Silas ignored him and went to her door. Just twelve hours before he’d been lounging in a tub with her here, now the house felt cold and terrifying. Like he could feel something wrong had happened here. He could only pray that intuition was wrong.
“Arabella!” He pounded on the surface but received no answer. When he tried the door, it was locked. Without hesitation he hit it with his shoulder, buckling the wood and letting it fly open as Barnaby continued his protests.
She wasn’t in the bedchamber and it didn’t appear she ever had been. He was moving toward the door to the dressing room when he was interrupted by the arrival of her sisters. They must have been out together and now they rushed in behind them. At their heels, though considerably slower, was the Duke of Southwater.
“What in the world is going on here?” Evelina asked. “We bring Julia home and find this madness?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Evelina, they pushed their way in and broke Miss Comerford’s door,” Barnaby said, clenching his hands together. “Shall I call for someone?”
“Please!” Silas gasped out as he looked at Arabella’s sisters. “I already have, but there cannot be too many. I have reason to believe that your father might be pursuing Arabella. Here. In London. Right now.”
Both the women faltered and Evelina reached behind her to catch Southwater’s hand. Her protector took it, but he made no further move to comfort her.
“And she isn’t here,” Silas continued. “You know she would be bursting out and shouting at me for breaking her door if she were.”
Evelina rushed forward. “Our father? What do you know about him?”
“She told me about the letters. The death threats.”
Julia’s face went pale. “I knew he wrote her horrible things, but…but death threats?”
Southwater’s face scrunched in horror. “Threats? Why didn’t I know about this?”
Evelina glanced at him. “Arabella always played them off as unimportant. I didn’t want to believe they could be anything but.”
Silas nodded, but it was Reginald who spoke. “Your father reached out to me a few days ago trying to work out a way to intervene with your sister on my behalf. I had no idea of his true intentions toward her.”
Evelina pushed past them all and opened the dressing room door. It was empty and relief flooded Silas for a brief moment. He’d worried, in some part of himself that he hadn’t been willing to accept, that Arabella might be dead in that room. That he would find a body.
But the chamber was much as it had been left that morning when they’d bathed together. There was nothing out of place except?—
“Why is her hat box on the table?” Evelina whispered, and now Julia pushed into the room.
“She never leaves a thing out of place.” Julia stepped up and her voice trembled as she said, “There’s a note here.”
They took it and read it, first to themselves. When Evelina gasped and Julia let out a broken moan of pain, Silas couldn’t wait. He snatched it from them and read it out loud,
My dearest Evelina and Julia,
This is all too much for me, knowing how I destroyed you. And I cannot go on with the guilt any longer. Not in harming you, nor in the humiliation I caused against our innocent father, who only wished to raise us with love and kindness. To free us all from my mistakes, I must end my life. Think of my favorite spot and know that I’m washed away from all the pain. With all my love to you and to Silus, goodbye. Arabella.
He was unsteady on his feet and Reg reached out to catch his elbow. “Suicide?” Silas whispered. “No. Not possible. She would never.”
“I agree,” Evelina said, though her voice was thick with emotion. “I know she sometimes feels guilt at where my path and Julia’s took us, but we’ve spoken of it often. She would know that losing her would be a far worse thing for us than anything else we’ve ever done or endured. Someone must have compelled her to do it. Look at how she’s spelled your name wrong.”
“She wouldn’t do that, even in haste?” Reg asked.
“No. Never.” Julia paced away. “She’s written that name so many times in the years, she could probably do it in the dark with her left hand. It was on purpose. Which means she’s trying to send us a message. Let us know this isn’t real.”
“Let us know she’s in danger if she were lucky enough that someone found it.” Silas pivoted toward Barnaby. “How long ago did she come home? It couldn’t have been long.”
“Less than an hour,” Barnaby said. “She went into the parlor downstairs. When I came to tell her that the food she asked for had been delivered to her chamber, she refused to open the door to the parlor. I thought it odd. A little while later my wife and I heard her come up and assumed she went to her chamber.”
Evelina swallowed hard. “If our father was there, if he was truly of a violent bent, she would have tried to keep Barnaby and the rest of the staff out of it.”
“Yes,” Silas said. “That wonderful streak of protection in her would have wanted to save him. But she went to the trouble to write this, to leave these clues. So there might still be a chance. If we can find her.”
Reg drew the letter from Silas’s fingers. “This line is odd:Think of my favorite spot and know that I’m washed away from all the pain.Why would she be so specific?”
