A Soupçon of Poison

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Send word to where?” I looked him straight in the eye. “Your address, sir?”

  Daniel returned my look, unblinking. “Leave a note here. I’ll find it.”

  We continued our duel with gazes until finally Daniel gave me the ghost of a smile and turned away.

  When James started to follow Daniel downstairs, I stopped him. “Where does he live, James?” I asked in a low voice.

  James stuck his hands in his pockets. “Tell ya the truth, missus, I don’t know. He finds me. He always seems to know where I am.”

  “And your mum?”

  James shrugged, hands still in his pockets. “Never knew her. I was raised by a lady who chars for houses until he found me. But I’ve never stayed with him. I board with some people—respectable. He pays for it.”

  I was more mystified than ever. James behaved as though this were the normal course of things, though I saw a tiny flicker of hurt in his eyes that his father didn’t want him rooming with him for whatever his reasons.

  Daniel had banged out the front door. James rushed to catch up with him, and I closed and bolted the door behind them.

  The house became eerier once they’d gone. I hastened down to my rooms, packed my things in my box, then left the box and went out again in hat and coat. I dutifully left a note for Daniel about where I was going on the kitchen table, which I’d cleaned and scrubbed after this morning’s meal.

  The first person I looked up was Mrs. Watkins, the housekeeper. She might have heard of a house looking for a cook, or might know where I could rest my head tonight.

  Mrs. Watkins’s sister lived in Pimlico. I found out exactly where by letting myself into the housekeeper’s room and going through her small writing desk. Mrs. Watkins would have left all the paperwork and keys for the house for the next housekeeper, even if she’d gone in haste. I discovered everything neatly organized, as I’d thought I would.

  I took an omnibus to Pimlico and found the house, a respectable address in an area of middle-class Londoners. Mrs. Watkins’s sister, it turned out, ran a boardinghouse herself—for genteel, unmarried women, and Mrs. Watkins had just taken the last room.

  “Mrs. Holloway!” Mrs. Watkins exclaimed in surprise when she entered the parlor to find me there. I’d asked the maid to send up word that Mrs. Watkins had a visitor, but I had not given my name.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Watkins,” I said.

  “I heard ... I thought ...” She opened and closed her mouth, at a loss for words.

  “Yes, I was taken before a magistrate, but then released.” I made a dismissive gesture, as though I survived ordeals like being locked in Newgate every day.

  Mrs. Watkins remained standing with hands clenched as she adjusted to this turn of events. “Well, I have to say I never thought you could have done such a thing. You have a temper on you, Mrs. Holloway, but plunging a knife into a man takes a cruelty I don’t think you possess.”

  “The knife didn’t kill him,” I said. “He was poisoned. As were the others at the table. Now then, Mrs. Watkins, why did you set a sugar caster on the table when I didn’t send it up with the meal?”

  Mrs. Watkins gave me a perplexed frown. “What sugar caster?”

  “The one Sir Lionel and his guests used to liberally sprinkle sugar all over my tart. Which they should not have—the flavor was just fine. If they’d known anything about food, those two men would be alive today.”

  Mrs. Watkins continued to blink at me. “You are making no sense. There was no sugar caster on the table.”

  “Then why did Mrs. Fuller say there was?”

  “Gracious, I have no idea.”

  We eyed each other, two respectable-looking women standing in the middle of a carpet in a sitting room, the carved furniture and draped tables hemming us in. A lamp, already lit against gathering gloom, hissed as its wick drew up more kerosene.

  The two of us were dressed similarly, our bodices tightly buttoned to our chins. I wore a jacket of dark gray wool, while Mrs. Watkins was dressed in a simple ensemble for an evening indoors. She was tall and bony, I plump and shorter of stature.

  No one could have mistaken us for anything but two ladies who’d had to grub for our living, except that we had a bit more responsibility and wisdom, and had left behind the lower levels of the serving class.

  And yet, was that all we were—respectable women in the upper echelon of the servant class? Who really knew anything about us? I had a daughter but no sign of a husband. Mrs. Watkins—what had she been in life? Behind the layers we showed the world, what secrets did we keep?

