Rosie went into the small study. It was sparsely furnished with a sagging couch covered in moth-eaten pillows and a table flanked by two chairs and set with a tea service. The room had no windows, a single lamp the only relief from the gloom.
Here, at the back of the house, the outside world had vanished completely. In here, anything could happen and no one would be the wiser. Fear washed over Rosie as Sybil closed the door.
“Where is Sophie?” Rosie said.
“Sit.” Sybil waved the gun at one of the chairs. “We’ll get to your sister in a moment.”
She sat, her mind working furiously. “Why are you doing this?”
Sybil took the opposite chair. Keeping the pistol aimed at Rosie, she picked up the tea pot, pouring liquid into the cups in front of them. Tendrils of steam curled upward.
“Have some tea,” she said politely—as if this were a social gathering.
Enough is enough.
“I’m not doing another dashed thing you say until you tell me where Sophie is,” Rosie said.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter now. Very well.” Sybil held the pistol steady. “By my estimation, your sister will be on her way home from her outing with her maid.”
“Pardon?” Rosie whispered.
“It was a ruse,” the other explained. “Since you came into Daltry’s money, I’ve been watching you. One can learn a lot from simply observing household routines—such as the fact that your sister’s nursemaid takes her for an outing at the same time each day. It was easy to compose a note saying that I’d taken her.”
“But you had the handkerchief—”
“I followed the nursemaid to the park one day and pretended to admire the babe. Whilst I did this, I filched the handkerchief. Simple, really.”
Sybil smiled complacently, and Rosie’s relief that Sophie and Libby were safe faded to the awareness that she’d walked right into this deranged woman’s trap. She had two options: use the pistol she’d secreted in the pocket of her skirts—or keep Sybil talking, delaying until Caster got her note and sent in reinforcements.
Eyeing Sybil’s steady grip on the firearm, Rosie decided that delaying was a better choice. By the time she had her pistol in hand and ready to shoot, she might already have a hole through her.
“So you were behind everything?” she said, trying to buy time. “You poisoned Daltry, hired a cutthroat to kill me?”
Sybil inclined her head.
“Was it all for the money?”
“Money was part of it. Not all.”
“Why, then?” In an effort to draw the other in, Rosie kept her tone conversational. “Why would you, a well-bred lady, go to such lengths for two thousand pounds per annum?”
“Don’t you listen? I said it was not just because of the money.” Rage entered Sybil’s voice.
“Then what made you resort to murder?”
“I hated Daltry.” Sybil’s expression was arctic. “Heowedme for what he did to me.”
A new chill permeated Rosie’s insides. “What did he do?”
“He forced me to have relations with him.” Ice glittered in the other’s pale blue eyes. “For years, I had no choice but to endure his advances.”
Rosie stared at her. “Why… why didn’t you tell someone? Surely your aunt—”
“Would have disowned me if she knew the truth. Daltry was blackmailing me, you see. Five years ago, he discovered my indiscretion with my aunt’s butler. I was in love; my lover was older than me and lower in rank, yet I was planning to run off with him. Daltry found out and paid my lover to leave me. Soon thereafter, I discovered I was with child.” Bleakness deadened Sybil’s voice, and, despite everything, empathy surged in Rosie. “I would have been ruined had Daltry not offered me a way out. He brought me to a midwife who took care of my ‘problem.’ And he vowed never to tell anyone of the sordid truth—as long as I went to his bed and did whatever he wanted. And so I did. For five long years, I did.”
To think she’d been married, even briefly, to that monster made Rosie nauseous.
“I’m sorry, Sybil,” she said, her throat tight. “No one should have to endure such things.”
