The Adventuress

by Tasha Alexander

  He turned on his heel and dashed away from me. Once he was out of sight, I started for the physician’s office, keeping vigilant watch to be certain Augustus was not following me. The door was unlocked now, and a surly older woman told me that her son, the doctor—a man called Roche—would soon be at liberty to speak with me.

  “I am most grateful for your time,” I said, taking the seat he offered me in his wood-paneled office. “You have no doubt heard of the suicide that recently occurred?”

  “Yes, the Englishman. He was a friend of yours?”

  “He was.”

  “Then do accept my condolences.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I was hoping you could help me to better understand what happened, because the details of the incident strike me as unusual.” I gave him as thorough an accounting as possible of what had happened.

  “Your concern, shall we say, over the issue of the entire bottle being poisoned is a valid one. Generally speaking, most suicides are careful to harm no one but themselves. However, Lady Emily, the state of mind in which an individual must be to take such action is by definition so unhinged that we cannot draw conclusions from what we view as irrational behavior. The very act goes against all of human nature. There is not much stronger in us than the instinct to survive.”

  “I also believe that the fact he did this in his friend’s room rather than his own may be significant.”

  “Again, there is no way for us to know.” He removed his spectacles and polished them with a scrap of silk that had been sitting on top of his desk. “I apologize for not being able to better help you. He may have gone to his friend’s room because he believed that his friend was capable of dealing with the fallout from finding him. He may not have wanted that burden to fall on an unsuspecting young hotel maid.”

  “What about the fact that he left no note?”

  “Romantic as the notion of suicide notes is, most people do not leave them.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might have got ahold of strychnine in Cannes?” I asked. His response confirmed what the apothecary had already told me. “Why would he have come here, carrying the poison, and do such a thing now?”

  “Are you quite certain he was as close as you think to this friend whose room he used? Perhaps his choice of location was deliberate. Perhaps he blamed this friend for ruining his life? Was there any resentment or jealously between them?”

  “Not so far as I know,” I said, “but, as you have already said, we cannot know precisely what he was thinking.”

  “I am sorry not to be of more help,” Dr. Roche replied. “Even someone who specializes in psychology could offer you little more, unless he had treated your friend.”

  I thanked him for his time and exited the office, my eyes straining against the bright sunlight as I stepped outside. Much as I wanted to know more about what had happened, I questioned the wisdom of continuing my pursuit. What good could come of uncovering strains of tension—or an all-out feud—between Jeremy and Mr. Neville? I would have stopped then and there, were I not still convinced that, even in a suicidal rage, even if he were angry with his friend, Mr. Neville would not have left a poisoned bottle of whisky next to Jeremy’s bed.

  Unless Jeremy had been the intended victim all along.

  Amity

  Four months earlier

  “You are late,” Amity said, opening the door to the large suite of rooms at Shepheard’s Hotel her parents had got for her and Christabel to share. There was a useless sort of native servant outside, but Amity did not much like him, and ignored him as best she could. She ushered the Duke of Bainbridge inside.

  “It is only half two,” Jeremy said, a sly grin on his face.

  “I told you two o’clock.” She closed the door, leaned against it with deliberate and studied elegance, and looked up at him through her long, dark lashes. “You are late.”

  “I assumed that, like all fashionable ladies, you would not be ready on time.”

  “What makes you think I am a lady, fashionable or otherwise?”

  “Are you going to offer me a seat?” he asked. “Not that you are anything but extremely fetching in your current posture, but I suppose you know that already. I should not be surprised to learn that you have practiced leaning with such grace.”

  “You may as well have a chair,” she said. He followed her into a sitting room that opened onto a balcony overlooking the botanical gardens across the street, where only last night she had kissed him, and took a chair across from the one onto which she draped herself.

  “Where is your mother?” he asked.

  “Shopping with Daddy. We most likely have only an hour of peace before they return.”

  “And Christabel?”

  “She went with them. Unfortunately, I found that a headache prevented me from joining them,” Amity said. “Is that color I see rushing to your cheeks? Are you horrified at finding me here alone?”

  “A bit, yes.” He tugged at his collar.

  “I haven’t summoned you under these circumstances to trick you into marrying me, if that is why you are concerned. I do like you, though. I liked kissing you. Liked it enough, in fact, to want to know you better. So you stay just where you are, your grace, a safe and respectable distance from me, and we shall sit here and talk, so that I might determine just how interesting you are.”

  “I have never met anyone quite like you, Miss Wells.”

  “I should hope not. I like to think of myself as an original.”

