Page 63

“I shall not be long. You may accompany me. I can light a fire in the cottage and⁠—”

She stopped.

No.

No, no, no.

Oh, goodness.

Her glasshouse.

She could see from where she stood that it had been smashed.

She rushed forward, gathering her skirts in her hands. Her half-boots crunched through the snow as she ran toward her beloved glasshouse.

When she reached it, she saw that the damage was far worse than she had first thought. Almost all the windows had been smashed.

But there was no glass.

She made her way through the door and found soil scattered all over the ground. A few porcelain shards had been left in the corners, and she bent to pick them up.

She recognized them.

They belonged to the pots that had held her missing plants. Mr. Grumbles among them. She’d missed him most of all and had assumed he had been deliberately left behind due to his unattractive appearance.

Several shelves had been torn from the walls as well.

She hurried into the cottage.

It, too, had been a victim of vandalism. Shelves were missing from the walls. The windows had been smashed, the back door hung off its hinges, and her kitchen shelves had been ripped down. Several of the cabinets looked as though they had been kicked in.

She sank to her knees.

Who could do such a thing?

She knew, of course. Lady Beatrice Wakeford and the other parents. The ones who thought she was a witch.

They knew that she had gone away and married, that she would not be here. And they had taken advantage of her absence to make good on their threats.

They had not burned the house down, but they had certainly smashed it.

Yet where was everything?

Where was the glass?

If the windows had been smashed, there ought to have been broken glass everywhere. Someone must have cleared it away.

Someone had cleaned up.

She lifted her head.

Hendricks’s odd behavior came back to her, and she scrambled to her feet and rushed outside.

“Did you know about this?” she demanded.

The coachman looked uncomfortable, then nodded.

“I did, Your Grace. I drove His Grace here from London and we met Mr. Ernest and the footmen here the night we were meant to collect your belongings.”