“And Lady Vernon is waiting for you. She has a special surprise, too. After all, tomorrow is the beginning of a new chapter in all our lives.
Faith had no choice but to rise when Mrs Gedge did. She was aware of the flickering interest of the other diners, for there was undeniably something arresting about the wealthy American woman that went beyond her sumptuous dress. Her greying hair gleamed beneath the bright lights of the restaurant, like the diamonds of her choker. Her ageing skin was lustrous, and her teeth were small and sharp and very white for a woman in her fifth decade.
“Mr Westaway is basking in the glory of his sudden notoriety. He is being recognised for what he’s always wanted—his talent. If only his father would appreciate him for it, too, the young man could be no happier. But you are his compensation for the lack of family support. In you, he has found something to love that loves him back. He thinks you are his rock; his salvation.” Mrs Gedge chuckled as they wandered towards the double doors. “My Constancia could have been all that and more to him, if only he had let her. If only he’d been prepared to accept her as one of his set. But men like Mr Westaway are leery of outsiders, Faith. Outsiders like my Constancia. Outsiders like you, although he doesn’t know it yet.”
Faith glanced from a table of diners staring at them to Mrs Gedge’s granite-like eyes. The pieces were starting to fall into place. “You sponsored the prize so he had a greater height from which to fall?”
Mrs Gedge looked satisfied. “I did indeed, Faith. But surely you guessed that long ago. Just as you guessed at my motive.”
“To punish Mr Westaway for not falling in love with Miss Constancia? Your daughter…” She remembered the headstrong, beautiful, often rude and thoughtless young woman she’d been employed to serve three years ago.
“I did, Faith. Mr Westaway and Constancia were the perfect couple. But he spurned her, you know. Belittled her because she was not of his set. Oh, on first appearances he’s every young woman’s dream: handsome and charming, in line for a title and a fortune, earnest and ardent, intelligent and artistic. But at heart, he’s like all the young men of his kind—completely unwilling to accept an outsider like my Constancia, even with a grand fortune.”
She hooked Faith’s hand in her arm and patted it in a motherly fashion as they wove their way through the restaurant. The doors opened, and the evening breeze blew in to greet them. A conveyance would soon arrive for Mrs Gedge. She would have made arrangements for Faith too, and no doubt that meant being conveyed back to Lady Vernon’s.
But Mrs Gedge’s unkind assessment hung heavily in the air. This was not how Mr Westaway was. Faith knew that, yet how much did Mrs Gedge really know him?
“So, Faith, tomorrow you will attend the ceremony to publicly honour Mr Westaway. You will be the shining star at his right hand, and you will be fêted and lauded. But that is not the path to freedom, Faith. You’re clever enough to know that. Only you have the power to chart your own course. And, Mr Westaway’s affections will be transient. You know that, also. He will not forgive your past and your lie. No love is that strong.” She looked fondly at Faith as her carriage drew up. “So that is why I am confident you’re going to visit me for that very large cheque I am looking forward to giving you.”
Mrs Gedge raised her chin and adjusted the fur stole about her neck, no doubt as much to block out the cold as to hide the crepey neck which gave away her age. She squeezed the tips of Faith’s fingers lightly.
“Enjoy your last evening together with this young man. Make him wring every last drop of joy from it, too. I shall think of you both…and the happiness that my Constancia might have enjoyed had she not died.”
A vision of the crimson-red rose petals drifted across Faith’s mind. It was Mrs Gedge’s way of calling forth the last image Mr Westaway would have had of her. She realised that now. In a bath filled with the blood that pumped from the wrists Miss Constancia had sliced.
On the top step outside the hotel as the wind ruffled her hair, Faith finally understood why Mrs Gedge wished for vengeance against Mr Westaway and why she’d chosen Faith.
It had been Faith who’d shown Miss Constancia Gedge the secret entrance to the guest room that Mr Westaway would be occupying that weekend. Faith’s reward would be Miss Constancia’s gold and garnet bracelet. Miss Constancia had promised.
Faith knew nothing of any of the guests spending the weekend with the Gedge’s, though she’d suspected Miss Constancia had lost her heart to someone on the invitation list. Why else would she ask Faith to help her to slip into a gentleman’s bedchamber wearing nothing but a diaphanous, cream silk peignoir?
Faith was unaware of the extent to which her mistress was unhinged by her romantic entanglement—her unrequited feelings.
But when Miss Constancia had been rejected, she’d killed herself in Mr Westaway’s own bathtub.
Mrs Gedge was already heading towards the carriage, the doors of which had been opened by the footman standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come along now, Faith,” Mrs Gedge exhorted her, and Faith moved forward reluctantly and took her seat inside the carriage beside her, as was clearly required.
Patting Faith’s hand as they rounded the street corner, and the horses set off at a more even trot, the older woman said upon a sigh, “You must have guessed by now the association between my daughter, Constancia, and Mr Westaway. That I have sought to use you to avenge his poor treatment of her that led to her death.”
Faith said nothing as she stared into the darkness, turning her head slightly to observe Mrs Gedge’s sharp-featured profile as she listened to the crackling of a piece of parchment the American drew out of her reticule and held up as they passed the glow of a street lamp.
“I do not need to see to read the last words he penned to her.” Her tone had grown tighter, and there was a bitterness in the delivery that had been absent in her former breezy manner towards Faith.
“I know your daughter’s death was a great blow, Mrs Gedge.” Faith chose her words with difficulty. “But she died by her own hand.” It was not the moment to declare that Mr Westaway was blameless. Mrs Gedge’s trust in Faith depended upon her belief that Faith would follow through with the long-held agreement between them.
“My daughter believed she could do nothing else when her honour had been compromised to such a degree, that public shame and humiliation was inevitable after Mr Westaway reneged on the pledge made between them.”
Mrs Gedge held out the letter for Faith to take while she began to relay its contents.
“First, he told Constancia that she was charming, every man’s dream, but that he had intended marrying his childhood sweetheart upon her twenty-first birthday, which was four years hence. That is, a few months from now, Faith.”
Faith tensed at the sympathetic hand Mrs Gedge placed briefly on her thigh before she went on. “When Constancia and Mr Westaway first met, it was like a flame was ignited in both of their hearts. I never wanted Constancia to marry an Englishman. At least, not one who had relatively few expectations and no title, when I knew that with Constancia’s fortune, she could have married a Rockefeller back in America or an earl at the very least.”
She sent Faith a scornful look. “But Constancia was not one to listen to reason. No, not my beautiful, wilful girl. The two lovers ha
d become far too inflamed by their feelings for one another and their intention to run away together before…I don’t know what happened.” Mrs Gedge’s face was a mask of derision now. “Perhaps his ardour actually did cool overnight. Perhaps he was contacted by his childhood sweetheart and persuaded to adhere to a previous, more compelling promise which prompted this letter.” Snatching it back from Faith, she tapped it with a gloved finger. “But his words scored grooves of the deepest despair in my Constancia, and she, who obviously knew how to gain secret entrance to his chamber, and you will attest to that, Faith, I know! went there to persuade him otherwise. When he remained unmoved, she did what a young woman will do who is compromised, embarrassed…ruined.” The word was a whisper, a half hiss, a half choke, while Mrs Gedge’s face was a mask of malice. “She slit her wrists in his bathtub. Yes, Mr Westaway returned to find his former lover dead…by his hand.”