In a Perfect Mess With the Marquess

by Hazel Linwood

  “Wait here,” the maid said.

  He waited impatiently and, as soon as Penitence appeared, he outlined his plan. She looked up at him nervously, but the nodded, and he could see that she agreed with him.

  “I will return here shortly,” he said as he turned away.

  She nodded and he went to his horse, feeling guilty that he had put so much danger on Penitence. He was asking her to risk her employment and he knew it.

  Uncle would offer her work if she lost her job. I know it.

  He arrived early for dinner at his uncle’s and ate hastily, barely able to wait until dark when he would set out again.

  He dressed carefully in black, a dark cloak covering his clothes. He was going to need to be invisible. He rode as swiftly as he could to Weston Manor. He waited by the gate, afraid Penitence had forgotten about him.

  Just as he was feeling worried, he heard a voice in the darkness, beside the big tree that overhung the gate.

  “My Lord? Follow me.”

  Nodding, he headed down the path towards the house. There, he followed her into the servant’s entrance. They went down a cold, drafty hallway and up some steps, and then to the left again. He felt desperate to get out of the dark, cold space, but at the same time, he knew he had to stay here, to find out what was happening, so Martha could be free of this lie—if, indeed, it was. He glanced at Penitence, who seemed calm.

  “Here it is, My Lord.”

  Nicholas let out a breath. He reached the doorway she had indicated, and bent down to peer through the keyhole. He felt his heart thud with fear and tension. He found himself looking into a bedroom. He felt embarrassed—it was a lady’s bedchamber, and he had never imagined himself spying on a lady.

  “I need to go and tend to my chores, My Lord,” Penitence said softly. “I must leave you here.”

  “Of course. I thank you.” Nicholas bowed. Penitence looked surprised. She turned and walked away, leaving him alone.

  Where I could sit all night and stare at Lady Weston’s bedroom and see nothing.

  He leaned against the stone wall. He felt like an idiot. The plan seemed foolish now, and he wished he hadn’t thought of it. He knew he had to try, though—it was his best chance of loosening Lady Weston’s hold on Martha.

  He returned to watching the room. He could make out a lamp on a table, and a bed. There was a fire banked down in the grate. He wasn’t sure how well he could see anything.

  He felt his leg go stiff and he wanted to move. At the same time, he felt if he did, he would miss something. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed. He guessed it must be around eight o’ clock. He had no idea how much longer he would have to wait.

  He was still watching through the door, thinking he might as well leave, when he saw it.

  Lady Weston got out of bed and went to the mirror. As he watched, she washed her face and pinned up her hair, then reached for her robe which hung by the door. She slipped it on and went through to another room. He waited for her to come out.

  She returned and walked past the servant’s door, a rustle of cloth and a sudden darkness. He heard the clink of china, and when he looked again, it was to see her seated at the table at the far end of the room. She had a plate of food with her, and she was eating. It seemed like a good dinner, and she was clearly eating with some relish. He watched her pour a glass of something to drink.

  If she is ill, she seems awfully robust now.

  He stared, transfixed. He couldn’t stop watching. He knew he was spying and he felt awful about it, yet he felt justified, too. Something was going on here—something utterly different to what Martha had been told.

  The Countess sat for a moment, then stood and walked back the way she had come. He heard a door open and shut, and then re-open as she appeared again. As he watched, she sat down at her mirror and undid her hair, then reached into a drawer and started to apply something around her eyes. It was too dark to see, but he suspected she was painting her face to look more ill than she was.

  I cannot know for sure, but I suspect much of this is a pretense.

  He stayed where he was until he heard footsteps. He saw a maid come in and say something to Lady Weston. Then, as he heard footsteps moving towards the door, he tensed and jumped up, terrified the maid would come through the door and find him there. He hurried down the corridor to the steps and then went down them, deciding he saw enough.

  He rode home, his mind dwelling on what he had seen.

  He knew it was not conclusive, but it did suggest that Lady Weston was not nearly as ill as she was claiming. He planned to have a long talk with Mr. Lessing, the physician, as soon as he could.

  One thing was certain—as soon as he knew for sure he was right, he would be talking about it to Martha.

  Chapter 29

  Martha got out of bed hurriedly as Penitence came in. It was morning, but it seemed early and Martha blinked, confused, as she looked across at Penitence. Why had she come in so early?

  “What is it?” she asked. She felt her heart thump with some sense of great urgency. Had something happened to her sister? To Mama?

  “My Lady!” Penitence said, and Martha could see how flustered she was. “I’m so sorry, but I must help you to dress. You have a visitor! He’s here,” she whispered.

  Martha guessed at once who she meant. She stared at Penitence. “He’s here?”

  “Yes. Sorry, My Lady. But I told him to wait. He’s in the garden by the side gate. He’s been waiting there for the last ten minutes.”

