by Emily Claire
“Excuse me, my girl, but you go too far.”
Lydia folded her hands in her lap. “Pardon me, my lady, but I heard you were in a rather heated conversation with the curate after church.”
The lady’s mouth dropped open. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” Lydia lied. “Someone must have mentioned it after dinner the other evening.”
Lady Wycliffe flung her handkerchief aside. “What exactly are the two of you implying?” she demanded. “You think I dislike Mr. Pemberton? And the curate? And what conclusion do you draw? Did I attempt to murder them both? How convenient!”
“We’re not accusing you of anything, Mama,” Isabella started. “We’re only—”
“I also enjoy chocolate in the mornings,” Lady Wycliffe cried. “How do you know that the poison this morning wasn’t intended for me? I’m the wife of a baronet and the hostess of these gatherings. If anybody should be murdered, it should be me!”
Isabella raised an eyebrow. “Are you jealous of the curate and Mr. Pemberton, Mama?”
“Don’t place words into my mouth,” Lady Wycliffe snapped. “All I wish to say is that there is no reason for me to invite people into my home only to murder them.”
“La, Mama, nobody accused you of murder,” Isabella said. “You brought that up yourself.”
Lydia held one of the tonics out to the increasingly hysterical woman. “We didn’t come here to argue or to accuse you of anything, Lady Wycliffe. We’re trying to make you feel better,” she added, looking directly as Isabella.
Lady Wycliffe eyed the little glass. “What’s that?”
“It’s a calming tonic from the cook,” Lydia said. “Mr. Cooper ordered one for all the ladies.”
Lady Wycliffe turned away with a sniff. “I won’t eat anything from the kitchens until the poisoner is caught.”
“Mr. Cooper ordered this directly from the cook and it was delivered by one of your maids,” Lydia said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“And if it’s not and you do end up doubled over and vomiting, we’ll know who to blame,” Isabella added.
Lydia resisted the urge to kick her friend’s legs out from under her.
“See, he brought some for me and Izzy as well,” Lydia said. “I’ll drink one first, if it will make you feel better.”
She downed the tonic in a few quick swallows. The bitter herbs assaulted her nostrils and overwhelmed her palate, but the awful taste seemed to be the end of it. No convulsions followed, and any urge to throw the tonic back up was only a consequence of the taste.
“See?” she said after a few moments. “It’s harmless.”
She held another of the little glasses out to Lady Wycliffe, and this time, the lady took it. Isabella reluctantly accepted hers, too, and promptly set the full glass underneath her chair when Lady Wycliffe wasn’t looking.
Lydia cast about for a less controversial topic of conversation. “I heard a piece of Diana’s lace went missing,” she said after a moment.
“Or was stolen,” Isabella said, unhelpfully. “By a murderer.”
Lady Wycliffe set her empty glass down on the little table to the side of her lounge. The glass clinked so hard against the polished surface Lydia was surprised it didn’t shatter.
“I suppose Diana’s lace is a great scandal, too,” Lady Wycliffe said, with predictable heat. “Perhaps we ought to call in the Bow Street Runners or a private detective! Heavens, girls, Diana’s lace hasn’t been stolen. It was taken by Mr. Buxton for use on the Valentine he intended to give her before all that dreadful business with the curate happened.”
Of course. Lydia felt like a fool for not having thought of it before. Mr. Buxton had admitted to her that he’d worked on the Valentine with Lady Wycliffe. It would have been too convenient for the lace to have just gone missing.
Isabella made a face. “So it was stolen. You just happen to know by whom.”
“Ah, and now you intend to hang Mr. Buxton for borrowing a bit of Diana’s fancywork?” Lady Wycliffe demanded. “We might as well accuse him of the successful murder and the attempted one, too, and be done with it. What about me? Am I to be accused of aiding in a crime since I knew about the lace and didn’t go straight to the constable? Or if you’re so intent on flinging accusations at your elders, maybe we ought to throw your father and your Aunt Huntington into the ring. Or perhaps you committed both murders, Isabella. No one saw you before Mr. Stewart was murdered, and unlike me, you were at breakfast with Mr. Pemberton this morning.”
