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“You should do that,” she said firmly.

He chewed his lip, and took a breath. “You’re right. I had convinced myself that my father had a hand in her death, but Tindal’s words have made me wonder if I was wrong. If perhaps she jumped after all. I—” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Should we take it to Letty now?” she asked.

He glanced at the clock. “It’s after nine. Even if she is home it’s hardly the time to be paying calls—”

“Will you be able to sleep with this playing on your mind?”

“I don’t know.” He admitted reluctantly. “It’s my race in the morning. I had planned an early night—with you.” He smiled and squeezed her hand again.

She rose and said briskly. “Come on. We will pay her call. If she isn’t home, we will try tomorrow—after your race.”

He nodded and rose. And thus they arrived at Grosvenor Square twenty minutes later and were admitted by Her Ladyship’s surprised butler. He led them upstairs to her dressing room, where she had retired for the night. Letty was lying on her chaise longue, reading a book by candlelight, a rug over her knees. At sight of Jerome and Ava she threw book and rug aside in alarm and rose.

“Good heavens what is it? Is someone ill? Dead?”

“Nothing like that, my dear,” said Jerome kissing her cheek.

Letty invited them to sit, and Jerome explained about their mother’s diary and held it out to her.

Letty took it gingerly. “I’m not sure if I want to know,” she said, looking at the little book as if it might bite.

“I have mixed feelings, too,” admitted Jerome. “But I feel compelled to find out. What if we’re wrong about him?”

“You can’t tell me he was a good man Jerome. I remember his rages.”

“But it is possible that Mama’s mind could have been overset by his behavior?”

“Entirely possible,” she admitted and sighed. Opening to the first page, she patted the seat beside her and he transferred to it to read along with her.

The first entry, in a curling, sloping hand, was dated some three months prior to her death, and while there were gaps between entries, it was easy to piece together the tenor of her days from her notes, which focused primarily upon her ailments or troubles with the servants. It was clear that Lord Gareth wasn’t in residence for these earlier entries and that she longed for word from her children. Which made Jerome wince. While he had written, it had been infrequently. He glanced at Letty and saw her bite her lip, for to his knowledge she had not written at all after she left home.

Then there was a gap of several weeks. It became evident that she had been ill and was only then recovering, though taking rather more laudanum than she should to numb the pains in her head.

I have begun to have fancies, brought on by the laudanum. I am sure that Eliza’s ghost is haunting me.

“Who is Eliza?” asked Jerome, pointing to the page.

“I’ve no idea,” said Letty with a frown.

A cold shiver ran over Jerome’s skin, and his vision narrowed in an alarming way as something tickled at the back of his mind, but, like a black whisp of smoke, it evaporated when he tried to grasp it.

Nothing more was said of Eliza for several pages and then it was clear that the marquess was home for their mother stated baldly:

I tried to lock him out, but he obtained the key. He would have his argument of me and my submission. My face still throbs. I took the laudanum tonight, after he was done.

“That!” said Letty stabbing the page. “That is what I remember. If she ever argued with him, he would strike her across the face.”

Jerome nodded. “Did he ever hit you?”

“No. You?”

“He took a hand to me a time or two and a crop to me once. But honestly, it was no more than other boys suffered. It was the way he treated her that haunted me. I should never have left her alone that summer. If I’d been home—”

“Jerome, you were twelve!” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “I think we have our answer Jerome. If he didn’t physically throw her off that damned balcony, he drove her to jump, just to get away from him!” said Letty fuming.

“Surely you’re right. And if the laudanum was giving her hallucinations—” said Ava leaning forward.