A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

  “He does not know you’ve come to me?”

  She shook her head. “Again, I ask you, Miss Thorne, to leave him alone.” She reached up to the mantelpiece and brought down a folded paper. “Y-you spoke of secrets a moment ago. Miss Thorne, I have here one of y-yours.”

  Rosalind’s heart stopped.

  “Th-this is the address of a certain house where you were seen visiting a w-woman of the demimonde kn-known commonly as Cynthia Sharps, but when you were girls, you knew her by another name.”

  Rosalind’s first reaction was to shout. Her second was to snatch the paper from Penelope’s fingertips.

  She did neither. “You had me followed.”

  “Easy enough to do,” Penelope said quietly. “There are men who may be hired and they b-b-blend in so very easily when there are al-r-ready newspapermen hanging about.” She held the paper a little higher. “I do not want to use this. I do not want to tell Lord Casselmain about your sister. Adolphus would not want that. He wants to make things right. To fix them. T-to show the world th-that he is the one who deserves the title.”

  “What a hard life he had,” murmured Rosalind. She could not imagine what it must have been like for that small, younger brother. To be neglected and ignored while the whole world waited for his brother to die. To watch his mother spend her life lurching between smothering care of his spoiled elder sibling and pointless dissipation. With such examples in front of him, it was a wonder that some spark of conscience kept him from committing fratricide.

  Or maybe it was cold, hard practicality. Why go through the trouble to do what the disease would do, soon or late? It was clear the one thing Adolphus had learned to do in his life was wait.

  I have learned to work quietly and well, he had told her. But that had not been enough when faced with the double threat of Fletcher Cavendish and Sir Bertram.

  Rosalind frowned.

  “W-we will do as Adolphus would wish,” Penelope was saying. “W-we will hire a b-better attorney for the captain. We will find a way to save his sorry life, since that is what c-concerns you so.”

  “What concerns me,” said Rosalind slowly, “is the truth.”

  “The truth.” Penelope laughed bitterly. “The truth is F-Fletcher Cavendish w-was a rude, foul man who l-lived to laugh at his b-betters. Th-that is the truth!”

  “And for this he had to die?” whispered Rosalind. “For the fault of . . .”

  She took a step forward and Penelope took a step back, so she was pressed against the cold hearth.

  And Rosalind stopped and Rosalind stared, and Rosalind took the time to curse herself for a fool.

  Because Fletcher Cavendish did not have to die because he was foul and small-minded and all the other things Penelope Vaughn accused him of.

  He had to die because he threatened Lord Adolphus.

  Because Penelope saw a road to freedom and consequence at the side of a good man. Perhaps he had even given her the beautiful knife, a lady’s weapon.

  Ulbrecht would let a lady into the theater. It didn’t matter when. She could have hidden in the warren and waited until she could have slipped through unseen. She could have argued and shouted and offered to pay.

  Mrs. West could have heard a woman’s voice, just as she thought.

  And in that moment, Rosalind understood she had been too slow and too late. Because Penelope had reached up onto the mantle and now she held a pistol in her hand, and despite the shadows, Rosalind could see that the hammer was cocked.

  “I will not let you do this,” she said, and her hand was absolutely steady. “I will not let you take my husband from me.”

  “Will you shoot us both?” asked Adam Harkness.

  The door opened at her back. Rosalind threw herself flat onto the floor, arms stretched out. Penelope screamed and straightened her arm.

  Rosalind grabbed great fistfuls of Penelope’s dark skirts, and yanked down with all her strength.

  Penelope screamed and toppled and Mr. Harkness lunged forward and the world turned over and everyone was screaming and shouting, including Rosalind. The next thing she knew clearly was that Adam wrapped his arms around her, half pulling, half shoving her aside. Penelope was at her feet, choking on her tears.

  Adam lunged forward once again, grabbed up the pistol, and backed away, keeping himself between Rosalind and the fallen Miss Vaughn.

  “I’m sorry.” Rosalind pressed her hand against her mouth. “Oh, Penelope, I am so very, very sorry.”

  And then she was shaking and she was weeping, and Adam pulled her close and held her for a very long time.

  CHAPTER 43

  A Brief Pause, a Deeper Breath

  And if we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended.

  —William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  “How was Mr. Barstow able to find you in time?” Rosalind asked Adam, much later, when the sun had risen and Miss Vaughn had been taken away to be charged with a breach of the king’s peace in the death of Fletcher Cavendish.

