by Amanda Quick
“Oh my, yes,” Ursula said. She did not have to pretend enthusiasm for the subject. “Indeed, I would be thrilled if I could ever afford such a place as this.”
“That is not likely, is it?” Valerie’s smile was cold and crushing. “Considering your circumstances.”
I suppose that puts me firmly in my place, Ursula thought.
“No, Lady Fulbrook,” she said, “it’s not likely.”
“You appear to be prosperous in a middle-class sort of way, but a fine conservatory such as this one will always be beyond the reach of a woman in your position.”
The cool edge of the words iced Ursula’s nerves.
“You are quite correct, Lady Fulbrook. Only a woman possessed of great wealth could afford this place or your lovely mansion.”
“Very true. The only possible solution for you would be marriage to a man far above your station.”
“I suppose so.”
“But such dreams are merely illusions for a woman like you, Mrs. Kern.”
Ursula tightened her grip on her satchel. “Are you trying to tell me something, madam?”
“I am trying to warn you, Mrs. Kern. I have been informed that you have been seen in the company of Mr. Slater Roxton. Yes, I’m aware that it is his carriage that delivered you here today and that the same carriage will be waiting for you when you leave, just as it was on the previous occasion. There was also some chatter in the newspapers about you and Roxton putting in an appearance at a certain museum exhibition. I will be blunt. It is obvious that you are Roxton’s mistress.”
Ursula smiled a steely smile. “For a while there, you had me concerned, Lady Fulbrook. I was afraid you were about to accuse me of trying to seduce your husband, which would have been quite silly.”
Lady Fulbrook flinched as if she had been struck. Astonishment flashed in her eyes. It was followed by rage. She was not accustomed to taking return fire from someone who occupied a much lower rung on the social ladder.
“How dare you talk to me of such things?” she snapped.
“I would remind you that you were the one who raised the subject by saying that it was obvious that I was Mr. Roxton’s mistress.”
“I was trying to give you some sound advice,” Lady Fulbrook said tightly. “A man of Roxton’s wealth and connections will never consider marriage to a woman of your sort. Even though he’s a bastard son and his mother was an actress, he can nevertheless afford to look much higher—and mark my words, he will—when he decides it’s time to marry. But I doubt that you will take my warning seriously. Just as Anne Clifton failed to abide by my advice.”
Curiosity overcame Ursula’s temper. “You gave Miss Clifton similar advice?”
“The foolish woman thought she was so clever seducing a man who is far above her reach.” Valerie started drifting along the aisle formed between two workbenches. “That’s what killed her in the end, you know.”
Ursula followed at a cautious distance. “No, I didn’t know. Please enlighten me.”
“She must have concluded that her dreams could never become reality.” Valerie reached out and snapped the bloom off a flower stalk. “I’m sure that’s why she took her own life.”
“You seem to know a great deal about Anne’s state of mind at the time of her death.”
“Miss Clifton and I spent a great deal of time in each other’s company during the past several months. We often spoke of love and passion because my poetry deals with such matters. She got in the habit of confiding in me.”
That was hard to believe, Ursula thought. Anne had been clever, resourceful and ambitious—a determined survivor who had learned the hard way not to trust anyone who held power over her. She had once confided that at the age of seventeen, while working as a governess, she had been raped by the husband of her employer.
The wife had blamed Anne and turned her off immediately. That outcome was only to be expected in such situations. What had enraged Anne and made her forever wary of all future clients was that her employer had refused to pay the quarterly wages Anne was owed and also refused to provide a reference. That had made it impossible to find another post for a time. Anne had come very close to selling herself on the street in order to eat.
No, Ursula thought, it would have been very unlike Anne to confide in Valerie.
“Are you certain that Anne was involved in a love affair?” Ursula asked.
“I didn’t say it was a love affair.” Valerie snapped off another bloom and continued along the aisle. “It was a seduction or, rather, an attempted seduction. The object of her desire was barely aware of her existence. She was no more than a servant to him. I will not say that I sympathized with her but I understood her.”
“In what way?”
“I know exactly how she felt.” Valerie picked up a pair of shears and cut off the drooping frond of a palm tree. “I am no more than a servant in my husband’s eyes.”
A bell chimed somewhere behind Ursula. She was so intent on the conversation that she started at the unexpected sound.
“I told Beth that we were not to be interrupted,” Valerie said, annoyed. She looked down the length of the green tunnel toward the door, frowning. “It’s the housekeeper. Excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment.”
She went back through the green tunnel, heading for the door of the greenhouse.
Ursula waited until she heard the door open and then she whisked up her skirts and went quickly along the aisle formed by the plant beds, potted trees and workbenches. In the distance she could hear Valerie speaking in sharp tones to the housekeeper but she could not tell what was being said.
She did not see any leaves or flowers that resembled the dried ones she had brought out of Rosemont’s laboratory. When she reached the end of the aisle, she turned to the right and went along a narrow gravel path.
