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“Yes, this Eliza, whoever she was—” Letty flicked over the next few pages scanning, and her finger stopped. “Eliza Stubbs! Now why is that familiar? I’ll swear I’ve heard the name, but—”

Jerome felt himself sway as his vision turned black round the edges again and his skin turned ice cold. He heard Ava’s voice calling his name urgently, but it was muffled as if from a long way off.

“Jerome!” Ava knelt before him, her hands on his arms shaking him. “God what is wrong with him?” she wailed. “Jerome!”

The jumbled fragments of memory flickering in his mind made little sense initially, all he was conscious of was puzzlement, followed by a creeping sense of terror. Then his adult mind clicked into place and he dropped his head into his hands and said muffledly, “He killed her. I—I think I saw it!”

“Killed who?” asked Letty sharply.

“Saw what?” cried Ava.

He lifted his head and looked at Letty. “Could she have been a housemaid? Eliza Stubbs? Young, pretty, with red hair coming out of a mob cap?”

“Oh my God!” Letty stared at him horrified. “She was the nursery maid. She helped Nanny Mercer. She disappeared one day, and eventually I think they said she had gone home to her family. I—” She frowned in an effort of memory. “How old were you?” She shook her head counting on her fingers. “You must have been two, maybe? Not any older. I was eleven. How do you even remember—”

“I don’t really. Just fragments that make no sense. I wouldn’t have comprehended what I was seeing.”

“What did you see?”

“Our father with his hands around her throat.” He swallowed. “God, I feel sick.” He closed his eyes and breathed. Letty got up and came back in a moment.

“Here, drink this.” She held out a glass. He took it and tossed off the brandy, letting it settle his stomach.

She sat down and put an arm around him. “We may never know the details, but it’s clear that Mama found out and she was trying to get up the courage to confront him about it. That must have been what happened.”

“And he killed her, too?” He rubbed his face. “God, I’m glad he’s dead. If I’d known—” He shuddered. “Part of me did know. I always knew there was something. But I could never grasp it. I had night terrors as a boy—”

“Yes, you did! I remember that!” said Letty. “Poor lad, what a horrible thing to carry. Gosh, I feel guilty for leaving you behind. If I’d known, I’d have dragged you out of there.” She wiped her eyes, smiling at him sadly. “I’m so sorry, little brother.”

He shook his head. “Not your fault, Letty.” He shook his head again, trying to shake off the flood of energy in his body. He felt as if he were a geyser about to explode.

He rose. “We had better go. I’ve got a race in the morning. Are you all right?”

Letty nodded. “Better than you I suspect.”

He bent down and kissed her cheek. “I wish John were here for you now.”

Letty sighed. “I wish he were, too. I shall write to him.”

“Have you heard back from him? Does he know about the baby?”

“Yes.” She smiled, a hand going to her belly. “Yes, he does, and he is very pleased and wishing he hadn’t gone.”

Jerome picked up the diary and he and Ava left.

*

Entering Ava’s room, he tossed the dairy on her desk and drew her into his arms. They had said little to each other in the carriage, his mind occupied with trying to work through everything the evening had revealed. And she seemed to understand that and held his hand in silence.

“Ava,” he murmured against her hair now.

“Yes?”

“I need you, and I don’t think I can be gentle.”

She raised her face to him and he kissed her, pulling her tight against him. His body was shaking. “Ava?” he whispered.

“Yes, Jerome,” she said pulling at his neckcloth. Clothing went flying, and in moments they fell on the bed in a tangle of naked limbs, exchanging fierce kisses. She wrapped a leg round his hip and he found the place to enter her body with a hard deep stroke, pulling her tight against him. Rolling her onto her back, he thrust rapidly. She moved with him, her breathing as ragged as his.

His body shuddered as he drove them higher, the pleasure tightening to a pinpoint of searing flame that stubbornly refused to release no matter how much he tried. His muscles worked and sweat broke out on his skin, his breath came in gasping pants, everything wound tighter and tighter until he was sure something would break.

And it finally did, in an explosion of pleasure that almost made him weep. He collapsed slowly in the aftermath, his body boneless, his pulse thudding, his breath coming slowly back to normal, the sweat cooling on his skin.

Eventually he moved enough to pull the coverlet over them and he sank into a dark oblivion with her arms around him.

He woke with a start some little while later, his skin prickling with latent horror. He rolled away from Ava, careful not to disturb her. Getting out of bed he picked up the diary, crept into his own bedchamber, where he put on a robe and slippers, and then he quietly walked downstairs to the library. He built up the banked fire and sat down to read the whole book. It was after three in the morning when he finished, and he sat staring into the fire for a long time before he finally got up and went to his desk where he drafted a letter to Kelham. He folded, sealed, and addressed it and set it on the table in the hallway where it would be collected for delivery. Then he walked upstairs slowly to his bedchamber where he lay down on the coverlet, still in his dressing gown, and stared at the ceiling until dawn.