Read Chapter 29: The Search for the Truth

Evelyn’s lantern cast a trembling circle of light over the narrow bed as she dropped to her knees beside it. Lord Blackwood stood in the doorway of Miss Reeves’s room, his tall frame filling the frame, his face a mask of grim resolve. He had not spoken since they had left the breakfast hall together, but the weight of his silence was heavier than any accusation.

“She kept this room as a sanctuary,” Evelyn said, running her fingers along the floorboards. The wood was cold, worn smooth by years of footsteps. “If she hid something, it would be where no servant would think to look.”

Lord Blackwood stepped inside, his boots echoing on the bare planks. “My wife’s private chambers are searched tomorrow. If we find nothing here, we will have to force the issue.”

Evelyn said nothing. She had not told him about the cold store beneath the summer house. Not yet. Thorne’s confession burned in her chest, but she needed proof before she risked the fragile alliance forming between her and the master of Blackwood.

She traced the floorboards with her fingertips, searching for any irregularity. The room was sparse—a bed, a washstand, a small writing desk with a cracked inkwell. Miss Reeves had lived with almost nothing, yet she had loved Annabel with everything she possessed.

“Here,” Evelyn breathed.

The board near the bed’s foot gave slightly under her pressure. She worked her nails into the seam and pried it upward. It came loose with a groan of old wood, revealing a shallow cavity beneath.

Inside lay a leather-bound diary, its pages yellowed and warped with damp. Evelyn lifted it carefully, as if it might crumble in her hands.

Lord Blackwood crossed to her, his shadow falling over the book. “Read it.”

Evelyn opened to the first page. The handwriting was neat, disciplined—a governess’s hand, trained to be legible and unobtrusive. But the words themselves were anything but.

*17th March. Lady Beatrice has called for Dr. Whitmore again. She claims Annabel suffers from fits of hysteria, that she is a danger to herself and others. I have observed no such fits. I have observed only a lonely child desperate for her father’s attention.*

Evelyn’s throat tightened. She turned the page.

*2nd April. Dr. Whitmore is not a physician of medicine but of convenience. He signs whatever Lady Beatrice places before him. Today I overheard him speaking of an asylum in Northamptonshire—a private institution that accepts patients without question and without examination. The words “permanent residence” were used. I felt cold to the core.*

Lord Blackwood’s hand gripped the back of the chair until his knuckles went white. “She planned to commit my daughter. To an asylum.”

Evelyn continued reading, her voice low and steady. The diary chronicled weeks of quiet observation—Lady Beatrice’s meetings with Dr. Whitmore, the doses of laudanum meant to be slipped into Annabel’s evening milk, the careful cultivation of a narrative that painted a young girl as mad.

*23rd April. Annabel grows thin. She refuses to eat anything I have not prepared myself. She knows. She does not understand the shape of the danger, but she feels it pressing on her from all sides. I have begun to keep a duplicate key to the kitchens, though it is a small protection against a poison that comes at the whims of a lady.*

Evelyn paused, glancing up at Lord Blackwood. His face had drained of color, but his jaw was set like iron.

“Keep reading,” he said.

*1st May. I can no longer keep silent. I have written to Magistrate Hollings in London, detailing everything—the forged medical reports, the attempts on Annabel’s life, the planned commitment. I have sent the letter by private courier, a man who owed me a debt. If it reaches its destination, Lady Beatrice will be exposed. Annabel will be safe.*

Evelyn’s heart seized. The letter. It existed—a letter that would prove everything.

She turned the pages faster, seeking the final entries.

*5th May. I have heard nothing from London. The courier was seen leaving the estate, but whether he delivered my letter or discarded it in the woods, I cannot know. Lady Beatrice grows suspicious. Her attendant watches me too closely. I have hidden this diary beneath the floorboard. If I should disappear, let it speak for me.*

*9th May. They know.*

The entry ended there. The handwriting had grown hurried, the final letters smudged—whether with ink or tears, Evelyn could not tell.

She closed the diary, her hands trembling. “She sent a letter to a magistrate in London. It would have exposed everything. But she never received a reply.”

Lord Blackwood took the diary from her hands, his eyes scanning the final page. “If Beatrice intercepted that letter, she would have known Miss Reeves was about to expose her. She would have acted.”

“She did act,” Evelyn said softly. “Thorne told me she paid him to take Miss Reeves to the summer house that night. And there is a cold store beneath it, hidden from view.”

Lord Blackwood’s head snapped up. “A cold store? Beneath my summer house?”

“The old one, where they once kept ice and meat before the new kitchens were built. Thorne believes Miss Reeves may have been sealed inside.”

He stared at her for a long moment, the diary clutched in his hands. Then he moved toward the door.

“Wait.” Evelyn rose, catching his arm. “If Lady Beatrice intercepted the letter, she will have destroyed it. But there may be another copy—or a draft. She would not have kept it, but Miss Reeves might have.”

Lord Blackwood stopped. “You think she kept a copy?”

“She was meticulous.” Evelyn gestured to the diary. “Every date, every detail. She would have wanted a record. If she wrote the letter herself, she might have made a draft to be certain of her words. Where else would she keep it?”

They searched the room again with renewed purpose—the writing desk, the drawers, the seams of the mattress, the pockets of the few dresses hanging in the narrow wardrobe. Evelyn felt along the inner lining of a worn pelisse and froze.

There was a bump. Small, squared.

She reached into the lining and withdrew a folded sheet of paper, creased and worn from repeated reading.

Lord Blackwood watched as she unfolded it. The paper bore the same neat handwriting, but this copy was stained with what appeared to be a drop of dried blood.

*To Magistrate Hollings,* she read aloud, her voice catching. *I write to you in desperate circumstances. Lady Beatrice Blackwood, wife of Lord Edmund Blackwood, has conspired to have his daughter Annabel committed to an asylum under false pretenses. She has employed Dr. Whitmore of Northamptonshire to sign fraudulent reports. She has attempted to administer laudanum to the child without her father’s knowledge. I have witnessed all of this and can attest to its truth. I beg you to investigate and intervene before irrevocable harm is done.*

Evelyn reached the signature at the bottom—*Miss Clara Reeves, Governess to Annabel Blackwood*—and beneath it, a single line added in more hurried script:

*If you receive this letter, know that my life may be in danger. Should I disappear, speak to my sister in Kent. She holds a testament I entrusted to her.*

Evelyn lowered the paper, her mind racing. “There is another testament. Her sister. If we can reach her, we will have everything—evidence independent of this household.”

Lord Blackwood’s expression shifted, a flicker of hope cutting through the bleakness. “I will send for her. My solicitor knows the Reeves family. He can locate her sister within days.”

“And the letter?” Evelyn asked. “If your wife intercepted the original, she knows what Miss Reeves claimed. She may act rashly.”

“She is confined to the estate,” Lord Blackwood said. “And tonight, I will read this diary aloud to her. She will see that her house of lies has collapsed around her.”

Evelyn looked down at the diary and the draft letter in her hands. For the first time in weeks, the weight on her shoulders felt fractionally lighter.

“There is still Annabel,” she said. “She must know her governess did not abandon her.”

Lord Blackwood met her eyes. “I will tell her myself. Tonight.”

He paused, and his voice softened. “Evelyn—I have not done right by you or by my daughter. That changes now.”

She did not answer. She was already thinking of the cold store beneath the summer house—and what might still be waiting there for them to find.