She felt the satisfying click of the lock's mechanism as the tumblers slid home, and then she pulled the door open and traced her finger back as though travelling back through the years to a point almost twenty year's distant, and removed the volume labelled 1794. This would have the information, if anything would. She set it aside for a moment, rearranging the remaining books so the gap in years would not be obvious. Then, she relocked the door and slipped the purloined volume into her pocket.
Before she left the room, she paused to listen for noises in the library, feeling less than comfortable with the relief she felt when she heard silence. If she was doing nothing wrong, then why did she feel so guilty?
The lock was the answer, of course. She had planned on simply removing a book from a shelf in a public room and sitting down to read. But the lock was a warning that the contents were not meant to be removed. So when she was sure that no one would see, she took the book to her room, closed and locked her own door behind her, and opened it to the first page.
What had been the day of the murder? Had Nathan even said? Best to begin at the beginning and work her way forward.
She flipped quickly through the first few months, surprised at how little the family had changed. There were stories of Marc, serious and quiet even as a boy, and the little scamp Hal. Honoria was not out of leading strings but had already gotten into a multitude of scrapes. Verity was still in the cradle, and there were detailed descriptions of the baby gifts that Lady Narborough still had on display in shadow boxes and glass cases around the house.
And then an entry in a shaking hand, as though the writer were consumed by emotion.
Don't know what's to be done with Will. His behaviour grows reckless. No better than Hebden. They are both detestable and I am sick to death of their company.
He might have known a dozen Wills and Williams. It was not specific enough to connect with certainty to William Wardale, the Earl of Leybourne. Nor did it explain what might constitute reckless behaviour. She continued to read.
The situation grows worse with each day. Hebden's Gypsy brat now playing with my boys. Kit encourages the association. Seems to find it amusing to see the dark lad and treats him as though nothing is odd. I cannot believe that his wife, Amanda, turns a blind eye to it all. But she is raising the boy as her own.
She struggled to remember what she had heard of the scandal. Kit must mean Christopher Hebden. There was something about a lost child, after the father's death. A bastard son, who was sent away. And Amanda Hebden, prostrate with grief over the whole affair. Diana flipped through more pages.
A shocking discovery. No wonder Amanda does not clean her house of the Gypsy filth. She is too busy with Leybourne to care. How can Will dine with us at the club, and then go off to tup Hebden's wife? And Kit is too busy with his whores to care. They laugh and talk together, then go off to their sinful beds as though it means nothing.
They were the friends of my youth. But now I feel unclean by the association.
The book shook in her trembling hand, as she tried to imagine the frail man upstairs penning the angry words. Although he was most particular with his own reputation and that of his children, she had never seen him cross with anyone in all the time she had lived with the family. But perhaps he had been a different man twenty years ago. She paged eagerly on.
Another shouting match with Kit over the cipher business. Too much whisky on all sides and not enough sense. He called me a traitor. I called him out, told him to solve the damn cipher if he is so eager to find the spy in our midst. But he cannot. The thing is unbreakable.
Without Will there, we'd have come to blows. Very embarrassing. But nerves frayed all round. This cannot go on much longer.
Traitor? She had never thought of Lord Narborough as less than an honest man and proud defender of his country. But he did not deny the accusation. And then, another note, coming almost as a postscript to the last.
Hebden says he has cracked the cipher. Now the truth will out. There is no stopping it.
And all that was left of the next page was a ragged tatter. Someone had seized the thing and ripped it from the book. She ran her fingers along the place where the pages should be stitched, and counted the little bits of paper: one, two, three pages missing. And at the top of the next page, a single line, hanging as though forgotten.
Dear God, forgive me.
Her pulse quickened. It proved nothing. But whatever had happened was worse than she suspected. Accusations of infidelity and treason on both sides. The missing pages, as though someone did not wish the truth to be known.