Mrs Pridham looked flustered.
‘It...it was not necessary. Your uncle suspected from the start that a ransom would be demanded for your safe return.’
‘So you did nothing.’
‘We...um...we sent an express to—to Bow Street.’
‘Bow Street? London!’ Natalya was shocked. ‘Good heavens, I could have been spirited out of the country before help came from that quarter!’
Mrs Pridham cried out at that, her distress so uncharacteristic that it only added to the wild speculation that raced through Natalya’s mind and would not be silenced. She continued to dwell upon it throughout the service and even afterwards, when they left the Abbey and she greeted acquaintances with calm complaisance and assured them that she was quite recovered from her malady.
Aunt Pridham refused to say anything more, even in the privacy of the carriage, but Natalya was not to be deterred. When she saw her uncle at dinner that night, she asked him about engaging a Bow Street Runner, only for him to deny it and claim his wife had quite mistook the matter.
‘I would have taken measures, only Lord Dalmorren’s note arrived, telling me you were safe.’
‘But that would have been some time after I was taken,’ Natalya argued. ‘You mean you did nothing to find me?’
He said shortly, ‘I contacted those I thought might know.’
‘Oh? Who might that be?’
‘Everything will be made clear to you very soon.’
‘But you cannot tell me now.’
‘I cannot.’ He glared across the table at her. ‘Eat your dinner, madam, and pray ask me no more.’
‘But, sir—’
With an oath he tore his napkin from his neck and threw it down.
‘Damnation, madam, will you be quiet? If you cannot desist from these interminable questions, you can go to your room and I will have your meal sent up. I will not be hounded like this at my own dinner table!’
‘Very well.’ Natalya rose. ‘But you need not send anything up to me, I am not hungry.’
She was shaking with fury but she managed to walk out of the dining room and up the stairs to her bedchamber, where she collapsed on to the bed in tears of rage and frustration.
Natalya tossed and turned in her bed, her mind shifting between Tristan’s sudden departure from Bath and the Pridhams’ strange behaviour regarding her abduction.
Her uncle had said previously he was waiting for instructions before he could disclose anything about her birth, but from whom and why? Was it the same person he thought might know about her abduction?
At school, a passion for Gothic romances had fuelled Natalya’s imagination and the idea of being the baseborn child of a rich and unscrupulous villain had been exciting. Now that she suspected she might indeed have such a parent, it was more than a little alarming.
‘Oh, you are being ridiculously fanciful!’ she scolded herself, turning her pillow and thumping it back into shape. ‘There is probably nothing more sinister than a legal complication to do with wills and inheritance that has to be resolved.’
Yet her thoughts refused to behave and she continued to conjure ever more outrageous scenarios for her fate until at last she fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.
‘Wake up, Miss Fairchild. Wake up now.’
Natalya shrugged off the maid’s hand on her shoulder and opened one bleary eye. Outside her window, the sky was the clear grey of a very early dawn.
‘What is the matter, Aggie? It cannot be time to get up yet.’
‘No, miss, but the master has told me to have you dressed and downstairs as soon as possible!’
This time there was no mistaking the urgency in the maid’s voice. Natalya shook off her sleepiness and quickly jumped out of bed.
Twenty minutes later she entered the drawing room. Mrs Pridham, a silk wrap fastened over her nightgown, was sitting on the sofa and looking very tired. Her husband stood before the fireplace in his banyan, slippered feet apart and hands behind his back. His countenance was as grave as ever.
‘Come in, Natalya, and shut the door.’
‘Good heavens, sir,’ she exclaimed, regarding them in alarm. ‘What has happened, what is the matter?’
‘I told you yesterday I was awaiting a letter regarding you,’ he said. ‘It arrived yesterday afternoon, but I thought it best not to apprise you of it then. I deemed it better to let you get a good night’s rest.’
‘As it happens, sir, I slept very badly,’ she retorted. ‘From whom is the letter?’
‘A person most nearly concerned with your welfare.’
‘M-my father?’ she stammered. ‘Or even, perhaps...could it be that my m-mother is alive?’
‘I am afraid not,’ her uncle replied, his tone clipped. ‘Neither of your parents is alive.’
Natalya knew that. Of course she did. No one had ever told her anything different, yet she realised that she had always nurtured a tiny flame of hope. Now that flame flickered and died. Grief ripped through her, tearing at her heart. She wanted to be alone, to collapse in tears, to wail and cry and mourn for the parents she had never known.
Her uncle was speaking again, saying in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘You are to be ready to leave at six o’clock. Mrs Pridham has instructed breakfast to be served in the dining room immediately and I have already instructed your maid to pack a trunk—’
‘Leave? I am going out of Bath?’ She glanced down at her skirts. Suddenly the relevance of Aggie selecting her dove-blue walking dress was clear.
‘What if I refuse?’ She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘I am of age now, sir, you cannot make me go.’
‘We would never force you to do anything you did not wish to do, Natalya, but our responsibility for you ends today. When you leave this house you have a choice: go your own way in the world, or you travel to meet your benefactor.’
Mrs Pridham rose and stood beside her husband. ‘You have always wanted to know your history, Natalya, this letter comes from someone in a position to answer your questions.’
‘Perhaps it is the same person who had
