Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  “Should I have fetched it home while I was there?” Thomas asked uncertainly. “I would have done, but I thought maybe he wouldn’t like coming for it and finding it gone.”

  “No, you did right.” Julia turned away from the window and summoned up a feeble smile. “If he has made other plans, I am sure he would not thank us for interfering with them.”

  Julia dismissed the footman and turned back to the window, watching the rain that beat against the glass panes, unceasing as a widow’s tears. She rehearsed in her mind every word, every gesture in the quarrel that had culminated in his leaving without even saying goodbye. She had spoken in anger, she thought desperately, she hadn’t meant any of it. Surely he must have known that! Oh, must he? a small voice whispered back accusingly. How? How would he have known? Unlike herself, he had never been married before, never even had a longtime sweetheart unless one counted the faithless Sophia. She had been well aware, of course, that he feared she might someday come to regret their marriage; perhaps, believing his worst fears had come to pass, he had thought to salvage what remained of his pride by leaving her before she could order him to go.

  Now he was out there alone in the darkness somewhere, and she had no idea where he was or even if he had sufficient funds remaining from his journey to procure a roof over his head for the night. Every instinct cried out to her to go after him, to search every thoroughfare and backstreet of London until she found him, but it was not safe for a woman to go gadding about Town alone at such an hour, even if she’d had any idea where to begin looking for him. She pressed a hand to her abdomen. Had it been only her own safety at risk, no danger would have been too great, no peril too hazardous. Now, however, she had someone else’s welfare to think of, someone whose existence would be the only thing that might comfort her for his loss.

  A hollow feeling formed in the pit of her stomach at the thought of the new life she carried. Someday, when the child was old enough, she would have to tell it about its father: who he was, and how very much she had loved him—and, finally, how she had driven him away. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, and closed her eyes against the tears that threatened.

  Her bleak reflections were interrupted by a light scratching at the door.

  “Begging your pardon, madam,” Rogers said apologetically, “but had you not best turn in? It is quite late, you know, and the young master will not want you wearing yourself out waiting for his return. I will be happy to stay up to admit him myself, or to receive any message concerning him—in which case I should naturally apprise you at once.”

  She cast one last, longing glance up the rain-soaked street before turning reluctantly away from the window. “Yes, I suppose I should. But you need not wait up, Rogers.” She gave the butler a forlorn little smile. “I do not think we will see Mr. Pickett again.”

  “Mrs. Pickett—madam—” He was spared the futile attempt at consolation by the sound of a vehicle drawing to a stop before the front door. “Forgive me, madam,” he said, bowing himself from the room as someone in the street below wielded the door knocker with vigor.

  Propriety, of course, required that she wait patiently in the drawing room until Rogers returned to announce the visitor, or until (as she infinitely preferred) her husband should join her, expressing his profound apologies for the long delay. But propriety made no allowances for the agonies endured by a woman estranged from her husband for more than thirty-six hours, the last four of which had been spent in envisioning increasingly grim scenarios ranging from a permanent, irreparable breach to the discovery of his lifeless body in a back alley off Drury Lane.

  “Oh, hang propriety!” she muttered under her breath.

  Picking up her skirts, she ran from the room and raced down the stairs, reaching the hall below just as Rogers opened the door to admit the caller. It was not, as she had hoped, her husband who entered the house, but a stranger in servants’ livery who stood there holding a letter in his hand. Rogers spoke to him in hushed tones, then took the epistle and conveyed it to his mistress.

  “From Mr. Colquhoun, madam,” the butler murmured.

  She broke the seal with hands that shook, and unfolded the single sheet. There is a very unhappy young man at my house, it read. If you want him, please come and get him. P. Colquhoun, Esq.

  “Will there be any reply, ma’am?” asked the footman, observing her sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks.

  “Yes, there will,” she said resolutely. “But I shall deliver it in person. I’m coming with you!”

  She disembarked before the magistrate’s house a short time later. Heedless of the cold rain that now fell in sheets, she hurried up the stairs onto the portico with such haste that the footman was hard pressed to reach the front door ahead of her. He flung it open, and she stumbled over the threshold into the hall, where Mr. Colquhoun waited.

  “Where is he?” she asked without preamble.

  He nodded in the direction of a closed door opening off the hall. “Am I to understand, then, that you’ve come to fetch him back home?”

  “Yes.” Now that the moment of reunion was at hand, however, she hesitated. “I have much to thank you for, Mr. Colquhoun, and much for which to beg your pardon. You tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.” She glanced toward the uncommunicative door. “If he refuses to come with me, I shall have only myself to blame.”

  The magistrate’s bushy eyebrows arched toward his hairline. “Surely it isn’t as bad as all that!”

  “I was angry and hurt,” she said, hanging her head in shame at the memory. “I said—I said something unforgivable.”

  “In my experience, there are very few things unforgivable, provided the love is there,” he said, more gently than was his wont.

