Page 37 of A Stolen Heart

“Because I wouldn’t let her go. She grew more and more agitated. I should have fetched you or Miss Hortense, but I was scared to leave her. I figured she’d slip away by herself if I left the room. And I didn’t want to ring for one of the servants and have her see Miz Rhea that way. I should have.”

“Did she say where she wanted to go?”

“No. I asked her, and she just looked at me as if I was trying to trick her or something. She acted like she didn’t know me—at least, after she got all agitated like. At first she was just lying there on her bed, staring at the wall, and then she got out of bed and started going around the room, putting on her cloak and bonnet and gloves, muttering about things. I couldn’t understand her, and it was that scary, I’ll tell you. Then she headed toward the door, and I stopped her, and that’s when she told me she had to see ‘them.’ She said something like, ‘I have to put it right.’”

“Put what right?”

“I don’t know, miss, she wouldn’t say. She wasn’t making sense. I stood in front of the door so she couldn’t get out, and she got more and more frantic acting. I was worried she was going to start screaming or something, and then she picked up that bookend there and hit me with it.”

Aunt Hortense eyed the carved marble bookend. “It’s a fortunate thing for you that Rhea doesn’t have much strength. It could have caved in your skull.”

“She didn’t want to hurt me. She just wanted me out of the way.”

Alexandra hurried to the kitchen and sent all the servants out to comb the area for her mother. She was sick with worry. She could not imagine where her mother had gone or what she thought she was doing. Rhea knew nothing about London; she would soon be horribly lost. It was dark, and that made it even worse. London was a dangerous place, and her mother would have no idea whether she was wandering into a bad neighborhood. Alexandra remembered the man who had jumped out at her. Obviously, even a good neighborhood was not exempt from violent events.

Alexandra went out and walked for almost an hour, searching the streets for any sign of her mother. She passed one couple, a man and woman who looked at her askance when she questioned them about seeing a middle-aged American and merely shook their heads and hurried on, as if to distance themselves from her oddity. Finally, discouraged, she turned her steps toward her house. She had almost reached it when she saw one of the footmen running from the other direction. She stopped and waited for him, her hope rising.

“Miss!” The man skidded to a stop a few feet from her and paused to catch his breath.

“What is it? Did you find her?”

He shook his head and gasped. “No, but I found…someone…who did.”

“Who? Where is she?”

He nodded toward a house down the street. “Footman…at the Andersons’. He was coming home from the park, walking their dog, he was, and I asked him. He said as he’d seen a woman what sounded like Mrs. Ward. She was confused like, and he asked her if he could help her, and she told him she wanted to go to Exmoor House. So he hailed a hackney and put her in it and told him to take her to Exmoor House.”

“Exmoor House!” Alexandra stared at him, stunned. Exmoor was the Countess’s name. Had her mother gone to see the Countess? She wracked her brain, trying to remember if she had said anything about the Countess when she was asking her mother questions. She did not think so; it had been Aunt Hortense whom she had told about the Countess. She had asked her mother only about her birth. How could her mother know about the Countess? Could she have been listening outside the door when Alexandra was talking to Aunt Hortense?

The thought made Alexandra’s blood run cold. If her mother had heard her doubts about being her daughter, perhaps it had completely unhinged her. Why else would she have run off to see the Countess?

“Where can I get a hackney?” she asked the footman. “I have to go get her.”

“Yes, miss. I’ll hail you one.” He took off, hurrying in the direction from which he had come, and Alexandra followed him.

By the time she had caught up with him at the cross street, he had hailed a hackney and was holding open the door for her. He helped her inside, saying, “I told the driver Exmoor House, miss.”

“Thank you, Deavers.” Alexandra reached into her pocket and brought out a coin, which she pressed into his palm. “I’m very grateful to you. Now go home and tell my aunt where I have gone. I will be home as soon as possible.”

“Yes, miss.”

He closed the door, and the carriage started forward. It moved at a dignified pace, and Alexandra felt like screaming at the man to go faster. She thought of her mother talking to the Countess, and her hands clenched. The Countess would think her mother quite mad. She could not bear to think of the expression that would come over the Countess’s aristocratic face, a look of revulsion and even fear as she realized that Rhea was not right in the head. It did not matter that the Countess seemed like a nice woman; everyone was frightened by the insane. Alexandra burned with empathetic humiliation for her mother. Rhea felt it when people withdrew from her or looked at her with apprehension. She obviously knew that the servants were scared of her. That was why Alexandra was careful to keep strangers away from Rhea.

The hackney came to a stop after a time, and Alexandra started to get out. Then she saw that they were not in front of the Countess’s house. The home where they had stopped was larger and more imposing, almost a full block long, with a black iron fence running down the length of it.

“This isn’t right!” she said sharply.

“’Exmoor ‘Ouse,’ the lad said. This is Exmoor ‘Ouse.”

Alexandra frowned, looking around. Then she saw the dark figure standing forlornly at the fence, looking in. The woman wore a shawl over her head and shoulders, but it had slipped back, revealing her face and part of her head. It was Rhea. Alexandra let out a sigh of relief.

“Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry. Wait here. I won’t be a minute.”

The driver let out a gusty sigh but did as she told him. Alexandra ran along the street to where her mother stood, leaning against the fence, her hands clenched around the metal rails.

“Mother?” She called softly to Rhea from a few feet away; she didn’t want to startle her.

Rhea barely glanced at her. “I don’t understand! They won’t let me in! I don’t know what to do. I promised her. I promised. Oh, I’ve been wicked. So wicked.”