  Martha nodded, instantly aware of what she meant. If he waited there for any length of time, there was a great risk of him being seen there. She glanced at the clock on the mantel, which told her it was eight o’ clock. Why was he here now?

  “Let me help you, My Lady. Do you wish to wear the white gown?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Penitence,” she nodded. She held her hair out of the way as Penitence buttoned her gown, feeling alarmed by the urgency of the situation. Her mind was still drifting in the events of the day before, wondering about the man in the woods. Why was Nicholas here?

  “There. Now, your hair…Oh! I must hurry,” Penitence said, and her fingers were stiff with worry as she combed Martha’s hair. She winced and tried not to yell in protest and then, as soon as her hair was arranged up and out of the way, she hurried downstairs. She glanced into the breakfast room, but nobody was there. It was too early, she guessed, and Amelia was still abed.

  In the garden, she went straight to the gate. She jumped as Nicholas emerged instantly, calling out her name.

  “What is it?” she asked, hastily stepping out into the woodlands outside the estate. “What brings you here? Penitence said it was urgent.”

  “I went to see the physician. He told me the truth.”

  “The truth?” Martha frowned up at Nicholas. His lips were pale, his face chalk-white. He looked shocked and annoyed.

  “Your mother is not unwell. She’s perfectly well, and she’s been concealing it in order to make you do her wishes.”

  “What?” Martha stared at him. He said it all perfectly neutrally, but she could hear the compressed anger in his tone. She stared at him, wondering what on Earth he meant. The words sunk in slowly, making no sense. She wished Amelia was here to help her make sense of it all.

  “Your mother,” he repeated gently. “Is well. She paid the physician to lie for her, and her maid knows as well. They have been keeping you and Amelia in ignorance so that you believe her ill.”

  “What?” Martha repeated. She understood the words, but their meaning seemed ridiculous. How could she? What would she seek to gain by that?

  She recalled her words the other day: “I cannot go outside here. We must leave. You will go with me to comfort me.”

  She shivered. “Nicholas,” she said, taking his hand. “I thank you for this news. But how do you know? How do you know it’s true?”

  Nicholas looked her. “I saw her,” he said. He was barely speaking audibly, and Martha took a
moment to understand what he said. “Forgive me…I requested the maid allow me in and I spied on her in her rooms last night. I will never fail to be ashamed of it, but I felt I had to.”

  “Nicholas!” Martha stared. Shock fought with relief somewhere deep inside her. Relief won. “You mean, you saw her looking perfectly well?”

  “I saw her stand up from her bed, wash off her face powder, eat a meal, and then return to bed. If that is congruent with her current condition, you can tell me. But to me, it seemed unlike the actions of someone so sick.”

  “She could stand up?” Martha was shocked. She had heard from her mother’s physician and maid that her mother was unable to leave her bed. She had been lying there for over a week, and Martha had been having nightmares about her death. The shock was like a fist, slamming into her chest.

  “Yes.” Nicholas nodded. “I’m sorry, My Lady. I feel terrible exposing this to you. But I felt it was necessary that you know. The physician has been lying from the first day.”

  “I want to speak with him.” Suddenly, Martha was angry. She had been worried sick! She had been working day and night, unable to sleep properly, the weight of her guilt haunting her in her dreams. She had come close to losing her senses, risked her own life in the rain. And it was all because her mother was simply acting.

  Nicholas nodded. “I assumed you would. I feared he might try to flee the area, so I had my stable hand stand guard at his home. If you wish to go there now, I would be only too pleased to accompany you.”

  His voice was hard. Martha nodded. She was angry.

  “I’ll take my horse,” she said.

  She went to the stables and rode out to join Nicholas. She knew she wasn’t chaperoned and she didn’t care. Her mother had always insisted on it—her mother, who was not sick, after all.

  I will never be able to recover from this.

  She could not look at her mother again, knowing how utterly she had lied. She would never be able to speak to her and not hear her lying words, her manipulative cruelty.

  Now that I have seen what she is really like, I will never be able to look at her in the same way again.

  She felt her heart harden as she rode to the physician’s house.

  As soon as they got there, Nicholas raised a hand in salute to a man who stood outside the door. The man saluted in return.

  “Thank you,” Nicholas called down. “He’s still here, I take it?”

  “Yes, indeed, My Lord,” the man grinned as Nicholas dismounted and looped his horse’s reins about the railing of the terrace. He came back to help Martha dismount. She jumped down and looked up at him, face tense.

  “Let’s go in and talk to him,” she said. She felt cold inside.

  Inside the physician’s house, it was warm. She followed Nicholas into the drawing room. They found Mr. Lessing sitting in a chair. He stood up as they entered, face alarmed. He turned an angry glance on them, but Nicholas marched into the room.