  “Are you certain there was no sugar caster?” I asked after a silence.

  “Positive.”

  There it was. Either Mrs. Watkins lied, or Mrs. Fuller did. Was the liar the poisoner? Or did each of them lie for some reason I could not comprehend?

  I needed an independent party to tip the balance. John the footman, Sally, or even Copley. John certainly would have seen what had happened at the table that night. He wasn’t the brightest of lads, but he was worth speaking to—unless he’d done the poisoning, of course. And then there was Sally. She’d discovered Sir Lionel. Her fright and shock had seemed real enough, but I had been too stunned myself to pay much attention.

  I thanked Mrs. Watkins, wished her the best, and left the house, pondering over what she’d told me. If she lied about not placing or seeing the caster on the table, why had she? I had no idea. What a muddle.

  John proved to be elusive. According to Mrs. Watkins’s notes, which I read back at Sir Lionel’s house, he’d been a cousin of Sir Lionel’s coachman, but that coachman had been dismissed before I’d been employed there. The coachman now drove for a banker with a house in Dorset. John had no other relation, it seemed, and I had no idea how to go about looking for him. John might even now be in Dorset in search of a new position. Sally had a family in Southwark, the notes said, and I wondered if she’d retreated there.

  I wrote a brief letter to the coachman who was John’s cousin, addressed it in care of the banker in Dorset, and took it out to post.

  Night had fallen. Streetlamps outside Sir Lionel’s had been lit, and Portman Square teemed with people. London never really slept.

  It was too late for the errand I truly wanted to run, so I began a brisk walk to a boardinghouse I’d lodged in before. Not the best, and the cook was deplorable, but needs must.

  I had reached Oxford Street when I saw him.

  Traffic blocked me from crossing, so I turned aside to buy a bun from a vendor. A little way behind me, a few well-dressed ladies and gentlemen were coming out of a large house and ascending into a coach.

  One of the gentlemen was Daniel.

  Chapter Eight

  I was so astonished, I froze, the warm bun halfway to my lips.

  Gone was the rather shabbily dressed man with heavy gloves and mud-splotched boots who argued in a good-natured way with his son. This gentleman wore a dark, well-tailored suit, which was clean and whole—in fact, it looked costly.

  Creased trousers covered shining boots, and his overcoat against the evening chill fit him perfectly, made for him. A neatly tied cravat and a gold watch chain in his waistcoat completed the gentleman’s ensemble.

  Daniel’s hair, instead of being its usual unruly mop, was slicked to flow behind his ears. He paused on the doorstep to set a tall silk hat on his head.

  This couldn’t be Daniel McAdam, could it? My Daniel?

  My first inclination was to dart forward and look this person in the face. And if it were Daniel, ask him what the devil he meant by it.

  I almost did. I hastily checked my steps, however, when I saw a woman emerge from the house and take his arm.

  She was obviously a highborn lady. Her gown spoke of elegance and refinement, silk and lace, with a glitter of diamonds at her throat. Not a courtesan, I thought. While courtesans could dress as finely as any lady, this gown was demure while also being highly fashionable.

  A sister, I reassured myself quickly.
Or a cousin. Something innocent. But the way Daniel handed the woman into the coach told me differently. He held her hand longer than was polite, helped her inside with a touch on her waist that lingered.

  A sister might laugh at his care. This lady turned and gave Daniel such a warm smile that I nearly dropped my hunk of bread.

  Daniel glanced around him, scanning the street in a surreptitious manner, as I’d often seen him do—assessing the lay of the land.

  That glance clinched the matter. He was Daniel, and not simply a man who resembled him. His clothes were different, but his mannerisms, the look, the way he moved—Daniel.

  As his gaze roved the street, I ducked back from the streetlight, earning me a growl from a passerby I nearly trod on. I begged his pardon and pushed myself into the shadows of a house, where the gaslight didn’t reach.

  I could scarcely breathe. Daniel finished scrutinizing the street and climbed up into the coach with the lady. The other lady and gentleman who’d come out of the house had entered the carriage as I’d watched Daniel. A footman from the house shut the door and signaled the coachman to go.

