Seraphina didn’t appear to agree with this logic. She was alternately nuzzling the edge of the door and weaving between Cecilia’s legs, as if she was urging Cecilia to open the clothes press and peer inside. “Mrrarh.”
Cecilia hesitated, but Seraphina wouldn’t hear of a refusal. She gazed up at Cecilia with those glowing green eyes until at last Cecilia relented. “Oh, all right, but just a peek. What is it? Have the moths gotteninto it, or—”
She went still, the words dying on her lips. The blue silk ball gown, that particular shade of blue…she snatched up a fold of the gown and held it up to the muted light.
She’d seen this gown before. Not the last time she’d peered into the clothes press, but tonight, less than an hour ago. She’d seen it on an exquisitely beautiful dark-haired lady with frigid blue eyes.
This gown didn’t belong to Lady Cassandra.
It belonged to Lady Leanora. She was wearing it in the portrait hanging in the small picture gallery, along with the sapphire hairpins Cecilia had found on the dressing tabledays earlier.
Cecilia fell back against the wall behind her, stunned. How had she not noticed before this was the same gown, and these the same sapphire pins tucked into those thick, dark curls? The embroidered slippers, as well. No doubt those were alsoLady Leanora’s.
But how did Lady Leanora’s gown come to be in Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber?
Cecilia stared down at the fold of the gown caught between her fingers. It couldn’t be a coincidence the only gown now hanging inside the clothes press was the very gown Lady Leanora had worn in her portrait. It had been chosen purposefully, by someone who understood its significance.
Cecilia tapped her head against the wall at her back in an attempt to knock some sense into it. The most likely explanation was almost certainly the correct one, and the most likely explanation here was Lady Leanora had done it herself.
But when?
Lady Leanora had remained at Darlington Castle for several months after Lady Cassandra died. Perhaps Lady Leanora considered herself the closest thing the Darlington family had to a marchioness, and had decided to seize the marchioness’s apartments as her due.
Yes, that had to be it. Nothing else madesense, unless…
The way they tell it, Lord Darlington is madly in love with Lady Leanora.
Was it possible Gideon had put these things here?
It would explain why he insisted Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber remained locked at all times. If he was readying the bedchamber in eager anticipation of Lady Leanora’s return, he wouldn’t want anyoneto know of it.
But everyone would know soon enough, because who was the White Lady, if not Lady Leanora? Gideonmustknow it was her. How could he not? Had he been chasing her all these weeks only to see the ghostly rumors laid to rest, or did he have a more tender reason for wanting to find her?
Nausea swelled in the pit of Cecilia’s stomach, but before she could give in to the urge to flee this cursed bedchamber, Seraphina darted through the door of the clothes press and disappeared inside. “Seraphina! Come out of there at once!” Cecilia reached inside to snatch the cat out, but instead of soft fur, her knuckles nudged into something hard. Not shoes—it wasn’t the right shape, and too heavy. It felt like…a box?
She crouched down, grasped one corner of it and tugged it out from under the flowing skirts of the blue silk ball gown. She drew the object out and stared down at the dusty cover, her chest fluttering with a strange anticipation. It was a book, bound in leather and covered with a thick film of dust.
A diary. The Marchioness of Darlington’spersonal diary.
Cecilia looked from Seraphina to the diary, which had been tucked into a corner at the back of the clothes press, as if it had been hidden there, waiting for her to find it. “I can’t read this. It’s a dreadful invasion of the marchioness’s privacy.”
Seraphina yawned, as if privacy were a matter far beneath her notice.
Cecilia fell back on her heels in front of the clothes press with the heavy book on her lap, hesitating. What good would it do anyone for her to pry into Lady Darlington’s secrets? Now she’d made up her mind to leave Darlington Castle, it should be left to someone else to reveal the remaining mysteries, or keep them secret,if they chose.
Yes, yes, that was the only logical, rationalresponse here.
But Cecilia seemed to have abandoned rational thinking, because she snatched up the diary and scrambled to her feet. She glanced down at Seraphina, who was now rubbing against her shins, as if thanking her. “Do you always get your way, youwicked thing?”
A foolish question, really, given that Cecilia was already creeping from Lady Darlington’s bedchamber to her own with the diary tucked under her arm. She took care to close the connecting door behind her, then hurried for her bed, and opened the diary to the first page.
Diary of Cassandra Elizabeth Belmore, October 1792.
It began three years ago, just after Nathanial had drowned in Darlington Lake, the year Gideon returned to Darlington Castle to see his brother laid to rest. He must have begun courting Cassandra soon after he arrived, because by February of the following year, Cassandra Belmore became Lady Darlington.
Cecilia ran a finger across the single line, admiring the elegance of Lady Darlington’s handwriting—or more properly, Cassandra Belmore’s handwriting—but she hesitated before turning the page, an odd foreboding gathering like a dark cloudin her breast.
Once she turned that page, there would beno going back.
