The Wicked Widow Read online

  She drew the notes out, each one ten pounds in value.

  She put the money down and then went over to the French secrétaire in the corner of the bedroom.

  It was where her stepmother sometimes wrote her letters.

  Kyla took from it several pieces of writing paper, which was engraved with her father’s crest.

  She folded them neatly to the same size as the banknotes and put them into the bag.

  With any luck, she thought, George Hunter would be too tired when he was ready to leave to examine very closely what he had been given.

  It would be later in the day that the bomb would go off and by that time she and Terry must be far away.

  She closed the drawer, picked up the five banknotes and crossed the passage to her own bedroom.

  There she began to pack one of her suitcases.

  She had suspected several days earlier that her stepmother would somehow contrive to be rid of her and she could not imagine how it could be done.

  She had had the idea that she might be flung out of the house and sent to a Nunnery or even shipped abroad.

  Now she realised in all its gory what her stepmother really intended.

  She realised that she would rather die than be touched by Lord Frome whether she was drugged or not.

  His outrageous behaviour had shocked even the lax and raffish Society that was centred round the King.

  George IV might be a rake and continuously obsessed by one mistress after another but at least he was known as ‘the First Gentleman of Europe’.

  Lord Frome was a very different proposition.

  Although he was usually spoken about in whispers, Kyla, without really listening, knew that he had committed unforgivable crimes.

  He had pursued young women, whether they were milkmaids on his estate or very young girls who were brought from the country by the procurers of the Houses of Pleasure.

  They deceived the poor girls, who were in reality little more than children and they came to London believing that there was an excellent job for them in the house of a member of the Nobility.

  That was the only true part of the story. Once they were in the clutches of Lord Frome, there was no going back to the country or anywhere else except for the River Thames.

  ‘How could anybody be as wicked as my stepmother,’ Kyla often asked herself, ‘and yet clever enough to have managed to take Mama’s place?’

  Her father had been broken-hearted when her mother had died.

  Yet he had been beguiled, allured and finally possessed by Sybil.

  Admittedly she was very attractive, there was no doubt about that.

  Now, after what she had heard her say downstairs, Kyla was deeply suspicious.

  She had not only encouraged her father to drink much more than he ever had before but perhaps she had also used drugs.

  She had certainly made him seem as weak as water in her hands.

  Maybe it was the drugs that George Hunter had referred to when he said that the doctors were astonished that her father had died when he was so comparatively young.

  ‘She murdered him!’ Kyla cried in her heart and wanted to confront her stepmother with the devastating truth.

  Then she knew that she must not think of anything else but saving Terry.

  She quickly began to pack a light bag as well as her suitcase

  It was little more than a strong basket which she had brought down from the attics two days earlier.

  She put into it some light easy to carry dresses that were simple.

  They were not in the least like the gowns she had bought the previous year in which to make her debut.

  When she had finished taking what she wanted from out of the wardrobe and the chest of drawers, she went to her dressing table.

  She collected the jewellery that was hers and what was left of her mother’s.

  There was, in fact, very little and Sybil had rifled the safe almost immediately after she was married to Kyla’s father.

  She had removed the necklaces, the tiara, the bracelets, brooches and rings, which had been kept in the country.

  However, when they returned to London, Kyla, by being quick-witted, had managed to get hold of what had belonged to her mother before Sybil was aware of where it was.

  Sybil had expected that the jewels would be in a safe in the pantry as they had been in the country.

  Kyla’s mother, however, had a small safe in her bedroom and she had kept in it all the jewels that she wore every day.

  They were by no means as valuable as what she called laughingly her ‘State Jewels’.

  But they were very beautiful and they had been presents for her birthday and Christmas from a husband who loved her adoringly.

  Kyla had already packed them up and now she put them in her bag.

  Then she hesitated.

  At the back of a drawer there was a small case that had not been included with the rest.

  She opened it and inside, lying against the velvet, was her mother’s Wedding ring.

  She slipped it over the third finger of her left hand.

  As she did so, she felt that her mother was prompting her and telling her what to do.

  She looked round, thinking that there was nothing else for her to take with her.

  Then she went to the door and, as she reached it, she heard the sounds of two people coming up the stairs, making a great deal of noise as they did so.

  She knew that it was her stepmother and George Hunter, drunk as they usually were.

  They thought that because they were not speaking, she would not be aware of what they were doing.

  They reached Sybil’s bedroom and Kyla heard them closing the door.

  This was a dangerous moment.

  If Sybil now going to give George Hunter the money that she had procured for him, he might be aware that it was not in the little bag.

  As she listened, Kyla could hear a sudden ripple of laughter.

  She thought that she heard a thump, as if too unsteady to go any farther, they had thrown themselves down on the bed.

  She felt a shudder go through her and she knew at once that she must wait a little while longer until they were asleep.

