A Most Unsuitable Man

by Mara

  “Did you not get any earlier?” Genova asked. “It’s good.”

  Now that it was over, Damaris was appalled at what might have been. She could have fallen over into the cold water, banged her head, broken a bone. Even in that slip she could have hurt herself badly. She grabbed the flagon and drank, but then winced away.

  “Ugh. It’s even sweeter than before.” She tried another sip but couldn’t endure it.

  “Do you not like sweet things?” Genova asked, sounding astonished.

  Damaris thought about vinegar and sighed. “Not really. Would you like this?”

  “If you’re sure.” Genova took it and drank with apparent relish. “I shared Ashart’s, which is very romantic, I’m sure, but he drank most of it.”

  “You’re most welcome to it. In fact, I’m going to have some brandy.”

  She took a silver flask from one of the concealed cupboards and poured brandy into the cap. She’d only ever had it mixed with hot water and honey for medicinal purposes, but gentlemen seemed to enjoy it.

  The first sip made her gasp, but soon she felt wonderfully warm. “Oh, that does make me feel better. Why not have some in the cider?”

  “Why not, indeed?” Genova held out the pot. “This has cooled, so it’s not as tasty. You slipped? Are you hurt?”

  Damaris took another sip of brandy. “A bruise or two, I suppose. Strange, I still don’t know the name of the place.”

  “Pickmanwell.”

  Damaris laughed. “Is that a message to me? To pick my man well?”

  “A lesson to us all,” Genova agreed, eyes twinkling above the rim of the flagon. She tilted it to drain it, then pulled a face and wiped bits from her lips. “That must have been the dregs of the bowl. Still, it was welcome. And we’re almost there.”

  Damaris laughed dryly. “Amazing, to look forward to Cheynings.” Then she realized that wasn’t tactful and settled for silence and sipping brandy.

  Perhaps it was the brandy that spun fanciful dreams. She saw herself carried off by a masked highwayman, seized by corsairs on the high seas, or war-painted Indians in the Canadian forests. In each situation Fitzroger swept to her rescue, swift and skilled, until he stood, one foot on a villain’s chest, his blade at the man’s throat, demanding of her what he should do.

  Death or mercy...

  “I do hope I’ll be accepted by the servants at Cheynings.”

  Damaris started out of her fancies to look at Genova. “Of course you will. You’ll soon be mistress there.”

  “Old retainers can be vicious and Ashart paints a grim picture of the place. I think the poor man worries that I’ll barely last a day before fleeing. But it can’t be so bad as all that.”

  Damaris didn’t know what to say, for it could indeed.

  Simply maintaining a house like Cheynings required a fortune, which was doubtless why it was in poor repair and niggardly with comforts. Even candles for light and fuel for fires in such a house could amount to horrendous sums, never mind mending the roof and replacing rotten plaster and timbers.

  For decades all the income from the Trayce estates had gone not to their care but for court and show, for gilded carriages, outriders, and diamond buttons. All in the dowager’s determination that the Trayce family be the grandest in the land and most especially that they outshine and eventually crush the Mallorens.

  She sought a pleasant truth. “It’s a handsome house with pleasing proportions and details, and the servants seem to have been there forever.”

  “Therefore devoted to the dowager, since she’s been there forever, too.”

  “As soon as you’re married, you can hire and dismiss whomever you want.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

  Damaris frowned, wondering if Genova, despite her adventures, had steel cold enough to deal with the Dowager Lady Ashart. The woman had, after all, unblinkingly used Lady Thalia’s dead beloved as a missile in a minor spat.

  It seemed presumptuous to offer advice when she was younger and had led a more limited life, but she did it anyway. “If you could make the servants aware that soon you will be their mistress, with power over them—if you make it clear you’ll use your authority— they might see the wisdom of switching their allegiance.”

  Genova looked startled, and Damaris thought she saw another I couldn’t do that hover, but then Genova nodded. “My father’s ships were always in good order because the crew knew he would act if necessary. Occasionally he had to do so, which served as a reminder.”

