With James finally gone, Ravenna went to bed. She slept all day and into the night, recovering from the effects of his cross-examination. When she finally awoke, the rest of the household was already sleeping, everyone having been alerted to the fact they’d be going to London quite early.
With no one to talk to and nothing to pack (as Sarah had packed everything for her), her thoughts drifted right back to James and his behavior at the funeral. Why had he dug his father’s grave?
She could think of only one way to find out.
With the yellow glow of a candle to guide her, she crept down the passageway toward the marquess’s chambers. James’s room now, she thought, and James’s desk, too, or had he left his father’s things intact? Either way, she hoped to find answers in the unlocked, uppermost drawer. She set down her candlestick, pulled up a chair. With a certain, delicious thrill, she began to read through the papers there, hoping to learn something of James’s secrets.
Household accounts, receipts for lodgings, bills for beer, coal, and sugar filled the drawer. When she finally found the stash of letters, she was elated; in discovering an unfinished letter from the marquess to someone named Quinn, she fairly stamped her feet with excitement, for it said:
“You know, my friend, in matters of the fairer sex Lord Broughton is sticking to his guns, as they say. Would that he marry an empty-headed heiress, he might not suffer these difficulties. Instead, he fancies our sharp little maid, Sarah, with even greater distraction than two years ago, which you know forces my hand…”
Ravenna didn’t bother with the rest of the letter. She read that part over and over, just to make sure she’d understood it correctly. James in love with Sarah! She would never have guessed it. He didn’t let on anything of the sort, although with the way Sarah spoke of James, always referring to him as her Lord Broughton, baking apple tart for him, stealing glances at his handsome posterior whenever James removed his coat—Sarah let on plenty. Hers was more than just a maid’s crush on her employer. Ravenna had often heard her mention the Duke of Chandos whose wife, Sarah pointed out, had once been a chambermaid at a country inn. Did Sarah secretly hope James would marry her?
The thought crossed Ravenna’s mind that perhaps James’s father didn’t know what he was talking about, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to get Sarah’s hopes up until Ravenna knew for certain. Maybe I’d better not tell her, she thought as she went back to her room, taking the letter with her. Maybe I’d better talk to James first, show him what his father wrote, wait for him to confess.
She lay down to a restless night thinking on these things, plotting James’s marriage, naming his children, and before she knew that she’d fallen asleep, Sarah was calling her. “Time for travel,” the maid muttered drowsily.
Soon Ravenna found herself dressed in black, propped up in a coach and heading toward the northeast and London. Gazing at Paul in the morning darkness, she didn’t care one bit whether he noticed or not. He and Sarah were busy enough conversing between themselves, and how strange it was that where they sat together, blissfully chatting about West End theater and the future development of the motion picture industry, neither Paul nor Sarah had the slightest idea how much somebody loved them.
But Ravenna knew. And during that slow and uncomfortable carriage ride to London, she thought of nothing else.