by M C Beaton
“Thank you my dear,” she said faintly. “That would be most welcome.”
Felicity took her up to her room, helped her undress, and put her to bed. She then went back to the parlor to say good night to the marquess.
He gave her a rueful smile. “I engaged Miss Joust to look after you. I am afraid she is not a suitable companion.”
But Agnes’s plight had touched Felicity’s kind heart. “She means well,” she said. “The journey was a hectic dash. Is such speed really necessary?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“If Mrs. Waverley has something to hide, she may have written to Scarborough to alert her lawyers.”
Felicity shook her head in bewilderment. “She has no reason to know we are bound for Scarborough.”
“She may have guessed. It is better we reach there as fast as possible.”
“Very well,” said Felicity reluctantly. “I only hope Agnes manages to get a good night’s sleep. At what hour do we depart in the morning?”
“Six o’clock.”
Felicity groaned.
She made her way to the kitchens and ordered the cook to produce the necessary materials for a posset, made it up, and carried it in a cup on a tray to Agnes’s room. Agnes was lying in bed with her eyes half closed. Felicity noticed with surprise that Agnes’s hair was still piled on top of her head and that her lips were slightly rouged. She did not know Agnes had prepared for her famous deathbed scene.
“Dear Felicity,” said Agnes. “Leave it beside me.”
“Would you like me to stay with you until you fall asleep?” asked Felicity.
“No, Felicity, I shall do very well.” Agnes waited until Felicity had gone and then climbed from her bed and found the paper twist of arsenic she carried in her reticule. She carefully measured some grains into the cup. She knew she was going to have an uncomfortable time of it, but was sure she had not put in enough to make her actually vomit.
But Agnes had misjudged the dose. Felicity’s room was next door, and she was aroused in the night by Agnes’s screams for help.
She ran next door. The room reeked of vomit, and Agnes was standing, clutching her throat. “Poison,” she screamed. “Poison.”
The noise alerted the marquess. He took one look at the situation and called for the inn servants. Soon a glass was pressed into Agnes’s hand, and his stern voice was commanding her to drink it. She threw the contents down her throat as the marquess seized the chamber pot and stood at the ready. Agnes spluttered, and her eyes bulged. It had been hot water liberally laced with rock salt.
Agnes was dreadfully sick. But by the time the physician arrived, she was lying weak and pale in the bed, purged of all the poison, and able to start to accuse Felicity. “I think it was that posset,” she said faintly. “See, you may examine it. There is a little in the cup.”
The physician was a dour Scotsman who had been roused from his bed. “It certainly appears to be some sort of poisoning,” he said, and Agnes closed her eyes in satisfaction. But his next words were not at all what she had expected. The doctor was examining the contents of the toilet table. He then picked up Agnes’s reticule and said, “Mind if I look in here, my lord?” and then without waiting for permission, he drew open the strings of the reticule and tipped the contents out on the table.
He picked up the twist of paper, gently opened it, and carried it over to the oil lamp to examine the contents. “Arsenic,” he said, his face grim. “These silly women, playing with death. They will do it.”
“That is not mine,” cried Agnes. “I do not know how it got there!”
And then came the marquess’s voice, as cold as ice. “If you are suggesting Miss Felicity put some in that posset and put the rest in your reticule, Miss Joust, then I suggest you recover as quickly as possible and find your own way back to London.”
The physician came to the bed holding the oil lamp and peered down at Agnes. “I thought so,” he said. “Do you see those moles, my lord? Here, and here?” He pointed to a mole on Agnes’s chin and then one on her forehead. “An arseniceater, quite definitely.”
“Was a man ever plagued by such a dangerously silly woman?” said the marquess furiously. “Well, Miss Felicity? Shall we continue on our journey and leave her behind?”
Agnes burst into frightened tears. “I am sorry, Felicity. It was wicked and silly of me. Yes, I do occasionally take arsenic and was ashamed to confess to the practice.” Tears poured down her cheeks.