  Jeremy wished he could loosen his cravat. This girl was intoxicating. This girl might just be worth relinquishing his freedom. After all, he could not hold off marriage forever. His brother would never forgive him if he did, even if he regularly insisted that should Jeremy die without an heir, he would turn the whole estate over to their cousin. “Do you like cards, Miss Wells?”

  “If by cards you mean poker.”

  “Teach me.”

  She smiled. “I shall return in two minutes, with everything we need.”

  “There are cards and markers on the table.” Jeremy gestured toward the window.

  “But there is no bourbon, your grace. Poker—and I—require bourbon.”

  * * *

  “She is too good to believe, Jack! I think I shall have to propose,” Jeremy said that evening, when he met his brother for dinner at the Turf Club that night. The dining room was full of Englishmen; the only Egyptians were those serving them. At the table to Jeremy’s left were two gentlemen arguing over the merits of that afternoon’s polo match. To his right, an elderly ex-Army officer was doing his best to convince his son that investing in racehorses was not a sound financial strategy. “Imagine the best chap you know—the one with whom you can trust all your secrets. The one who knows what you need almost before you do. The one who makes sure there’s always whisky on hand. That’s what Amity is like.”

  “I am well aware of it,” Jack said. “I did meet her first, if you recall. I suspected you would take to her.”

  “You suspected right. I mean to speak to her father tomorrow.”

  “I can’t imagine you’ll find any trouble there. They brought her here with the intention of finding a suitable husband.”

  “She has told me as much. Can you imagine?” Jeremy asked. “There is nothing we cannot discuss. It is so very refreshing. She will be more than diverted when I describe for her the conversations I am overhearing here tonight. That chap is going to buy his racehorses no matter what his father says.” He lowered his voice as he spoke and motioned to his right.

  “Racehorses aside, Cousin Randolph will be most despondent,” Jack said. “I always promised I would hand things over to him if you died without an heir. You know full well I have no intention of playing lord of the manor. My plans run in another direction altogether.”

  “They always did. It has never ceased to infuriate Mother.”

  “I do not believe she has ever given enough consideration to my plans to formulate a reaction to them. But what wi
ll she think of your future wife?”

  “She will not like that Amity’s American, but she will fall in love with her the second she lays eyes on her. Who could do otherwise?”

  “Your optimism is impressive,” Jack said.

  “At any rate, it is not her decision. There are some perks to being duke, old boy. You might regret not having the chance.”

  “Impossible, I assure you.” Jack motioned for the waiter. “I think this calls for champagne. My brother, ready to marry. I feared I would never see the day.”

  “Can we have whisky instead, Jack? You know I prefer it.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, the engagement was official, and the Wells family, along with the Duke of Bainbridge, returned to England with the express intention of introducing the future duchess to her mother-in-law. Jack remained in Egypt, preferring to save his leave for the wedding festivities—including, as Mrs. Wells insisted, the party she was planning in Cannes. As predicted, the duchess (who would not be referred to as the dowager until her son married) balked at the idea of an American taking her place, but after half an hour spent alone with Amity, she was as smitten as her son. Soon thereafter, the best of society had the opportunity to agree with them both, when Amity was introduced at a ball at her fiancé’s estate.

  Amity had never dreamed she would be so close to clutching all the happiness she had ever wanted. Her worries were limited to one small thing. A trifle, really, something she was certain she could take care of if she only could manufacture the right occasion. She had not exchanged many words with Lady Emily Hargreaves at the ball, but a few had been enough for her to long to be closer to her. Whatever she did, she had to win Emily as a friend.

  9

  I was sitting on our balcony, delighting in the view and the soft scent of flowers in the air, when the picnickers returned. They looked merry, if a bit exhausted, as they climbed down from the carriages. Amity beamed at Colin, who offered a gloved hand to assist her as she alighted and led everyone to the terrace for a spot of refreshment. Colin looked up to find me, waving and calling for me to join them. I nodded in agreement, smiling and waving back.

  “Do hurry, Emily,” Margaret shouted. “I’ve a capital scheme all planned out, but it shall never work without you.”

  “I am on my way,” I said, but then stopped and leaned over the railing. Augustus was descending from his parents’ carriage. He saw me staring at him—aghast, as I could not reconcile his rejoining the party with him having lunched with me in Cannes—and gave me a jaunty little salute, full of arrogance and devoid of respect.

  On my way down, I passed Mr. and Mrs. Wells in the lobby. The exertion of the day had left them tired and they had refused the invitation to join the others on the terrace.

