A Final Rest Read online

  A Final Rest

  Blythe Baker

  Contents

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About the Author

  A deadly welcome...

  On her return to London, Rose Beckingham’s reunion with her relatives is marred by shadows from the past. When a family wedding moves the party to the English countryside, it isn’t long before old resentments resurface and dark suspicions are awakened.

  With a sudden death throwing everyone into turmoil, can Rose unmask the killer stalking the corridors of Ridgewick Hall? And what of Rose’s own secrets? Has the time come for a final reveal?

  1

  I woke to the sound of glass shattering followed by screaming.

  I was out of bed and in the hallway before I even remembered where I was. After months away, travelling the world and reuniting with my cousins, I was back in London. In the home of Lord and Lady Ashton. Where someone was still screaming.

  In the hallway, I ran into Alice, who was rubbing at her sleepy eyes and looking around for the source of the noises that had awoken her. “What was that noise? Who is screaming?”

  I left her dazed and tired in her doorway and continued towards the sound. It was a female voice, probably my aunt or Catherine, but I couldn’t tell which. And I didn’t hear any sounds of a struggle or another voice. No obvious sign that someone unwelcome was in the house.

  “Hello?” I called as I reached the end of the hall.

  “Rose?” My aunt, Lady Ashton, ran up the stairs, eyes wide. “What is going on? I was in the kitchen, and—”

  The screaming reached a new height and my aunt pushed past me with no regard for what kind of danger could be behind the door at the end of the hall and stepped inside. The room once belonged to her son Edward, the eldest cousin who was convicted of murder and then was murdered himself while in prison. He was the reason Catherine and Alice had briefly moved in with an aunt in New York City before ultimately returning home. The reason no one ever opened or discussed the room at the end of the hall. Lady Ashton, however, didn’t seem concerned about it.

  I followed her into the dark room, my eyes adjusting to the gloom, and found a figure standing in the corner. It was Catherine. She was still in her nightgown, her hair disheveled, and her eyes wide. She looked like a ghost, dressed in white with the faint light of the sunrise slipping through the closed curtain. A chill slid down my back at the sight, but my aunt, more concerned with her daughter than anything else, rushed into the room and grabbed Catherine by the shoulders.

  “What is it, Catherine?” she asked, pulling her out of the corner and into the light.

  Catherine grabbed her mother and pulled her close to her. “Careful.”

  Lady Ashton turned, looking around the room, and that was when I noticed the shattered glass in the middle of the floor. Lady Ashton had stepped over it to get to Catherine, but in backing up, she’d almost stepped on a large shard.

  “The vases,” Catherine said, her voice breaking in a sob. “Half of them are broken.”

  “The vases?” My aunt let go of Catherine and bent down to pick up a shard, studying it for a moment before turning back to her daughter. “You were screaming over a broken vase?”

  “Six broken vases,” Catherine corrected, running a hand down her head. “I told one of the decorators to put the vases upstairs and out of the way, and they must have put them in here.”

  Lady Ashton looked at me, eyebrows raised as if to ask if I could shed any light on the situation, and I just shrugged and shook my head. Now that I knew no one was in immediate danger, exhaustion had begun to take hold of my senses. Since being back in London, sleep had not come easily. When I’d left the city, I’d thought it would be for the last time. I’d imagined putting London and the Beckinghams behind me and stepping into a new life where I would not be forced to lie about who I truly was. Where I could create a new beginning for myself. Yet, only a few months later, I was back, and the transition had not been simple.

  “They are for the garden party before the wedding,” Catherine explained, near tears. “They will hold the fresh cut bouquets. I was lying in bed and realized I hadn’t seen them with the other decorations, so I got up to look. I searched for two hours before finally looking in here, but the room is such a mess that I didn’t see them behind the box, and I pushed it aside and broke everything.”

  The longer Catherine spoke, the more it became obvious she was exhausted and delirious. The stress of the wedding preparations had been weighing on her, making her already short temper even more volatile, but clearly, her sanity was now taking a turn.

  “We can buy more vases, dear,” Lady Ashton said, running a hand down Catherine’s arm, soothing her the way I could imagine her doing when Catherine was just a child. “Six vases are nothing to be concerned about.”

  “There is already so much to do,” Catherine lamented, sagging with the thought of another thing added to her list.

  “Miss Brown will take care of it,” Lady Ashton said with a wave of her hand, ending the discussion. “I’ll send her out tomorrow to buy six more vases.”

  In the months since her son’s murder conviction and then subsequent death, Lady Ashton had found her daily life significantly more difficult to bear. The press had grabbed hold of the sensational family drama and made it difficult for Lady Ashton to leave the house without being recognized. So, she’d hired yet another servant to handle those kinds of chores. The mousy-haired woman was only a few years older than me, but in the brief moments I’d seen her flitting from one chore to the next, she looked significantly older. I wondered whether it was simply her appearance or whether the wedding preparations were weighing heavily on her, as well.

