Frost Fair

by Edith Layton

  “Seeking the baron’s murderer?” Auntie Jane chortled. “He was your uncle, I hear, my lord. My sympathies. The word is someone had a try at you and your brother the other night too.” She smiled at their expressions. “Oh, it wasn’t Mrs. Pushkin who told me. I could have told her. Word gets around faster than you do, gentlemen. But why come here? My nights are too busy for such play. I didn’t know your uncle, my lord. But everyone knows the reward, and so everyone with a grudge is giving up names. So would I, if I had one. The baron may have come to play and left to die. It may be so. But not here.”

  “I was given your name,” Will said.

  “Of course,” Auntie Jane answered on a shrug. “I’m successful. There’s many who hate me for that. Bad luck to them. If clean towels and fresh sheets make me more business, let it make me more enemies too. But I didn’t entertain the baron. If you think I did—prove it.” She sat back, smug and amused.

  Will’s eyes narrowed. He realized some men couldn’t charm a leech into their beds and had to buy females, but he wished women’s sweet gifts could always be exactly that—free and freely given. Or if they had to make money by selling themselves, then at least that they alone profited from the work they alone did. Some whoremongers were fair, some even kindly, in their fashion. But just like their customers, their own needs came first. Bawds like Auntie Jane used women the way the stage companies used horses, working them until they dropped or were no good for hire anymore.

  “Be sure, I’ll try,” Will said, “but it’s folly to now. Your women are afraid to cough around you.”

  “Get them alone if you want to talk to them private,” Auntie Jane said, “but I’ll have to charge you full fee for each one.”

  He stepped closer. The look in his eyes made her smile vanish. His voice was deadly, dark and cold. “I’ll speak to them when I must, and where I will. Keep amusing yourself with me, and discover how much fun that can be.” The silence was total until Will spoke again. “But not here, and not now. Soon, though. Remember that and maybe you’ll remember more.”

  “Huh!” Auntie Jane said, but she said no more.

  “I’ll be going now,” Maggie said, leaping to her feet.

  “We’ll escort you home,” Lucian said. She was grateful until she looked up at him. He was still looking at her oddly.

  She simmered until she stepped into the coach with the two men. “Well, if you think I ran down to Drury Lane last night and set a horse on you, fine!” she told Lucian the instant she sat down, “Then he can lock me up and throw away the key. Or send me to the Antipodes. Perhaps I’ll finally find my father there.” Her voice broke, she stopped and bowed her head.

  Lucian silently passed her his handkerchief. She waved it away and dug into her own recticule, extracted her own rumpled handkerchief, and blew her nose with a defiant honk.

  “I can’t keep throwing away keys,” Will complained. “I’ve been warned about it. There’s no way to extract a felon if you do that, they say, and where are they to put the new ones?”

  “A problem, certainly,” Lucian said.

  They heard Maggie’s faint giggle. She sniffled, and looked up again. “But you did distrust me,” she said.

  “Of course,” Will said. “I still do. But don’t let that vex you.”

  “He distrusts me too,” Lucian said cheerfully.

  “He thinks you threw yourself in front of a maddened horse?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first,” Will commented lazily. “Men—and women—have shot, stabbed and even set themselves afire to throw me off their trail. But I don’t think he’d have jeopardized the lady he was with. The quality have odd ideas about females. They’ll buy and sell them like cattle without blinking an eye, but dislike butchering other gentlemen’s wives.”

  “Oh,” Maggie said, because she hadn’t known about the woman. She realized the viscount must have his diversions, but was oddly disappointed he took them with married females.

  “My good friend’s wife,” Lucian said to her unspoken question. “A good friend, herself. We were only going to have dinner together, all three of us. She’s enciente, as well. With his child, of course, I hasten to add.”

  Maggie felt more cheerful when they got back to her house. “Do come in,” she urged them. “I’ve a friend helping look after the shop. It’s not often I can have callers in to tea, and it is that time. I’ve heard some things, I’m sure you have too. Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something new?” she added a little desperately. It would be good for solving their mystery, and for herself too. She wanted their company. They made her feel safe as well as under suspicion. The contradictions didn’t bother her. They made her feel alive.

  “Perishing cold,” Will said, after a moment, “and snowing again. Hot tea would be a pleasure, at that. If it isn’t too much trouble, Mrs. P.? But the viscount looks a bit peaky. Maybe I’ll stop by and we’ll just let him go along home.”

