by Darcie Wilde
This much accomplished, Rosalind found herself reduced to pacing, until she heard the doorbell ring.
As she was a guest, propriety dictated that Rosalind remain in the parlor unless and until asked for. Impatience, worry, and the events of this truly extraordinary morning, however, dictated that she step into the corridor, and the front hall.
Therefore, she was in time to see Mr. John Townsend handing his stick, his coat, and his famous white hat to the footman, Eustace, and to see that Mr. Adam Harkness had followed him through the door.
Mr. Harkness removed his old-fashioned tricorn hat and his great coat and handed them to Eustace without any sign of having noticed Rosalind standing in the doorway. But she knew he had not missed her. He had seen her, and as clearly as she saw him now.
Mr. Harkness looked much as he had when Rosalind had first passed him on a grand staircase. Now, as then, he wore the red waistcoat and black cravat that marked him as one of the officers of Bow Street. The men never referred to themselves as “runners.” That was a cant name bestowed by the papers and the public.
All the times they had been together seemed to flash through Rosalind’s mind: that grand stair, her small parlor, him diving to her rescue in another woman’s boudoir. In a private study in the dark, where the light had caught in the depths of his eyes as he stood far too close to her.
Saying good-bye with a deep bow and a sweep of that same unfashionable hat.
Here they were again, only this time, she could not speak to him, and he could not even acknowledge that he had seen her because it was not proper to do so until their hosts and superiors had spoken first. The absurdity of it cut deep.
Fortunately, it was only a brief moment before the captain and Mrs. Seymore appeared. Now Rosalind saw what had kept them secluded in their own rooms for so long. The captain had not only put on fresh clothing, but his color was much revived. His gait was straight and steady, and his eyes clear, as he descended the stairs beside his wife to greet their new arrivals.
Mr. Townsend, however, did not seem much disposed to notice the captain.
“Mrs. Seymore!” Townsend took up both of Margaretta’s hands and kissed them. “Can I say how very sorry I am to see you under such circumstances?”
“Whereas I am so very glad to see you here, my dear Mr. Townsend!” The low, musical note had returned to Mrs. Seymore’s voice. “I know now that everything will be all right.”
Unacknowledged, Rosalind hovered in the doorway. She watched Captain Seymore’s shoulders slump in resignation. She watched Mr. Harkness taking in the entire scene, including herself. Their eyes met, and he nodded once. Rosalind inclined her head minutely in return.
Absurd. Ridiculous. Required.
Mr. Townsend smiled in warm reassurance at the poetess. Only then did he turn to the captain to make his bow. “A bad business, Seymore, very bad,” Mr. Townsend said. “But you must not worry yourself, sir. I am certain a very little careful inquiry will clear the matter up.”
“Yes, of course.” The captain’s voice sounded thick and graceless after his wife’s musical tones. “So good of you to come in person.”
“And this is Miss Thorne, is it not?” Mr. Townsend turned to Rosalind. “Mr. Harkness told me you would be here as well.”
Mr. Townsend’s eyes raked over her, and she could tell that he did not like what he saw. He did not like that this was the second time their paths had crossed. She was not genteel in the ways he appreciated, and yet he could not dismiss her. Therefore, he slotted her into the column of his mental ledger marked UNSATISFACTORY.
Rosalind stiffened her spine and composed herself. There was only one defense against such a reception, and that was to wrap herself in every single iota of her deportment. Manners might make the man, but they armored the woman.
“I admit,” Mr. Townsend went on, pleasantly, of course, “it is a surprise to find you here at such an early hour.”
“I am Mrs. Seymore’s friend,” she replied coolly. “And have been assisting her with her new poetry collection.”
It was not precisely an answer, something Mr. Harkness noticed, and he signaled this with a lift of his brows.
“Mr. Harkness,” said Mrs. Seymore before Rosalind could say anything. “Thank you for coming as well. Miss Thorne has spoken of you and now I feel quite confident that everything will be handled directly and discreetly.” Mr. Harkness bowed but made no reply. Rosalind thought Mrs. Seymore looked a little perplexed at his silence. “Shall we all go sit down? There is coffee in the front parlor.”