  “I brought these from New York. What if we cannot find any that match?” Catherine laid a hand over her forehead like she was feeling feverish, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I’d never seen her so unlike herself.

  “Then we will buy them all brand new. Money is no matter.” Lady Ashton coaxed Catherine from the corner like a trepidatious cat. “Now, go back to bed.”

  “What time is it?” Catherine said, a new wave of panic moving over her. “The designer will be here after breakfast to do a final fitting for my dress. Maybe I should just stay awake until—”

  “No.” Lady Ashton and I spoke at the same time, and Catherine looked at each of us carefully, eyes narrowed. For a moment, I thought she would take offense, but instead, she studied us and then sagged under her mother’s arm and allowed herself to be led back to her bedroom.

  I hadn’t realized it, but Alice was standing outside the bedroom door during the entire conversation, and she watched Catherine walk past like she was afraid Catherine would strike out at her at any moment. When they were gone, she turned to me. “This wedding is driving her mad.”

  “She just needs a bit of sleep,” I said, trying my best to defend my cousin, even though I was inclined to agree with Alice’s assessment.

  Alice pursed her lips, unconvinced. “A bit of sleep in an institution, perhaps. The woman is hysterical. She is getting married to a man she loves in a few days. Isn’t she supposed to be happy?”

  I laid a hand on Alice’s back and encouraged her back down the hall towards her bedroom. “I suspect she will be once the weddi
ng is over and she is married to Charles. Weddings can be very stressful.”

  Truly, I didn’t know anything about weddings. I’d never had one nor attended one. The Beckinghams had been guests to several weddings while we lived in India, but the invitation never extended to me, which suited me perfectly fine. When the family left for an evening, it meant I would have the house to myself with no expectations of work. What I had gleaned from Catherine’s wedding preparations, however, was that weddings were beautiful affairs mainly put on for the sake of the guests. Because from my vantage point, Catherine didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. And Charles, who had agreed to return to London for the ceremony, seemed especially eager to return to his life in New York City. Especially now that his life in the city no longer involved being hunted by an assassin. Despite being in love, Catherine and Charles were not the picture of the blushing bride and groom-to-be I had always imagined. Catherine had been looking pale and thin for the better part of the last week, and now she was waking in the middle of the night to fret over vases. All of it seemed rather alarming.

  Were I in her shoes, though, I imagined I would be in much the same state. In the week since we’d arrived in London and reclaimed our old rooms in the Ashton house, all manner of wedding planners, designers, and caterers had been in and out of the house. There seemed to always be someone who needed Catherine’s attention. Questions about the centerpieces for the reception or the decorations around the church altar. Every question had to be run past Catherine before anything could move forward, so she hardly had time to sit and take a breath, let alone enjoy afternoon tea.

  Lady Ashton, to her credit, had been doing her best to assist her daughter in whatever way she could, which mostly included being a host to the family members who decided to drop in and offer their congratulations before the actual ceremony. Cousins, aunts, and great aunts seemed to appear in greater and greater numbers every day, and they all expected to be served tea and finger snacks. Lady Ashton’s personal attendant, Miss Brown, took on the responsibility of always having the sitting room tidy and ready for guests, despite the rest of the house having fallen into disarray.

  I mostly felt as though I was in the way. Catherine had attempted to pass some of her responsibilities on to me, but when I failed to order the proper color table linens, she realized I would be of little use to her in the wedding planning, so whenever I asked, she insisted she did not need any help. If I had anywhere else to stay, I would have gone there in an instant. One more warm body in the house only added to the burden everyone else was carrying, but I sold my house in the city when I left with Achilles Prideaux with no intention of ever returning. My small room in the Ashton house—which had yet to be overrun by the wedding preparations that seemed to be filling the rest of the house, but I knew would be overtaken soon—was the only space in which I could be alone and out of everyone’s hair. Alice’s room, however, had been claimed by garment bags containing the many different dresses Catherine would be wearing over the week-long celebration. Alice made the logical point that the clothes could be kept in Catherine’s room, but Lady Ashton wanted Catherine to have a quiet, tidy space to return to in the evenings, so her room was being kept clear of any preparations, which was why I suspected my room would be next.

  After Catherine’s screaming fit that woke up the entire house, Alice went back to sleep for an hour before knocking on my door and entering without my permission.

  “Why should her room be spared the chaos the rest of us are facing if she isn’t even going to stay in there for an entire evening?” Alice asked, pacing around the room in her nightgown.

  I’d tried several times to convince Alice to go back to her room, but much like her sister, she was in an irrational state, so I figured it would be a better use of my energy to sit in bed and hear her complaints out.

