Darkwood by Rosemary Smith Page A

misconstrued his motive for marrying me. Another sob escaped my lips at the thought of it.
    ‘Silvia, calm yourself.’ As he spoke he laid his hands gently on my shoulders and planted a kiss on my cheek.
    ‘Pru will need my hairbrush,’ I said suddenly thinking logically. ‘Maybe I should go back to my room.’
    ‘No,’ Gareth said emphatically. ‘I wish you to stay here where I can keep an eye on you. I shan’t be gone long, I promise.’ As he left I felt bereft without his calming presence and wished with all my heart I could return to yesterday.
    Pru arrived with a hairbrush not long after Gareth left, she’d also brought with her a powder puff. I sat at the dressing table on a soft brocade chair and looked at my reflection in the mirror while Pru brushed and re-arranged my hair.
    ‘It’s not for me to ask what troubles you, Miss Silvia, but what I do know is that the young gentlemen who is to be your husband is most concerned about you and that’s a fact.’ As she spoke Pru skilfully rearranged the snood and then set to dabbing my cheeks with the powder puff. When she’d finished I certainly looked better and somehow older and wiser for the experience of the past days. I wished so much to put right my relationship with Gareth, but knew that it would have to wait until other issues had been resolved.
    An hour later, Gareth and I entered the drawing-room together, Aunt Rachel and Uncle William were on the settle together by the fire.
    ‘What is amiss?’ Aunt Rachel asked anxiously. As I looked at her I thought how much like her mother she looked, a fact I’d not noticed before. Aunt Rachel got up and walked towards me placing a protective arm around my shoulder and seated me on the matching settle opposite. Uncle William was by the fire. Although warm, the cold blue walls chilled me and I shuddered.
    Gareth took a seat next to me. ‘Where did you find that reticule?’ Aunt Rachel exclaimed as she seated herself once more. ‘I do believe it belonged to my mother.’ As she spoke I could feel the tears pricking my eyes once more, my throat burned and I could not speak, but Gareth answered his mother.
    ‘You are right, Mother, it is indeed Lizzie’s lace bag. Silvia found it in the wardrobe the day of her arrival at Darkwood, but until today had not picked it up.’ Gareth continued while my aunt looked at him as if spellbound. ‘The cause of Silvia’s distress is a letter she found in the bag, which has been written by your mother and reveals to us secrets which we had not known until now.’
    Saying this Gareth took the bag gently from me, unclasped it and handed Lizzie’s letter to Aunt Rachel. The room was silent except for the occasional crackling of a log on the fire as she read it, she then folded the letter and passed it back to Gareth.
    ‘It is true, my children.’ Aunt Rachel spoke in a hushed voice. ‘Your grandmother did take the laudanum on that very day in the wood, your grandfather found her a couple of hours later lying under a tree among the bluebells. He never forgave her as she so rightly says, for escaping him that way, her lifeless body was carried back to the house by Douglas who was younger then.’ Aunt Rachel looked in some kind of trance as she continued. ‘The lovely fur-trimmed green cloak she wore was removed and banished to the attic.’
    ‘I saw it,’ I interrupted, ‘On the top of her clothes in a chest in the attic.’ The thought of it causing tears to swim before my eyes.
    ‘My father was adamant she would not be buried in the churchyard, but outside the boundary wall with no headstone to mark this beautiful lady’s final resting place. But I have tended her grave all these years.’ She stopped, her emotion overcoming her.
    ‘And what of Jared who I have always thought of as my brother?’ Gareth’s questioning voice cut the silence.
    ‘He is indeed my half-brother, Samuel’s son. He so wanted a son and asked me to bring him up as my own so he could