“It matters. I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 21
“Why are you doing this?” Diana asked as the carriage swayed from side to side. Jessie didn’t answer her at first. She was leaning on the carriage window, staring out at the world beyond. The frost had almost completely thawed, and beyond the carriage, Diana could just spy daffodil and cyclamen heads, peering through nearby beds of grass, a splash of colour through the dull winter hues. “Jessie, why are you doing this?” she asked again.
Jessie flicked her head around, glaring at Diana, before that gaze softened, looking somewhat lost as her eyes darted around the carriage.
“I’ve never been in a carriage as fine as this before,” Jessie whispered in awe. There was a mixture of admiration in her features, coupled with suspicion as if she didn’t quite trust the carriage she was travelling in. Diana shifted, uncertain what to say.
She had been fortunate in her life that wealth hadn’t been a problem until the days her father began to gamble away their income. “You are confident, are you not?” Jessie asked, changing the topic of conversation entirely.
“About what?”
“About this.” Jessie fished into her pocket another time and pulled out the note on which there was the hastily scrawled address. “You are certain this is where all those maids have gone.”
“In truth,” Diana hesitated and shrugged, showing just how uncertain she was. “There is one way to be sure, though, so we will know for ourselves soon enough.” Jessie slowly nodded before turning her eyes back out the window again. “I have answered your question.” Diana sat taller in her seat, determined to hold onto this newfound confidence she had. “Please answer me. Why are you doing this?”
“I thought he was one man,” she said quietly, keeping her gaze firmly out of the carriage so that Diana could only see half of the maid’s face as the carriage jolted them from side to side. “Yet that man was truly sorry to hear of my friend’s injuries. Parker is his name. Jarvis Parker. But then those deeds you found on his desk do not make sense. What did they mean? Why would he be selling the land so soon after his tenants’ houses have been burned down?”
“I see.” Diana nodded slowly in thought. “Are you beginning to see that he is not quite the man you thought he was?”
“Perhaps.” She chewed her lip and looked back at Diana, just as the scenery beyond the carriage windows began to change from grass and woodland to the townhouses of Bath. “If he is not who I think he is, then I need to see it with my own eyes. Not hear it from someone who already hates him.”
“I understand.” Diana held Jessie’s gaze with her words, wanting the maid to truly believe her. “For what it’s worth,” she paused, waiting for Jessie to stop fidgeting and give her full attention, “I thought him a better man too when I married him. I did not know him, but I didn’t actively dislike him. That came later.”
Her words seemed to have an effect, for Jessie sat straight in her seat, so rigid that her back thudded against the cushioned chair.
They descended into silence for a minute, but it did not last long, for the carriage pulled to a slow stop on the outskirts of Bath.
“Are we here?” Jessie asked, no longer hovering by the window. She sat back in the seat, looking almost afeared to step out of the carriage.
“We are,” Diana said, leaning out of the carriage and seeing the road name on a sign nearby. She waited for the door to open and the footman to help her down before she turned expectantly back to face Jessie. “Have you changed your mind?”
Jessie shook her head sharply, yet her hands still clung to the seat beneath her, making no slight movement.
“Fine, then stay here.” Diana had considered pulling Jessie out of the carriage, but everything she knew about the woman suggested that this course of action would yield more results. She closed the door on Jessie and turned away, heading for the right house. Mere seconds later, she heard the maid scramble out of the carriage and run to her side, muttering curse words under her breath. “You decided to come after all, then?”
“I have to see it for myself. If you merely tell me what is here, I may not believe you.”
Diana reached for the house listed on the address, startled by its appearance. It had perhaps at one point been quite a well-to-do house on the edge of town, but the area around it had deteriorated. In emphasis of this point, there was grime crawling up the walls of the yellow-stone building, and there were curtains pulled at every window, all grey in colour, blocking out the day’s light.
“Happy place, isn’t it?” Diana muttered as she knocked on the door.
“Did you make a jest?” Jessie asked, startled as she stood further back from Diana.
“Is that so odd?”
“No, it is just … I do not want to laugh with you.”
“You do not have to hate me, Jessie,” Diana said slowly as she waited for the door to open.
“I do not hate you. I –” Jessie was prevented from saying any more as the door opened with a creak, revealing a woman’s face on the other side. She had a baby in her arms, clutched to her chest.
“Who are you?” she asked, practically sneering at the two of them. Diana could see she was beautiful, with braided long black hair, ivory cheeks, and pale blue eyes. From the extra weight on her figure, she must have recently had the baby in her arms.
“The duke sent us,” Diana said, praying it would work.
“What the …?” Jessie’s objection was met with a harsh glare from Diana that silenced her.
