Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

"I came to speak with Mr. Fancourt." Georgina stood outside the Sowerby House entrance door, the early morning sun warming the back of her neck.

Mr. Wilkins frowned. "I fear he is gone."

"Gone?"

"He awoke me during the night with the most urgent news. It appears he discovered a letter in the late Mr. Fancourt's study. One that was enlightening to him, it seems, though I cannot imagine what that is supposed to mean."

She could. Hope sputtered her heart faster. "How long until he returns?"

"I hardly know myself."

"I shall wait for him—"

"I do not think that wise, Miss Whitmore." The butler glanced behind him, as if surveying the untidiness of the anteroom. He turned back to her with a grimace. "The house, I fear, is in much disarray. The children have not yet been fed their breakfast. And beyond that, Mr. Oswald shall be appearing any moment and I—"

"I would not ask were it not important." She had not slept last night. Mr. Lutwidge had as much as admitted his part in Papa's death, had he not? Why else would he have spoken of the three years?

If she had strength, she would leave now. She had been shackled to secrets long enough she should be used to carrying the chains alone.

But she could not make herself move any more than she'd been able to stop herself from rushing to Sowerby House with the first light of dawn.

"Please, Mr. Wilkins. I shall be no trouble, I assure you."

"Very well." The butler's eyes narrowed, as he pulled the door open wider. The hinges creaked into the quiet morning air. "You may come in and wait."

He needed calm. He knew that. But he was coming unraveled so quickly he did not know how to stop himself.

The Gray's Inn was quiet this time of morning, the only sound his own footsteps clacking against the wooden steps. When he reached the second floor, no servants scurried about and no barristers leaned in open doorways, smoking and discussing law and order.

Sweat dampened Simon's hands as he tried the knob without knocking.

Locked.

"Sir Walter." He banged. "It is me. Simon. Open up."

No answer.

A wellspring of rage burst. He thumped his fist in his palm, took a step back, glanced from one end of the corridor to the other. What do I do?

"Oh." Sir Walter's gangling clerk halted at the top of the stairs, nearly dropping the stack of letters tucked under his arm. Coffee swished from a cup in the other. "Morning to you then, Mr. Fancourt."

"I am looking for Sir Walter."

"Not in his office, sir. This time of morning he always takes to the chapel."

Simon nodded and started past the clerk—

"Anything wrong, sir?" The clerk glanced to Sir Walter's office, as if half expecting a fume of smoke to leak out from under the door again.

Simon shook his head, despite the whirl of nausea in his gut.

Everything was wrong.

God keep him from doing something that would make it worse.

This drawing room had never been so silent.

Nor so empty.

Georgina sat on the holland-draped lounge, hands entwined in her lap, as a sense of loss overcame her. Somehow, the thought of Mr. Oswald occupying such a house felt cold and jarring.

These walls were used to music. They would shrivel without the sweet melodies Mrs. Fancourt used to play. The floors knew the pitter-patter of little feet. The banisters were accustomed to nonsense. The turret room remembered all the wishful, painted beauty of Simon Fancourt's mind.

This house needed him, and his children, and his mother.

But houses, like people, did not always attain what they needed. Sometimes they were stripped of everything. Sometimes what was left of them was so hollow they were just shells of what once was—

A noise stirred behind the closed drawing-room door.

Georgina stood, already ashamed at the heat rising to the tips of her ears. She had not expected Simon back so soon. How long had she been waiting? A mere ten minutes?

But he did not stride through the door.

Perhaps it was only Mr. Wilkins, come back to tell her something or offer tea.

"Who is it?" She weaved around the white-covered furniture and approached the door. She grabbed the knob, but it did not budge.

Confusion swept through her. Why was it locked?

"Who is out there?" She slapped her hand against the wood. Her palm stung. Her heart sped. "Mr. Wilkins? Mr. Wilkins!"

The quiet house swallowed her cries.

Mercy. John. She pounded louder. Mr. Wilkins.

She need not worry. The children were safe. The butler would know if there was danger, and he would devise a plan of defense. One they could count on.