  She moved back into her own bedroom, opening the drawers and the cupboards silently.

  She was making certain that she had forgotten nothing that she would need.

  She put the fifty pounds into her own handbag and with it there was the money that she had been saving up ever since her father’s death.

  She had known instinctively that the hatred that her stepmother had for her would make it impossible for them to live in the same house.

  She had been desperately worried, if she was to be sent away, as to what would happen to Terry.

  She had never in her wildest dreams imagined anything so appalling as her stepmother contriving to kill him.

  But she had known after the funeral, when her father’s Solicitor had read the Will, that her stepmother was seething with anger.

  Lord Shenley had made it very clear that everything he possessed went with the title.

  It was not an old one as titles go and in fact he had been the third Lord Shenley and now Terry was the fourth.

  Before that the Shenleys, who had played their patriotic part as Statesmen and soldiers, had received various honours.

  Amongst them at the beginning of the last century was a Baronetcy.

  It was because Kyla’s great-grandfather had been a Statesman and of personal service to King George III that he had been made a Peer so he could legislate in the House of Lords.

  He had also been extremely rich, but it was most unfortunate that during the War against Napoleon, as had happened with so many families, the estate had ceased to be profitable and much money had been lost in Bank failures.

  There were indeed the valuable contents of Shenley House in the country, which had been collected by the family over many centuries. But these were all entailed onto the heirs to the title.

  Un
fortunately, because a number of Shenleys had been killed both at sea with Nelson and on the battlefield with Wellington, there was no heir after Terry.

  Sybil had been left an allowance by her father, so it had never struck Kyla for one instant that she would be greedy enough to try to obtain everything that was Terry’s by right of birth.

  He was a dear little boy who had arrived when Lord Shenley and his wife had almost given up any hope of having an heir.

  Kyla, whom they adored, was then ten and Lady Shenley said that it had happened only because she had prayed at a sacred place on the Continent. It was a shrine where women who desired children went.

  When she had returned to England, she had become aware that, like a miracle, she was carrying a child.

  As if Terry must live up to the way that he had been born, he was a beautiful quiet well-behaved baby.

  Everyone loved him instinctively and he was such a sweet little boy that Kyla adored her brother.

  She thought that only someone who was utterly wicked could think of murdering him.

  It must have been her mother and her father protecting those they loved which made her afraid for the future.

  Ever since her father fell ill, she had been turning over in her mind what would happen if he died.

  When he did die, from some strange illness that the doctors could not diagnose, she had been desperately afraid.

  Now she knew that she had every reason to be.

  It must have been God’s protection that came from above that had prepared her for this moment of horror.

  She knew that she somehow had to fend for herself and most importantly for Terry.

  She waited until at least half-an-hour had passed by and then very very softly she crept along the passage.

  Terry was sleeping three or four rooms away in the one that he always occupied when they came to London.

  She went in to find that the curtains were pulled back.

  She could see by the light of the moon and the stars that he was fast asleep in his small bed.

  She did not wake him, but went to the wardrobe to take out the clothes that he should wear now. She also took from the drawers the things that she must pack for him.

  They were not many, because she knew that they would have to carry their belongings.

  It would be a mistake to have anything too heavy, which could hinder their movements.

  For Terry she chose some shirts and a spare pair of trousers, colourful socks and a pair of comfortable shoes.

  She packed them all in another convenient bag that she had hidden behind the wardrobe where the housemaids had not seen it.

  Then at last she sat down on the side of the bed and said quietly,

  “Wake up, Terry.”

  He tinned over, as if he had no wish to open his eyes, and she said again,

  “Wake up, Terry! It is important, darling.”

  This roused him and he then said in a sleepy tone,

  “What is the matter? Is it morning?”

  “No, darling, it is still night, but we have to go away.”

  Terry now woke up completely.

  “Go away? What do you mean, Kyla?”

  “We have to leave this house. I did not tell you before, but Stepmama is plotting terrible things against us and we have to escape.”

  Terry sat up in his bed.

  “How are we going to do that?” he asked.

  Now there was a note of excitement in his voice and Kyla knew that he thought it was all an adventure.

  “Everyone is asleep,” she said, “and so I want you to get up and put on the clothes I have laid out for you. Don’t make a noise and don’t speak. When I come back, we will creep down the stairs and be far away before Stepmama wakes up.”

  “Where are we going?” Terry asked.

  “I will tell you later,” Kyla replied. “Now do exactly what I say.”

  She paused before she added,

  “I just don’t want to frighten you, but it would be a disaster and very very dangerous if Stepmama found out what we were doing and then stopped us.”

  Terry nodded as if he understood.

  “I will be very quiet,” he promised.

  “Then get dressed quickly,” Kyla said, “while I fetch my bag from my room.”