Her outrage was so thick Lydia was surprised the lady hadn’t choked on it. The strain of the past week had broken her, and the tonic didn’t seem to be providing a bit of help.
“I was dressing when Mr. Stewart was killed,” Isabella said sedately. “As for this morning, you can’t really think I would attempt to poison Papa’s guest? I’m not accusing you. Please have the civility to not accuse me.”
“Everyone’s nerves are frayed,” Lydia said in the most soothing voice she could conjure. “Please do finish your tonic, Lady Wycliffe. Mine has helped me feel ever so much better.” She reached for a book of poetry on the side table. “I’ll read to you for a while. We can turn our thoughts to pleasanter things.”
Helped along by half a dozen warning glances from Lydia, Isabella managed to rein in her tongue long enough for Lady Wycliffe’s breathing to slow. Lydia, relieved to discover the poems were mostly odes to nature and therefore devoid of anything approaching plot or conflict, read aloud at a slow cadence. After a while, the tonic seemed to do its work, and Lady Wycliffe’s eyes fluttered closed.
Lydia’s tonic had slowed her own pulse, but she couldn’t give in to the temptation to sleep. Something Lady Wycliffe had said was still repeating itself in her mind—that perhaps she had been the poison’s intended target.
No form of evil existed without motivation. For someone to be capable of such a sinful act as murder, he must have been compelled by greed or rage or some other manifestation of the deadly sins. The murder and the poisoning must have been caused by something, some grudge or argument that the mysterious villain felt could only be solved through death. Lydia couldn’t imagine what anyone might have against the curate, but whoever the murderer was, he had to have wanted something.
If he had intended to poison Mr. Pemberton, there must have been an unsettled debt or the passions of an affair. If he had intended to poison Lady Wycliffe, the motivations would have to have been different. A personal grievance, perhaps, or a desire to tarnish the name of Wycliffe?
She had to discover the true motivation behind these crimes. If she could uncover that, perhaps the murderer’s identity would follow.
15
Isabella glanced over at Lydia and chuckled. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to retire to my room for a nap?”
Lydia thought she rather might. Even the thick burgundy carpet in this corridor looked like it would be a good spot to curl up for an hour or four. Whatever had been in that tonic could probably have knocked a horse into a state of blissful unconsciousness.
“We have to talk to Diana first,” Lydia said. Her voice came out slow and dreamy.
Isabella laughed. “I’m sorry, I should have cautioned you how strong that potion is. I never take it unless as a last resort.”
“What’s in it?”
“Copious amounts of liquor, I imagine,” Isabella said. “To be honest, I haven’t a clue. Cook won’t tell anyone his recipe.”
Lydia reached for the wall to steady herself. She wasn’t tired, not exactly. She was just calm, and everything looked so soft.
Isabella took her arm and coaxed her down the hall to Diana’s room. Once there, she rang for a pot of coffee. “Extra strong,” she said to the maid who had scurried up in response to the bell. “We’ll require a good deal of it.”
Diana’s room was neither as large nor as opulent as Isabella’s, but the south-facing windows and creamy wallpaper lent the chamber an impression of light airiness.
The two youngest Wycliffe sisters, too young for society but too old to join Charlie in the nursery, sat on the carpet with an array of papers and paints and half-formed paper dolls spread around them. Diana supervised from her place in an armchair in front of the fire, curled up with a book she didn’t seem to be reading.
“We come bearing news of the most crucial import.” Isabella dropped onto the white-cushioned bench at the foot of Diana’s bed and stretched out.
Lydia sat on the floor next to the younger girls with her legs curled under her. She didn’t dare take a seat on the bed. It looked far too comfortable.
“What are you on about?” Diana put a finger in her book to mark her place and looked up, annoyed. “I told you, I’m not interested in forming a bereaved ladies’ society even if Mr. Pemberton does die. The very notion is ridiculous.”
“But think of all the sympathy we could elicit from the old biddies of the parish!” Isabella said, a gleam in her eye. “We would become the toast of Lanceton.”
