“Hell, yes. I told her she was a deceitful tramp and would never fit in here. I could tell that’s what she was thinking.” His lips tightened into a grim line. “I said things that weren’t true. She would have fit in. She was like water on fire, a smooth perfect surface that made everything else fade by comparison. But I was angry. The way she treated me. Ignoring me. I told her I was going to tell them all. I was going to tell her nasty secret.”
Agnes knew there was an array of secrets to choose from: Felicity’s real name, her lack of education. Was the pregnancy a secret? “Tell me everything you remember about the room.”
“There were a lot of boxes. Couple of chairs—”
“No. What was she wearing? Were there other clothes around?”
“She was wearing some sort of evening dress. Stones, probably diamonds, on it. Sounds like what you found her in.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I was worked up. Angry. Her own clothes were draped on the back of a chair and I may have thrown them at her. That’s all I remember. Then she yelled at me to leave. I’d never seen her like that before. Even in London, when she told me everything, her anger was cold. This time was different.” He shrugged. “I didn’t care. I’d had my say. She slammed the door behind me and locked it. That was the last time I saw her. I headed downstairs.”
Agnes imagined those minutes when Felicity Cowell was interrupted while trying on the coronation gown. Likely she was thinking about Thomason and his proposal, wondering if she would fit in with his family. Already worried about her past. Then Graves threatens to tell the Vallottons. He throws her clothes to the ground where they land halfway concealed under the table. Felicity is panicked now. Angry, she tells him to leave. When alone she replays his threat in her mind and hurls the mirror to the floor, beyond caring what she breaks. When Marie-José turns the doorknob Felicity’s state of mind is precarious. She doesn’t know who it is: Graves returned? A member of the family? Even the marquise. It doesn’t matter. She can’t risk being seen in the dress and the family and servants have the door key. Before anyone can enter she runs from the room, down the small spiral stairs. Reaching the lower corridor, she vomits.
Agnes remembered her own pregnancies. How nausea would come on suddenly, then pass as quickly. Felicity was already distressed, perhaps questioning her entire future. Pregnant and unsure about marrying Thomason—feeling trapped—and her secret past about to be exposed. Her options were closing in. Agnes recalled where other members of the household were at that time. The housekeeper had joined Marie-Chantal in the corridor off the entrance hall to discuss Julien Vallotton’s arrival. The cook had sought them out to finalize the menu. Agnes visualized their paths. Dressed as she was, Felicity could not have risked a member of the household seeing her. She was trapped. Footsteps nearing from two directions. The only way she could avoid being caught was to descend the steps by the kitchen. When the voices drew nearer she would have worried they might descend the stairs and find her, and … she what? Agnes asked herself. Had she used the coat and boots to stay warm while waiting for everyone to leave, then panicked and gone outside? What went through her mind in those final moments?
André Petit arrived at a trot, startling Agnes from her reverie. “Thought I heard shouts,” he said, looking from Agnes to Graves, grasping the atmosphere but not the reason.
“Officer Petit,” Agnes said. “Please take Monsieur Graves to his room and ask him to repeat to you what he told me. The more detail the better. Then find the maid, Marie-José, and ask her to tell you what she told me this evening. She’ll know what I mean.”
Petit’s eyes bulged with excitement and he grabbed Graves’s arm, manhandling him down the stairs. Agnes didn’t object, returning her mind to Felicity on that last day. Embarrassed by what Graves knew, unsure if she could deceive Thomason. Trapped by others approaching. Had she, in that moment of despair, run outside? A need to hide, to be alone, to think. Agnes shook her head. A momentary lack of regard for her health in the cold of the storm? Even a desire to take the quick way out. To kill herself. With a sense of surety Agnes touched her own forehead as if to check a fever. She knew that feeling. Just the smallest fleeting sense of despair where the idea of an end to suffering seems like the only alternative. But Felicity took a coat and shoes, something in her mind still rational. She wasn’t George. She sat on the bench, she didn’t walk into the lake. Agnes wondered if Felicity would have stood up and walked back into the chateau if she hadn’t been killed.
“What were you thinking?” Julien Vallotton’s words brought her back to the present. He was speaking to Thomason while rummaging through a cabinet. He located a couple glasses and a bottle and poured. “Fist-fighting like schoolboys.”