  She knew that he would do as he was told and she bent and kissed him on the cheek.

  “You will have to be very brave,” she urged, “as Papa would want you to be and, of course, you will have to look after me as I will look after you.”

  “I will do that,” Terry said. “Can I have my gun?”

  “I have already packed it,” she answered.

  Terry smiled.

  As he got out of bed, Kyla slipped out through the door and crept back to her own room.

  She finished putting on the clothes that she had chosen to travel in.

  Then she took out from the wardrobe a cloak that had belonged to her mother and was trimmed with sable.

  It had been very expensive and she knew that her stepmother had often looked at it with envious eyes.

  But she felt that what she wanted at the moment was to be able to create an impression of someone of importance.

  It was too warm at the moment to wear the cloak.

  Yet even to carry it would make those people think that she was a Lady of Substance.

  She put on an extremely pretty bonnet on which she had added a few feathers to a rather plain trimming.

  Taking up her handbag, her gloves and the bag in which she had packed her clothes, she tiptoed out of the room.

  She also took the key with her and then locked the door.

  Again she was afraid that the sound might be heard.

  Then she put the key into her handbag and crept down the passage.

  She knew that in the morning, when the maid came to call her and found the door locked, she would think that she wished to sleep late.

  She would go away without making any fuss that she could not get into her room.

  Her stepmother always slept late until nearly noon, which was not surprising considering how late she went to bed full of alcohol.

  ‘By the time they find that I am no longer in the house,’ Kyla told herself, ‘Terry and I will be far away!’

  At the same time she was praying, praying that there would be no unfortunate mishaps and no unexpected disruption to the plan that was working at full speed in her mind.

  She opened the door of Terry’s room and saw that he was ready.

  “You have come,” he said in a whisper. “I thought perhaps I had been dreaming.”

  “You have not been dreaming,” Kyla said. “Now we start a very big adventure together.”

  Terry picked up his bag.

  They went out of the room and then down the passage until they came to a secondary staircase that led down to the kitchen quarters.

  Kyla knew exactly where the staff would be sleeping.

  The only danger on the ground floor was the pantry boy, who slept in the pantry so as to guard the silver in the safe.

  As he was small and rather ineffective, she had always thought that any burglar would overpower him easily.

  It would have been very much better to have had a dog that barked or an older man with some strength. But it was not her business to interfere with the household.

  As they crept past the pantry, they could hear the boy snoring away on his rather hard bed, which folded up into the wall in the daytime.

  There was, of course, no one in the kitchen and they passed the scullery and the larder before they reached the back door.

  Kyla pulled back the bolts, which made only a little noise.

  They then opened the door to the basement with its iron steps that led to the pavement outside.

  They were not very wide and Kyla had to carry her bag in front of her while Terry ran up quite easily.

  Hill Street was empty at that hour of the morning.

  The stars were just beginning to fade overhead and so
on the dawn would be breaking to sweep away the sable of the night.

  Taking Terry by the hand, Kyla started off at a brisk pace towards the streets that led into Piccadilly.

  “Where are we going?” Terry asked her.

  It was the first time that he had spoken since they had left his bedroom.

  “We are going to the country,” Kyla answered.

  “That is good,” Terry said, “but will not Stepmama find us there?”

  “We are not going home,” Kyla replied, “that would be too dangerous. We are going to see Nanny.”

  “Nanny!” Terry exclaimed. “Where is she?”

  “When Nanny last wrote to me, which was at Easter, she was still at Lilliecote Castle.”

  “Is it a long way away?” Terry asked.

  “I am afraid it is,” Kyla answered, “but Nanny will know what we should do and where we should go. There is no one else we can trust.”

  “Are we running away for ever and ever?” Terry enquired.

  “We are running away from Stepmama and she must never ever be able to find us,” Kyla said positively.

  “She does not like me,” Terry stated. “She said yesterday, when you were not there, that all children are tiresome and that I was one of the worst and I was also ‒ obstructive.”

  He stumbled over the word.

  Kyla knew exactly what her stepmother had meant by that and what she intended to do about it.

  Her fingers tightened on her brother’s.

  “You are neither of those things,” she said. “It is only because Stepmama is a wicked woman that she dislikes anyone who is good and you have always been very good, Terry.”

  “I have tried to be,” Terry said. “It has not been easy at school.”

  He had been at a day school, which was why her stepmother had got rid of Nanny.

  There had really been no excuse that Terry was too old to have a Nanny and Kyla had thought that it was actually because Nanny would not allow Sybil to say unkind things about Terry or herself.

  Nanny had been with them for over ten years and she had come first to look after Kyla when her own Nanny was too old and wished to retire.

  She had then been delighted and thrilled when Terry was born and she had a baby to look after.

  She had loved them both and they had loved her.

  Kyla had wept bitterly when her stepmother had sent Nanny away.