The Black Orchid (A Lady Jane Mystery Book 2)

by Annis Bell

  The doors to David’s adjoining bedroom opened, and her husband stepped through. “That will be all, Levi.”

  Tipping his head, the servant left the room. Jane turned to her husband and smiled. “Nothing has changed, except that Josiah is a little taller. How old is he? Ten, or already eleven? He should go to school.”

  David, wearing a mustard-colored vest beneath a dark suit jacket, unknotted the scarf around his neck. “We can’t rescue and send every child to school, you know. He has a job and is satisfied.”

  “That’s something I would like to hear from him,” Jane shot back, tossing her shawl onto the bed.

  “Please, Jane. I am tired from the long drive. Let’s not argue. Just believe me that Josiah is in good hands.” He leaned back against one of the solid bedposts. “Would you still like to go out, or would you prefer a warm bath and something to eat?”

  She undid the pins holding her hair in place at her neck and sighed. “A bath would be wonderful. Our compartment was terribly drafty, and my bones are aching.”

  He looked at her sympathetically. “And you want to travel to the Scottish border?”

  She bit her lip; that was exactly what she was planning. “Where’s Hettie? She’s supposed to help me get out of this dress!”

  “I could help you . . .” With a look Jane had come to understand well, he reached a hand toward her.

  “Oh, no! What will Josiah think of us?” Laughing, she moved out of reach.

  “Jane.” David’s voice was full of warmth and made her pause. “Everything has changed.”

  She swallowed and watched him go into his room. He left the door open.

  When Jane woke the next morning, she found the bed beside her empty. Levi told her that David had left early, but he had left a message to say that he would collect her in time for their dinner with Thomas. At least he managed to find time amid all his business dealings to think of me. Jane poured some deliciously aromatic Darjeeling tea into her teacup, then stirred in a little milk. Her irritation was basically jealousy over David’s busy life. While he was out meeting interesting people and talking about important political problems, she was supposed to manage the household and spend her time paying boring visits to other bored women. She drank her tea while gazing out the window. It wasn’t raining, but gray clouds covered London’s November sky, and the branches of the large chestnut tree just outside swayed in the chilly wind.

  The grandfather clock struck nine. Maybe she should spend the hours until midday at the library and read up a little about orchids. Alison’s cousin’s husband was an orchid breeder, after all, and it paid to be prepared.

  “Hettie?” she called out in the hallway, and her maid’s head appeared over the second-floor balustrade.

  “I’ll be down in a moment!”

  “Not necessary. Get dressed. We’re going out!”

  Hettie squealed in delight, and Jane smiled. She liked her bubbly young maid very much. Hettie was inquisitive, sometimes a little frivolous, and always in a good mood.

  “My lady, these letters have just arrived for you.” Levi, in his dark, perfectly fitted suit, had almost silently come to stand beside her.

  “Thank you. Please have a cab out front in ten minutes.” Jane took the letters from the tray and headed back upstairs.

  Hettie was already waiting for her in Jane’s dressing room. “I’ve laid out the warm coat with the fur collar, ma’am. It’s very windy and cold today. Winter’s coming early, I tell you. I feel so sorry for the children out on the street. Oh, ma’am, all those hungry little mouths to feed. Josiah told me that where he comes from, they lost at least one child from each family in the village every winter.”

  Even in England, Jane thought, things were far from ideal. “Where exactly does he come from?”

  “Well, I wasn’t actually clear on that. He and Levi belong to a people who are hounded by the Russians and others because of their culture and religion. Circassians, or something along those lines? Josiah says the mountains they lived in lay in front of the Black Sea, and that they had to leave their homeland in the Crimean War. They both lost their families, and Levi has looked after Josiah ever since. They’re not actually related at all.” Hettie set out Jane’s sturdy boots.

  “No?” Jane was glad she had decided against the hoop skirt. Etiquette be hanged, the bulky thing always got in the way. “And how did they wind up in England?”