  “The viscount could do with a nice cup of tea too,” Lucian said.

  “I know the very thing,” Maggie said. “My grandmother was an herb woman, and I learned at her knee. Tea, with an infusion of valerian, a clove to cover the taste, a pinch of willow bark, and a scant drop of belladonna. It will ease the headache and soothe you, my lord, trust me.”

  Mrs. Gudge certainly did. She came rolling into the parlor after Maggie left her guests there, excusing herself to go make the tea. “Good day to you, gents. Gawd! They done for you all right, didn’t they, m’lord? Heard about it, well, who ain’t? But still, you look ready for the rubbish heap. Good thing you’ve got our Maggie brewing you something to take the sting out. Though, myself, I think a glass of mother’s milk would do as well,” she added, with a wink at Will.

  Unlike their hostess, Mrs. Gudge didn’t mind appearing before them in her working clothes. She stood in the doorway in high wide boots, wearing her long leather apron over her several layers of clothing. A kerchief tied in knots at each corner covered her hair. The afternoon light showed bits of her signature Billingsgate red petticoats peeking out here and there, wherever she’d rucked up her assortment of skirts to keep them from trailing on the floor. “Aye, a glass of gin would do him fine, don’t you think, Mrs. Gow?”

  Mrs. Gow stepped out of Mrs. Gudge’s huge shadow. “Afternoon, gentlemen, I’m sure,” she said, peering around her friend’s bulky form. “I mean, m’lord and gent—g’wan! I don’t chat with that many m’lords, y’see, can’t get m’tongue ’round it. Begging yer pardon fer not coming in, but I’ve m’boots on and once’t they’re off it’s a day’s work getting ’em back on. Got bunions big as oysters, like barnacles on a brig’s bottom they is, and that’s the sad truth.”

  “Delighted to see you again,” Lucian said, rising from the chair he’d just fallen into, and inclining his aching head. It was hard work, but he’d have done it for any lady and most women he knew. The two females he’d so honored were ravished by the gesture.

  Mrs. Gudge grew pink-cheeked. Mrs. Gow actually tittered, and tried a little curtsey in turn. “Oh sit, afore ye fall!” she cried out in pleasure. Lucian gratefully sat again.

  Maggie’s tea time procession began. Davie brought a tray of cakes, Alice bore in one with cups and Annie followed with teapot and napery. When Maggie came in with another teapot, she ordered them back to work. “Thank you for your help,” she said, “but the fish can’t sell themselves.”

  “Aye,” Mrs. Gudge said. “And there’s them as will help them walk out the door on their own do you not look sharp.” But she didn’t budge from the doorway herself.

  “Just try some of this, my lord,” Maggie said, pouring amber-colored tea into a flowered cup, and handing it to him. “It smells odd, and tastes strange too. But not bad. I’ve sweetened it with honey. It will do wonders for your head and nerves. The very thing after such a shock as you’ve had.”

  “Maggie knows,” Mrs. Gudge said wisely.

  “Aye,” Mrs. Gow said with enthusiasm. “Din’t I hav
e the wind something fierce t’other week, and din’t she brew up something had it whistling out in jigtime?”

  “Made you better company, Mrs. Gow, and that’s a fact,” Mrs. Gudge said merrily.

  Lucian took a sip, glad the cup concealed the smile he could not. He winced, because the sticking plaster loosened every time he moved his face.

  “She could set up shop for doctoring, did she choose,” Mrs. Gudge said approvingly. “She helps all them who comes with a complaint. For it’s too much gold to see a sawbones for something little, and no one wants to go to them with nothing big.”

  “Rightly so,” Will muttered. His opinion of physicians was only slightly lower than bawds. Because at least most people left a bawdy house alive.

  Maggie was studying Lucian’s face. “My lord,” she said softly, “I help here and there where I can, is all. But at least I can do that. The plaster on your cheek is coming off, and it must hurt. Would you like me to change the dressing for you? I’m sure it’s a long ride back and the cold will make it feel worse.”

  It was snug in the little parlor, and Lucian didn’t want to say anything to change the warm atmosphere in the room. Besides, it did hurt. “If you wish,” he said.