“We already are the toast of Lanceton,” Diana said severely. “Or have you forgotten our father is a baronet?”
She turned pointedly back to her book.
Isabella laughed. “We found out what happened to your lace.”
Diana’s attention snapped back to her immediately. “You didn’t take it, Izzy? You swore to me you hadn’t touched it!”
“Nor had I, silly. But I know who did, and I suggest, as your most beloved sister, that you ought to leave the matter alone.”
“We can’t tell you where it went,” Lydia said apologetically. “We wouldn’t like to spoil the surprise. But I assure you your lace has gone to an excellent purpose, better than an Easter bonnet.”
Diana frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Cook’s calming tonic,” Isabella said.
Diana shuddered. “I refused mine. Even the trouble with Mr. Pemberton this morning wasn’t enough to make me drink one of those.”
“I’m sorry, Lydia, I really should have warned you,” Isabella said.
Lydia waved a hand. It floated through the air. “There’s no difficulty on my part. I feel rather calm.”
The younger girls giggled. Moments later, the maid arrived with coffee, which Lydia sipped slowly as she stared dreamily at the fire.
After some time, her head began to clear. Thoughts began moving again, first slowly and then at a brisk clip.
There was no doubt now that someone was targeting the Wycliffes’ guests. For all of Lady Wycliffe’s hysterics this morning, she had been right about that. It just wasn’t clear yet whether Mr. Pemberton had been the intended victim of this morning’s poisoning.
“Anybody could have reached for that chocolate pot,” Lydia mused aloud, holding the warm coffee cup tightly in both hands. “Had your mother felt better this morning, or had you returned from your walk a few minutes earlier, Diana, either one of you might have been the one to drink first.” Her blood cooled at the thought. Diana was smaller than Pemberton. Who could say how the poison might have affected her?
“You’re a ray of sunshine, Lydia,” Diana said with a shudder.
“Isn’t it strange, though?” Lydia asked. “Someone poisoned Mr. Pemberton, but how did they manage to be sure it was him?”
“You think Mama was right?” Isabella asked. “That it was meant for her?”
Susan and Mary stopped making their paper dolls and stared at their eldest sister. Diana closed her book with a snap.
“You think someone tried to kill Mama?” Susan asked, eyes wide. Her dark hair threatened to come loose from its puce ribbon, giving her an air of barely suppressed dishevelment.
“Could you blame them?” Isabella muttered.
“Izzy, hush,” Diana said. She tucked her book between the seat and arm of her chair and propped her chin on her elbow. “You think the poison was meant for someone else, Lyddie?”
“Not necessarily,” Lydia said. She sipped her coffee and thought for a long moment as the bitter heat coated her tongue. “Only… It does seem odd, doesn’t it? Mr. Pemberton isn’t the only one to prefer chocolate in the mornings. Had the timing of things been slightly different, that concoction might have poisoned two or three people before the first person felt the effects. It’s just luck that he was the only one to fall ill.”
Diana’s already large eyes widened. “Someone’s trying to kill us all?”
“I don’t know,” Lydia said. “Maybe.”
Mary met her gaze. The girl’s eyes were wide and terrified. Lydia bit her tongue and forced a smile. “Of course, that’s just wild speculation,” she said, forcing a light tone. “It’s far more likely someone was trying to get Mr. Pemberton on account of some gambling debt or another.” She nudged Mary’s white-wool-clad shoulder with the toe of her slipper. “Fortunately, no ladies have been injured so far, nor any members of your family.”
Mary didn’t look quite convinced, but neither did she continue to look as if she might scream if the house creaked. Susan frowned and went back to sketching a doll’s gown, tongue clamped between her teeth in focus.
It was true that both victims were gentlemen. One had been well-regarded, while the other was seen as a bit of a rake, but even Mr. Stewart hadn’t been universally admired. Mr. Pemberton had argued with him, and Lady Wycliffe hadn’t considered him a suitable match for Diana.