There was indeed coffee, and cake and sandwiches and a number of other savory items all neatly laid out for the reception of the gentlemen. While the Seymores and Rosalind seated themselves, Mr. Townsend commanded a cup of coffee with plenty of sugar from the waiting girl and took it to stand in front of the fire.
Mr. Harkness did not help himself to anything, but he did settle into the wing-backed chair by the window. It was, Rosalind realized, the place that would command the best view of the entire room, and all its occupants. She lifted an eyebrow toward him. He curled the corner of his mouth up at her.
No one else in the room paid them the least attention.
“Now, Captain, Mrs. Seymore.” Mr. Townsend took a swallow of coffee and set the cup on the mantelpiece. “You will forgive me if I get straight to the business?”
“You must proceed exactly as you see fit, of course, Mr. Townsend,” said Mrs. Seymore.
“Of course,” agreed the captain dully.
Mr. Townsend bowed. “Well, well. Now, the great thing, Captain, is that you give us the exact details of that night, of what you did and all that occurred, just as if you were writing your ship’s log, eh?”
Rosalind flickered her gaze toward Mr. Harkness. He had pressed his fingertips together, getting ready to hear and to judge whatever it was Captain Seymore had to say.
But again, it was Mrs. Seymore who spoke.
“I am sorry, Mr. Townsend, but you must hear this first. You will find it out soon enough in any case, as I know very well nothing can be hidden from you.”
Which was, apparently, the right thing to say. Mr. Townsend smiled upon Margaretta, entirely pleased to find before him a lady who understood the correct forms of address toward a man such as himself. “That’s right, Mrs. Seymore. You must regard me in the capacity of an uncle, or an attorney—ha-ha!—and speak quite truthfully.”
Rosalind found she was holding her breath. Mr. Harkness did not move. Mrs. Seymore reached out to take her husband’s hand and pulled it unresisting toward her.
“I went to the theater last night, Mr. Townsend,” said Mrs. Seymore softly. “Quite late and quite on my own. I . . . I found . . . Mr. Cavendish.”
With this, Mrs. Seymore began to cry. These were not the cold shuddering sobs Rosalind had seen before. These were decorous tears that would have been easily blotted by a handkerchief, if she had one. The captain stared.
Mr. Townsend came forward at once and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to press into her hand. “There, now, Mrs. Seymore. You must compose yourself.”
And smile in thanks, thought Rosalind, a moment before Margaretta did just that. Margaretta also nodded, and sniffed once.
Rosalind felt the urge to salute Margaretta. For all her years in ballrooms and drawing rooms, she had seldom seen a woman who raised the public display of femininity to such a height. Rosalind looked toward Mr. Harkness. She could tell he drank down every word, and each show of emotion. She wished for some hint of what he thought of this little tableau. Absurdly but desperately, she wanted to know that he could see it for the performance it was.
“I blame myself,” Mrs. Seymore was saying to Mr. Townsend. “I should not have been there. It was not right. But Mr. Cavendish was so old and dear a friend of ours . . .” “Ours,” noted Rosalind, not “mine.” “And the misunderstanding
between us so grave . . . that I felt, I hoped, that there was some way I could make it right.”
Mr. Townsend leaned forward, all attention. Mrs. Seymore lowered her eyes decorously. “Fletcher . . . Mr. Cavendish was in love with me.”
The captain turned his face away. Rosalind, who had so recently seen him drunk and berating his wife for her supposed infidelities, suddenly felt oddly sorry for the man. Whatever he had or had not done, right now, he was clearly out of his depth.
“Cavendish told you he loved you?” asked Mr. Townsend incredulously.
“I had been aware of his feelings for some time. I tried to pretend ignorance, but, well, a woman always knows. But as I said, Mr. Cavendish was so old a friend of the captain’s . . .” She pressed her husband’s limp hand. “I did not wish to believe his emotions had carried him so far beyond his reason.”
