Lou stopped reading. Sir Charles had died too. She fought the instinct to search The Courier for an obituary. She mustn’t be side-tracked. Only once she had finished researching Charlotte, should she move on to Sir Charles. With a heavy heart, she made a note that he must have died in 1919. She read the report again, focusing on George’s assertion that there had been some sort of inherited mental illness in the Mandeville family. What evil game was he playing? It was a lie. Even so, she dutifully made a note in her pad before scrolling through the articles and locating a report in the following week’s edition of The Courier. It recorded the verdict. Accidental death. The coroner and jury had come to the conclusion that the most likely explanation for Lady Caxton’s death was a fainting episode brought about by her advanced state of pregnancy, as a result of which she had tripped and fallen down the stairs.

Lou sat back. Poor Charlotte. Poor, lovely Charlotte. All of that life and promise snuffed out. And nowhere, in any of the reporting, was there the remotest suggestion that George’s treatment of her had any bearing on her death. George would have been too clever – no, too devious – to get caught. But what had gone on behind closed doors at Caxton Hall? If the staff had seen or heard anything, they would have been too afraid to implicate their powerful employer. Charlotte had been cast into George Caxton’s world and had borne the brunt of her husband’s hatred for her branch of their family. Had George snuck up behind Charlotte and shoved her down the rarely used stairs? Had he dragged her there and pushed her down, knowing she wouldn’t be found? Or, as Bertie had suggested, had Charlotte thrown herself down the stairs, committing suicide to spare her unborn child the horror of having George Caxton for a father?

A grainy black and white photograph accompanied the article. George Caxton held a handkerchief to his face, mopping up crocodile tears. Lou had to fight the urge to punch the screen. The exact circumstances of Charlotte’s death were lost in the mists of time, but she was sure of one thing. Either directly or indirectly, George Caxton had Charlotte Mandeville’s blood on his hands. He may have failed to convince the coroner that Charlotte had taken her own life, but his suggestion that she had been mentally impaired would have planted a seed of doubt in the mind of every person in that packed courtroom and every reader of The Courier. Even in death, he had been determined to besmirch Charlotte. Were there no depths to which George Caxton would not plunge to destroy the Mandevilles?

Lou forced herself to read on, but just a paragraph in, had to stop. Her anger turned to gut-wrenching sadness. The reporter described the “deceased’s family listening in silence and with immense dignity to the coroner’s verdict.” He described Lady Caxton’s brother, Sir Edward Mandeville; his recently widowed mother, Lady Mandeville; and the deceased’s aunt, Mrs Hart, who had attended every day of the inquest and sat through every awful detail. Lou pictured them as vividly as if she were sitting on the bench beside them. Edward pale, cheeks gaunt. Lady Mandeville and Mrs Hart, their faces obscured by veils to hide the ocean of tears they would have shed for their darling girl.