One Last Promise (Clean and Wholesome Regency Romance): Martha (The Stainton Sisters Book 1)

by Amy Corwin

  Feeling rather like Sisyphus, doomed to endlessly push a boulder up to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll down again, her feet moved of their own volition toward the staircase. But before she arrived at the landing, a door on her left opened. Mrs. Frethorne, with Mrs. Whyting just behind her, stood in the opening. The two women wore identical startled expressions, with their mouths partially open and brows raised, when they noticed Martha standing just a few feet away.

  “Miss Stainton!” Mrs. Frethorne exclaimed. Her glance flew past Martha’s shoulder toward Mrs. Trussell’s room before she pinned a gracious smile on her face. “What a surprise.”

  “Yes, well, I was just offering my support to Lady Branscombe. And Mrs. Trussell. How are you and Mrs. Whyting?”

  The two older ladies exchanged glances, maintaining their polite smiles.

  “Very well, although I daresay I should not admit such a thing after such terrible events.” Mrs. Frethorne smothered a laugh behind one hand before moderating her expression into the semblance of one of serious concern and clasping her hands at her waist. “I am so sorry, but really, I did not know Mr. Alford at all well, nor his wife.”

  “Of course, we all felt a great deal of sympathy for the girl—Mrs. Alford,” Mrs. Whyting said as she crowded into the doorway next to Mrs. Frethorne and placed a hand on her friend’s arm. “We all felt very sorry for her, poor thing.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head. The white ribbons of her cap, tied in a large bow under her plump chin, fluttered over the high, ruffled collar of her dark blue gown. “The general and I often invited her to stay with us. She was alone far too much, with Mr. Alford traveling hither and yon, as if he never wished to return home to that poor, sweet girl.” Mrs. Whyting shook her head, setting the white ribbons to fluttering again. “What I should like to know is why he married the girl if he intended to desert her so soon? Traveling in all those strange lands… I told the general that I would never have permitted such a thing, not when we had been married less than a year. Although, to be completely honest, the general was away a number of times when we were young, but it was quite different, then, was it not? There was a war, after all, and he could hardly refuse to go.”

  When Mrs. Whyting paused for a breath, Martha asked, “I understand your husband and Mr. Alford were business partners?”

  Mrs. Whyting’s plump cheeks flushed. “I suppose they are. Were. Silks or some such nonsense. I hardly know.” She laughed. “The general says I do not listen, and I fear he is correct. I have no interest in such things, though if the general bethought himself to go in Mr. Alford’s stead, I might have had something to say about that!”

  “I suppose the dealings between the two of them were harmonious?” Martha asked, watching the expressions flitting over the faces of both women.

  Mrs. Whyting laughed again, and even Mrs. Frethorne giggled behind her hand. “Come in, my dear Miss Stainton.” She grabbed her friend’s arm and dragged her back into the sunny room, while beckoning for Martha to follow. “I do not know why we must stand all crowded together in the doorway.”

  As Martha entered the bedchamber, Mrs. Whyting gestured at a large wooden tray covered by a variety of tea accoutrements; fragile china cups containing the milky remains of tea, dainty plates speckled with cake crumbs, and a bulbous pot encased in a quilted cozy were crowded onto it. Two chairs stood on either side of the table supporting the tray. Nothing could be seen of the table under its burden, except four delicately curved, pale maple legs. A third chair, made of the same blond maple with a padded seat, rested in front of the window a few feet away. Mrs. Whyting hastily dragged the chair into the grouping with the other two, while Mrs. Frethorne moved to the chair on the far side of the table.

  “Have you had your tea, my dear? As you can see, we just had ours, but I believe the tea may still be warm, and there are a few lovely lemon cakes left,” Mrs. Whyting said, waving at the third chair. “Do be seated, Miss Stainton.” She looked at Martha with raised brows as she hovered in front of her own chair.

  “Thank you, but I have had tea, Mrs. Whyting.” Martha sat on the edge of the maple chair.

  With a wink at Martha, Mrs. Whyting broke off the corner of one of the lemon cakes and popped it into her mouth. “These are really very good—I cannot resist them.”

  “Your husband and Mr. Alford—their dealings were harmonious, I suppose?” Martha asked again.

