Hope - Lesley Pearse [93]
‘I can’t go back to the gatehouse with Albert ever again. So either you let me live here at Briargate, or I must go today and stay with Matt and his family. But either way you have to get Sir William to call in the police about Hope.’
‘I can’t do that.’ Lady Harvey shook her head irritably. ‘I know my husband and he won’t believe anything bad of Albert. Nor will he approve of you leaving your husband.’
‘Hope is your child,’ Nell said fiercely. ‘Her body may be buried in the woods or even the grounds here, and you expect me to keep quiet and continue to live with the man who killed her?’
Naked fear came into Lady Harvey’s eyes. ‘A police investigation will cause such trouble for us, Nell. Remember my son, for pity’s sake!’
Nell was bewildered by that plea. ‘Are you afraid I will betray your confidences? How can you think such a thing?’
Lady Harvey did not reply, and Nell took that as confirmation of her fears. ‘I have kept the secret about Hope’s birth for sixteen years,’ she said quietly. ‘Nothing would make me reveal it now, or anything else you have told me today, for it has no bearing on what I fear has been done to Hope.
‘I have to know what happened to her, and if Albert has killed her I want to see him hanged for it. My brothers will feel the same, and if you and Sir William won’t help me with that, then I must leave here now and go to my family.’
‘You can’t leave me!’ Lady Harvey exclaimed. ‘It’s Christmas, and I need you.’
An hour later, Nell heaved the pillowcase holding her belongings over the stile and made her way across the paddock to Lord’s Wood. Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked, for leaving Briargate was like cutting off one of her limbs, but she knew she had to.
As she reached the wood she turned to take one last look at the house and she was reminded sharply of the evening all those years ago when she took this same path with Hope in her arms.
It had been dark then, Briargate just a shape illuminated by the moon. Today it looked sullen and bleak in the cold, grey morning light, very like the expression on Lady Harvey’s face when she finally realized Nell meant what she said.
She had tried to talk Nell out of it. But the more she said, the more obvious it became how shallow and selfish she was. She cried and said that Angus had never known their union had resulted in a baby because he was called away before she even knew she was pregnant. She was terrified that any kind of investigation at Briargate would result in her meetings and correspondence with him being discovered. She also said that her father had left Rufus a sizable share of his estate in trust, bypassing her because he was afraid Sir William would just squander it. William was already very angry with her about this because he was convinced she’d engineered it, and any further trouble would push him over the edge into madness. She even accused Nell of treachery.
Baines had taken Nell into his arms when she told him she was leaving, and when he let her go his eyes were damp. She’d asked him to say goodbye to Martha and Rose for her, because she couldn’t bear to do so herself.
Now she had to face her brothers and tell them that she suspected her own husband of murder, and in truth she didn’t know if she could bear that either. She had always been the placid, sensible one in the family to whom everyone turned for advice and comfort. But that wasn’t true; if she’d been sensible she’d have made sure Hope had no contact at all with Albert after he attacked her that time before. She should never have asked her to go down to the gatehouse to tidy up; it was like leaving a pet rabbit with a fox.
Chapter Ten
1848
‘Just wait until he goes into the room out the back where the oven is, then run in and grab it,’ Betsy suggested. ‘There’s nothing to it, you’ll be long gone by the time he gets back and finds one’s missing.’
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Hope whimpered as