

“How do you mean?” Cecilia asked.

She lifted her hands helplessly, then let them fall back into her lap. “Just that. When I talked to Malcolm, sometimes it wouldn’t be Malcolm I would be speaking to.” She laughed brittlely. “Sometimes it would be Gregory, occasionally Archie—an evil, violent man, that one was.” She visibly shivered at some memory only she could see.

“E’gad!” exclaimed James as Cecilia drew in a sharp breath, her eyes wide. She reached out to Mrs. Montgomery, laying her hand on hers in comfort for the memories.

“Sometimes it would be another altogether! Gregory was the nicest of the—of the—I don’t know what to call them. People? Others? Ghosts? He kindly told me they all knew what Malcolm did and what each other did; however, he said Malcolm had little memory of what they did or said, just remnants of feelings. Gregory said no one liked Archie. Unfortunately, Archie was growing stronger, and he warned me that he might not be able to protect us from Archie!”

“The church would call him demon possessed,” James said.

Mrs. Montgomery nodded. “Of a certainty they would, but it wasn’t outside demons he warred with, not like they speak of from the pulpit. Malcolm reassured me that, contrary to what Gregory said, he was gaining more awareness. We had a very serious discussion. He knew he was ill—admitted he’d been ill since he was young—but he told me he could handle things. I wanted Malcolm to see a doctor. There are some brilliant doctors in Edinburgh who deal with illness of the mind. Malcolm said no. And for several years, it appeared Malcolm was correct, he could manage things. We lived happily, with only occasional instances of other persons taking him over at odd—sometimes humorous—times.”

“But eventually, his demons won in the battle for control,” James concluded for her.

“Yes, his personal demons that lived within him.” Mrs. Montgomery visibly swallowed and stared across the room at another distant memory.

“Rather than demons, let’s call them ‘others’,” Cecilia gently suggested.

She smiled weakly at Cecilia. “Aileen, our eldest daughter, had just turned fifteen and stood on the precipice of leaving childhood behind. She was blossoming,” she said quietly.

Cecilia and James nodded in understanding.

“One night, sometime after midnight, Malcolm stumbled into my room. He was shaken and crying. He’d ‘woken’ if that is what to call it, back in control of his body and found himself bending over Aileen’s bed. He felt lust thrumming through him. Lust for Aileen!”

“He thought he’d been possessed by one of the ‘others’ within him, and they lusted for Aileen,” James said.

“Yes. And at that point, it shook him so badly that he finally made the decision to seek help, to check himself into a sanatorium. If his ‘others’ gained more control, he feared what he might do when one of them was in control. He said he couldn’t take that risk for us. In consultation with various medical resources and the family solicitor, he first chose Autumnvale as the sanatorium, as it was only one hour away. It was a small, sunny, pleasant facility. Most of the patients in residence were older and suffered from dementia.

“That poor man,” murmured Cecilia.

“He became terribly melancholy,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “At first, I visited regularly. After six months, he asked that I not come anymore, that in consultation with his doctor, he’d decided to move to Camden House, a different sanatorium farther way, down in Lincolnshire.” She looked away from them as she sighed deeply and dabbed her tearing eyes with her handkerchief.

Resolutely, she lowered her hand and turned back to face them again. “Two months after that, I was informed he’d died, that he’d taken his own life,” she said matter-of-factly, “Which we know now was a lie,” she ended with a long sigh.

James frowned. “How could he have arranged all that? For I gather he must have,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I surmise it was with the help of his cousin. His cousin was Malcolm’s father’s estate executor and so I wrote to him—as I thought only proper—to inform him of my intent to marry Alastair. And it was he, in turn, who wrote to me to say I couldn’t marry Alastair as Malcolm was alive.”

“Is this cousin the estate executor and guardian of your son as well?”

She smiled a crooked, wry smile. “Yes, he is,” she acknowledged. “But he has been fair, I really have no complaints other than he did not want me to bring the family to London for Aileen’s come out. He certainly didn’t agree due to any argument I presented! Aileen and Sorcha worked to wear him down until he laughingly agreed.”

“And he knew all along that Malcolm lived?” James asked.

She nodded. “Three weeks ago, I received a long letter from him, full of apologies for the deception, as he admitted Malcolm was alive. He said the faked death was Malcolm’s idea. He said for a while he feared Malcolm would take his own life, but once he’d faked his death, he seemed to relax and no longer talked of death, so his cousin took that to be a good thing.”

“Did anyone else know Malcolm Montgomery was not dead?” James asked.

“In his letter, Boyd said only Malcolm’s father, himself, the vicar, and my father knew. I am highly distraught to know my father and the vicar were knowledgeable and condoned the lies.”

“I think it the height of impertinence for them not to consider you might wish to remarry,” Cecilia said. “Typical male blindness.”

James raised an eyebrow at her summation.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean,” Cecilia said with a mild laugh.

“How is it that Alastair came to be arrested for his death?” James asked.

She shook her head. “When we discovered Malcolm was alive, Alastair decided to go see Malcolm. He said he would discuss paperwork for a divorce. He promised he would convince Malcolm it would be for the best. From what I gathered from Alastair’s brief note, he must have been there when Malcolm died or had just left. I don’t know,” she said helplessly.

“Do you know Mr. Montgomery’s cause of death?” Cecilia asked.

“No! It has not appeared in any of the correspondence I’ve received. Not even from Alastair!”

Cecilia frowned and turned her head to her husband. He returned her regard and shook his head. “It’s late June; most likely, the quarterly assizes for that county are past, which is to our advantage,” he said. “I don’t know what the schedule would be before the next assizes in that area. We need to find out how he died, and we need to investigate before the trial.”

“Yes,” Cecilia agreed. “There would be too many who would love to see a peer found guilty. Best if we could absolve him before this goes to trial.”

“My thought as well. Mrs. Montgomery, thank you for contacting us. Soothcoor is a great friend. We will do all we can to establish his innocence.” James rose to his feet. Cecilia rose as well.

“Don’t worry so,” Cecilia said gently. “I know it is not in Soothcoor’s nature to kill someone. We just need to find who did.”

“Thank you, thank you so much,” Mrs. Montgomery said as she stood and rang for her butler. “Can I get you any refreshments to take with you?”

“No, we prepared for this journey, and I know our cook will have more for us at our townhouse. Our servants made sure we were prepared!” Cecilia told her with a small laugh.

As the butler saw them out, Cecilia clung tightly to James’s arm. “I have never been so shocked by a tale. Have you heard of such an illness before?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not directly, but if there are those who suffer from voices talking to them in their heads and others who see things that are not there, I fear there is much that those who study medicine today do not know about the mind, and these medicine scientists are only now beginning to learn.”

“Poor man. I wonder if there was a cause of his affliction?”

“It would be hard to say. After seeing the types of illness of the mind that some of our veterans returned from the wars with, I would venture a guess that it was trauma related. Most likely—considering the early stages of perceptions of him as different—it was childhood related.”

She nodded. “And how he must have loved his family if he concluded he needed to separate from them for their sake,” she said. “Poor man. Poor, poor man.”

James nodded and reached across his body to pat her arm.