Henry puffed out a frustrated breath. “And that would be a far simpler task if I knew anything about her.” He shook his head. “We have never lived together. I could not even tell you her favorite flower or what she does of an evening, other than she spends a great deal of time in the library and prefers to dine late.”
“That is something,” Owen offered. “Dine with her, read with her, spend time with her wherever she has an instinct to be, see if that does not help bring some memories back.”
Luke nodded. “Like I said, court her. Behave as if you have only just met. Discover who your wife is at the same time as her, and be better off than you were before.”
Concentrating upon his brandy, Henry shoved down the fleeting, foolish idea of such a thing. He had made an arrangement with Thalia when they were first married that she would be free to live her life however she pleased, in a manor that would, essentially, be all her own. There was no reason to try and change that now. Indeed, if he suddenly altered his behavior toward her, it had every chance of worsening her condition, confusing any memories that might return.
He told his friends as much. “All I mean to concern myself with, now that she is awake and otherwise unharmed, is to figure out what happened to her.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Owen asked, tilting his head to one side. “To me, it is obvious what happened.”
“It is?” Henry countered.
“Evidently, she was coming to speak to you in your tower, when she slipped and fell,” Owen replied with a shrug. “I have seen those steps, Henry, they are treacherous at the best of times.”
Henry had given some of the details of how he had found Thalia at the bottom of those stairs, pale and lifeless, but he realized he had not yet spoken of the strangeness of it all. Howwrongthe scene had seemed to him, not merely because his wife was unconscious on the ground, but because ofwhereshe was.
He took a breath, knowing he might sound ridiculous. “In four years, my wife has never sought me out in my bedchamber when I have been in residence. If there was something she wished toask me, a message would be delivered by one of her maids or the housekeeper.” He paused. “It does not make a jot of sense that I discovered her there.”
“She could not have had a change of heart?” Luke suggested, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Perhaps, she wished to alter your arrangement, and was thwarted by those awful steps.”
Henry shook his head more insistently. “I cannot explain it in a way that you will understand, but the circumstancesfeelsuspicious to me. Thalia would not have come to my tower of her own volition; I am convinced of that.”
He poured more brandy into his glass and sat back, exasperated by his lack of ability to put into words what was nagging away at the back of his mind. Then, there was the prickle of foolishness that simmered beneath, wondering if he was making something out of nothing.
What if shewasjust coming to see me? What if shedidjust fall because of those dangerous steps?Ever since boyhood, he had noted how treacherous they were. His brother, James, had slipped on them many a time when they were younger, when that tower had been Henry’s private study, where he could, in theory, work without being disturbed.
“Say you are right,” Owen began, playing devil’s advocate. “Say that there is something… deliberate about this entire situation. Who would do such a thing in your household?”
Henry glanced around the room as if the culprit might emerge from the fog of tobacco smoke, before he leaned in and lowered his voice, “I fear her family’s involvement. I cannot prove anything, nor do I have any thought of motives, but her father arrived much too quickly for my liking, and though word was sent to her brother,hehas not appeared. That is odd to me, when he is supposedly such a dutiful son and sibling.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, I mean to get to the bottom of it, whether it be a simple accident or something more nefarious.” His gaze was stern as he looked to his two friends. “Word of my wife’s condition cannot leave this establishment. It cannot reach society’s knowledge.”
“Whyever not?” Luke asked, not in defiance but curiosity.
“I have… concerns that it may place her in greater danger,” Henry replied.
Owen nodded slowly. “If someone deliberately attacked her, they might have assumed she was dead; is that what you are saying?”
“In part, but a woman who cannot remember the last four years is also someone who can easily be manipulated,” Henry added, a shudder running down his spine. “And as I have not paid much attention to who has come and gone from the manor, I, too, would not be able to verify who is legitimate and who is not in terms of… friends, acquaintances, and so on.”
Downing what was left in his glass, Owen cleared his throat. “You should take note of your staff. See who has recently been employed. Moreover, you should usethemto verify any suspicious newcomers. There is very little that the staff of a household do not know.”
“You say that,” Henry sighed, “but not one has any notion of what happened on the night my wife fell. It is infuriating.”
Luke tilted his head to one side. “Or very carefully planned. If thereisfoul play here, someone clearly knew the routine and the whereabouts of your staff on that night.”
“Indeed…”
Henry had considered that in the days since the accident, while he had been anxiously waiting for his wife to wake up. However, it only led to another dead end, for it would have taken a great deal of effort and ingenuity to get in and out of Holdridge Court without a single person noticing. In truth, it was impossible.
“Anyway, I have said enough,” Henry murmured. “Tell me of pleasanter things. Luke, surely you can oblige?”
His friend flashed him a sympathetic smile, and promptly leaped into a tale of a ball he had recently attended, in which he had been chased by a gaggle of mothers who were eager for him to dance with their daughters.
By midnight, the gentlemen’s club lay empty, and Henry was alone within its walls. His friends had gone a while ago, and though he knew he ought to return to Holdridge at once, there were things he needed to attend to here. But only after everyone else had gone.
Grabbing his greatcoat from the back of his chair, Henry made his way through to the bar, where just two of the staff remained to clean up: Vince and Toby Kildare, a father and son who had worked here for several years. The younger of the two, Toby, quickly made himself scarce at Henry’s approach.