  On her left, Mrs. Frethorne’s long face relaxed into the polite but disinterested expression one adopts when attending a long, tedious, but necessary event. Although her face was thin, with long lines running between her nose and the corners of her mouth, her figure was nicely curved and quite as plump as Mrs. Whyting’s rounded form. The two of them looked comfortable together, quite like two old companions well used to sharing cakes and gossip over a warm cup of milky tea.

  Mrs. Whyting laughed again and shook her head, her plump little hands fluttering like the ribbons of her lacy, old-fashioned cap. “All men have their little tiffs, my dear, just like we women do. It would be quite unnatural if they did not, particularly when they share interest in a business.” When Martha opened her mouth, Mrs. Whyting held up a hand and laughed again. “You must not ask me what subjects they discussed. I know not and frankly do not care to know. I find such things tedious in the extreme, though it was quite interesting to hear Mr. Alford speak of China—it must be quite a different place with such strange customs. They do have the most lovely silks…” She sighed, smoothing over her own heavy, dark blue skirts.

  “Mr. Alford must have been very ill when he arrived to have died so suddenly,” Martha said, trying a different mode of inquiry in hopes of soliciting something to relay to Quinton.

  “Ill?” Mrs. Whyting glanced at Mrs. Frethorne. “I did not notice anything amiss—he appeared quite hale when he arrived. Did you notice anything unusual, Gertrude?”

  Mrs. Frethorne grimaced and shook her head, a sandy-gray curl escaping from under the edge of her cap. “I wish I had noticed. I might have avoided—” She broke off, her face twisting as she pressed her fingertips to her mouth. She swallowed several times before she said in a weak voice, “I cannot abide sickness—even to think about it.” She swallowed several more times, her pale gray eyes swimming with tears of effort as she struggled not to embarrass herself. “I am so sorry, but I cannot discuss it. The mere subject upsets me.”

  “Then tell me what Mr. Alford said about his trip to China,” Martha said. “Did he bring back a great many wonderful things?”

  “Oh, yes. Trunks of things, though the bulk went to the warehouse, I suppose,” Mrs. Whyting replied. She laughed again. “He even brought one of those horrid preserved eggs to the supper party. He must have felt quite well to have even considered doing such a thing, for it would take a stronger stomach than mine to taste it. Is that not so, Gertrude?”

  Mrs. Frethorne nodded, keeping her fingers pressed over her mouth. Clearly, her stomach was not up to the tasks of remembering either the preserved egg or the even more upsetting events at supper.

  “So neither of you tasted it?”

  Mrs. Whyting smiled, her plump cheeks prettily flushed with pink. “I must be honest and admit that I had already tasted one and had no desire to try another.”

  “Oh? When did you do so?” Martha asked.

  “Mr. Alford brought several home with him. He seemed to have developed a taste for them, goodness knows why. When he arrived home, he briefly visited the general and brought one of them to us—well, he had to visit, did he not?”

  “Their business interests,” Martha murmured, nodding.

  “No, no. We had his dear wife with us.” The good-humored Mrs. Whyting laughed again and shook her head. “He was quite surprised, as I recall, finding his wife with us and out riding a horse. Sir Horace taught her to ride, you know, while Mr. Alford was gone. We frequently had them as guests so they might make use of the general’s pony. The dear girl was quite fond of our little pony, Cinders. He is as black as night
, but a gentle little thing, and Mrs. Alford was quite taken with him. Both the general and Sir Horace were out riding with Mrs. Alford that afternoon. I will never forget the look of surprise on Mr. Alford’s handsome face. Took him aback, I imagine, but what could he have expected after a year and a half? He could hardly imagine she would remain locked away in their musty little house the entire time, could he?”

  “No, I do not suppose he could,” Martha agreed.

  “That is when I first tasted one of those eggs. To be quite honest, they are not as bad as they appear—or smell, for that matter.”

  “Did your husband like them?”

  “Well enough to try another taste when Mr. Alford brought them to the supper.” Mrs. Whyting grinned and bent forward to break off another piece of lemon cake. “I was not inclined to try it again, however.”

