A Study In Seduction

chapter Twenty-Seven




Alexander startled, taking a step away from her. Fresh, raw pain coursed through Lydia’s chest. She averted her gaze but felt the shock that held him immobile.

“Your… your daughter?”

Lydia nodded, experiencing a sense of relief at having finally told him the truth. No matter how he reacted, at least she no longer bore the burden of such a secret.

“But Jane is—”

“Eleven. She was born when I was almost seventeen.”

She lifted her lashes to risk a glance at him. He remained still, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his expression rigid.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“It is not a pleasant story.” She paused. “Far from it.”

“I don’t care. What happened? Is he Jane’s father?”

“Yes.” Her fingers clenched on the letter.

“He didn’t… did he…” Alexander swallowed, his fists tightening.

“No. No.” Beneath her fear, shame began to simmer inside Lydia. She attempted to contain it, knowing she owed him the full story in all its sordid details. “It… it was a… a mistake, Alexander, a hideous one, but I was a willing participant. And I promise I will tell you whatever you want to know, but I must speak with Jane first. Please. I… I didn’t think he’d ever find us again. I don’t know if he’s tried to contact her, if he would—”

Her voice shattered on the cusp of a speculation too horrific to name. She covered her face with her hands, dimly aware of the anger beginning to tear through Alexander’s silence.

“Where did Mrs. Driscoll say she’d gone?” he asked.

“To her piano lesson with my grandmother.” Lydia swiped at the perspiration on her brow. “I… It’s imperative I speak with her—it’s the reason I needed the locket back. All of this—”

“I’ll collect her from Rushton’s. You wait here. I do not wish there to be a scene at my father’s house.”

He turned and left. Lydia stared at the closed door. A bead of perspiration trickled down her neck, sliding beneath her narrow collar.

She went upstairs to her room, splashed water on her face, and fixed her hair. Nervousness twisted in her stomach. She went down the corridor to the schoolroom where she and Jane had spent countless hours together.

Jane’s possessions and creations were scattered everywhere—paintings, dolls, toys, drawings, a world globe, books, bits of crochet, and embroidery samples.

Lydia picked up an old rag doll that Sir Henry had once given Jane for Christmas. The doll stared sightlessly back at her, one button eye missing, the stitches of its mouth beginning to tear.

“Lydia?” Wariness infused her grandmother’s voice.

She turned. “Is Jane with you?”

“No.”

Lydia frowned. “Where is Alexander?”

“I don’t know. What is going on, Lydia?”

“He was on his way to collect Jane from her piano lesson,” Lydia said. “Didn’t you take her?”

“Yes, but she went on an outing with Mr. Hall after the lesson.”

Lydia set the doll down and began looking through a stack of papers on the table—Jane’s penmanship practice, several drawings, the start of a report about fireflies. She straightened several books and returned them to the bookshelf, bending to retrieve a wrinkled piece of paper that fluttered to the floor.

She started to fold the paper and place it back between the covers of the book, then stopped. Black ink spread across part of the page like a cobweb. Her heart thudded as she smoothed out the paper.

The neat handwriting blurred before her eyes. A wave of dizziness, of disbelief, swamped her.

No. No no no no no no…

“Lydia, what is it?” Her grandmother’s voice rose with increasing alarm. Steeling her shoulders, Mrs. Boyd stalked into the room and grabbed the letter from Lydia’s hand.

Lydia sank to a chair as her grandmother read the letter. The message was already branded into her brain, splashed with terror.


Dear Jane,

Lydia Kellaway was once a student of mine at the University of Leipzig in Germany. I suggest you ask her should you seek further elucidation.

Sincerely,

Dr. Joseph Cole


The paper fell from Mrs. Boyd’s hand. The older woman lifted her head, all color drained from her face.

“What,” she said, the word tight as a knot, “is the meaning of this?”

Nausea swirled through Lydia’s belly again. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Did not know what to do next. “He… he’s back. He’s here. In London.”

For an instant, Lydia thought her grandmother might strike her, but Mrs. Boyd merely pinned her with a glare as dark as the ocean floor.

“How long have you known?”

“I just found out.”

“And what of this?” Mrs. Boyd jabbed her cane viciously at the letter, rending a hole in the paper.

“I don’t know.”

Pulling herself from a stupor of despair, Lydia stood. She began opening the desk drawers and cabinet, pushing aside boxes containing Jane’s treasures. She fumbled through the low bookshelf, riffling pages of books in search of something she didn’t want to find.

Her fingers closed around a crumpled stack of letters, each marked with the same distinctive scrawl. Lydia’s vision lost focus; her head throbbed with a pain shot through with a dozen years of sorrow and regret.

She held up the letters. “Who delivered these to Jane?”

“Delivered?” Mrs. Boyd shook her head. “No one has delivered anything to Jane.”

Lydia’s grip tightened on the papers, crushing the edges into her palms as she read the topmost letter.


Dear Jane,

St. Martin’s Hall is easily accessible. I will arrange to be present at the time you suggested.

I request that you bring the document with you so that I might see it, as you seem to believe it most categorically concerns me.

Sincerely,

Joseph Cole


Lydia lifted her head to look at her grandmother. “Where did she and Mr. Hall go?” she whispered.

“To see the preparations for the educational exhibition.” Mrs. Boyd’s frown deepened like a gash carved into a cliff. “Jane told me earlier that she wished to go, and Mr. Hall kindly agreed to take her. I’ve tea arranged with Mrs. Keene or I would have accompanied them, but—”

Lydia broke from her helplessness like a stone released from a slingshot. She shoved the papers into her pocket, pushing past her grandmother in the doorway.

“Lydia!” Mrs. Boyd’s shout carried down the corridor as Lydia flew downstairs and out the front door.

She ran toward Baker Street and the cabstand, her grandmother’s shrill call drowned out by the fear screaming inside her head.