  “Your husband brought them here, ma’am. Josiah says the captain was thought of most highly by everyone who knew him. You’ve landed yourself a fine man, ma’am, if I may say so.”

  “Yes, Hettie, you’re right about that,” Jane murmured. She was now a little ashamed that she hadn’t shared the letter with David so that he could understand more fully why she wanted to visit Alison.

  “Oh, is that one from Mary?” Hettie pointed to the topmost letter on the small pile; the handwriting on it looked like a child’s. “Is she all right?”

  While Hettie laced up her boots, Jane opened the letter and scanned the lines, which were indeed written in an immature hand. The girl was getting along well at her boarding school and wrote regularly about her new friends, the teachers—most of whom were nice, and sometimes she even sent along little drawings. Indeed, there was a sketch in the envelope, of the school building. The girl had talent, Jane was pleased to see.

  Sadly, Mary’s letters almost always ended with a question about Fiona, and this one was no exception. When Jane had rescued Mary, she had been too late to save Fiona—another orphan girl and Mary’s best friend—who had already been put aboard an Australia-bound transport ship. Jane handed the letter to Hettie. “We shall find Fiona. I’m not going to give up, but trying to get information from Australia certainly isn’t easy.”

  Hettie nodded and tucked a few strands of hair under her bonnet. “We can’t just go off to Australia, can we? My goodness, that would take months!”

  “I remember very well the voyage from India to England. It was no pleasure cruise.” The still-fresh loss of her parents and homeland had made the stormy passage even worse. Jane had no desire to undertake another long seafaring journey. “Besides, we’ve got a trip to the cold north coming up.”

  “We do? Where are we going?” asked Hettie curiously.

  Jane had not yet mentioned the trip to her maid, but now the idea was out in the open, and Hettie would have to keep the news to herself. “My dear friend, Lady Alison, needs me. She is visiting her cousin in Northumberland, and she is desperately worried about the woman’s well-being.”

  Jane opened the second letter, which was from Alison, who’d sent it to London after Jane had telegrammed that she’d be here. It unnerved Jane that her friend had written a second letter so quickly.

  Seeing Jane’s expression, her maid’s round eyes grew wide. “Is she in danger?” Hettie whispered.

  As she read the letter, all the color drained from Jane’s face. “Not Ally, but her cousin! Now her cousin has taken ill, and nobody knows what’s wrong with her. Very mysterious. Something strange is going on in that house.”

  “Is . . . is it haunted?” Hettie asked, her voice trembling.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts, Hettie. But if Ally is writing about spooky noises in the night, then something isn’t right at all.”

  “And your friend can’t do anything?”

  “She is seven months pregnant and not allowed to get out of bed.” It was clear from Ally’s letters that she had kept the strange happenings at Winton Park from her husband to prevent him from traveling north and taking her back to London. Thomas had no time for tomfoolery and his wife’s silly imaginings. If Thomas took his wife back to London, Ally’s cousin would then be all alone in that terrible house, and no one would be able to help her.

  “Now I’m really concerned, Hettie, but the captain doesn’t want to let us travel in this weather.”

  Hettie flashed her mistress a conspiratorial grin. “But we’re going anyway, aren’t we? How will we get away?” />
  “We will know that tonight, after dinner at Sir Thomas’s,” Jane replied thoughtfully.

  “A new adventure! I was starting to fear that we were getting a little . . . domesticated.” Hettie giggled.

  The library was in an imposing building that was part of the British Museum on Montague Place. Hettie stood reverently between the enormous columns at the museum’s entrance. At such an early hour, there were not many visitors yet, so they could stroll undisturbed among the ample halls with their treasures from every corner of the world.

  “May I stay here in the Egyptian section?” Hettie gazed in fascination at the stone deities and sarcophagi from Egypt.