  “Yes, but I knew he was—I knew he had not—”

  “It seems to me, Mrs. Pickett, that these self-recriminations would be better addressed to the young man beyond that door,” suggested the magistrate.

  “Yes.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “Yes, I’m sure you are right.”

  She slowly crossed the hall and put her hand on the panel. She glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Colquhoun, then, receiving a reassuring nod, pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  He had removed his coat, and now sat before the fire in his shirtsleeves, with his back to the door. She could not see his face, but the slump of his shoulders, outlined sharply against the damp linen of his shirt, told its own tale. She advanced tentatively into the room and gently closed the door behind her.

  “I’m sorry to impose on you at this hour, sir,” he said without looking around. “If you can put me up for the night, I’ll see about finding a place of my own first thing in the morning. Someone else has my old flat now and, well, I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “You could always go back to your wife,” she said softly.

  He whirled around to stare at her, his expressive countenance a curious mixture of hunger and fear, as if he dared not believe the evidence of his own eyes.

  “Please, John—I’m so very sorry—”

  She got no further. He crossed the room in three strides, caught her up in his arms and began raining frenetic kisses on her lips, cheeks, eyes, hair, and anything else with which his mouth came in contact.

  “Oh John, I’ve been so worried—don’t you ever—ever do such a thing again!” she said in between frenzied kisses, softening this scold by clinging to him all the more tightly.

  “No—I won’t—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine, all mine,” she insisted, and once the passion of reconciliation had spent itself and coherent conversation was possible, she enlarged upon this theme. “You tried to tell me, even Mr. Colquhoun tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I’ve been so happy, I didn’t want to think that you—weren’t.”

  “But not because of you, my lady—never because of you. From the moment we met, you’ve had my whole heart, Julia, but I can’t be the man you deserve. You’re
going to have to tell me what to do—what you want—”

  Her face had been buried in the front of his shirt, but at that she looked up. “Darling, what are you talking about?” she asked, very much afraid she already knew.

  “I don’t please you.” The pain contained in those four simple words was plainly written on his face.

  She drew a ragged breath. “I was right, then, in thinking that was what drove you away. John, to say I owe you an apology doesn’t even begin to cover it. When I came home yesterday and found you packing, I was still smarting over a—an unpleasant encounter I’d had in the park. Then I realized you meant to go away and leave me to the mercy of such people—” But that episode seemed a lifetime ago, and it was absurd now to think that they had parted, even temporarily, over anything so unimportant. “At that moment I wanted to hurt you as I had been hurt—and I did. I said something cruel and stupid, something that wasn’t even true. It is very precious to me, the knowledge that you have been with no other woman but me, and however inexperienced you may have been when we married, I can say in all honesty that I have never known such happiness as I have found in your arms. You may be my second husband in terms of chronology, but you are first in my heart, and you always will be. And that, my darling, is the truth.”

  Pickett could find no words with which to answer this declaration. There was a gesture, however, one that he had promised more than half in jest, but that seemed to be the only response that would even begin to express what was in his heart. And so he dropped to one knee and lifted the lower edge of her gown, then bent his head and pressed it to his lips.

  “No, John, don’t,” she protested, tugging at him. “We’re equals in every way that counts. Besides, there is something we must discuss. It—it concerns the matter of finances. I knew you were troubled by it, but I didn’t realize how much.”

  At her urging, he rose to his feet. “Julia, I will never be completely reconciled to the fact that I can’t support my wife in the manner to which she’s accustomed, but neither do I want you to give up any more than you already have in marrying me. If that’s the price I have to pay, then I’ll pay it willingly.”

  “Nevertheless, I have a proposition to put to you. For the next six months, we will live wherever you wish: in Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, or under a bridge, if that is what you want—”

  “I think we can eliminate the bridge,” he put in.

  “Don’t interrupt,” she said, pressing a finger to his lips. “As I said, for the next six months we will live in whatever lodgings may be had for twenty-five shillings a week. But after that, I must insist we find somewhere else to live—if not Curzon Street, then some other house we will choose together. I will not compromise on this.”

  “Your proposition sounds remarkably like an ultimatum, my lady,” he said, although the tenderness in his voice robbed the words of any belligerence.

  “Does it? Oh dear, I suppose it does,” she confessed, conscience-stricken. “Still, you must admit your Drury Lane flat is rather small for three people.”

  “On the contrary, I could show you whole families living in—wait—what—three? Who—?”

  The radiance of her smile rivaled the sun. “You’re going to be a father, John Pickett.”

  He took a step backwards, staring at her. “But—but that’s impossible!”

  “Yes—except that it isn’t.”

  “You told me you were unable to have children,” he insisted, “that in six years with Lord Fieldhurst—”

  “With Fieldhurst, yes. It turns out that the failing was not mine, but his—a failing, furthermore, that my second husband does not share.”