  She gave him a quick smile, and hurried to pour Will his tea. Mrs. Gow and Mrs. Gudge declined. They’d be more comfortable slurping theirs in the kitchen later, discussing the two men who were sitting there now.

  “I just have to go to my closet and get my herbs and oils.,” Maggie said. “I’ll soak the plaster off to avoid hurting you by pulling at it. I’ll just infuse some herbs for the water. Then a soothing salve so when you next dress the wound it won’t hurt to remove the bandaging, and can heal faster. I won’t be a moment.”

  But she was less than that, and when she did come back, she was apologetic. “I have vervain,” she explained, “and the comfrey and lavender. But I need just a drop more belladonna, and my stores are gone.”

  “More belladonna?” Will joked. “Why, do you think my lord’s eyes aren’t bright enough? The doxies use it to make their eyes look bigger,” he explained in answer to Lucian’s puzzled glance.

  “Bigger, and blinder,” Mrs. Gudge put in with a chuckle.

  “In their case, ’tis a blessing,” Mrs. Gow said piously.

  “In their trade it’s more a necessity than a blessing,” Will said.

  “Too much would blind someone,” Maggie admitted, “but this isn’t for his eyes. A mite in tea aids headache. Less than half a drop in a poultice aids healing wonderfully too. But only that. More would undo all the good it does. It’s strong stuff in or outside the body. Deadly poison, in fact.”

  “Aye,” Mrs. Gudge said. “I once seen what happened to a poor slut drank a vial of it to get even with her man for running around on her. She was very merry for a while. Remember, Mrs. Gow?

  “Never seen no one more so,” Mrs. Gow said mournfully. “It were a rare treat, for a spell. She were like a trip to Bedlam.”

  “She saw folks who wasn’t there and went ’round chatting to the air, just like our good King George, God bless the poor soul,” Mrs. Gudge explained. “We gave her purges, but it was too late. She danced away. Holding her down didn’t help, she was laughing too hard. Then she commenced nodding and bowing to nobody. It was a rare sight. She couldn’t stop—until she up and died.”

  Maggie made a face. “My grandmother said the greatest harm can be done by the greatest good; it’s all a matter of proportions. Every plant that heals can harm. Don’t worry,” she told Lucian, “I know my herbs and I’ll take care. I’ve sent Jack down to Mr. Abernathy, the apothecary, to get the belladonna, then I’ll set to work.”

  Will frowned. “Abernathy! That old rogue! I’m surprised you deal with him, Mrs. P.”

  “He may have a reputation,” she said, “all apothecaries do. Because of the strong stuffs they use and the fact that not everyone uses it right. Even my poor grandmother, and a better woman you’d never meet, had gossip about her in her time. But he’s always got fresh herbs in stock and a wide selection too.”

  “‘Wide’? I’ll say,” Mrs. Gudge cackled. “He’ll open at any or all hours for the right price—just like the lightskirts what buy from him.”

  Will smiled, but Mrs. Gow went into whoops of laughter.

  “I suppose you can see virtue in him, Mrs. P.,” Will said, “but not everyone has your morals. Mrs. Gudge is only right. He’s famous in the brothels, and at Bow Street too, for selling potions to help a girl get rid of an unwanted burden. But sometimes it stops both the new life and the older one together. Too many a poor lass who just wants to stay at her job loses her life along with what she’s trying to be shut of. That’s when I see them. You don’t, or you wouldn’t be as pleased with him. He’s not as free with good advice as he is with his herbs.”

  Maggie sniffed. She couldn’t argue what she didn’t know. She turned her attention to Lucian. “We’ll have the decoction for the poultice and the salve in a trice.”

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling gently. The tea was wonderful. The tea, and whatever she’d brewed in it, and the crackling fire in the hearth all were wonderful. He felt sleepy and stupid, and vastly content. These people weren’t out to kill him. Or if they were, he was so drowsy and comfortable now he scarcely cared.

  “Remind me to have you bottle some of whatever he’s drinking, for me,” Will remarked, seeing the viscount’s slow satisfied smile.

  Jack came back quickly. He stepped into the sitting room after a cautious glance at Will and handed a package to Maggie. “Lucky I run,” he reported. “He’s busy packing up. Says as to how he’s going to set up a booth at the Frost Fair. They’re really going to have one!”

  “Really?” Maggie asked, diverted. Everyone who came into the shop spoke of it, but she’d been so occupied with thoughts of mayhem it hadn’t seemed real to her.