“Mrs. Kern?” Valerie called. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“I was just enjoying some of the specimens,” Ursula sang out. “This is an extraordinary collection. I would be honored if you would give me a proper tour.”
“Come here at once. You must leave now. I won’t be needing your services any longer.”
Damnation. Valerie was going to let her go. She would never be able to get back into the conservatory.
“Coming,” Ursula said. “Rather difficult to find one’s way around in here, isn’t it? I can’t even see the front door.”
“Stay right where you are, Mrs. Kern. I will find you and escort you out.”
Ursula kept moving, trying not to betray her location with the sound of her footsteps. She continued to scan the foliage but none of it resembled the dried herb material.
“Mrs. Kern, where are you?”
It struck Ursula that there was a new and surprising vigor in Valerie’s voice. It wasn’t just impatience. There was another kind of energy vibrating just beneath the surface. Excitement.
“Really, Mrs. Kern, I do not have time for this. You must leave at once.”
“I understand, madam. But I cannot see anything except greenery. It is all quite disorienting.”
“Stand still. I will find you. Do you understand?”
Ursula obeyed, not because of the command but because she had just come face-to-face with a wall of glass and a locked door. For the first time she realized that the greenhouse was divided into two distinct sections. The inner portion behind the door was smaller than the main chamber. A profusion of radiant green foliage studded with golden flowers filled the room. She was quite certain she was looking at a great mass of the herb that Rosemont used to concoct the ambrosia.
Valerie appeared from a cluster of palms. Her face was flushed and her eyes were fever-bright. She had fistfuls of her skirts in both hands, hoisting the heavy fabric of her gown above her knees so that she could move more quickly.
The light glinted briefly on a small obj
ect attached to her petticoats. A button or some other bit of decoration, Ursula thought. Most women used lace and ribbons to add a whimsical touch to their underclothes.
“There you are,” Valerie said. She let her skirts fall back into place. “Do come with me and don’t dawdle.”
Ursula obediently fell into step beside her. “May I inquire why you are letting me go?”
“It is none of your affair but as it happens I have just received word that a houseguest from America will be arriving the day after tomorrow. I—we—were not expecting him until next month.”
“I understand.”
“There is so much to be done. He will be staying with us, of course.” Valerie gave a laugh that was very nearly a giggle. “My husband will not be pleased. He does not care for the company of Americans. He finds them lacking in the social graces. But Mr. Cobb is a business associate. He must be treated with the proper degree of respect.”
“Perhaps your husband will suggest that Mr. Cobb book a room in a hotel.”
“A hotel is out of the question. Mr. Cobb entertained us quite lavishly in his mansion when we visited New York a few months ago so we must repay the favor. My husband will have to take comfort in knowing that our houseguest will not be staying very long—only a few days, in fact.”
“A remarkably brief visit considering how far Mr. Cobb will have traveled.”
“Mr. Cobb is a very busy man,” Valerie said. “As I was saying, I will no longer require your stenography services, Mrs. Kern.”
“Would you like a typed copy of your latest poem sent to you?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
The housekeeper hovered just outside the entrance of the glasshouse. Her middle-aged features were stamped with the impassive expression of a woman who had long ago learned that the secret to keeping her post was to keep her employers’ secrets.
“Show Mrs. Kern to the door,” Valerie instructed.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Griffith was lounging against the trunk of a tree in the small park across the street from the Fulbrook mansion. When he spotted Ursula he straightened and moved to open the door of the carriage.
He glanced at the house with a speculative expression. “You’re finished early, Mrs. Kern. Everything all right? I know Mr. Roxton was concerned about your plans to come here today.”
“Lady Fulbrook just let me go.” Ursula collected her skirts and went up the steps into the carriage. She sat down and looked at Griffith. “With no notice and without a reference, mind you.”
“Not that you need one from her.”
“No, thank goodness. But I have some news, Griffith. I persuaded Lady Fulbrook to take me into the conservatory again and I saw a great quantity of the ambrosia plant growing in a special chamber.”
Griffith’s eyes tightened. “You’re certain?”
“As certain as I can be without a closer examination.”
“So Fulbrook is growing the plant?”
Ursula shook her head. “I don’t think so. Evidently Fulbrook cannot tolerate the atmosphere of the greenhouse. It gives him all the symptoms of a bad cold. I believe that Lady Fulbrook is the one cultivating the plant for him. I must get word to Slater immediately.”
“After I take you to your office I’ll track him down and give him the information,” Griffith said.
“Please take me home, instead. There is something I want to do there.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Griffith started to close the door.
Ursula put out a hand to stop him. “Speaking of Slater, where is he today, do you know?”
“He went to see his father’s botanist friend.”
Griffith closed the door, vaulted up onto the box and loosened the reins. Ursula watched the front of the Fulbrook mansion until it disappeared from sight.
Lady Fulbrook had been more than flustered about the prospect of the visitor from America. She had looked thrilled. Evidently she had no problem tolerating the rude American manners of her husband’s business associate.