  “A baby,” Pickett said stupidly, still trying to take it in. A baby, which meant that a nursery must be furnished and a nurse engaged, and perhaps another laundry maid as well, to wash all the clouts the baby would tear through every day, and then, when the child was older, there would be the matter of schooling—none of which could be accomplished on twenty-five shillings a week, not in a manner befitting the child of his lady wife. And yet somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much anymore, not when he looked into her glowing face. He had given her the one thing her first husband, for all his wealth and position, never could. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough. “When—? How soon—?”

  Surprisingly, Julia had no trouble deciphering this disjointed query. “December—very likely before Christmas.” She smiled up at him. “Not too shabby, for a woman who was supposed to be barren and a man who was supposed to be impotent.”

  Stunned as he was, Pickett was still capable of performing a simple mathematical calculation. “December? That—that didn’t take long!”

  “No, it didn’t.” She stood on tiptoe to press her lips to his slackened jaw. “So let us hear no more about your inadequacies as a husband.”

  Whatever he might have said to this was interrupted by a light tap on the door. It inched open, and Mr. Colquhoun stuck his head in. Assessing the situation with a clinical eye, he noted that his protégé looked rather dazed, but the condition of the boy’s cravat—to say nothing of his lady’s hair, most of which had been pulled loose from its pins—was sufficient to inform the magistrate that the reconciliation was everything the lad might have wished.

  “Forgive the interruption,” he said, “but I have a coachman and a housekeeper awaiting instructions.”

  “Sir, we’re having a baby!” Pickett blurted out.

  “Well, don’t have it here,” recommended Mr. Colquhoun. “The offer of a room for the night still stands, but I rather think it will not be needed, is that correct?”

  “Quite—quite correct,” Pickett said, taking Julia’s hand and looking down at her with a rather fatuous smile. “I think we’d best go home now, my wife and I.”

  “As you wish.” Mr. Colquhoun turned to give the order to his coachman, and Julia picked up Pickett’s still-damp coat and held it open as he shrugged his arms into the sleeves. There would be other misunderstandings, she knew —other quarrels, even—but next time they would be better prepared. As Mr. Colquhoun had said, the love was there, and it would see them through any storm.

  Outside, the rain had stopped and the carriage waited in the newly washed street. The coachman opened the door and let down the step, but it was Pickett who handed Julia inside. Once in the vehicle, however, she paused and turned back.

  “But where is home, John?” she asked. “Have you decided?”

  He looked up at her, and saw his whole world reflected in her eyes. “Home is where you are,” he said simply, and turned to address the coachman. “Curzon Street. Number twenty-two,” he said, then climbed into the carriage after her and shut the door.

  Author’s Note

  Frequent readers of mysteries will no doubt have recognized cyanide as the almond-scented poison that featured so prominently in this book. People in Regency England would not have known it by that name, as the substance—derived from and named for the pigment Prussian blue, just as I’ve described it here—did not acquire its scientific name until 1826, almost two decades after the events in Mystery Loves Company. If you love words and their origins, as I do, you might be interested to know that the root word in cyanide is the same as the name given to the cartridge of blue ink in the color printer on your desk: cyan.

  As for John Pickett, if you’d like to know more about his journey from juvenile delinquent to collier’s apprentice to Bow Street Runner (including his ill-advised romance with his master’s daughter), you can find it in Pickpocket’s Apprentice: A John Pickett Novella, a companion piece to the mystery series, available in paperback, electronic, and audiobook formats.

  THE JOHN PICKETT MYSTERIES

  PICKPOCKET’S APPRENTICE

  (A John Pickett novella)

  IN MILADY’S CHAMBER

  A DEAD BORE

  FAMILY PLOT

  DINNER MOST DEADLY

  WAITING GAME

  (Another John Pickett novella)

  TOO HOT TO HANDEL


  FOR DEADER OR WORSE

  MYSTERY LOVES COMPANY

  About the Author

  At age sixteen, Sheri Cobb South discovered Georgette Heyer, and came to the startling realization that she had been born into the wrong century. Although she doubtless would have been a chambermaid had she actually lived in Regency England, that didn’t stop her from fantasizing about waltzing the night away in the arms of a handsome, wealthy, and titled gentleman.

  Since Georgette Heyer was dead and could not write any more Regencies, Ms. South came to the conclusion she would have to do it herself. In addition to the John Pickett mysteries, she has also written several Regency romances.

  A native of Alabama, she now lives in Loveland, Colorado. She loves to hear from readers via email at Cobbsouth@aol.com or her Facebook author page.

  ©2017 by Sheri Cobb South

  Electronically published in 2018 by Belgrave House

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, Email, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

  For more information, contact Belgrave House, 4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd. #248, Portland, OR 97214

  http://www.BelgraveHouse.com

  Electronic sales: ebooks@belgravehouse.com

  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.