  My heart was like stone as the carriage creaked away. I handed the uneaten bun to a beggar, drew my jacket about me, and walked on.

  ***

  The landlady at my old boardinghouse let me have a small room at the top of the house. It was cramped and cold, and I grew nostalgic for my cubbyhole behind the kitchen fireplace at Sir Lionel’s.

  It was not only the cold that kept me awake. I saw Daniel over and over in my mind, setting his fashionable hat on his head and touching the lady’s back as he handed her into the carriage.

  He’d been comfortable in those clothes, as comfortable as he was in his rough trousers and worn knee boots. He knew how to wear a gentleman’s suit without awkwardness, and the lady with him seemed to find nothing amiss

  Which was the real Daniel?

  Or had I been mistaken? Daylight had been waning, gas lamps throwing a harsh glare on the street. Perhaps I had spied a man who had greatly resembled Daniel … down to the turn of his head, the flick of his eyes, his way of looking about as though memorizing everything in sight.

  The logical way to resolve the issue was to return to the house at Oxford Street, knock on the door, and demand to know if Daniel had been there last night. I had a good excuse to go to the house—I was a cook looking for a new position. Cooks didn’t generally walk the streets knocking on doors, but it could happen. I would ask the domestics there about the household, perhaps make friends with their current cook, and discover what was what.

  Another logical course was to ask Daniel point blank. That is, if I ever saw the man again and could strike up the courage to question him. I might not like the answers.

  Or I could forget about Daniel altogether, visit my agency, find another place, and resolve to speak to him no more.

  None of the scenarios satisfied me. I rose in the morning, cross and sandy-eyed, nibbled at the breakfast of undercooked bacon, overdone eggs, half-burned toast, and ice-hard butter, and went out. I wended my way back to Portman Square and Sir Lionel’s, where all was quiet, to fetch my box.

  I made certain that the kitchen and my room had been put to rights—when Sir Lionel’s heir took possession of the house I didn’t want him blaming the previous staff for anything untoward. I’d need help shoving my trunk up the stairs outside, so I put on my hat with the feathers and black ribbon, and went out to ask the neighbor’s boot boy to assist me.

  I found James sitting on the scullery stairs. “Morning, Mrs. Holloway,” he sang out.

  I jumped. “James,” I said, hand on my heart. “Good heavens, you should not do that.”

  “Sorry, missus.”

  I felt awkward speaking to him now. Did James know? Were James and his father deceiving me together, or did Daniel keep his own son in the dark as to whoever he truly was?

  “No matter,” I said. “You’re just the lad. Can you help me with my box? I have a cart on the way …”

  A cart pulled up in the street at that moment, and Daniel climbed down from it, his feet in scuffed boots landing outside the railings above me. I gulped and hastened back into the kitchen, not ready to encounter him just yet.

  Daniel came ruthlessly inside. James darted past him to begin shoving my large, square trunk across the flagstones, but Daniel stood in the middle of the kitchen, his soft cap crumpled in his hand. His hair was its usual rumpled mess, his boots muddy, his loose neck cloth letting me glimpse a sliver of chest.

  This was Daniel McAdam. The worker, unashamed of doing manual labor for a living. I had to have been mistaken about the other.

  Daniel’s good-natured expression was in place, as though he’d spent the night doing nothing more than drinking ale with his fellow delivery men in a public house.

  “I thought you’d be agog to know what I learned from my chemist,” he was saying.

  I’d forgotten about the blasted chemist, and I was curious, drat him. “Did he discover what was in the sugar caster?”

  “He did,” Daniel said readily. “Nothing but sugar.”

  “Oh.” I blinked, my thoughts rearranging themselves. “Then what was it doing in the plant pot? And why did Mrs. Watkins swear up and down that the caster hadn’t been on the table at all?”

  Daniel’s gaze sharpened. “Mrs. Watkins, the housekeeper? When did she say this?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, when I went to call on her. She’s staying with her sister, Mrs. Herbert, who runs a boardinghouse. I believe I told you about the sister in Pimlico.”

  “And you went there to confront her alone?” Daniel’s look was narrow and so angry that I blinked. “Without a word to me?”