“It is all right,” said Felicity. “No one is going to send you away. My lord, we cannot travel tomorrow.”
He looked furious, and then suddenly his face relaxed. “Very well,” he murmured. “It might be interesting to see what happens. I may be worrying overmuch.”
***
Agnes was genuinely weak and ill the next day. At one point, she managed to struggle from the bed and look out the window. Her window overlooked the inn garden, and the sight that met her eyes did little to cheer her. It was a fine, sunny, very English afternoon. A light wind was pushing great fleecy clouds across a blue sky. The sun shimmered on the winding river bordering the inn garden. Walking along the riverbank was the Marquess of Darkwater and Miss Felicity Waverley. Felicity was wearing a lilac muslin gown—my color, thought Agnes, gritting her teeth. It was high-waisted and had long tight sleeves ending in points at the wrist. It had a little gauze ruff at the neck and three deep flounces at the hem. Under the hem, little lilac kid shoes peeped in and out. On her head was one of the new transparent hats, a circle of stiffened gauze decorated with white flowers. The lilac gown, like the matching parasol she carried, was ornamented with a little white spot.
The marquess was in morning dress: blue coat, striped waistcoat, pantaloons, and Hessian boots. He was laughing at something Felicity was saying, and she was smiling up at him. Agnes got back into bed and rang the bell.
When a chambermaid came in, Agnes groaned pathetically and said, “Fetch Miss Waverley. I am nigh to death.”
The minute the chambermaid had left, Agnes got up again and looked down from the window. Soon the chambermaid appeared below, the streamers of her cap flying. She stopped before the couple and began to talk. Felicity looked startled and made a move to leave, but the marquess placed a hand on her arm to restrain her and said something to the chambermaid. Agnes crawled back into bed and practiced a few groans. She waited and waited. At last the door opened, and, to her horror, neither Felicity nor the marquess appeared but the crusty Scottish doctor, who gave her a draft of something, told her to behave herself and stop wasting his time, and left. It was shortly after he had gone that Agnes realized he had given her a heavy sleeping draft, the doctor having put her down as a hysterical woman who needed sedation. So when Felicity did look in, Agnes was sleeping peacefully. She returned to the garden to tell the marquess the news, and found him in the company of two gentlemen. Felicity was versed enough in the ways of the world to recognize such men as gentlemen when she saw them, although the less initiated might have assumed that men attired in many-caped coats despite the warmth of the day and wearing belcher neckcloths belonged to the stables. Here then were two Corinthians with clothes and manners to match.
“Who’s the filly, Darkwater?” asked one as Felicity approached them.
“That is Miss Waverley,” said the marquess, “and if either of you refer to her as a filly again, I shall take great pleasure in ramming your teeth down your throat. Miss Felicity,” he said, as she reached them, “allow me to present Sir George Comfrey and Mr. Peter Harris.”
“Pleasure,” said Mr. Harris laconically. He did not remove the straw he had been chewing from his mouth. He was a squat, brutal-looking man with blue jowls and broken teeth. Sir George Comfrey was tall and thin with a long nose and slanting pale green eyes. He looked like a fox.
He made an elaborate bow.
“What brings you here, Harris?” asked the marquess.
“Same as yourself,” said Mr. Harris. “Traveling no
rth. Stay with m’friend in Harrogate. When do you leave?”
“It depends on the health of Miss Waverley’s companion. She was taken ill last night. Hopefully we might be able to leave tomorrow.”
“You said you were bound for Scarborough? What takes you there, Darkwater?”
“I am going there on business of a private nature.”
There was a little silence. Both men exchanged glances. Felicity wished they would leave. It had been so comfortable walking in the garden with the marquess and talking about all sorts of things. “Care to broach a few bottles in the tap?” asked Comfrey.
“No,” said the marquess pleasantly. “I prefer the company of Miss Waverley.”
The two men began to move reluctantly away.