“Actors may be fairly easily carried away,” murmured Mr. Townsend.
Mrs. Seymore nodded in agreement. “My husband saw more clearly than I did. He tried to warn me away from Fletcher, but I would not listen. I will regret that to the end of my days.” Her voice dropped to a trembling whisper. “But matters had reached the point where I could ignore them no longer, for I discovered that I had committed a wife’s worst fault. I had given my husband cause to believe I might be disloyal.”
Where had Margaretta learned to comport herself like this? To be so dignified and so fragile at the same time? She was not a gentlewoman. She had never been drilled in deportment as Rosalind had. Did Fletcher Cavendish give her acting lessons? Now, that was an interesting idea.
Captain Seymore slowly drew his hand away to rest on his own thigh, where it curled into a fist. Mrs. Seymore did not seem to notice. She just blotted the corner of her eye with her borrowed handkerchief.
“When my husband spoke to me, my shock was very grave, as you can imagine.” Mrs. Seymore glanced toward Mr. Harkness, judging the effect her performance was having on him. The principal officer did not even nod, and Mrs. Seymore turned quickly back to Mr. Townsend. “I protested my innocence, but it was too late. Therefore, rather than cause my husband a moment’s more discomfort, I resolved I must at once break off all contact with Mr. Cavendish. I wrote a letter explaining my reasons and asking him to cease to attempt to communicate, except when we might see each other in public.
“But he wrote back, and begged me to come see him, just once more.”
“Have you kept the letter?” inquired Mr. Harkness. Mr. Townsend shot him a warning look.
“I . . . don’t know,” murmured Mrs. Seymore, and the hesitation might have been genuine. She truly did not expect the question, thought Rosalind. “I may have.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Seymore,” said Mr. Townsend firmly. “We will worry about that later. Go on.”
“What happened next . . . my only defense is that Mr. Cavendish was truly an old friend. When I was still a young girl, he encouraged me to submit my little poems for publication and he was the means of introducing me to my husband.” Margaretta looked to the captain again. Captain Seymore was still studying the coffee tray and the wallpaper. Rosalind thought she saw a flash of annoyance in Mrs. Seymore’s eyes. “I felt I owed Mr. Cavendish something,” she went on. “Therefore, I honored his request, and I went to see him.”
When would the captain speak? Mrs. Seymore kept casting him little glances, like she was expecting him to say his lines, but he remained mute and sullen. Embarrassed, Rosalind thought. No. Humiliated.
“I must apologize to Miss Thorne as well,” Mrs. Seymore said weakly. At the mention of her name, Rosalind’s head turned and she was too slow to wipe the startled expression from her face. Margaretta saw it, and so did Mr. Townsend. “She comes to me as a friend and yet I have not been honest with her. But the matter was so close to my heart, so grave, and so private, I felt I could not.”
“Which speaks to your natural delicacy, Mrs. Seymore,” Mr. Townsend assured her. “But the time for such discretion is past. Surely you see this?”
“I do. I do.” She is going to shed another tear any moment now, thought Rosalind. “When I went to the theater, at first, my only intention was to say my good-bye to Mr. Cavendish. I was wholly unprepared for what would happen.” She trembled. “Fletcher told me he loved me. He told me he could not live without me. He . . . declared he would die before he lost me. I told him that there was no choice. I must break off all contact with him because I was a loyal and loving wife. I bid him farewell and I begged him never to write to me again, and to burn those letters he had of me.
“I left him then. I believed that would be the end of it. I was so ashamed of the scene I had been part of, I could not bring myself to speak of it, not to my friend Miss Thorne, nor, I am sorry to say, to my husband.”
“That was very wrong of you, Mrs. Seymore.” Townsend wagged his head heavily, as if to a naughty child, which was probably the response Mrs. Seymore had been hoping for. Children were guilty of mischief, not murder.
“I know it was wrong,” she answered. “I tried to go on as normal. We had been invited to a card party and I went but . . . I was in agony, so I left early.” She slipped a sideways glance toward her husband. “That was why I was not there when you, William, went to meet me. I came home, hoping to speak to you privately. But there . . . there was another letter from Fletcher.”