  “I left you a note.” I pointed to the table, where the note had lain, though I’d put it on the fire this morning, no longer needed.

  “You should not have gone alone,” Daniel said sternly, his tone unforgiving. “You should have told me and had me come with you.”

  “To a ladies’ boardinghouse?” I asked, my eyes widening. “They wouldn’t have let you in. Besides, you had business of your own last night, did you not?”

  Was it my imagination, or did he start? “I could have put any business off. This is important.”

  I had been avoiding looking straight at him, but now I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

  “What was your business last evening?” I asked. “Did it take you to Oxford Street?”

  Daniel focused hard on me as he went more still than I thought a human being could become. Everything affable about him fell away, and I was left looking at a man I did not know.

  James and the neighbor’s boot boy were pushing my box up the outside stairs—thump, bump—bantering with each other, laughing. Inside the kitchen, all was silence.

  Daniel studied me with a gaze I could not read. No more warmth and helpful friendliness in his eyes, no more clever delivery man trying to find out who’d killed Sir Lionel. He was not even the cool gentleman I’d spied last night in Oxford Street. Daniel stood upright like a blade and looked as deadly.

  “Then I did see you,” I said softly.

  His one, short nod lanced my heart. A rich gentleman did not pretend to be a poor one without ulterior reason—nor the other way around. Not very good reasons, either.

  “The lady,” I said, wanting to know the worst. “She is your wife?”

  A shake of the head, as perfunctory as the nod. “No.”

  “Affianced?”

  Daniel waited a bit before the next shake of head.

  “Lover? I must admit, Mr. McAdam, I am quite curious.”

  “I know you are.” His words were quiet, as were his eyes. “Mrs. Holloway, I have done you a great disservice.”

  He hadn’t answered my last question. The knife in my heart twisted. “How so?” I asked. “By lying about who you truly are? I have known others who have done the same thing.” The father of my daughter, for instance.

  “I know.”

  It took
a moment for me to comprehend those two simple words. I know. My beloved hat felt too tight on my head.

  “What on earth do you mean by that?” I snapped. “You know what?”

  Daniel’s expression didn’t change. “I know that the man who married you already had a living wife. That he abandoned you and left you to face the world alone, with a child. That you fought hard to gain the position you have. That you’re a bloody good cook.” The corners of his lips twitched as he said this last, but I’d never warm to his smile again.

  “And yet,” I said. “I know nothing about you.”

  “That is something I cannot remedy. Not yet. I regret that, Mrs. Holloway, believe me.”

  I noted that he no longer addressed me as Kat. “Well, I don’t believe you. I was a fool ever to believe in you.” I stopped the tears in my voice and cleared my throat. “Thank you for releasing me from prison, Mr. McAdam—or whatever your name is. Now, I must get on. I have to find another place so I may earn my keep, and my daughter’s. Good day to you.”

  “I have already found another place for you.”

  I stopped in the act of pulling on a glove. “I beg your pardon?”

  Daniel took a step toward me, cool and efficient. “The Earl of Clarendon, in Berkeley Square, needs a cook, one with excellent skills. You may start there anytime you wish.”

  Anger boiled through me, stronger than I’d felt in a very long time. How dare he? Daniel had caused me to make an idiot of myself, and now he sought to repair the damage by sending me off to the home of ... who? One of his dear friends? His relations?

  “No, thank you,” I said coldly. “I will go to my agency and see what is on their books. As is proper. Good day, Mr. McAdam.”

  “Kat, you need to take the position,” Daniel said, his voice unyielding. “That and no other.”

  I thunked my small handbag onto the table. “Why? You tell me right now, Daniel. Why should I believe a word you say?”

  His eyes flickered. “Because you will be safe there.”

  “Safe? From whom?”

  “From those who wish you harm because of me.” Every word was as hard as stones. “Sir Lionel died because of me. I did not kill him, but I caused his death. That is why I knew you never killed him—stabbed, poisoned, or otherwise, no matter what he’d done. When I learned he’d made advances to you, I warned him off and ensured that James or I watched you at all times. That is another reason I know you did not kill him—James or I would have seen.”