—
MRS. DUNSTAN OPENED the door of the town house with an air of concern.
“You’re home early today, Mrs. Kern. Is everything all right? Still feeling a bit rattled by your dreadful experience yesterday? Perfectly natural, if you ask me. I told you that you ought not to go to work today.”
“I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Dunstan, but I am quite fit, thank you.” Ursula removed her hat and stripped off her gloves. “I’m home early because my client let me go. She got word that a houseguest from America is arriving the day after tomorrow. She was in quite a flap over the whole thing. I would have had Griffith take me to the office but I remembered some business that I want to take care of here.”
“I see.” Mrs. Dunstan waved farewell to Griffith and closed the door. “A note arrived for you while you were out. I set it on your desk in your study.”
“A note?” Ursula dropped the hat and gloves into Mrs. Dunstan’s capable hands and hurried down the hall to the study. “From Mr. Roxton, perhaps?”
“If it is from him, he neglected to put his name on the outside of the envelope,” Mrs. Dunstan called after her.
Ursula swept through the door of the study. She had returned to her house to take a closer look at Anne’s private correspondence with Paladin, the editor of the literary quarterly. But when she saw the note on her desk she recognized the handwriting at once. Her insides went cold. She forgot about the correspondence.
She opened the envelope slowly, dreading what she knew she would find inside. She reminded herself that she had a plan. Her hand steadied.
She scanned the contents of the note. The blackmailer had, indeed, named his price.
. . . As you can see, a trivial amount. An excellent bargain. Leave the money in the weeping angel crypt in the cemetery in Wickford Lane. Make sure the payment is there by four o’clock today or the press will be notified of your true identity.
—
IT WAS NOT THE AMOUNT of money involved that caused rage to splash through her veins. The price of the extortionist’s silence was not nearly as high as she had expected. It was the knowledge that the payment was destined to be the first of an endless string of demands that infuriated her.
She refolded the note.
She had a plan. It was time to implement it.
She went to the gilded floor safe in the corner, crouched and opened the combination lock. She pushed aside a handful of mementos from her other life—a photograph of her parents, the last letters her father had written to her before perishing of a fever in South America, and her mother’s wedding ring.
Storing the latest message from the blackmailer alongside the small velvet pouch that contained Anne’s few pieces of jewelry and the Paladin correspondence, she took out the small, dainty pistol her father had given her. He had taught her how to use the gun before he set out on his last trip abroad. “A lady never knows when she might have to defend herself.” She had been eighteen at the time.
She made certain the pistol was loaded and then she closed and relocked the safe.
Rising to her feet, she put the gun inside her satchel and searched the room, looking for something suitable to use as fake bank notes. A copy of yesterday’s edition of the newspaper was on the table. She tore it into several sheets, stuffed them into an envelope and dropped the envelope into the satchel.
Hoisting the bag, she hurried out into the front hall. She was taking her gray cloak off the peg when Mrs. Dunstan appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Going out again, madam?” she asked. She peered through the sidelight window. “The fog is coming in.”
“I just remembered that I have an appointment with a new client this afternoon. I almost forgot.”
“Bit late for a meeting with a client, isn’t it?”
“Clients can be ver
y demanding.”
Mrs. Dunstan opened the door with obvious reluctance. “Shall I summon a cab?”
“That won’t be necessary. It will be faster if I walk through the park.”
“Where does this client live?” Mrs. Dunstan asked, increasingly uneasy. “After what happened yesterday—”
“Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Dunstan. The client resides in a very quiet neighborhood. Wickford Lane.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The old church and the cemetery on Wickford Lane were both in a state of deep neglect. The small chapel was locked and shuttered. The nearby graveyard was overgrown with weeds. The gates stood open, sagging on their hinges. There were no fresh flowers on the graves. The monuments and crypts looming in the fog were badly weathered and, in many cases, cracked and broken.
Ursula made her way slowly through the stone garden of grave markers, searching for a weeping angel. She gripped her satchel in one hand. The pistol was in her other hand, concealed beneath the folds of her gray cloak. The mist was thickening rapidly. She could no longer see the iron fencing that surrounded the cemetery.
The fog was a good thing, she told herself. It gave her ample cover for what she intended to do.
For a few unnerving minutes she worried that she might not be able to locate the weeping angel. In the end, she nearly collided with one broken wing.
She stepped back quickly and looked at the figure guarding the entrance to a crypt. It was a large, stone angel in a weeping pose.
The wrought-iron gate that had once secured the opening to the burial vault stood open.
The muffled sound of a footstep somewhere in the fog sent a shock of icy fear through her. The blackmailer was somewhere nearby, watching her. She resisted the temptation to turn around and search for him. She told herself she must give no indication that she was aware that she had heard him.
She moved through the doorway of the crypt. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low light. Between the windowless interior and the gray glow from the entrance she could barely make out the stone bench that had been designed as a place to sit and contemplate mortality.