“Are they friends of yours?” asked Felicity.
“No, mere acquaintances. The darker side of Prinny’s entourage, I think.”
Felicity looked shocked. “I do not think our Prince Regent would relish the company of such fellows. Forgive me for speaking plain, my lord, but I could not like them.”
“Then we shall avoid them. There are always such characters on the fringes of the court. Sporting is all the rage, and quite a number of men wish to look and sound like a cross between their own coachmen and gallows birds.”
Agnes joined them for dinner that evening. The deep sleep had refreshed her, and she wanly declared she felt quite her normal self. Felicity insisted they should stay one more day to make absolutely sure Agnes did not have a relapse. The marquess frowned impatiently but said nothing. He felt uneasy about the sudden appearance of two of Prinny’s toadies.
He did not see what those two could do to stop their journey north, if such was their intention. He posted two of his grooms in the passageway outside their rooms with instructions to rouse him at the slightest sign of anyone approaching.
The marquess found it hard to get to sleep. He tried to remember his wife as she had been when he was courting her and to remember if he had felt the easy companionship in her company he had enjoyed with Felicity in the inn garden. But all he could remember was it had been a strict and correct courtship and he had not really been alone with her until their wedding night. He closed his eyes in pain as he remembered that night. How she had writhed away from him and called him a monstrous cruel and unfeeling brute. After that miserable night, she had complained of headaches and backaches and every kind of malaise. He was sure she was making every excuse she could think of not to sleep with him. Although he had tried to cherish her, to treat her with tenderness, she had infinitely preferred the company of her lady’s maid. He had been most surprised when she had died, to find she really had been a frail creature, yet he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Before he met Felicity Waverley, he had never before envisaged a woman as being a friend and companion.
He was just about to slip off gently into sleep at last when a voice in his brain asked, What would you do if you wanted to stop three people journeying north?
“I would wreck their carriage,” he answered crossly in his mind. All at once, he sat bolt upright. The carriage!
Felicity, too, was awake. She could not stop thinking about the marquess. She turned over and over in her mind everything they had said that day. She thought of the charm of his deep voice, of the humorous twist to his mouth, and of the way his normally cold gray eyes had lit up with laughter as he had looked down at her. But there was something about this journey and the frantic need for haste that he had not told her. And what of those two ugly men, Harris and Comfrey?
And then she heard a low voice in the passage outside. She ran to the door, unlocked it, and looked out. The marquess was talking to his groom. He looked up when he saw Felicity and said sharply, “Get back to bed.”
“Where are you going?” she asked softly.
“Just as far as the stables to see that everything is all right.”
She closed the door, but stood irresolute. The stables. All at once she did not like the idea of his going out in the blackness of the night with Harris and Comfrey possibly around.
Feeling silly, but determined to go ahead with it, she opened her trunk and took out a small pistol and primed it. Then she pulled a warm cloak with a hood over her nightgown and slipped her bare feet into a soft pair of kid shoes. She made her way swiftly out into the passage and down the stairs. The inn door was standing open. Outside, a high wind was blowing, and a small bright moon was racing through the clouds. The stables were at the back of the inn. She felt in her pocket for the cold reassuring smoothness of her pistol and hurried across the yard.
The marquess had checked the horses. All was well. He made his way through to the carriage house, moving as silently as a ghost. Just as silently, the groom crept behind him.
All appeared to be quiet and still, yet there was an atmosphere of danger in the air. The wind sighed around the building and pieces of straw drifted across the floor. The carriage gleamed softly in a shaft of pale moonlight coming in through a high barred window at the end. Feeling confident now that he had been imagining things, he strode forward. And then a sickening blow struck him from behind and, as he went down, he could hear a groan behind him from the groom, who had also been attacked.
He lay on the cobbles fighting to keep conscious while the whole world seemed to whirl about him.
“Right, Comfrey,” said Harris. “Bring that ax over here. A few blows on the wheels of this carriage should be enough, and then we’ll be on our way.”