  Since that probably meant flogging, keelhauling, and even hanging, Genova might be a match for the dowager after all. She certainly now wore the fixed, serious look of a captain planning battle strategy.

  Damaris let her brandied mind slide back into fantasies. Fitzroger riding to her rescue, hair flying in the wind. Leaping off his horse to fight the Indian, to duel the pirate, to shoot the highwayman.

  For, oh, a lady cannot abide without a hero by her side....

  Deep in her mind, Genova’s words had set a seed. If a lord could marry to suit his pleasure, why shouldn’t a rich lady buy whatever man suited her?

  Now her imagination created pictures of herself and Fitzroger, married. What sort of life would they have? With her money, it could be anything they pleased.

  Master and mistress of a house like Rothgar Abbey.

  No, too grand.

  A country manor like Thornfield Hall?

  Too remote.

  A house in a town such as she’d grown up in? She shuddered, but told herself that Birch House could have been a comfortable home. She knew for sure that she’d never live there again by choice, but something similar—no, a little grander, in London. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroger, at the heart of the glittering world.

  But then, like a worm in an apple, she remembered that Fitzroger was surrounded by scandal. Even Rothgar had warned her of it. Before she even indulged further fantasies, she must find out what Fitzroger’s secret was.

  The coach began a careful turn between stone pillars. “At last,” she said, glad to be rescued from her own tangled thoughts.

  She pulled her cloak up around her shoulders and fastened it. Lady Thalia would probably know the truth, and Genova would ask her. Then Damaris would know where she stood. The fact that she might not want to know had nothing to do with it. She would not make a fool of herself again.

  “Here we are,” she said with determined cheer as she turned to Genova. But Genova had her hand to her chest and seemed to be gasping for breath.

  “Don’t worry,” Damaris said, astonished. “Ashart will defend you from the dragon.”

  “I’m sure. I’m sorry. I’ve never felt like this before. Nerves of steel, my father says, and here I am... throwing a nervous fit. This will never do. Perhaps... brandy?”

  Damaris quickly pulled out the silver flask and poured some. Genova reached for the cup, but her trembling hand couldn’t hold on. Damaris steadied her and guided it to Genova’s lips, but dribbles escaped to run down her chin.

  “I’m s-sorry. Such a fool you must th-think me.”

  “No, of course not. The dowager’s enough to shake Hercules.” Damaris was becoming alarmed, however. “Try another sip.”

  She steadied both Genova’s hand and head this time and got a little more down her, but then the other woman pushed her feebly away. “I d-don’t think it’s helping. Heart,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest again. “Going so fast. Too fast.”

  Her whole body was shaking now as if the coach was running over ridges, and Damaris could hear her teeth chattering. She tugged the rabbit-fur cloak close around her friend. “It won’t be long. The drive here’s quite short.”

  Should she call out for help? But what could anyone do but get to the house, which was happening anyway? Genova wouldn’t want her first appearance at Cheynings to be all alarm and illness.

  “Try to breathe deeply,” Damaris commanded.

  “Can’t. Can’t! I...” Genova looked into Damaris’s eyes in a
silent, frantic plea.

  Damaris noticed the brandy flask in her hand and took a swig. She choked, but it cleared her mind. She let down the window, praying the blast of cold air would help. They were almost at the house, thank God.

  “Fitzroger!” she yelled.

  “Just about there,” he called back.

  “Genova’s ill!”

  He angled his horse closer and bent to look in. “What is it? A fever?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s panic.”

  “Genova?”

  “Anyone can have an attack of nerves. She needs to get into the house and into a warm bed, but preferably without everyone being made aware.”

  “I’ll tell Ash.”

  Chapter 9

  As Fitz rode off, Damaris turned back to Genova and became really frightened. The other woman’s breaths were high and fast, seeming too shallow to sustain life. She was limp, and her eyes were only half-open.

  She looked pallid, and a touch on her forehead found sweat even though the coach was now quite cold. Damaris hastily shut the window.

