Gabriel was silent for a moment. “She was beautiful, wonderful...” He blushed a little. “I was a little in love with her myself, but she didn’t know and of course I could never tell her. She was so full of spirit and fun, but she was a bit headstrong, too, and could be as wild and reckless as her brother. She loved to ride just as fast as Dom, and those two were always racing across the moors together,actuallyracing each other. She also had her own sailboat, identical to his, which he bought her after he taught her to sail, and they would even race those down the coast. And she used to tag along with Dom and me, even when Archer and Benton, his best friends from school, visited. She refused to be left out of whatever fun we were up to.”
His description made Brooke wish she could have known the girl. Eloise Wolfe sounded quite fun to be around. Brooke had a feeling they could have been close friends.
“Anything else about her that was special?”
“She liked making her own choices, about clothes, friends, even charities. Lady Anna didn’t always agree with her daughter, and she couldn’t curb Ella’s buying whatever caught her fancy because Ella had her own money, an inheritance from one of her grandmothers. Lady Anna is a patron of the arts and she encouraged Ella to pick a worthy cause to support as well. Ella surprised us all when she didn’t pick one, but three!” Gabriel chuckled. “A hospital in York, a church-run foundling house just outside of London, and a home for elderly mariners in Scarborough. Not exactly what Lady Anna had in mind, though she couldn’t deny they were worthy causes. And to honor her daughter, Lady Anna continues to support them now.”
Generous, this family, at least the women in it. Ella had been so lucky to be able to make her own choices. Brooke couldn’t imagine what having that sort of freedom would have been like.
“I do admit I was a bit jealous when Ella and her mother returned from London at the end of that summer, and Lady Anna declared her daughter’s first Season a success.”
“Why?”
“Because it obviously was. A couple of besotted young lords followed Ella home to continue the courtship they started in London. I suspected marriage proposals would soon follow if Ella hadn’t already been asked. But then Ella accompanied her mother to Scarborough before the weather turned too nippy. I’ll never forget how touched I was when she told me before she left that day with her mother that she loved me because I was such a good and true friend to her brother. Dom was closer to Archer Hamilton and Benton Seamons, the lords he went to school with, yet she seemed to think I was the better friend. It was the last thing she ever said to me. She never returned from Scarborough.”
When his expression turned sad, she asked gently, “How did she die, Gabriel?”
She didn’t need to hear the words. She could tell what he was going to say from the wary expression that returned to his face. “You’ll need to ask Dominic if you want to know about that.”
She sighed. As if that subject were ever going to be safe with the wolf. But she glanced behind her at the locked room he’d mentioned yesterday, trying a new tack. “What about that room?”
“Ella’s? I told you it’s kept locked.”
“You also said I could see her room another time. Now’s a good time.”
“Why do you even want to?”
“So I can understand a little better the people responsible for my being here, Dominic, Robert—and Ella.”
Gabriel hesitated before he nodded and moved past her to unlock the door. “Please don’t tell Dom I allowed this,” he whispered.
She held out her hand for the key. “I promise he’ll never know. I’ll lock the door when I leave.”
Gabriel nodded, then continued on his way downstairs.
Brooke entered the room and quickly closed the door. Would she find anything of interest in the dead girl’s room? It wasn’t going to tell her how Ella died. It was dark and musty in here with the thick drapes closed. She opened one panel before slowly walking about the room.
She might be seeing it exactly as Ella had last seen it, except for the portrait of a beautiful young woman leaning against one wall. Eloise Wolfe? She had a strong feeling that it was, and it must have been painted right before her eighteenth year—black hair, amber eyes, joyful. Excited about her upcoming Season? It had probably had a prominent place downstairs until her death made it too painful for her family to look at, and it had been stored behind a locked door instead.
Nothing appeared to be out of place or missing from the room. The vanity was still filled with perfumes and baubles, the small dressing room was still cluttered with clothes, bonnets, and shoes. There was a painting of a beautiful white horse, and another of two sailboats on the sea. Ella definitely liked the outdoors. A miniature of Dominic sat on a night table next to the bed, a younger Dominic, though old enough for the image to closely resemble the man he’d become. Ella loved him, had been close to him from what Gabriel had said. A jewelry box had a wolf’s head carved on the top of it. A family heirloom? She opened the box and was surprised to find it nearly empty except for a tarnished pair of small silver earrings. If Ella had her own money, why wasn’t that box filled with expensive jewelry?