Slowly the marquess eased himself up onto one elbow and shook his head to clear it. Harris was standing by the gleaming panels of the coach, an ax in his hand. He raised it to bring it down on the wheels when a clear feminine voice called out, “Hold hard, or I shall blow your brains out!”
Harris dropped the ax and he and Comfrey swung around to face the doorway. Felicity Waverley stood there, a small pistol in her hand.
Comfrey began to laugh. “Pick up the ax, man,” he said to Harris. “She ain’t going to do anything with that toy.”
Harris bent down to pick up the ax and a bullet whizzed through his hat. He stayed where he was in a half crouch as if frozen. The marquess struggled to his feet. Felicity was reloading her pistol. “Are you unhurt, my lord?” she called.
“Yes,” he said, moving toward the two men.
“Do not get between me and the line of fire, my lord,” said Felicity coolly.
The marquess nodded and unhitched a coil of rope from the wall. Stumbling slightly, for he still felt groggy, he tied up the two men. “It was only a joke, Darkwater,” pleaded Comfrey. “See here, did it for a wager, don’t you know?”
“You can explain matters to the justice of the peace,” said the marquess. His groom groaned and shifted. He went and bent over him and then felt his pulse. The landlord of the inn came running in followed by some of his servants.
“These men tried to wreck my carriage after attacking me and my groom,” said the marquess. “Call the constable and have them taken to the roundhouse for the night.”
He waited until Harris and Comfrey had been bundled out and then went to Felicity. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“Mrs. Waverley taught me,” said Felicity.
“What an extraordinary woman,” he said with a grin. “Finding out about her past is going to be a pleasure.”
“Are you badly hurt?” she asked.
“My head is quite hard, but I must confess I feel pretty sick.”
The landlord came back with more servants, and the groom was carried out. Instructions were given to rouse the Scottish doctor from his bed again to attend to the groom.
“And now,” said the marquess, “back to bed, Miss Felicity. We will go to the authorities in the morning and find out what these two ruffians have to say for themselves.”
“There is something wicked about this,” said Felicity with a shiver. “Someone is very anxious to stop us from finding out about Mrs. Waverley.”
She looked white and str
ained. He had a longing to take her in his arms, but prudence held him back. He was not sure of his feelings. And then at the back of his mind, he was always haunted by the coldness of his wife.
“They were probably doing it for a wager,” he said, although he didn’t believe it. “Come along, Miss Felicity.”
They made their way out. The inn was ablaze with lights and the courtyard full of guests demanding to know what had happened.
Felicity was glad to escape to her room. She had a longing to tell him she had changed her mind, that she did not want to find out anything about Mrs. Waverley. Her dull existence in Hanover Square now seemed like paradise. What was she doing risking her life on the Great North Road when she had a comfortable home and the efficient Mrs. Ricketts to take care of everything?
***
Agnes was furious to learn she had slept through all the excitement. She eagerly asked Felicity to repeat over and over again what had happened. Agnes was bitterly jealous. Knowing how to prime and fire a pistol was a most unmaidenly talent, yet she wished she had been the one to save the marquess.
They were sitting in the private parlor having a late breakfast when the marquess came in, looking grim. “They’ve gone,” he said, sitting down at the end of the table.
“Harris and Comfrey?” exclaimed Felicity. “How can that be? They were surely locked up in the roundhouse.”
“They were visited during the night by the local justice of the peace, Mr. Haggerty. I roused Mr. Haggerty and demanded an explanation. He is a weak, shiftless man. He began to bluster that the two criminals were fine gentlemen who had only been playing a prank. I swore and said I had been struck nigh unconscious and my groom attacked as well, that they had been on the point of wrecking my carriage. He apologized but said he was sure a fine gentleman like myself would not wish to press charges. I said I most certainly did, and he said he would send men out to look for the pair.” He fell silent, wondering again if the pair had used the magic of the Prince Regent’s name to escape.