“A boat? Journey across the sea?” Jemina’s face became dour, her easy smile fading. A memory must’ve returned to her. It couldn’t be good.
“We’ll sort everything later. Now we must go to the drawing room.”
I turned and wobbled to the stairs. My vision spiraling, my nausea whirling, but I made it down to the grand hall.
It was quiet.
Wall sconces were lit, but the shadow of the chandelier was absent.
My heart sunk.
I’d lost a dear friend. The grand chandelier—the sparkle of crystals, the smoky silvered globes, the ebony iron limbs—it was the first thing to greet me coming to Hamlin. The last thing I saw when Markham carted me away.
Jemina put a hand to my shoulder. “You’re not well. You’re not thinking clearly. Remembering what is lost is never helpful.”
“But I do remember. I remember my life. This was my house for four years. That man upstairs will know tonight.”
“And then what? We haven’t proven that Markham tricked you and sent you to Bedlam. We’ve found nothing to show a conspiracy.”
“I don’t care anymore.” I took a candle from a sconce and stole into the drawing room. I lit up this darkened place. No more shadows. No more lies. No more thinking that all of this was a nightmare.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
I was pale.
My hair was down and wild.
And in my eyes, I saw a coward’s stare. I kept blaming myself, blaming Colin, kept circling the poison of our union in my heart, my soul.
It was easier to stay stuck, to keep reliving the past.
Neither the duke nor Colin was responsible for me being moored in one place. I was my crutch. I needed to be free.
“Jemina, you don’t have to stay. You can go back to bed.”
“I’m with you, Patience.” The girl moved to the polished gilded frame. “This is crooked. It must’ve jostled when the chandelier fell.”
She put her hands to the frame, but it wouldn’t straighten.
That was the mirror Markham had touched before being tossed out of Hamlin.
I turned away from the desk. “Let’s take it down. The nails might be coming undone. Or it might be hiding what we’ve hunted.”
On the count of three, we lifted it from the wall. A small compartment door was now exposed.
I’d never seen it before, but Hamlin was a house built with secrets. “This must be what Markham’s after.”
Jemina started prying the slotted door opening. “One way to find out.”
We tugged together. Soon, the heavy door made a loud noise like its hinges opened a crypt.
“Oh no,” Jemina said. “That’s loud enough to wake everyone.”
Someone would come.
I knew how voices and noises carried in Hamlin. “Then we must hurry.”
Hoping not to be bitten by one of those furry spiders, I slid my hand inside the dark vault.