The room was absolutely still. She had them all spellbound.
“It was a letter of farewell. He said when the curtain came down, it came down on his life as well. I could not bear the thought of him harming himself. I went again to the theater. I wanted only to remonstrate with him. To remind him what a horrible sin . . . but I was too late.”
With this, she buried her face against her husband’s shoulder. Finally, he seemed moved. He wrapped his arm around her. “There, there,” he whispered. “It will all come out all right.”
Mr. Townsend turned away, displaying his delicacy of feeling. He left it to Mr. Harkness to ask the question.
“Mrs. Seymore, are you telling us that Fletcher Cavendish stabbed himself through the heart?”
CHAPTER 16
Suitable Drawing Room Conversation
She is, despite all talents and sweetness, a London lady . . . well do I know the London ton.
—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, from private correspondence
“Fletcher told me he would kill himself,” Mrs. Seymore murmured, her face still pressed against her husband’s shoulder. “He had shown me the dagger . . . before. He said it would be through the heart, because I had already wounded him there so badly.”
Rosalind waited. She felt certain if Mr. Townsend pressed any question, Mrs. Seymore would find it necessary to faint. At the same time she was aware of a tightening of her own shoulders. Surely, Mr. Townsend would turn to her next. He would ask her where she had been and what she had seen, and if there was anything she could add to confirm Mrs. Seymore’s extraordinary tale.
What would she say when he did?
The captain tightened his arm about his wife’s shoulders. “I am sure.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I am sure that will do, Margaretta. You see, Townsend, my wife is deeply distressed, and you can in no way blame her.”
He’s relieved, thought Rosalind. He wasn’t sure she’d go through with it.
Whose idea was this story? She’d been certain it was Margaretta’s concoction, but that tiny note of relief in the captain’s voice gave her a moment’s pause.
“No, no, no one is blaming your wife, sir,” Mr. Townsend was saying. “But Mrs. Seymore did act very foolishly, putting her trust in this man more than in her husband.”
“I know it.” Mrs. Seymore lifted her face away from the captain’s sloping shoulder. “I do know.”
Mr. Townsend sighed heavily. He also drank a long swallow of cooling coffee. “Well, Harkness,” he said as he handed cup and saucer back to
the maid. “I think we have heard all we need to from Mrs. Seymore. I’m afraid, however, Captain, that you will have to come with us. Sir David will want to hear from you directly, and the magistrate, Mr. Conant, may want a word as well.”
“Of course.” The captain got to his feet steadily enough, but his back and shoulders were bowed like those of a much older man.
Mrs. Seymore rose as well. “Then let me at least see you to the door. Please.” She took her husband’s arm, and he looked surprised, and grateful.
Mr. Harkness also got to his feet. He bowed to Rosalind and she curtsied. He met her gaze, and he maintained his silence.
Why? Why aren’t you asking me all the questions I can see behind your eyes?
But that was not something she could say, not here and now. The four of them exited the parlor, and Rosalind dropped back down to her seat, stunned.
What just happened here?
She glanced about the room as if seeking escape. Surely she should be doing something. Her heart was racing, her mind was spinning. She prided herself on her calm and her ability to think clearly in any crisis, and now she could not even remain standing because of the weight of her confusion.
But Rosalind was conscious of something else beyond that confusion—a scalding anger. She had been used. That was bad enough. Worse, however, was the fact that Adam Harkness must be wondering if this gross and dramatic falsehood Mrs. Seymore spoke was the creation of Rosalind Thorne.
She knew that anger must have been showing in her face when Mrs. Seymore re-entered the parlor. Thankfully, she was entirely alone.
“That was a dangerous mistake, Mrs. Seymore,” said Rosalind as soon as the door closed.
Mrs. Seymore did not even blink. She sat gracefully on the sofa. She had kept Mr. Townsend’s handkerchief and she touched it to the corner of her eye.
“I had no choice but to tell what happened, Miss Thorne,” she said, her musical voice absolutely smooth and steady.