  “Nor I,” Mrs. Frethorne said. “The egg looked dreadful—pale gray…” She shuddered. “I could not bring myself to taste it, although my husband did so.”

  “Did he enjoy it?”

  “Not particularly,” Mrs. Frethorne said, wrinkling her nose. “And it hardly matters, as I cannot think that we shall be forced to eat another one at any time in the near future.”

  Martha smiled and nodded. That did seem hardly likely to occur, unless Mr. Alford had brought crates full of the things back with him from China and bequeathed them to Mr. Frethorne. “Did Mr. Alford’s illness come upon him unexpectedly, then?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Frethorne agreed. “When we sat at the table, I noticed that he appeared paler than he had upon his arrival, and oddly nervous. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and mouth several times as the soup was being served.” She shuddered and pressed her fingers to her mouth yet again. “I remember that he seemed to be a particularly damp man at the time.”

  Damp? Mr. Alford must have been sweating, then, and already feeling the effects of the poison.

  “Did you notice what he had to eat? Or drink?”

  Mrs. Frethorne shrugged and looked to her friend, who also smiled and shook her head. “We all had a sip of ratafia in the drawing room, and a few—men mostly—ate a bit of that dreadful egg. There was nothing else served before supper, was there, Diane?” Mrs. Frethorne asked Mrs. Whyting.

  “Not that I recall, my dear.” Mrs. Whyting leaned over the arm of her chair to pat Martha’s arm. “It must have been a sudden attack of gastric fever, just as Dr. Meek explained. After all that traveling and eating all those unnatural foods, well, it isn’t to be wondered at, particularly since he obviously enjoyed the more exotic items.”

  Martha looked from Mrs. Whyting’s pleasant, motherly face to Mrs. Frethorne. Despite her sense of frustration, she had to admit that she couldn’t cast any of these pleasant, comfortable women as murderers. For one thing, she liked them too well to believe they could sprinkle poison over a man’s food and coolly watch him die.

  The niggling thought that she had learned something of importance teased her. Some small fact might even point an accusing finger at the murderer, if she could but identify it. But whatever the clue was, it remained as elusive as a feather carried overhead by the breeze.

  Perhaps Quinton had had better luck with the men.

  Chapter Six

  Sighing with relief, Quinton watched Lady Honore drift away, having remembered an errand she had to run. He glanced toward the staircase. Martha might still be upstairs, questioning the other women. Setting foot on the bottom step, he looked over his shoulder at the sound of a footstep. Frank Trussell emerged from the dining room, his brow drawn down thoughtfully.

  Quinton stepped down again and greeted him, motioning to the double doors of the drawing room. With just a moment’s hesitation, Trussell joined him, and he seemed happy enough to give him an accounting of what he remembered of the fatal night.

  “Are you sure?” Quinton asked Trussell as they lounged in the chairs closest to the windows. The afternoon sun slanted through the draperies, the beams warm on the back of Quinton’s hand.

  “Yes.” Smiling, Trussell nodded and ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair. His blond hair was fading into gray now, revealing his age as closer to sixty than fifty, but his classically handsome, open face showed only the faintest network of wrinkles around his blue-gray eyes and wide mouth.

  He was a tall, well-built man with easy, forthright manners and a firm handshake that made it difficult to dislike him. In fact, when Quinton discovered that they had attended the same schools, albeit years apart, his immediate sense of friendship strengthened, making him feel as if he were idly chatting with a long lost older brother instead of questioning Sir Horace’s guest.

  Trussell lounged back in his chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “Yes,” he repeated. “Quite sure.” He chuckled and shrugged. “When he caught me watching him, he actually winked as he dumped the contents of his plate onto the larger one. Right after I picked up the last slice to taste.” His forehead wrinkled with thought. “It wasn’t half-bad, actually. Not at all. I can quite see how Alford might wish to eat one. On occasion.”

  “So Sir Horace did not, in fact, eat any of the egg?”

  “No.” Trussell shook his head. “After we all took a portion, he merely emptied his little plate—the one Alford had given him with such a flourish—onto the larger plate. Presumably to maintain the polite illusion that he had eaten the bloody thing after Alford brought it especially for him.”

  “And you did not grow ill from the portion you consumed?”