  “All right, but make sure to stay here, and don’t go talking to strange men!” Jane warned, casting a doubtful look at a man wearing a top hat who was examining a relief.

  “No, ma’am. When I tell my sister about this . . . She’s never even been out of Cornwall, ma’am.” A small figure made of black stone caught Hettie’s eye. “That one has a dog’s head!”

  “Make sure it doesn’t bite you!” Jane continued into the library and discovered that there were few comprehensive works devoted to orchids. Lindley’s The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants was among the most complete. The botanist had dedicated his life to researching and categorizing plants, and the volume contained numerous illustrations of orchids. Another work by James Bateman focused on the orchids of Mexico, but Jane soon pushed the books aside with disappointment. She simply did not understand the fascination with what to her were rather unsightly plants.

  She thanked the librarian who had brought her the books. “I think I prefer roses. What is it that makes people pull these flowers off trees and ship them across the ocean?”

  Behind a pair of pince-nez, the librarian’s eyes widened in surprise, and his moustache quivered indignantly. “My dear lady, these positively regal flowers have no rivals. If I could afford to, I would grow them myself. Just last week, a new species from Ecuador was displayed at Messrs. Loddiges. It was a delicate violet color with small brown sprinkles on the sepals, and—”

  Jane interrupted the man before he could drift any farther into his enraptured discourse. “I guess I will simply have to visit one of these greenhouses and see for myself what all the fuss is about. Maybe I will become a disciple of this new religion after all.”

  The man beamed. “I’m sure of it, my lady. I would certainly recommend Loddiges. And Kew, of course.”

  With its large park and two impressive greenhouses, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were the pride of Queen Victoria. As a child, Jane had been there several times with her uncle but had never spent much time with the garden’s orchids, an oversight she now had to correct.

  A visit to Kew would take a while, and she still had to change for dinner, so Jane decided instead to pay a quick visit to the Royal Exotic Nursery of Veitch and Sons in Chelsea. It was situated on the King’s Road, south of Hyde Park, and surrounded by high boxwood hedges. What looked like a park was in fact a large and carefully laid-out nursery for young bushes and trees.

  “Wait for us,” Jane instructed the coach driver. Then she and Hettie climbed the steps to the entrance of Veitch and Sons.

  Inside, an elegantly dressed young salesman who wore his pomaded hair parted in the center immediately came to greet them. “Good day, my lady. May I be of service?”

  Jane looked around the large salesroom, which contained potted plants along with some cut flowers. “I’m interested in an orchid.”

  The nurseryman’s expression brightened. “Of course. May I accompany you to our greenhouse? Nepenthes—that’s the name of our hothouse—recently received a very good write-up in The Gardeners’ Chronicle, you know.”

  “And that’s exactly why I’m here. They say that Veitch and Sons has some highly sought-after plants in its collection.” She followed him along a brightly lit corridor into an atrium-like courtyard where the wind swirled cold city air into the corners.

  The greenhouse, marked more by its practicality than by any architectural elegance, welcomed them into its refreshingly warm interior. Surprised, Jane exclaimed, “Oh, I had imagined it would be much hotter and more humid!”

  The nurseryman ran his fingers affectionately over the leaves of several plants standing in rows on stone benches along the narrow walkway. “Many make that mistaken assumption, but the orchids don’t like it if conditions are too warm. We try to acclimatize them gradually. Just imagine what the small plants have been through by the time they reach England, after having been cooped up for months in a crate. Often, they can’t be kept away from the seawater, which will kill them, as will the cold when the ships sail the northern route home. Sometimes there are ants in the containers, and those will also destroy the plants.”

  He stopped beside several showy yellow orchids. “What color did you have in mind?”

  “Yellow is pretty. I’d like to take one with me, if I may.”

  The man lifted the plant from the bench with the utmost care. “Dendrobium dalhousieanum, named for Lord Dalhousie, the former governor-general of India.”

