After Gertrude had left that morning, Ophelia had felt the guilt grow within her. She had to speak to Gertrude again that day. She had to find out what had upset her stepmother so much.
“Yes?” the butler said, opening the door.
“I am here to see Mrs Townsend. I am her stepdaughter.”
“Of course. This way, Your Grace.” The butler bowed and stepped back, allowing her inside.
Slowly, Ophelia followed the butler through the house, past the few candles that were lit in the space. Ophelia wondered if her stepmother was taking pains to economise with such little lighting. As they approached the sitting room, where the door was ajar, raised voices came from inside. At first, Ophelia walked slower, nervous of walking in when Gertrude was arguing with someone. When she recognised the tone of the other voice, her steps became stilted.
That is Lord Chester’s voice!
Ophelia took the butler’s arm and pleaded with him not to walk forward anymore or disturb those inside.
“Aunt Gertrude, can you hear yourself?” Lord Chester was asking wildly. “This has been our plan for so long now. It has worked well. Why on earth should we back out now?”
“Because it will not work. Do not be a fool,” Gertrude said, her voice quieter than her nephew’s. “Ophelia carries the duke’s child. Do you think he would ever accept an annulment now? No! Never. He would not give up his child.”
Ophelia’s hands began to shake as she stepped toward the door, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing.
They talk of a plan…theirplan…
“Listen to me, Aunt,” Lord Chester was pleading with Gertrude. Judging by the way footsteps thudded across the room, Gertrude was marching around the space, and her nephew was following her. “We have driven them apart so well. Another push and they can be drawn asunder for good.”
“She is with child!” Gertrude barked the words at Lord Chester. “Can you not hear me? The duke would not abandon his child; he has too much honour in him for that. An annulment would never be granted.”
“He does not need to know of the child,” Lord Chester said with excitement. “You can talk to Ophelia. She has begun to trust you at this time. Urge her to go away somewhere. Say it is for the good of her heart as well as the health of the child. If she has the child far away, we can keep its existence a secret. The duke need never know.”
Ophelia stumbled back from the door, shaking so much that the butler offered a hand to her, to keep her standing. The butler made another reach for the door, ready to go in and announce her, but she shook her head, pleading with him not to do it. He accepted, nodding and stepping back with her.
“You must go to her tomorrow. Yes, that is what we will do,” Lord Chester pleaded with Gertrude. “Say you will do it. How else are you to get her money, after all? We must end their marriage for good!”
Ophelia was tempted to fling open the door and rant at them both for what they had done, but little good could come from it. They could attempt to keep her there in that house, and it was not something she was willing to let happen.
Instead, she retreated across the hall, hurrying back to the front door as quietly and as quickly as she could, with the butler on her tail.
“I have changed my mind,” she muttered to him. “I no longer wish to see them. Do not tell them I have come, either.”
“Very well, Your Grace.”
With these final words, Ophelia flung herself from the house and hurried down the street, heading for the carriage. Hastening inside, she bumped shoulders with Margery, who nearly dropped a second bag of chocolates she had purchased that day.
“Oomph! What is all this rushing for?”
“Oh, Margery! I do not understand what I have just heard!” Ophelia ordered the carriage to head back to Margery’s house and told her friend everything that she had heard, speaking in such a rush that she felt she had confused both of them in the telling of it. “What does it mean, Margery? When Lord Chester and Gertrude spoke of their plan, what did it mean?”
“It’s plain, is it not?” Margery whispered. “He talked of driving you apart, and he has accomplished that. You are far away from your husband, Ophelia.”
“But that was not Lord Chester’s doing.” Ophelia shook her head, baffled by it. “I left because of Celeste.”
“Who is to say Lord Chester and Gertrude had no hand in the matter?”
Margery’s words made Ophelia’s hands shake around the empty bag of chocolates in her grasp.
“Oh, good Lord,” she murmured, feeling as if everything she thought she knew of the world had crumpled around her. “I must know the truth, Margery. I must seek it out, somehow.”
“But how?”
“Tomorrow, I intend to return to London. I will see Celeste, and then… I will see Elliot.”