“A boy?” Edwin repeated, frowning. He had to admit that he wasn’t expecting a boy but rather a man. George quickly nodded in confirmation. “Well, it is obvious that someone hired this urchin to fetch the letter. Dammit!”
Edwin felt his fingers curl into fists. He tried to keep himself calm and composed, but that was easier said than done.
“What happened then?” he demanded of his footman.
“Well, I followed the boy,” George assured him. “I ran after him for a long time, but I reckon he must ‘ave seen me runnin’ after ‘im, so he took me round ‘n around in circles until I… until I lost ‘im.”
“You lost him!?” Edwin growled, closing his eyes, turning around from the man and raking his fingers through his hair nervously.
“The urchin was too quick, Your Grace,” George said apologetically, still wringing that hat of his in his hands.
“Or you were too slow!” Edwin snarled angrily.
George’s head bowed down so low that his chin was almost touching his chest. He didn’t say anything else. There was nothing else to say. He had failed his master.
Still, Edwin knew that he could not blame the poor man. It was obvious that this was a very cleverly arranged plan by whoever was behind it. The urchin in question must have done this many times before to be able to lose someone as easily as that. It truly wasn’t George’s fault. Edwin knew that, but it did not make this taste of defeat any less bitter.
He sighed heavily, waving his hand at the man. “You are dismissed, George.”
“I apologize, Your Grace,” George said one last time before bowing in front of the Duke and leaving through the door, closing it behind him.
Edwin sat down in his chair, feeling crushed. He was so close, so very close. He almost had him. Now, he felt he was even further away from Rachel than before.
* * *
“This is all your fault!” Anna screamed at Lydia, throwing the letter she was holding in her hands at her sister.
“Please, Anna, calm down,” Lydia tried to appease her sister, but such a feat was impossible.
“You told me to trust you!” Anna kept on shouting which she did mostly because she knew that Selina and their father were both away from the house on their separate errands. Anna and Lydia were the only ones at home, apart from the servants, so Anna felt free to express her dissatisfaction in the most vocal manner possible.
“And youcantrust me, you know you can,” Lydia was speaking as calmly as she could, but that was becoming increasingly difficult when she didn’t know what it was she was defending herself against. She still didn’t know the accusation.
“Read it!” Anna snarled at her sister angrily with tears swelling in her eyes.
Lydia picked up the letter from the floor then proceeded to read it. It was from Anna’s secret admirer. He was telling her how disappointed he was that she told others of their secret, and that now, he needed to see whether he could ever forgive her for this betrayal. This would be his last letter for the time being until he figured things out.
“Anna, I –” Lydia started, but her sister interrupted her.
“You told me to trust you, that you would take the letter yourself when I should have done it all along.” Anna kept shaking her head at herself.
“Anna, you have to listen to me now,” Lydia could tell that things had crossed the line into a very dangerous zone, and she needed to tell Anna everything. Well… at least what she needed to know regarding this man. “This man…” Lydia shook the letter in front of her sister, “this man is dangerous. He is not the man you think he is.”
Anna instantly pulled away, frowning in displeasure, distraught and incredulous that her sister could tell her such a thing.
“Lies!” Anna shouted. “All lies!”
“Please, listen to me,” Lydia repeated as calmly as she could. “I will tell you something very important, something I probably should have told you earlier, but I wanted to keep you safe.”
Lydia waited to see if there would be any exclamation of protest on the part of her sister, but Anna was silent this time. So, Lydia proceeded to tell her everything about Rachel and Geraldine, and the fact that there were probably even more ladies involved that they did not even know about. Anna listened with her face changing and distorting in shock at what she was hearing. Once Lydia was done, Anna’s face was still shaking in refusal to accept the truth.
“You are wrong,” Anna said simply, her lower lip quivering, almost as if she barely had any strength left in her to argue what she so ardently felt was true. “I don’t believe a word you’ve said. I don’t believe that he is the man that communicated with those ladies that disappeared. That can’t be true.”
Lydia listened to the words that were coming from her sister. The sheer desire to live in the dark was almost palpable. Anna had never met anyone even half as romantic as this man was claiming to be, and it was only natural that her first instinct was to defend him. Lydia was well aware of this fact. The last thing she wanted was to hurt her sister, but if she needed to do that so that Anna would avoid falling into the clutches of this villain, then Lydia was willing to do it.
“We checked, Anna,” Lydia tried to reason with her. “The handwriting it the same.”
“It might be… similar,” Anna admitted. “But even you and I could be said to write in a similar fashion, could we not?”