A Curse of the Heart

Gabriel threw his hands in the air. “Then where is it?”

“This is personal,” she muttered to herself, staring at the floor. “Where does one keep their most personal items?” Her head shot up, her eyes suddenly brightening. “Show me the master chamber.”

George sighed. “Aside from lifting up the floor, I’ve already conducted a thorough search.”

Sarah patted him on the arm, and George sucked in a breath. “I know,” she said, “but it would not hurt to check it again.”

George bowed his head and conceded. They all congregated in the doorway of Pennington’s chamber, scanning the large four-poster, the toilet stand, and the wardrobe, searching for obvious clues.

“This is ridiculous,” Gabriel said, his hands clenched by his side. “God only knows what Rebecca’s going through while we’re standing here staring at saggy old bed drapes.”

Sarah’s gaze shot to the dark-green hangings. “They’re not old, Gabriel. They look quite new.”

“I’m not interested in the quality of his furnishings. All I want is to —”

“Wait!” she cried examining the heads of the three gentlemen. “Gabriel, you’re the tallest. Stand on that chair and see why the roof of the canopy sags in the middle.”

With a disgruntled huff, Gabriel did as she asked. He reached up and stretched his arm across the top. “It’s as dusty as hell up here,” he said, turning his head to stifle a sneeze. “Wait, there is something here, I think I … I’ve got it.”

/> Gabriel stepped down from the chair, a beaten leather satchel in his hand. He threw it on the bed. “Pennington’s had this down recently as there’s not a speck of dust on it.” He opened the flap and pulled out a pile of papers, a brooch, porcelain trinket box and a book.

Sarah ran her fingers over the brooch and lingered on the red stones. “A family heirloom, perhaps?”

Gabriel shrugged and picked up the papers, flicking through a few random sketches of what appeared to be the secret musings of an artist, while the group huddled round.

“Stop,” George said, peering over his shoulder. “Let me look at that one.” Gabriel handed him the sketch and George studied the image. “This looks like my father, as a much younger man, but the likeness is definitely there.”

“The one you’re holding, my lord, is older and worn around the edges,” Sarah said pointing to the next sketch. “This one is much newer and drawn by a different hand, see.”

Gabriel pulled it out and held it to the light. “It looks similar to the painting of Rebecca’s mother. The Egyptian costume is almost identical.”

“I have never seen the painting,” George said looking up. “But it looks like Rebecca to me.”

“There’s writing on the next one,” Freddie said glancing at the paper on top of the pile in Gabriel’s hand.

Gabriel placed the sketch of Rebecca on the bed and focused his attention on Freddie’s comment. “It’s just a list of names. Doesn’t mean anything to me, what about you?” he said handing it to George.

George shook his head. “Out of the list of eight, two are peers, the rest I’ve never heard of. The name at the bottom has been crossed out and marked dead.”

Sarah cocked her head. “There’s something written on the back.”

George flipped it over, his eyes growing wide. “It’s my father’s name and Rebeca’s mother: Dorothea Carmichael. They are both crossed out and marked as deceased. Why write deceased on this list and dead on the other?”

Sarah pointed to the names below. “Your names are listed too, but it says Rebecca Wellford, not Linwood.”

Freddie chirped up. “That’s because he assumed she was a Wellford. He told me so at the Chelton’s ball. He suggested she might be ashamed to use her real name, being born out of wedlock. But I told him she just preferred anonymity.”

They looked through the other sketches, all depicting various scenes of an ancient castle, the heavy use of charcoal suggesting a dark, oppressive place.

The only sheet left was a playbill for Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra staged at a playhouse in Covent Garden. Again, it was old, and Dorothea Carmichael was listed as playing the lead role.

“This is twenty-five years old,” Gabriel said handing it to Freddie. “Do you have any idea why he’s kept it?”

Freddie shook his head. “No, but he did go to Covent Garden after we left Rebecca’s. We’d been drinking, and we tried to hail a hackney. But with the torrential rain, we ended up having to walk. Pennington said he’d got lucky, I assumed he meant with a woman, and he headed off for his secret rendezvous. I recall thinking it wouldn’t matter if his clothes were wet as he would soon be —”

He stopped abruptly, his cheeks flushing as he glanced at Sarah.

George frowned. “There was a fire at that playhouse two days ago. It destroyed the orchestra pit. The manager put a notice in The Times asking for information as it started during the night. He was baffled because it didn’t take out the whole building and said something about there being a series of small fires that had been put out. It’s closed for a week.”