Page 38 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

I nodded. “What did she tell you, the day I left?”

The two of them exchanged a look. They didn’t need to ask who I meant. I had heard a brief account of Helena’s story from my hired investigator, but I wanted to hear it from them.

Tookes cleared his throat. “That morning you didn’t appear for breakfast. It was most unlike you.” A smile tugged at his lips, then vanished swiftly. “By lunch time we were frantic. Her Ladyship said not to worry – that you were probably just out playing and had lost track of time.”

“Lost track of time, perhaps,” Mrs Chambers put in, “but lost track of two meals in a row? Never! And so I told her.”

“Eventually,” Tookes said, taking up the story, “it got to early evening and Her Ladyship sent some of the servants out to look for you.” He let out a deep breath. “It was Jones, the stable boy, who found Asteria down by the river.”

I stilled. Asteria was my Arabian mare, small, sleek and dark as a moonless sky. Father had named her after the Greek goddess, whose name meant “of the stars”. A foolish purchase for an eleven-year-old, perhaps, but she and I had moved like a single shadow.

“There was no sign of you,” Tookes continued, “but you know how strong the current can be down there…”

“They searched for you,” Mrs Chambers carried on, her voice breaking. “They couldn’t find you, but they did find your hat further downstream. And then, of course … you never came back.”

Their faces were bleak, pain etched across them.

So that had been Helena’s story – she who would have known that I had finally been driven to run away – she had left enough clues to hint at a tragic accident. No wonder no one had searched for me. I cleared my throat. “I never took Asteria out. I ran away the night before.”

There was a pause. “But that means…” Mrs Chambers raised a hand to her ashen face.

I nodded. “Helena engineered all of that. She wanted me to be thought dead.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as that was absorbed.

“Why would your stepmother do such a thing?” Mrs Chambers’ tone was bewildered.

Tookes had sat back into the shadows, and his face was hard to read.

I watched them both for a long moment, trying to decide how much to tell them. In the end I decided to risk telling the truth. I had no idea if they would believe me.

“Helena killed my father,” I said calmly. “I’m sure of it. And I believe that she was going to try to rid herself of me. One way or another.”

Mrs Chambers gasped again, her hands shaking so much that her teacup clattered in its saucer.

“How can you say such a thing?” she exclaimed. “Oh, Iris – you were such a young girl, your imagination…” She looked to Tookes. Without a word he shrugged.

“Are you telling me you believe this too?” Mrs Chambers said.

I only had eyes for Tookes. “Do you?” I asked urgently. “Do you believe me?”

Tookes cleared his throat. “I don’t believe she killed him, no,” he said gently. “Mrs Chambers is right, you were just a child and you didn’t get along with your stepmother. She didn’t kill anyone – that’s your imagination talking. But I don’t pretend she was sorry to see your father go. You know how they were, Caroline,” he said to Mrs Chambers. “The two of them at each other’s throats…”

“Who?” I asked, startled. “Father and Helena?”

I had hated my stepmother, but I did not remember any arguments between her and my father.

“Yes,” Mrs Chambers said reluctantly. “It had got very bad by the end, very bad.” She fussed with her skirts. “But then you know what he was like, your father – always worrying that something was going on that he didn’t know about. He was the same with your mother, you’ll remember.”

I stared at her. Fragments sifted through my mind, just for a moment – raised voices, accusing tones – but then they were gone.

“No, I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

“Oh.” Mrs Chambers bit her lip. “Well, just that your father could be a bit of a recluse. Liked to have you all at home, didn’t like a lot of entertaining. He liked the horses and some hunting and that was all. I suppose that meant his wife didn’t have so much opportunity for socializing, and nor did you. I always worried that you were lonely.”

“Lonely?” I repeated blankly. “No, I wasn’t lonely. I had my parents.” The words came easily, but for a moment I wondered if they were really true. Had I been lonely? I put this aside to think about later and returned to the matter at hand. “So Helena was unhappy before my father died?”

Mrs Chambers looked flustered. “I suppose so. They argued, I remember that. But that doesn’t mean that she would … that she would…”