  “Aye, the lads went out to test the ice, and when they din’t fall in, the men tried it too. Now everyone’s prancing about on it, scores of ’em!” Jack said eagerly. “They’re setting up tents, and all! They’ll be roasting pigs and having rides ’n such. Do you think we could go?”

  “You ask her, and not me?” Will growled.

  “Aye, well, but I have to foller her, don’t I?” Jack said with a cocky grin. It faded when he saw the look on Will’s face, and he said quickly, “So, Old Abernathy, he’s clearing his shelves and taking the lot with him. You should see! He’s got new labels for his papers and bottles. He says they all say ‘Frost Fair’ somewheres on them. Says he’ll make twice as much just for having that printed, for there’s them that will want keepsakes from the Fair, and why not his herbs?”

  “He told you that?” Maggie asked.

  Jack grinned. “He was talking to some other cove, but I got ears. Anyway when I up and ask for the belladonna, he was that surprised you wanted it, and he asks me what’s to do? He says he asks as this was the last he’s got. Says there was a run on it and he’s already had to look for more so’s he’ll have some at the Fair. He wondered why. So I says, I don’t know.”

  “Maybe all the girls want to look good if a grand Frost Fair be coming,” Mrs. Gudge commented.

  “Now there’s an idea,” Mrs. Gow chortled. “Should we get us some, do y’think, Mrs. Gudge? Sell a sight more fish do we ’ave beautiful eyes, won’t we?” she asked, batting her stubby eyelashes, as Mrs. Gudge roared with laughter.

  “At least I have all I need,” Maggie murmured, going into the kitchens to make up her soak and salve.

  Jack disappeared with her. He didn’t return. He still worked for Spanish Will, but was never at ease under his watchful eye. Lucian sat back, sipping his tea as the fishwives discussed the coming Frost Fair with Will.

  “No sense us working there,” Mrs. Gow decided, “’ot fish would be a treat, but who’d buy cold?”

  “If it’s there, I’m going,” Mrs. Gudge declared, “if not for selling, then for seeing. A regular holiday right under my nose, and me n
ot there? Never!”

  “Here we are,” Maggie said, returning with her supplies. She set a steaming basin of water on a small table in front of Lucian. “If I may?” she asked, showing him the tablecloth she also carried. She tucked it around his high white neckcloth, spreading it over his jacket, taking care not to touch him as she did. She’d do what she could to ease his pain, but never wanted him to think she was being anything but medicinal about it.

  “This will keep your clothing dry,” she said. “Now, if you just lean your head back? Yes. Now, this will feel warm, but only that. I’m going to hold this wet toweling over the plaster, and it will loosen presently. I’ll do it two or three times until it comes off neat and easy. Just relax.”

  “It won’t be a pleasant sight,” Lucian murmured from out of his cocoon of comfort. The warm cloth on his face felt wonderful. The herbs made it smell clean and bitter, but her soft voice sounded sweet. Her outrageous hair filled his line of vision, and it smelled of soap, lemon and roses. Her fingertips were cool and light. And when she spoke she breathed on him, softly. He’d paid women to do much more for him, but couldn’t remember feeling as tenderly used as he did now with the fishwife’s concerned eyes on his face, her gentle hands tending to him.

  Mrs. Gudge and Mrs. Gow watched with interest, commenting on the procedure as though it was a theatrical presentation. Will watched silently, and to his surprise, enviously. Maldon looked lulled, relaxed, his eyes fluttered shut, he sighed. Even when the plaster at last came off, he didn’t stir. A look at the cheek that was exposed made Will a deal less envious, though.

  Maggie clucked and “tsked” and fulminated under her breath, muttering about the villain who had done this, and the doctor who had done that. She used her poultice, then dabbed on a salve, and her patient didn’t stir. When she was done there was a smaller, neater plaster on Lucian’s cheek. And he was in no pain at all.

  “There,” she said, stepping away, pleased.

  The moment she said it another voice spoke, as though it had been waiting for permission. “Missus?” a deep voice asked from the doorway behind Mrs. Gudge and Mrs. Gow. Even their portly frames couldn’t conceal the speaker. They stepped apart, surprised. For such an enormous man, Flea moved with stealth. He stood there, his hair and shoulders covered with snow, a white puppy sheltered deep in his massive arms.