Perhaps someone had considered Mr. Pemberton as a rival for Diana’s hand and had tried to get him out of the way, just as they had Mr. Stewart. Could Mr. Buxton be the killer? But no, Mr. Pemberton had only been polite to Diana and had so far reserved his flirtation for Izzy. Besides, Mr. Buxton had been in the library with Lady Wycliffe when the murder was committed, and he couldn’t have poisoned the chocolate. He hadn’t even arrived at the house to see Diana until after he could have rightfully expected the family to have eaten. If anything, Mr. Buxton might be marked as the next victim.
The hairs on the back of Lydia’s neck prickled.
Lady Wycliffe had seemed unaccountably defensive this morning. And what of Sir Charles? He was remarkably calm in all this.
“Where was your father this morning?” Lydia asked abruptly.
“At breakfast,” Isabella said. “Only he couldn’t have been intended for poisoning, not if the poisoner knew anything about him. He always takes coffee in the mornings.”
Lydia’s stomach churned.
“What about the evening Mr. Stewart was killed?”
Isabella frowned and gave her a sharp look. Lydia did her best to keep her face expressionless.
“He was in the Rose Room with me,” she said. “In fact, he and I came down together almost an hour before everyone else, if I remember. We had both dressed early and were discussing some issue or other to do with one of the tenants.”
A small knot in Lydia’s shoulders unclenched itself. That was one person who couldn’t be at fault, then. Or two, rather, if she included Isabella.
As for everyone else…
How well did she know any of them, really? How much could she trust them? She had always thought of most people as being decent. Indeed, her faith in the basic goodness of people had always put her somewhat at odds with the church’s teachings. Scripture was all about the fallibility of man and how likely human creatures were to give in to temptation and sin. In her experience, though, most people were naturally inclined to do good and care for others. Mr. Stewart’s life had been evidence of that. And what of Lady Huntington? She was privileged and wealthy, with four thousand pounds a year and a respected knight for a husband, and she still chose to spend much of her time tending to the poor and needy. Even Isabella, who made a great deal of fuss over her own self-interest, could secretly be the soul of generosity.
That faith in the goodness of people was beginning to crumble. In the past week she had witnessed a gruesomely murdered body and a man scarcely able to support himself due to the effects of a dreadful poison. Both sights had been caused, willfully, by someone who may still be in this ver
y house.
Suddenly, even the coffee and crackling fire didn’t seem quite warm enough to reach the chill in her bones.
“I’m terribly glad I wasn’t in the dining room this morning,” Diana said. “Even if I hadn’t been poisoned, I don’t think I should have enjoyed watching it overtake Mr. Pemberton.” She shivered.
“You would not,” Isabella said grimly. “If I could forget that sight, I would do it in an instant. Thank goodness for Mr. Buxton. I suppose he was the reason you lingered so long outdoors?”
A smile crept across Diana’s face. “I stopped in the kitchen for a raisin bun before I went out, which might have had something to do with it, but Mr. Buxton does bear most of the responsibility.”
Susan giggled but didn’t look up from the paper doll gown she was now painting a brilliant shade of purple.
“We spent more than an hour walking together,” Diana admitted as her face took on a rosy shade. “I’m certain the gardeners who saw us together were scandalized at how closely we were walking.”
Isabella snorted. “The gardeners have seen worse in their day,” she said. “They know what the housemaids get up to.”
Mary looked up curiously, and Lydia shot Isabella a stern look. The girls were too young to have such ideas put into their heads.
“I’m glad we know exactly where you were when Mr. Pemberton was taken ill,” Isabella said. “I was beginning to think you were the murderer.”
Lydia laughed; the idea of Diana killing anyone, let alone a curate who was sweet on her, struck her as being particularly ludicrous.
“I wish I had,” Diana muttered.
Lydia must have misheard, with her head still fuzzy from the tonic. But no, her mind was clear now, and Diana was glaring at the fire as if it had done her personal wrong.
Isabella sat up, staring at her sister.
“What did you say?”
Diana glanced at the younger girls and shook her head. Her lips, normally so soft, drew into a hard line.
“Girls, out,” Isabella ordered.
Susan looked up sharply. “Di said we could be in here.”