“Make him pay.”
“Oh, Rosa, no! Please don’t do anything reckless. Think of your son. Your uncle.”
“Don’t worry. I will be careful. But I happen to know Lady Celia plans to revise her will....”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Not directly. But she asked me to pick up the draft of a new will from her solicitor when I went to Gloucester.”
“So that’s what he was looking for, a new will? Does she intend to disinherit him?”
“I certainly hope so. I want to see him suffer.”
“Rosa...” Anne said, studying the girl’s hard expression. “I fear for you.”
“Don’t. I am not the same foolish girl I once was.”
“Do you know where this new will is?”
Her eyes glinted. “I do. And I’m not telling.”
The following day, while the curate paid a call on Lady Celia, Anne again sat in the window-seat alcove she loved, sipping tea and reading a newly arrived letter from Fanny, who must have written back by return of post.
Anne,
I don’t know what to say. Are you certain? Or did his aunt lie to you? I find it difficult to believe your—her—assertions that Mr. Dalby was not forced to end things with me. And this other young woman you mentioned. Did you fabricate her simply to injure my feelings?
You said Albert Palling blames him for his sister’s death. That is more difficult to dismiss. I want to believe you wrote all you did with the best intentions, yet it is difficult, I own.
I will endeavor to accept this information as true and adjust my earlier conclusions. I have also decided that perhaps it is time to confide in Stephen about my old heartbreak and former love. He is skilled in counseling others. I wonder if he might offer wise and understanding counsel to his own wife?
In the meantime, stay away from Mr. Dalby. For your own sake, as well as mine.
Fanny
Anne winced at the cutting words. She had known her sister would not enjoy her last letter, but she had not expected rebuke or recrimination. She hoped the letter had not done more harm than good.
As Anne refolded the paper, she heard a nearby door open. For a moment, she felt confused. The nearest door was the rarely used one that led into Mr. Dalby’s dressing room across the passage, where his valet would sleep, if he employed one.
She was surprised and disappointed to hear Rosa’s and Mr. Dalby’s hushed voices in the passage, the two no doubt thinking themselves alone.
Anne’s stomach sank. What had Rosa been doing in Mr. Dalby’s room? Had she learned nothing?
“Well then,” Rosa was saying, “if you are uncomfortable, it’s up to you to leave.”
“Don’t fool yourself. My aunt may like you as a lady’s maid but she would dismiss you in an instant if she thought you were trying to entrap her nephew.”
“Unless ... Shall I tell her my version of events first?” Her syrupy sweet tone belied her words. “After all, I gather Lady Celia is in the process of revising her will. She ought to have all the pertinent facts before she does so. Do you not agree?”
“How would you know anything about that?”
“A few days ago, I retrieved a draft of the document from her solicitor in Gloucester.”
“Is that where you went?”
“Yes.”
As quietly as she could, Anne set down her things and rose, tiptoeing to the door she was concealed behind.
