Scouring through the depths of the box, there seemed to be more than a dozen letters, all in the same hand.
Jane skimmed the French text quickly and realized it was a love letter. Helene, it seemed, was passionately in love with Uncle Pickerington.
Letter after scandalous letter was written with an open eroticism that made her blush. But there was a vulnerability here in these pages, as well. When Helene described her bitter escape from a cruel husband—whom she called le Sinistre—and her fears that if she bore him a son then her husband would never let her go, it was impossible for Jane not to hope for the author’s happiness.
Perhaps her uncle felt the same. Why else would he have kept the letters?
Hmm . . . why indeed.
Something began to niggle at the back of her mind. But she lost her train of thought as she read further. When Helene mentioned pining for him while he was busy teaching English to her mistress, a chill went down Jane’s spine.
Her uncle had worked for the Northcotts after all. Proof of it was right here in her hand, written on paper from the Northcott household.
But the question was, why had he lied about it?
He’d been having an affair with a woman who’d likely been the Northcotts’ maid. Was he ashamed? Perhaps. After all, the woman was also carrying le Sinistre’s child in her womb.
The child.
“Wait,” Jane said into the stale air as the pieces started to fit together.
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the page. She must have looked at the dates before, surely. Yet now, seeing the month and the year scrawled in black ink made her pulse thicken with dread.
Fingers numb, she fanned out every yellowed letter, putting them in chronological order.
All the dates were from the year 1799, except for the last letter. It was dated January of 1800, little more than a week before the fire.
And in the letter were the damning words: “It has happened. I have borne the monster a son.”
A son.
This meant that there was another male infant in the house at the time of the fire.
Dismayed, Jane realized that these weren’t just random letters left forgotten. They cast doubt on Raven’s legitimacy.
Was that the reason he’d been left on the foundling home’s doorstep and no one had bothered to claim a reward for his rescue?
She didn’t know the answer. But she wished with all her might that she could turn back time and stop herself from opening this box.
* * *
The more Raven thought about it, the more eager he was for his new life to begin.
Of course, not even he was surprised to realize that his first order of business was to do something special for Jane. She’d done so much for him, after all. And knowing how much she loved her family, he knew exactly what to do.
After his birthday celebration, he’d spent the better part of the day making inquiries about her uncle’s debts, and then arranging to pay them off in secret. Soon, she would have all her family together again.
His second order of business was to hire a cook. And he knew just where to find one.
Late that night, he walked the pavement toward Moll Dawson’s, hoping he’d find Bess in her usual spot. But as his polished shoes landed on the stone, every step had a queerly tardy echo.
As if someone were following him.
Raven whistled a tune into the cold December air, his breath misting in a cloud beneath the lamplight. He paused, pretending to pat his pockets for a cheroot, and surreptitiously glanced over his shoulder. Just beyond the shadow of the previous lamppost, a figure paused, too. And it wasn’t likely that he was alone.
Walking on, Raven kept watch on the narrow inlet of an alley up ahead where the lamplight didn’t reach. One of two things would happen up there. Either he’d encounter his shadow’s bedfellow, waiting in the dark for the two of them to come at him at once . . . or Raven would lie in wait and teach this bloke a lesson he’d not soon forget.
Approaching the alley, he heard the shuffle and scrape of a heavy step. He rolled his shoulders in readiness for whatever emerged from the dark and whatever came up behind him.
“Well, if it ain’t me long lost chum from our foundling days and old Devil’s work’ouse,” a piercing voice drawled, squeaking at the ends in familiarity.
Raven stopped as the large-bellied shape emerged, the fleshy cheeks giving the grown man with a scruffy beard a boyish appearance. “Gerald Tick?”
The two of them had been part of the same group of boys that Mr. Mayhew had sold to Mr. Devons for his workhouse.
“The one and only,” he said with a sneering brown-toothed grin as he spat on the ground. “Look at you in your posh clothes. Rumor ’as it that you ain’t no orphan anymore. Well done, you.”
Wary about this reunion, he stayed where he was. But behind him he heard the approach of those echoed footfalls on the pavement. This time, when he looked over his shoulder, the figure was standing in the lamplight. And another grin greeted Raven.
“Surely, you remember me, little flightless bird. Devil paid me right ’andsome to track you down whenever you’d run off.”
Raven remembered the taunts and the jeers of “little bird, little bird, likes to eat rat tails for worms” every time he was locked in that cupboard. “Bertie Woodcock.”
The man laid a three-fingered hand over his heart. “You do remember. I’m touched, I am.”
“And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen,” Tick screeched in a laugh.
Woodcock took a step forward. From his sleeve, he pulled out a cudgel and smacked it sharply against his palm. “I dunno whot it is about you, but Mayhew and the old Devil weren’t the only ones who hated you. Believe it or not, there’s a bloke who don’t just want to teach you a lesson. Wants you dead and buried, ’e does. Says ’e’s willin’ to pay to make sure it’s done right this time.”
Chapter 32
Later that night, Jane paced the floor of the conservatory. Her thoughts were always clearer in this space. She’d brought down the black-lacquered casket with her, along with all those terrible letters that cast doubt on Raven’s legitimacy.
In her mind, she ran through the facts in quick succession. The proof working in his favor was the mark on his arm, the January he arrived at the foundling home—the same month as the fire—and his resemblance to the portrait of the Northcotts. All relatively solid arguments, she thought with a nod.
Then she stopped abruptly on the stone tiles as the opposition chimed in.
None of it was wholly indisputable. Logic dictated that every fact could be twisted and seen as coincidence by those who wanted to deny his claim. And they would . . . if this information surfaced. If . . .
Could she keep it a secret? Should she?
He could be the maid’s son, her mind whispered. She growled in frustration and shook her head, hating the turn of her own thoughts.
The truth was, someone had saved a child from the fire and left him on the doorstep of the foundling home. Could it have been a mother who wanted to save her son from a sinister husband and father? If so, then where was Helene now?
So many unanswered questions. Jane’s head was starting to throb.
She had to tell Raven.
But she knew what this would do to him. If she told him about these letters, she’d break his heart. And yet, if she didn’t, she’d be breaking her promise. He hated secrets.