  “I’d like to have a plant named after me,” said Hettie, stroking a leaf.

  “Don’t touch!” said the nurseryman sharply. “They are very sensitive and very expensive.”

  “You must know most of the orchid growers and collectors in England. Sir Frederick Halston, the husband of a close friend of mine, is mad about orchids,” Jane remarked as they walked out.

  “Sir Frederick? Oh, yes! He was a good customer of ours. This way, please.”

  “Was? If I were an orchid fancier, this place would be at the top of my list,” she said flatteringly.

  Protecting the orchid with his jacket, the gardener hurried through the cold courtyard toward the main building. “He has enough money to afford his own orchid hunter. We do the same, of course, although it must be said that we employ two dozen men on two continents.”

  3.

  Going up the stairs to his house the next evening, David Wescott sensed that something was different. It wasn’t the north wind, driving winter ahead of it with icy blasts. He paused and glanced up at the second-story windows. He suddenly knew that she was no longer there.

  He moved slowly, letting the door knocker fall loudly against its metal plate. Blount opened the door, and when David saw the stony expression on his steadfast companion’s face, he took a deep breath.

  “When did she leave?”

  “This morning, Captain, after you went into the office. She left a letter for you on the desk.”

  David nodded grimly and entered his study. Typical! It was just like her. Impulsive, without a thought for possible danger! He tugged at his cravat and undid his top button. At Thomas’s house the previous evening, she had been remarkably bright and cheerful, and she had looked so seductive in her dark-green dress. He walked over to his desk and found a letter written in her hand, set beside a yellow orchid.

  She knew how much he liked to see her in that dress, and she had worn it fully intending to have her way with him later. He’d held her in his thoughts a long time that morning, the scent of her still in his nose, her passion and her supple body still fresh in his memory. He’d never believed that he could become as emotionally bound to a woman as he was to Jane. But then, he had never met another woman like her. Her compassion for others was honest, and her sympathy for the fate of the less fortunate moved him. At the same time, those traits had gotten her into difficulties more than once.

  Now, knowing she was gone, he already missed her, though he did not want to. His life was hard enough, and his own family was a catastrophe. What he had been through was not something he wished to inflict on anyone, least of all the woman whom he had sworn to protect from evil. She had no idea who her husband was, and by God she should never find out what abysses lay behind the honorable St. Amand façade.

  He tore open the letter and quickly read it, frowning.

  My dearest David,

 
; Please don’t be concerned about me. I am with Hettie on my way to Winton Park. It is simply impossible to do anything else. Ally needs me, and you know how much she helped with the search for Mary. Please try to understand. It is not in my nature to abandon friends in their hour of need. I will send word by telegram the moment I arrive.

  Always yours,

  Jane

  P.S. The nights in cold Northumberland will be lonely without you.

  The postscript brought a smile to his face, but it did not ease his utter frustration. She could not simply leave like that, without discussing it more with him!

  “Blount!” he shouted, throwing the letter on the desk.

  It took a mere moment for the quiet man in his brown suit to appear at the door. “I’m sorry, Captain. Unfortunately, you were right to suspect that she would steal away, but I followed your instructions and let her go. They took the nine-thirty to York.”

  “Hmm. I can’t leave London right now. Palmerston is dithering and stalling, but it seems we can at least continue to rely on the support of the Russians and French in China. That said, a conflict with Napoleon over the Italian question is looming.” David drummed his fingers on the desk. He hated all these political machinations, but his loyalties belonged to the Queen, and when she needed his services, he did his duty.

  “I’m going to the club, Blount, and will probably spend the night there.” The house felt empty without Jane; it was a new sensation for him.

  “Very good, Captain. Then would it be all right with you if Levi took his evening off tonight? If I have understood correctly, there’s a house where refugees from his homeland meet. They play music and try to keep up the old customs.”

  “Certainly, as long as he isn’t moving in any conspiratorial circles. Do we know the people there?”