  “Tell Lady Martha what you related to me,” he said.

  Martha looked at Mr. Lessing. The man took a step back. She could see fear on his face, and that fear made her even more angry.

  He was lying and he knows I know, now.

  “My Lady, I did as your mother ordered me to,” he said quickly, before she could speak. “I cannot tell you what I did, because her ladyship, the Countess, will know of it and she will ensure I never practice again.” He looked around, eyes darting about the place.

  “I will ensure you never work again if you lie,” Nicholas said grimly.

  Martha nodded thankfully. “Good thinking, Lord Calperton. Now, tell me what you told his lordship,” she added to Lessing. “And leave nothing out.” Her voice was cold.

  She was surprised when the physician cleared his throat and began. Nicholas leaned on the door while he spoke. The tale the man related was exactly the same as what Nicholas told her, except for the fact that he had been specifically told to conceal the truth from herself and her sister. Her mother’s order had been very certain in that regard. She and Amelia were absolutely to believe she was sick.

  “She wanted to make us do whatever she said,” Martha whispered.

  She felt a bitter sorrow that outweighed even anger. When she had no other weapon left, her mother had chosen to turn their own compassion and sense of responsibility against them.

  The physician was staring at her, and Martha could see he looked terrified. She looked up at Nicholas.

  “Should I inform the Watch?” Nicholas asked.

  Martha shrugged. She looked at the physician, who had gone a gray shade with fear. She felt nothing—no anger, no pain. Just a flat, nauseous distaste.

  “Get out of this town,” she said, looking hard at the man.

  “My Lady, you cannot threaten me,” the physician said. There was a trace of a sneer in his voice.

  “Yes, she can,” Nicholas said firmly. “And so can I. I want to hear that you have left this town by the end of the week, or I swear I will pursue this with the highest authority in the land. I want you to go and I never want to hear a word breathed of you again.”

  Martha felt a little light spread through her and she wanted to smile at Nicholas, though she had to keep a straight face so that they maintained a threatening atmosphere. She looked coldly at the physician, who was staring at them both in horror.

  “Yes,” he stammered. “But…”

  Martha glanced up at Nicholas, who had done nothing other than take one step forward. The lying physician took one step back, his face gray with fear.

  “I’ll leave,” he agreed. “I’ll go tonight.”

  Nicholas nodded and she felt his body relax a little. She had no idea what he would have done, but she was glad he was there.

  “Nicholas, we should go,” she said, walking to the door. “If you could ask your stable hand to oversee the departure of Mr. Lessing, I would be glad.”

  “Yes, My Lady.”

  Nicholas sounded somewhat cheerful, she thought. She didn’t turn around to look at him, but she thought she could hear a smile in his voice.

  She walked out of the physician’s house and into the street. Nicholas followed her—she heard his boots on the floor and then the stone steps. She waited until they were both out in the garden before she turned around to look at him.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. She looked up at him. He looked pale and scared.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you wish to do?”

  Martha felt as if a fist was twisting inside her—rage and sorrow mixed. She cleared her throat. “I know what I wish to do,” she said. “I wish to ask my mother precisely what has been going on. I also wonder what happened to the letter to Father.”

  She couldn’t believe it, but she knew with absolute certainty now that her mother had never sent the letter. How could she have, when her illness had been entirely fabricated?

  She looked up at Nicholas and cleared her throat. “We have somewhere to go, I think,” she said.

  He nodded and she was aware, as well as the pain, of a sudden flutter of joy in her heart. There was no reason anymore for her not to be with him.

  Chapter 30

  Martha felt completely hollow as she walked up the steps into the house. All her feelings—anger, pain, shock, hurt, betrayal—had mixed together into a leaden coldness that lay on her heart and made her feel as if winter had visited her spirit.

  She walked through the front door and up the stairs, unaware of the way it felt to touch the steps or of the brisk wind that blew in across the landing and tugged at the skirt of her muslin gown. She was utterly empty of everything except the cold, leaden pain of betrayal.

  Amelia should know of this before I tell Mother.

  The sound of the pianoforte drifted out of the drawing room and then stopped. Martha paused, considering what to do. She recalled Amelia’s pinched face, her sorrow carving lines on her pale skin. She remembered Amelia’s terror that they had killed their mother, and how the shock had
really affected her health.

  If I tell her, it will be too much for her to bear.

  She resumed walking, past the drawing room. She went to the door of her mother’s bedchamber and knocked at it. Mrs. Lister answered the door, peering out disapprovingly.

  “Lady Martha, you cannot speak with Lady Weston now. She is resting and it would try her strength too much to address you,” Mrs. Lister said.

  Martha watched as she moved to shut the door, as if she expected Martha to depart immediately. Instead, Martha rested a hand on the door and looked the older woman in the eye.