  The other door opened while the coach was still in motion, and Ashart swung in. Damaris scrambled over to the opposite seat as he commanded, “Fitz, send someone for a doctor!” He slammed the door and gathered Genova into his arms. “Genni, love, what is it?”

  Genova stared at him, but managed only, “Sorry...”

  “Plague take sorry. Come on, Genni.” He began frantically kissing her face, stroking back her hair as if he’d cure her by touch and love.

  Damaris looked away, feeling as if she’d found herself in a marriage bed. A hand grasped her arm, and she realized the coach had stopped and Fitzroger was urging her out. She went with alacrity, clutching her cloak around her but shivering anyway, whether from the cold or shock, or both.

  “I don’t think that’s just nerves,” she said.

  “Nor do I. Did she eat or drink anything at Pickmanwell?”

  “The mulled cider... But everyone had some. I did. You did.”

  “Yes.” He pushed her toward the house. “Go in. I’ll help Ash.” He ran back toward the coach.

  Damaris pulled up her hood, her own teeth chattering. Cheynings offered no welcome, looming over the arriving coaches as nothing but a dark mass. The porticoed door was illuminated by a single guttering flambeau.

  The servants’ carriages must have gone directly to the back of the house. The gilded coach stood in front of the steps. The dowager was out and marching toward the door without a backward glance, Lady Thalia tripping behind, chattering. Had she chattered all the way? Quite likely. The dowager looked pursued.

  Clearly neither lady knew of Genova’s problem yet.

  Damaris turned back to see Fitzroger helping Ashart extricate Genova. She hurried over, but could do nothing. Genova breathed in short gasps and lay limp as the dead.

  To Damaris this didn’t look like panic. It looked like poison.

  Every scrap of common sense fought that idea. How could it be poison if only Genova was affected?

  Then she remembered the last flagon of cider. Could there have been a concentration of something settled to the bottom? Herbs could be powerful. Even nutmeg could give people fits if consumed in huge amounts. She knew about such things because in Worksop she’d often helped Dr. Telford in his apothecary.

  Ashart strode by, Genova in his arms. Damaris hurried to help Fitzroger with their carriage bags—and to find the flagon.

  “It has to have been that last pot of cider,” she whispered as she grabbed the pot from the floor. She put in her hand and felt stuff at the bottom. She scooped some out on a gloved finger and tasted it.

  Fitzroger knocked her hand away from her mouth. “Are you mad?”

  “If there’s anything wrong with it, it doesn’t work like that. I’m suffering no effect and I sipped it before giving it to Genova.”

  His startled glance showed how that sounded.

  “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t talk about it here.”

  The coachman and groom stood nearby, muttering to each other, but Damaris wanted to vindicate herself.

  “If it’s poison, we need to know what,” she whispered.

  “Not here,” he repeated, taking both carriage bags in one hand. “Come on.”

  As they hurried up the stone steps, he asked, “Where did you get that flagon of cider? You said the one I gave you fell in the stream.”

  “Yes. A servant gave me another just as I was entering the coach. She said a gentleman had sent it. I think I assumed it was you. I was still shaken.”

  “You didn’t drink it?”

  Stupidly, she hated to admit it. “It was too sweet.”

  “Ah, yes, I saw you pour the first one away.”

  She stared at him. “How?”

  They’d arrived at the door. “I happened to be looking that way.”

  “So you wouldn’t send me another.”

  “And I didn’t have time,” he pointed out.

  “Someone tried to harm me?” she gasped.

  But he said, “No. Don’t be afraid. I assure you, you have no need to be.”

  He drew her through the door, and it was closed behind them with a solid thump. His words should have comforted her, but she had heard a slight emphasis on the you. She herself didn’t have need to be afraid, but someone else did?

  Genova?

  Who would want to hurt Genova?

  The dowager, still intent on her grandson marrying a fortune?

  Or herself, out of jealous rage? Surely no one, least of all Fitzroger, could imagine that. Could they?

