Clandestine by Julia Ross

more relieved than upset.”
    â€œRelieved? About what?”
    â€œPresumably because she knew I’d be rewarding her in gold for her time. As soon as Jack and Anne were safely away, I delivered your cousin back to shore, where she caught the next coach to London.”
    â€œExactly!” Her eyes shone. “Where that agency had found her new employment with Mr. Penland in Hampstead.”
    â€œI doubt it,” he said. “No ladies’ employment agency in town knows of a widower with six children with any such name.”
    Sarah sank back onto a chair. “But Rachel received all of my letters at his address—and replied to them—throughout almost the whole of last year. The nursery was upstairs, near the roof. In February it was hard to heat, and the children—two boys and four girls—shivered as hoarfrost flowered on the windows. I remember that particularly, because Rachel wrote later that Jack Frost only mimicked the ice in her heart, for that’s when she began to be afraid of her persecutor. She cannot have made up all of that!”
    At the moment he’d rather be anywhere than in this room with Sarah Callaway. Rachel had certainly seen ice on the windows in Hampstead in February, but not in Mr. Penland’s nursery.
    â€œWhy not?” he asked. “We’ve already established that your cousin dissembles.”
    â€œNo!” she said. “Whatever Rachel was doing in the five months before she met you, she couldn’t have invented those six children, nor the man she met after Christmas. Her emotions about that were far too real.”
    â€œWhich emotions?”
    â€œWhen she almost fell in love,” she said. “When her admiration turned to loathing. When he began to terrify her.”
    His gut contracted as if he’d been punched. The metaphorical rooms in that elaborate mansion of truth echoed and boomed as he slammed closed every last door, but one.
    â€œNevertheless,” he said, “your cousin was not abducted.”
    Her fists clenched as if she would strike him. “I still don’t see how you can be sure of that!”
    Exasperation burned in his blood and set him pacing the room. Almost as if convincing her of this would solve everything, when he knew it was only the first turn of a terrible labyrinth.
    â€œIf I weren’t absolutely certain of everything I’m telling you, Mrs. Callaway, I’d never burden you with such uncomfortable facts. Your cousin lied to you last year about continuing to work for Grail. I strongly suspect that this Penland and his six children don’t exist. But either way, Rachel Mansard just left London voluntarily.”
    â€œNo.” Her skin had become chalky, insubstantial, as if she were fading into a phantom with bright, burning eyes. “I don’t believe it. After writing as she did, she’d never have abandoned me like this without a word. No! Something terrible is going on, and I cannot fathom what it is.”
    Guy strode back to the table where he refilled his glass, with brandy this time. His throat felt as if that February hoarfrost still lingered there.
    â€œThere are advantages to being Blackdown’s nephew. It wasn’t hard to get information out of her landlord, her maid, the neighbors who’d noticed such a lovely young lady living in their midst. Your cousin settled her accounts, packed her valuables, and walked to an inn, where she took the night coach to Salisbury. No one accompanied her, nor forced her.”
    A little shudder passed over her shoulders, as if an undertow of pain dragged through her blood.
    â€œThen I must thank you for your help, Mr. Devoran. Since I’m not related to a duke, no one would give me that information.” Her voice was tight, almost prim. “Thus I’m sorry if I wasted your time with my foolish concerns. Yet you’ve equally wasted mine by not telling me the truth straightaway. I can hardly