  “Mother coddles her more than necessary. If Catherine were my daughter, I’d tell her to get a handle on herself and stop torturing everyone for the sake of one ceremony. Charles doesn’t even seem to care about the wedding, so I’m not sure why it needs to be such an event.”

  “You did say that exact thing to Catherine over dinner last night,” I reminded Alice. “You suggested she elope.”

  “Yes,” Alice said, folding her hands behind her back and pacing over to the window, pulling the curtain back and scowling like she expected to see a wedding planner scaling the back wall to get inside. “But the advice would have carried more weight had my mother suggested it. At this point, it would be better for everyone if we didn’t have to attend the wedding at all.”

  In New York City, Alice had been excited about the prospect of the wedding, drafting lists of which boys she would like to invite. However, upon returning to London, Lord Beckingham had quickly dashed those plans.

  “There will be too many family and friends staying at the estate to add another young man to the list,” he said over breakfast our first full day back. “Besides, you will be helping your sister too much to worry about entertaining a young man.”

  Alice had argued valiantly, spending most of the day following her father and pestering him about his decision, but it held firm. No one, myself included, would be bringing along a date to the wedding. Since then, Alice’s opinion on the whole matter had shifted quite dramatically.

  “It is your sister’s wedding. You want to be there to support her,” I said, hoping it was true.

  Alice’s lip pulled up in the corner in disgust, and then she turned away from the window and dropped down on the end of my bed. Her short brown hair was unkempt, her untamed curls sticking out in every direction, making her look more like the young girl I’d first met a year ago than the woman she was quickly becoming.

  “It seems my purpose in life is to follow Catherine and support her,” she said bitterly. “I haven’t seen my parents in months, and they have barely spoken to me except to correct me.”

  I leaned forward and tapped my finger against her nose affectionately. “Then do not give them so many reasons to correct you.”

  Alice rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something, probably to accuse me of being on everyone else’s side, but before she could, the front bell rang. Alice’s eyes shot wide and she stared at me. “Guests here before breakfast. Has everyone lost their minds?”

  The guest in question was the designer of Catherine’s dress come to do final alterations before the final fitting. Catherine spent most of the morning standing on a small stool while the designer pinched and pulled on the fabric, pinning it down in places and telling her to stand tall and keep her shoulders back.

  Family began to make their appearance just before lunch, all of them remarking on how gorgeous Catherine looked before glancing around the room in search of refreshments. One woman—middle-aged with graying blonde hair and a hearty appetite—took up a seat next to me throughout the morning, talking endlessly about family history and memories from her childhood.

  “Your father and I, Rose, were close in age and, as children, found ourselves in all kinds of mischief.” She went on to discuss their adventures climbing fruit trees behind Rose’s grandmother’s house and pulling childish pranks on a young Lord Ashton.

  “I was heartbroken to hear about the accident,” she concluded, shaking her head. “I’d made arrangements to visit you all in India not even a month later. Do you remember that?”

  I remembered no such thing, but I nodded and smiled, thanking her for her sympathies and the fond memories. The moment she was gone, I turned to Alice. “I’m sorry, but who was that woman exactly?”

  Alice had taken up the duty of informing me of who each family member was before they engaged me in conversation. Rose had not been in London for fourteen years before her death, so it was reasonable to expect her to not remember many of the Beckingham’s distant family members. Yet, Alice had not whispered the middle-aged woman’s name in my ear before she’d sat down, which had left me in the awkward position of foregoing her name throughout the entirety of our
conversation.

  Alice turned to me with her eyebrows pulled together. “I did not introduce her because I assumed you would know.”

  “I recognized her,” I lied, a quiet kind of panic snaking up my neck. “But I could not recall her name.”

  A line of confusion formed across Alice’s forehead as she spoke. “That was your father’s cousin, Francis Atwater. Your family lived with her for a few weeks after selling your home here in London and before you left for India.”

  Fourteen years’ time or not, Rose would have recognized Cousin Francis certainly. Alice’s promptings had been so helpful to me over the last few days that I had forgotten to be on guard. I’d forgotten that I was still meant to be a member of this family.

  “Oh, of course,” I said with an embarrassed laugh. “How could I have forgotten her? Perhaps, the stress of the wedding has gotten to me, as well.”

  Alice smiled and nodded, but there was a hint of suspicion in her eyes. I resolved to not allow her to help me further. I would do my best to discover the names of Rose’s relatives on my own.

  2

  The next morning, I rose even before the sun in an attempt to escape another day of wedding planning and family visits. The day before had made Alice suspicious, and I couldn’t handle her watchful eye on top of my own anxiety. A day out of the house would do me good, and I knew Catherine would not miss me. However, despite my quiet sneaking around, I was stopped in the entrance hall by Alice’s voice. I turned to see her standing on the stairs behind me.

  “Where are you going so early?”