  Damaris shivered, but only from the cold and shock. As for the cold, being inside Cheynings was hardly better than being outside. Four single candles stood waiting for use, but as only one was lit, they did little for the gloom and nothing for the chill. The great marble hearth held no fire, and the black-and-white-tiled floor only increased the chill. Here, no greenery or berries celebrated the season, and a smell of damp decay permeated the place.

  Oh, yes, Damaris remembered this grim house. And when she’d visited before it had been a milder season, and some effort had been made to welcome her, to entice her fortune into the pit of need.

  Ashart, Genova, the dowager, and Lady Thalia had all disappeared, but the sturdy, grim-faced housekeeper—a Mrs. Knightly, Damaris remembered—waited to attend to them. Behind her stood three slack-faced, weary-looking maidservants.

  “Miss Smith has been taken upstairs?” Fitzroger asked.

  “To his lordship’s room,” the housekeeper replied through pursed lips.

  “That doubtless being the only one properly warmed and aired. You had a day’s warning, Mrs. Knightly.”

  “Which can’t combat an age of disuse, sir. I gather the doctor’s been sent for?”

  “Yes. Is there anyone here with healing skills?”

  “For ordinary matters, sir, but what’s wrong with the lady? Drink, perhaps?”

  “Absolutely not.” Fitzroger’s tone should have frozen the woman on the spot. “Show Miss Myddleton to her room.” He passed the bags to the maids, lit one candle from the other, and ran up the stairs.

  Damaris stared after him, but then abandoned polite behavior and raced after, trying to remember the layout of the house. Pursuing the glimmer of Fitzroger’s candle, she plunged from the top of the stairs into the anteroom to the open space called the Royal Salon, then turned right through an arch into the east wing.

  She followed him left down a short corridor and into a bleak anteroom, which she remembered was the first of a number of rooms that made up the marquess’s suite. They were arranged in the old style to run from one to another, and this had once been a guardroom, meant to protect the private chambers of the mighty lord.

  Fitzroger was already into the next room, but he was leaving doors open, either in urgency or because he knew she was following. She chased him into a drawing room called the Hunt Room because of hunting scenes hung on the walls. A m
odest fire burned in this hearth, so she shut the door behind her before running through and finding herself at last in the grand corner bedchamber.

  She shut that door, too.

  In the bleak house, the luxury of this room was shocking. A fire roared in the fireplace, and a thick carpet cushioned the floor. Three branches of candles shed light on window and bed hangings of heavy gold brocade, decorated with Ashart’s coat of arms. The walls were covered with painted wallpaper from China.

  Genova was tucked into the big bed, waxy pale and breathing in shallow gasps. Damaris didn’t like the look of her at all. She wished Dr. Telford were here. She herself had no training, only random experience she’d gained from helping him.

  Ashart was sitting on the bed, supporting Genova, still trying to gently, frantically bully her out of the fit. Lady Thalia hovered, wringing fragile hands, looking every day of her age. Her middle-aged French maid was working a rosary. Fitzroger stood at the end of the bed, expressionless as a stern statue.

  Damaris was the uninvited outsider, but she couldn’t hang back. “Have her stays been removed?” she ventured, discarding her cloak onto a chair and putting the flagon on a table.

  “Cut.” Ashart never looked away from Genova’s face, as if he could keep her alive by will alone.

  With nothing to go on, Damaris had no other practical suggestion, so she picked up the pot, turned her back on the others, and tasted the dregs again. She detected nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Honey. Brandy.

  And something else.

  She inspected her finger and saw dark flecks. They could be an innocent herb—marjoram, hypericum, perhaps even feverfew. But what was it doing in mulled cider?

  “Well?” Fitzroger had come to her side and spoke softly.

  She shook her head. “Nothing I know how to counter.”

  He did as she had and tasted the residue, but then he, too, shook his head. Her lurking suspicions were confirmed. Whatever he was, Octavius Fitzroger was no idle hanger-on. He’d been keyed tight all day for danger, and no ordinary man would think he could detect noxious herbs.

  What on earth was all this about?

  She wished the doctor would arrive, but she had no idea how far he would have to come, even if the messenger found him at home. The clock showed that it was nearly five, so he could still be visiting patients.