The girl had also liked frilly things. Ruffles were on the bedcover, the drapes, the vanity—or perhaps she’d never got around to redecorating after she grew up. A large bowl of small seashells was at the center of her bureau, with large shells placed around it. She must have had fun on that Scarborough beach as a child. With Dominic? Did they build sand castles together? Swim together? Brooke wondered if he would ever talk about the sister he’d lost.
She started opening the bureau drawers and felt guilt creeping up on her. This was snooping of the worst sort. But how else was she supposed to find out what happened to Dominic’s sister when he wouldn’t tell her anything beyond Robert’s being responsible for her death?
The first drawer of the bureau she opened was filled with fans. Brooke was amazed to find so many. She started opening them and saw that they were all quite fancy, each made with a different-colored lace and with different gems dotting the painted frames, no doubt to match Ella’s large collection of evening gowns. Then she opened an unusual one. The frame was plain, unpainted wood, no gems attached, and the panels were made of white paper with a faint cursive handwriting design on it. Well, that made it more unusual, and since no gems were on it, she didn’t think anyone would mind if she borrowed it for a while.
She didn’t own any fans herself. Harriet had completely overlooked that accessory or they hadn’t been delivered to Leicestershire before Brooke had been sent here. But a fan would certainly come in handy to hide a grin if she felt like grinning at an inappropriate moment, or to keep Dominic from seeing her gritting her teeth. She stuck the fan in her pocket before opening more drawers.
She found nothing else of interest, and the only other thing to open and look inside was the chest at the foot of Ella’s bed. As she’d suspected, it only contained bedding. But just to be thorough, she reached inside and ran her palm across the bottom of the chest and touched a piece of hard leather. She pulled out a large book, but it had no title on the cover. Opening it, she read,Stay out,which was written in a childish scrawl. She was incredulous when she realized she was holding Eloise Wolfe’s childhood diary. She quickly flipped through the pages and saw that the handwriting changed, becoming more formal and mature. Her eye caught phrases about fittings and gowns and house parties. It wasn’t just a childhood diary but one that Ella had kept later in her life. Maybe she had written about Robert. Maybe the diary contained clues about Ella’s death. Brooke wanted to read the entire thing. So she left the room with the diary, locked the door, and hurried to her own room.
She spent the rest of the day as well as the next two days combing over seven years of Ella’s life, from the day the eleven-year-old girl started the diary to her eighteenth year. Brooke found the diary quite entertaining and actually laughed out loud when she read about Ella and Dominic’s getting lost in a snowstorm and being led home by a big white wolf—Ella’s description of the dog that had helped them. The girl had had a childish crush on one of her brother’s friends and worried that he’d marry someone else before she was old enough to propose to him, though she never mentioned it again, so she must have outgrown the notion.
The diary contained so many amusing anecdotes. Ella’s peeking in on Dominic in a corner of the gardens when he tried to kiss one of the local girls, who ran away screaming. Dominic’s pretending it was an accident when he fell on their sand castle—they did build them together!—just so they’d have to start over. Ella had even beat him at some of their races and mentioned every win, though she did suspect he had allowed her to. Brooke hated to put the diary down when she had to exercise Rebel, help Alfreda set up her new herb garden, or perform her least favorite task—visiting the wolf’s room to tend his wounds.
She was terribly disappointed when she reached the end of the diary because there were only a few entries from the summer of Ella’s Season and none from the autumn when she died. Those pages had apparently been ripped out, everything after the day she met “him.” That’s the only way Ella referred to the man who had fascinated her at her first ball. The six pages after that were missing. Brooke’s breath caught in her throat when she saw that whoever had ripped them out had missed the last page of the dairy that contained Ella’s handwriting. Had Ella removed the evidence before she died? No, Brooke realized Dominic must have ripped them out in the rage that overcame him when he found the damning words that had sent him to kill Robert. But no wonder he’d overlooked that last page when only two lines were on it:
laughed when I told him about the baby, but the baby leaves me no choice. Damn Robert Whitworth for ruining my life!
