AUCTION ITEM #8, PETWORTH ESTATE: PAGES FROM A LADY'S DIARY, LIKELY VISCOUNTESS SARAH BOLINGBROKE, DATE UNKNOWN, FRAGMENTS ONLY
I should not be wasting time putting pen to paper when there is so much to be done, and decided, but I must quiet the thoughts that swirl in my mind, and writing to Jareth feels too dangerous now, knowing what we know.
Abigail. It was Abigail.
Why? Why did she not simply come to me, if she needed coin?
Of course I know why. Because I have no control over anyone's money, and neither does my mother, and she was desperate.
I received her letter shortly after Mother paid me a visit at Petworth and told me in hushed tones of what she had learned about the letters and the publishing house. We were both frightened of what should happen if Father were to find out, and now we can only pray that Mother's strongly worded letter will have some effect.
Jareth must know by now, though I am fearful of writing to him in this moment for fear that our letters might be intercepted. I also hope that he will not do anything rash, or that if he does it is only to somehow make the letters vanish from the publishers' office and not to do harm to Abigail or whoever might have helped her in her thievery.
I was, at least, able to pass Aiara's letter on to Mother. She took it like a delicate flower that might crumble in her hands, and I gave her a bit of distance in which to read it privately. I thought I heard little sobs as she read, and indeed when she had finished and returned to me her eyes were red, but she was smiling.
She took my hands in hers. "What would you do, dearest?" she whispered. "If you could truly have what your heart desired, what would you do?"
When I told her, she looked not at all shocked by my words. She only nodded and squeezed my hands harder.
"Soon," she said. "We must act soon."
By night. Surely it must be done by night.
I fear that any hour now the trail of whispers will reach my father, and in his wrath he will confine my mother not only to the grounds of the family estate but to her room, or make good on his promise to commit her to an asylum—
—ther knows something. I am sure of it. Perhaps not about the letters and the publisher, but something.
He came to Petworth yesterday. I was shocked to see him—he had never visited me here before, and I immediately feared the worst. But no, he never mentioned the letters or the publisher.
I think, perhaps, that he simply wished to remind me of the power that he still has over my mother, and over me.
"It is good to see that you are settled in well here," he said to me. "Your mother had some…difficulties adjusting to the confines of married life. But I educated her, and she took to her lessons."
It was difficult to hold my tongue and play at meekness while he smiled coldly at me. I did so only because I knew my very life and the lives of those I cared for might depend on it.
"It would seem that you have had no such difficulties," he said. "Have you?"
Was he asking whether I had had a fae lover, as mother had? How much did he know?
I kept my smile meek and my eyes lowered. "I am grateful for the convent education that prepared me so well for life at Petworth, and to you and mother for sending me there," I said quietly.
His gaze was pointed—did he see through my facade? But if he did he ultimately gave no indication of it and left with a few pleasantries.
We must move even more quickly than I th—.