With an involuntary groan, she hurried for the window instead. She tried to pry it open, but the exterior shutters were bolted shut. What is happening?

Only she knew.

Someone was in the house. The same one who was responsible for overturning the carriage, writing Simon threats, and ruining his life.

Throwing herself back into the door, she screamed and kicked at the wood. She would not let this happen. Mr. Wilkins would not let this happen. He would hear her. He would protect the children. He would stop whatever tragedy was unfolding.

A stunned realization smacked her.

Unless Mr. Wilkins was dead.

Morning light spilled through the armorial stained-glass windows, casting the chapel in hues of red, purple, yellow, and green.

Sir Walter sat alone in one of the middle-right box pews. His posture was slumped. His head downcast.

Simon had never known of the man to pray before. The last thing he would have credited Sir Walter for was piety.

Or murder.

Disgust edged up his throat, a revolting taste, as he walked the chapel aisle with more calmness than he felt. He stopped before the box pew. He told himself to unlatch it, sling the blackguard out, throttle his neck.

But he was afraid if he touched Sir Walter, he would go too far. He would break Ruth's promise, if he hadn't already.

"Ah, Fancourt." The barrister straightened in his seat, then reached over and opened the door. He scooted. "Why I bother asking you to be seated every time we talk is quite lost upon me. You never do."

Simon slid in next to him. Wild emotion cut at him, each accusation jumbled into a memory, a place inside of him that hurt. The shreds of Ruth's hair on the cabin floor. Brown strands he found in the dead fingers of the man Simon killed. Bloodstains he told Mercy not to look at. The wind in the oak tree, whistling, as the dying leaves tugged free and fluttered around her grave—

"You set the fire."

"Pardon?"

"You set the fire." Simon clenched his teeth. "In your office. To dismiss your own connection to the nineteen men."

The box pew creaked when Sir Walter shifted. "My connection? What have I to do with—"

"Do not lie to me." Willpower alone kept his fists in his lap. "You lied to Father and you lied to me. I know about Tunbridge Wells."

"I have not the slightest knowledge what you are rambling of, but I must say, I find it in very bad form. If you are insinuating I had anything to do with your father's death—"

"You killed Father, and you killed my wife." With both hands, Simon seized the front of Sir Walter's tailcoat. He shook. "You were afraid I would find out, so you ordered your turnkey friend to coerce Miss Simpson into smearing my name."

"You are mad."

"That did not work, so you threatened my children. The woman in the river…you killed her too. She died in my arms. Ruth died in my arms."

"Unhand me, Fancourt."

"Confess."

"Unhand me now—"

"Confess!" Simon stood, slammed Sir Walter's back against the edge of the box pew. He landed a fist across his face. Then another. Then another, until blood gushed from Sir Walter's nose and flowed warm and sticky across Simon's knuckles.

"Wait." The barrister slumped to the floor, spectacles askew, panting. "If buffeting me senseless offers you composure, I shall oblige. I daresay, I would have done that and far more for your father."

"I was blind to believe you were our friend."

"What we believe is usually true."

"Father's letter as much as admitted your involvement."

"I have no idea what letter you are referring to, but I can assure you, it did not implicate me. You have much to learn, son, about the complications of law and justice. If there is one thing you can be certain of, it is that you can never be certain of anything. Matters are not usually what they appear." Sir Walter raised his chin, eyes steady on Simon. "But as it seems you no longer hold my words in reverence, and as you require a confession I cannot in moral conscience give, you might as well strike me again. Or kill me, if that shall satisfy you."

The ache of fury, of injustice, throbbed at Simon's forehead like a hatchet splintering wood. He trembled because it hurt so much to hold himself back. He needed to punish. He needed to hate Sir Walter. He wanted to hate him.

No. He stumbled back, wiped at his face, backed into the aisle.

Behind the blood-splattered, crooked spectacles, Sir Walter's gaze pulled at Simon. The look was too familiar. Too moist. Too much like the friend Simon had always trusted him to be.

Simon shook his head and fled the chapel, bewilderment stitching across his chest in a trail of fire. Help me, Lord.