  “No.” His eyes glimmered with a satiric light. “And none of the others who partook of the delicacy did, either. As far as I am aware.”

  “And the others—do you remember who they were?”

  “Well, myself, as I mentioned. Dr. Meek, General Whyting, and Frethorne. Just the men, really.” He shook his head and laughed, the sound inviting Quinton to join in. “Of course that little minx, Lady Honore, stole a small tidbit. Attempting to prove to Alford that she was still game for anything, I daresay.” He snorted with amusement again.

  Quinton’s brows rose. “Prove to Alford?”

  “Quite the item before his marriage, they were. Lady Honore can be quite determined, once she’s set her mind on a course. Precious little that can dissuade her, I fear.” The rueful twist of his mouth suggested he was not unacquainted with Lady Honore’s particular brand of decisiveness.

  “I take it that you were one of her decisions?”

  “Nearly.” Trussell shook his head, and wiggled his foot, gazing at the shiny toe of his black leather shoe. His amused expression grew sober. “I made vows at my wedding, Lord Ashbourne. I would not, and will not, dishonor my wife. Not for a hundred Lady Honores. Or anyone else, for that matter. One does better to avoid temptation altogether than to regret it afterward and pray for forgiveness. Or so I’ve thought.” He stared at the floor, looking uncomfortable after making such a sanctimonious statement. He twisted his head to relieve the tension in his neck, wiggling his foot.

  “I see,” Quinton said. And he did see.

  It wasn’t sanctimonious at all.

  Despite his easy manners and handsome face, Frank Trussell was clearly a man whose sense of honor included adherence to vows such as those made at his wedding—something that not all men seemed ready to adhere to. At least in Quinton’s experience.

  His respect for Trussell deepened.

  “So Lady Honore hoped to tempt Alford again by sampling his thousand-year egg?”

  “I cannot say,” Trussell admitted with a shrug. His cheeks grew ruddy with embarrassment. “I should not have mentioned it. She may have been merely flirting, or perhaps she simply wanted to prove her hold over him had not weakened since his marriage. We are all only human, after all, though I doubt she’ll admit anything of the sort.” His mouth twisted. “I dislike speculating. However, I would not be surprised if she refused to admit taking a taste of that egg, if it came to it. She seems to me to be one of those ladies who make every
attempt to appear to live on nothing but sunshine and thin air. You know the type. Unless she means to prove something by her actions, of course. Then she might admit it.” He shook his head again, clearly distracted by his own observation. “Why women should wish to require nothing to eat, and go about barely clothed as if entirely oblivious to the coldest wind, is beyond me.” He met Quinton’s gaze with twinkling eyes. “Now my wife—she’s not a bit afraid to enjoy a hearty meal—an honest and good trencherman is my Maud. Makes me smile just to see her. I like a comfortable woman, don’t you, Ashbourne?”

  A comfortable woman—like Martha. The image of her round face, cheeks flushed, and her brilliant eyes flashing behind her round glasses distracted Quinton. He dragged his thoughts back to the man sitting across from him.

  As he examined Trussell’s open face, Quinton lounged back in his chair, stretching out his legs and hooking his right foot over his left ankle. “Recalling the supper… Alford prepared a small plate specifically for Sir Horace?”

  “For our host. Yes. Alford sliced one egg and put half on a dessert plate and the remaining half on a larger plate, along with a second egg, which he cut into slices.”

  “However, Sir Horace did not eat the egg? Could he have added anything to the portion he failed to eat? Salt, perhaps?”

  “Not that I could see. And his hands were full, what with the two plates and all.” Trussell studied him in return with a quick, intelligent gaze. “The separate plates might have provided an opportunity for Sir Horace—I can see you’ve heard the rumors about him and our dear little Mrs. Alford. However, if you are thinking that Sir Horace might want to do away with the interfering husband of his mistress, I should advise you against such a conclusion. Sir Horace seemed mightily relieved when the missing husband returned home at precisely the right time to cover up his small indiscretion. And despite his slips, Sir Horace would never risk his marriage to the estimable Edith. Of late, I’ve even suspected that he regretted his kindly impulse to undertake the riding lessons that Mrs. Alford was so pleased to receive.”