  “He didn’t,” Mr. Harkness told her with a smile. “It was Mrs. Kendricks. She smelled a rat as soon as Miss Vaughn walked into your house and had the whole of the emergency patrol out scouring the city for me.” He chuckled. “I hope you intend to say your thanks.”

  “Oh, I do,” Rosalind whispered weakly. “I most certainly do.”

  Rosalind said thanks, and many other things, to Mrs. Kendricks, who had many a tart reply and a few firm suggestions, all of which Rosalind swore she would consider with the utmost attention.

  But that would have to wait until Alice and George finally agreed to vacate her parlor, which did not happen until after she told them the whole story several times over so they could make sure they had all the details. The major, Rosalind was informed, was talking about putting her on the staff, since she was such an excellent source of material.

  The trial of Penelope Vaughn was a sensation. The crowd that gathered outside the Old Bailey almost rivaled the size of the crowd for Fletcher Cavendish’s funeral. No fewer than six barristers managed that woman’s defense, and the testimony of one Miss Rosalind Thorne took a full hour because there were so many questions and counterquestions and points to be gone over.

  It was to no avail. Miss Vaughn was found guilty, and her fainting father had to be carried from the court.

  The next day, Lord Adolphus, younger brother of the Marquis of Weyland, disappeared entirely.

  The day after, his body was found, washed downstream from the new Waterloo Bridge.

  Two days after this, Rosalind Thorne put on her best black dress, and took a cab to Weyland House. There, the footman, because no one had thought to give orders to the contrary, conducted her to Lady Weyland’s sitting room. That lady sat on her white sofa, with the curtains drawn. There was no fire in the grate and no lamp or candle lit. The room’s twilight turned all the pale furniture gray, and Lady Weyland was colorless as any ghost in her black bombazine dress.

  “Miss Thorne.” Lady Weyland lifted her head and her eyes glittered, but whether it was with tears or anger, Rosalind could not tell. “What could bring you here?”

  “Lady Weyland, I am well aware you have lost one son and must soon lose another.” Uninvited, Rosalind moved farther into the room. “I would not grieve you further. But there is something that must be said.”

  “As you can see, I am otherwise unoccupied.” Lady Weyland waved her hand to indicate the dark and empty room. No one sat with her. Not one friend had braved the threshold of this house that was sinking so quickly under its accumulated scandals. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

  “It took me a long time to realize what your connection with Mr. Cavendish truly rested on. Fletcher Cavendish, then Malcolm Elliott, did not kill your husband.” Rosalind paused. She need not have. She had, she saw, the dowager’s absolute and undivided attention
.

  “You killed him,” Rosalind said.

  A white line appeared around the dowager’s pale mouth.

  “You were a passionate and adventurous young woman. He was an old man,” Rosalind went on. “You both enjoyed the tables and he gave you considerable latitude in your behavior, but there were things he was not prepared to tolerate. He caught you in flagrante with Fletcher Cavendish, and you pushed him out the window. He fell and that was the end of it.”

  “How dare you! You cannot . . . you indecent thing!”

  “It may have been an accident,” Rosalind added, but there was no change in the mask of fury on Lady Weyland’s doll-like face. “Mr. Cavendish got you out of the house, then took care of things afterwards.” With Margaretta’s help, thus tying the two of them together, for better or for worse, and leading us all to where we are now. “Perhaps it was an act of chivalry, or possibly because he did not trust you not to turn on him. Did you tell him you’d borne his child, or did he guess it?”

  “I cannot think why you would find it necessary to say such things to me, Miss Thorne.”

  This was not true, but it did not matter. Rosalind expected the denial and had come prepared to explain as much as proved necessary. “Because I do not wish for there to be any misunderstandings between us in the future. I am, in the general run of things, beneath your notice. I wish to remain that way, and for all my friends to remain that way. It would be a sad thing if some stray word from so highly placed and respected a woman were to be misunderstood by idle persons who might be guilty of the careless talk so frequently heard in drawing rooms.”

  “You cannot possibly hope to prove anything that you say.” Lady Weyland rose. It took all Rosalind’s strength to deny her training and keep her seat.

  “Such stories do not need to be proved,” Rosalind reminded her patiently. “They only need to be circulated. Perhaps you were immune to such a rumor before, but not now.” Lady Weyland’s name was in the papers. Her past was linked irrevocably to the current scandals, and it was being crowed over by pens far sharper than Alice and George’s.