Because, despite everything, he almost wanted to believe Sir Walter told the truth.

A mistake he could not make again.

The door flung open, banging against the drawing-room wall like a clap of thunder. Mr. Oswald swept in and froze. "Miss Whitmore."

Relief sputtered. Letting out a breath, she lowered the steel fire poker she'd seized for protection. "Someone was here." Maybe him. Simon would say it was, but she did not have time to determine Mr. Oswald's innocence or guilt. "I have to find the children."

He grabbed her arm as she darted past him and swiveled her back. "Just a moment. I wish to know what goes on in my house."

"I do not have time to—"

"Here only one day and already I am receiving notes." He pulled a crinkled paper from his waistcoat pocket. "Care to enlighten me on the meaning of such sentiment?"

She ripped it from him, legs weakening. "The game is over. I hope you can live with what you have done."

"Whoever penned such nonsense, I daresay, does not know me very well at all. I live rather comfortably with all my vices."

He jested, as if this was some sort of amusement. As if the children had not been stolen from them. As if everything was not falling apart. No, no. She ran, even though it had already been two hours and no one had answered her screams. She raced to every room. She climbed the stairs. She searched the nursery and shouted their names, voice hoarse and ringing and too near a sob.

Simon would die.

The suffering would be too much.

Not the children. Not the children. Panic suffocated her as she stumbled back down the stairs and tried to breathe.

Mr. Oswald waited for her. She could not tell if he understood or if he only cared to unravel more secrets, but the rakish grin no longer played at his lips. "If I can be of assistance, you need but say the word."

"I must find Simon." The only thing that made sense.

He would know what to do.

He would find John and Mercy. He would bring them back. He would grapple for the pieces and pull everything together. He had to.

"You remain here and wait for him." Mr. Oswald pulled on his gloves. "I shall hunt after our elusive Mr. Fancourt myself."

He had no idea what to do.

The last place he should have come was here, among the silent, where no one had answers for him.

But he creaked open the shiny black gate anyway and strode into the St. Bartholomew graveyard. Father's granite headstone sat among well-trimmed grass, one of the few graves within the shade of the white-flowered hawthorn. The stale, floral scent drifted with the breeze.

Father. He knelt when he should have been strong enough to stand. If only the dead could speak. He needed all the things he'd long despised.

The desk in Father's study.

The giant squeaking chair.

The man who knew everything, devised every plan, and never questioned himself because he was too confident in what needed to be done.

"I do not know what to do." As if speaking the words aloud would make it go away. Simon grasped the headstone and squeezed. Father, help me.

Everything was wrong.

He had not enough evidence to charge Sir Walter, and not enough hatred to end the man himself. The house was gone. He had nowhere to take his children. Mother had forsaken him. Society deemed him savage.

Even Miss Whitmore.

She was true, quiet, a gentleness where everything else was harsh—but he had wrought more pain upon her in returning than he ever had in leaving.

The kindest thing he could do was leave her alone.

Father, I am so lost. Simon bent his forehead against the cool granite, mocked by the voice he used to listen to. His own.

He had longed for purpose.

He had believed in a life comprised of something more. Something he could build with his hands that would make a difference.

Everything he'd ever built had fallen apart.

The only difference he'd made was in destroying lives.

W. Standing to his feet, Simon rubbed both hands down his face. He nearly groaned to find his cheeks wet. W. W. W. If Father had written one letter, perhaps there were more. Evidence maybe, locked away in some box or trunk or—

Something jabbed into his spine. "Move slow."

Tension coiled Simon's muscles, as his mind sprang into a hundred thoughts of action. Gun. He registered the barrel digging into his coat. Stranger. The voice was low, gruff, one he'd never heard before.

"Carriage waiting outside the gates. Get in."

Defiance stiffened him. He had better odds of fighting than climbing into some unknown—

"Here." The stranger reached around Simon and slapped something against his chest.

Nausea rose, soured the back of his throat, as he grasped the too-familiar object. Frail arms. Tiny corn husk head. Two black-painted eyes.

Dear Lord, please no.

Baby.

"Now move."