Read Chapter 28: The Confession of a Debtor

The servants’ hall was empty when Evelyn slipped through the kitchen door, the scent of porridge and coal smoke hanging stale in the air. Breakfast would not be laid for another hour, but she had hoped to find Mary there, to gauge the housekeeper’s mood before the morning’s plan took shape. Instead, she found Mr. Thorne.

The coachman sat alone at the long oak table, his weathered hands wrapped around a cup of tea that had long gone cold. His coat was rumpled, his cravat undone, and there was something in the set of his shoulders—a heaviness—that made Evelyn pause on the threshold.

“Mr. Thorne,” she said softly. “You are about early.”

He started, sloshing tea across his knuckles. “Miss Hartley.” He did not rise. Did not meet her eyes. “I could say the same of you.”

Evelyn crossed the room and took the chair opposite him. She had learned, in her years of service, that silence was often more effective than questions. She folded her hands on the table and waited.

Thorne’s jaw worked. He stared into his cup as though it held the answers to questions he had not yet dared to ask. “You’ve been looking into Miss Reeves,” he said finally. “Everyone knows it.”

“I have.”

“And you found something.” It was not a question.

Evelyn considered her words. The coachman had been at Blackwood for nearly twenty years—longer than Lord Blackwood’s marriage, longer than Lady Beatrice’s reign. He had driven the family to church every Sunday, had carried trunks and coffins and brides. He was a fixture, a piece of the furniture, invisible and omnipresent.

“I found that Miss Reeves did not leave this estate of her own accord,” Evelyn said. “And that someone is very determined she never be found.”

Thorne’s breath came out shaky. He set down the cup and pressed his palms flat against the table, as though steadying himself against a great wind. “I drove her,” he said.

Evelyn’s heart quickened. “Drove her where?”

“To the station. That was the plan.” He laughed—a hollow, bitter sound. “She came to me that night, Miss Reeves did. Said she needed to leave before dawn, that she had a letter to post and a train to catch. She looked frightened, Miss Hartley. More frightened than I’d ever seen a woman look. But she trusted me. Said I was the only one she could trust.” His voice cracked. “And I failed her.”

“What happened?”

Thorne’s hands curled into fists. “I had the carriage ready by four. Dark as pitch, that morning—no moon, no stars. She came out the side door just as she said she would, a bag in one hand and that letter clutched to her chest like a child. I helped her into the carriage. I was already climbing up to the box when—” He stopped.

“When?”

“Her ladyship stepped out of the shadows.” The words came out flat, emptied of all feeling. “She must have been waiting in the garden. She came to the carriage window, tapped on the glass. Told Miss Reeves she had one chance to come inside and talk like a reasonable woman. That if she ran, she would regret it.”

“And Miss Reeves?”

“She was brave. God help her, she was brave. Told her ladyship she would not be silenced, that the letter would be posted by morning whether she was on that train or not.” Thorne shook his head slowly. “That was when her ladyship turned to me.”

Evelyn felt the cold seep into her bones. “She threatened you.”

“She didn’t have to threaten. She simply opened her reticule and took out a purse. Heavy, it was. I could hear the coins shifting even in the dark.” He swallowed hard. “She told me the estate was hiring a new head groom, and that my position was not as secure as I believed. Said she had heard I had debts in the village—gambling debts—that my son’s apprenticeship was in arrears. And then she held out the purse and told me the carriage would not be going to the station.”

“And you took it.”

Thorne’s laugh was broken. “I took it, Miss Hartley. I took it and I drove back to the stables and I did not look behind me. I heard the struggle—the scuffle and the muffled cries—and I did nothing. I told myself it was not my affair. I told myself her ladyship would only frighten her, that she’d let her go once she had the letter. I told myself a hundred lies, and I’ve been telling them ever since.” He finally looked at her, his eyes red-rimmed and raw. “I’ve not slept through the night in fourteen months.”

Evelyn studied him. The guilt was real—she could see it in the tremor of his hands, the way his voice broke on the memory. But guilt alone did not undo harm.

“What did they do with her?” Evelyn asked.

“I don’t know. I swear to you, I don’t. I drove away. By the time I came back, there was no sign of her. No sign of anything.” He lowered his head. “I heard later that her ladyship’s attendant was seen carrying something heavy toward the summer house. But by the time I went to look, it had been scrubbed clean. And Miss Reeves—she was just gone. Like she had never been there at all.”

The summer house. Evelyn’s mind raced. They had searched it that morning and found only the scrap of fabric, the locket, evidence of a struggle. But the building was small—a folly, really, a single room with lattice windows and a rusted stove. There had been nowhere to hide a body.

Unless there had been somewhere they had not thought to look.

“Mr. Thorne,” Evelyn said, leaning forward, “you have lived at Blackwood longer than anyone. Is there a cellar beneath the summer house? A trapdoor?”

Thorne’s brow furrowed. “Not that I know of. But then—” He hesitated. “The old plans. The ones from the grandfather’s time. They were kept in the steward’s office, but the steward retired years ago and the papers were boxed up in the attic. I remember seeing something about a cold store under the folly—they used to keep meat there in the summer, before the icehouse was built. But that was boarded over when I was a boy. I’d forgotten about it entirely.”

A cold store. Hidden beneath the summer house, boarded over and forgotten. Evelyn’s pulse hammered in her throat. Miss Reeves might have been there all along—not in the rooms above, but beneath them, sealed away in the dark.

“Thank you,” Evelyn said, rising. “You have given me more than you know.”

“Miss Hartley.” Thorne caught her wrist, his grip desperate. “I know I cannot undo what I did. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, or hers. But if there is anything I can do—anything at all—to help you find her, to set this right, I will do it. Whatever it costs me.”

Evelyn looked down at his hand, at the calluses and the tremor, at the man who had chosen coin over courage and had been paying for it ever since. She did not have the comfort to give him. But she had a use for him.

“Her ladyship will know by now that we found the summer house,” Evelyn said. “She will be watching every door. But she will not be watching the stables. If we find Miss Reeves—if we find proof of what she did—I may need you to ride for the magistrate before her ladyship can interfere. Can you do that?”

Thorne released her wrist and straightened his shoulders. For the first time since she had entered the room, something like resolve flickered in his eyes. “I can, Miss Hartley. I will.”

Evelyn nodded and turned toward the door. Her mind was already elsewhere—on the attic, on the old plans, on the cold store beneath the summer house that no one had thought to open. But as she reached the threshold, a thought stopped her cold.

If the cold store was boarded over from above, it would have an entrance from inside the folly. And they had searched every inch of that room—the walls, the floor, the stove. There had been no trapdoor, no seam, no sign of anything beneath their feet.

Unless it had been hidden. Covered. Redone under the direction of someone who knew exactly what lay below.

Mary. The housekeeper had known about the summer house. Had told Beatrice of their arrival there. And Mary’s pension was paid by the mistress.

Evelyn stepped into the corridor, her shadow long and dark before her. The clock in the hall chimed the half hour. Annabel would be waiting for her at breakfast, ready to create the distraction that would let Evelyn slip into Beatrice’s sitting room.

But the plan had changed. The will could wait.

Somewhere beneath the summer house, in the cold and the dark, Miss Reeves was waiting too.