  Slowly, stiffly, Lady Weyland sank back onto her sofa. For the first time since they’d met, Rosalind thought she looked old.

  “Have I not lost enough?” the dowager whispered.

  “Yes,” said Rosalind. “More than enough. You have lost your life and the lives of your children. You have seen the title pass from your line to that of a woman of no family or breeding whatsoever. It would be my most sincere hope that nothing more need be taken from you.”

  Lady Weyland looked at the shadows again and the shadows did not so much as shift.

  “I assure you, Miss Thorne,” she said finally. “You need not concern yourself with me. I have never socialized much outside my own circle. I expect now I shall do even less.”

  “Then I shall trouble you no further, Lady Weyland. Thank you for your time.” Rosalind stood. “You may not believe this, but I truly am very sorry for your loss. I took the liberty of writing on your behalf to an old acquaintance.” Rosalind removed a letter from her reticule and placed it on the table. “I had reason to meet her during these past days. She says she would welcome your correspondence, when you are ready.”

  With that, Rosalind took her leave, walking from the dark house into the open air. She took in as deep a breath as her corsets would allow. But even the sunlight failed to lighten her heart. There was still one more call to pay.

  • • •

  This time when Eustace showed Rosalind up to Mrs. Seymore’s boudoir, the trunks were stacked in neat piles, bound with cordage and labeled in the poetess’s precise hand.

  “Where will you go?” Rosalind asked.

  “Paris,” Margaretta answered. “It is an excellent place to be a woman of letters, and far fewer people ask, or care, about who one’s parents may be, or what they may have got up to.” She put her hand over her belly and smiled. “It is what I should have done in the beginning, but . . .”

  “It is difficult to leave a life you have striven so hard to maintain,” Rosalind finished for her.

  “We worked well together,” said Margaretta. “William and I. He kept his promises to me when he said he’d keep me safe. I never wanted to hurt him. Truly, I did not. But the money ran out and his brother . . .” She waved both hands like the balances of a scale. “It was too much and it fell apart.”

  Rosalind nodded. “So you will remain married?”

  “Oh, no. That was a false hope.” Margaretta smiled weakly. “We’ve had a very long talk, Virginia and I. She’s quite intelligent. She’s also right about a number of things, including how greed can be contagious.” She touched her belly once more. “I wanted so much for this one to have everything.”

  “He will,” said Rosalind. “Because he will have you.”

  Mrs. Seymore smiled. “Oh dear. I may have to borrow that from you for my next poem. Mother love is always a popular subject.”

  “What will happen next?”

  She sighed. “It’s in the hands of the attorneys. There will be a deed of separation, which will include a private agreement for the maintenance of a household for me and specifying that I may keep my own earnings so I can support myself and my child.”

  “I think that would be wise.”

  “Then it’s a petition for divorce and . . . after that . . .” She spread her hands. “I wish Virginia the joy of him.”

  “I know that you do,” said Rosalind.

  To Rosalind’s surprise, Mrs. Seymore took both of her hands and pressed them warmly. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Thorne.”

  “I’m sorry I could not do more.”

  Margaretta shook her head. “You have done enough. I have a chance to make a future now, which was more than I had when I came to you. And don’t worry,” she added. “Before I go, I will apologize to Alice.”

  Rosalind smiled and squeezed the poetess’s fingers in return. “I wish you the very best of luck.”

  “And I you.”

  The two women stood with their hands clasped for a long moment. Then, Rosalind took her leave and walked out into the rain-washed summer day. The crowd of newsmen had been chased from the walk. There was only one man left there, in fact.

  “May I have the honor of seeing you home, Miss Thorne?” Adam Harkness bowed, straight and compact as was his way.

  “Thank you, Mr. Harkness,” she answered. “I would be most glad of the company.”

  They fell into step together, and began the long walk back to Little Russell Street.

  Rosalind knew there would be decisions to make. There would be truths and emotions to face, and she would face them. But not today. Today she would walk in the sunlight, and be glad for the simple facts of her life. Perhaps she would stop for tea and cakes, and to pick up that new biography from Mr. Clements.

  And that would be quite enough for today, thank you.

  Photo by © Barbara Tozier

  Darcie Wilde is the author of the Regency Makeover Trilogy of eNovellas as well as A Useful Woman, the first novel in a Regency-set historical mystery series inspired by the novels of Jane Austen. Her book Lord of the Rakes was a 2014 Romantic Times nominee for Best First Historical Romance.

  Visit her online at darciewilderomance.com.

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