  “It is best that we leave the young people to their raucous amusement, don’t you think, Lady Emily?” Mrs. Wells’s question, as she waited for the lift—her girth suggested she had little tolerance for stairs—seemed to imply, by its tone, that I, too, ought to leave the young people to their raucous amusement. Never mind that the young people included my own husband, not to mention Cécile.

  “I am not sure what Madame du Lac would think of your saying that,” I replied, smiling sweetly. “But you must be exhausted. I do hope we will see you at dinner.”

  “Not tonight, I am afraid,” Mr. Wells said. “We are having it sent up to us. My wife needs rest.”

  When I reached the terrace, Margaret was holding court, having taken a seat in the center of a group of tables that had been pushed together so that they might hold our entire party. “Tomorrow. It must be tomorrow,” she was saying. “I cannot bear to wait any longer. None of you will regret joining me. It will be simply the most fantastic excursion!”

  I did not interrupt her. Having come from behind, I knew she had not seen my arrival. “I am quite serious,” she continued. “Tomorrow. The concierge has given me the ferry schedule, and we will—I shall brook no argument—we will be on the first boat. If we had not already had one aborted aquatic incident, I should swim to the island myself at this very moment.”

  “I wondered when you were going to insist on the Îles de Lérins,” I said. “You disappointed me when you did not mention it the day of Jeremy’s misguided dive into the water. I assume you were too distracted by the subsequent furore to make the connection to the Man in the Iron Mask.”

  “You made the connection, Emily?” Margaret rose from her chair, took me by the shoulders, and shook me, only half playfully. “You knew all this time that we were a mere stone’s throw from that pitiable man’s sad prison cell, and you didn’t tell me? I shall never forgive you. You know how I adore that book.”

  “It never occurred to me that you were not already fully aware of it,” I said. “I assumed you were planning some spectacular sort of attack on the island.”

  “I am ashamed, so thoroughly ashamed.” She hung her head down to emphasize the point. “This is what comes from my refusing to read Baedeker’s until today. This is the low level to which Latin poetry has brought me.”

  “You read Baedeker’s today?” I asked, thrusting my friend back into her seat and accepting the one next to her, from which Mr. Fairchild had leapt to offer me a place. “For one day I leave you to your own devices and you are reading travel guides?”

  “Mock me all you wish, Emily, but I am despondent. You, my dearest friend in the world, knew all about the Île Sainte-Marguerite and did not mention it once to me.”

  “I believe we have already covered this ground,” I said. “You have, I gather, planned an expedition for tomorrow?”

  “Yes, but you have ruined at least two-thirds of my pleasure by denying me the right to having been the one to discover the prison.”

  “My dear, even Baedeker was hardly the first. It is a well-known stop for tourists,” I said. “If you would like, I shall pretend to have no idea where we are going until you reveal it to me as you stand on the prow of the ferry, sweeping views of the old fort in front of us. Perhaps, for dramatic verisimilitude, you could turn away, and, without us seeing, don a mask of iron, and then spin around, your face covered, and announce our destination as we shriek in horror.”

  “That was, more or less, what I had been hoping to do,” she said, drawing her eyebrows close together. “The concierge promised he could procure for me a mask before the morning, although he could not guarantee it would actually be fashioned from iron.”

  “Alas, poor Margaret,” Colin said. “All your plans dashed.”

  “My spirits shall rally; they always do. Give me a cigarette, Hargreaves, and order me a drink.”

  “How was the picnic?” I asked.

  “Perfect,” Amity said. “Although Mr. Fairchild tried to make us all play cricket. We did miss you terribly, Emily. Augustus says he lunched with you.”

  “Yes, he did.” He was now sitting at the far end of the group, his arms crossed and his back to the table. “Yet he managed to catch up with the lot of you?”

  “Only as they returned to town,” Augustus said, without turning to face us. “I knew the road on which they would arrive and thought I might as well walk there as anywhere else.”

  “Daddy made the carriage driver stop to collect him. And you, Emily, I understand you went to see a doctor? I do hope you are not unwell?”

  “No, Amity, I am not. Thank you for your kind concern.” I hid my shock at her having asked so indiscreet a question.

  “Do you have joyful news to share with us?” Amity asked. “Will you be able to stomach a boat ride tomorrow morning? Do you”—she stopped and laughed—“find yourself in a delicate condition?”

  “Mon dieu, Mademoiselle Wells,” Cécile said. “That is not a question that ought to be asked.” I was grateful to my friend for balking at Amity’s impertinence.

  “I thought Emily to be a great flaunter of conventions,” Amity said. “It is one of the things I most admire about her. I do apologize if I have made her more radical than you should lik
e.”

  “I am not in a delicate condition, or any other sort of condition,” I said. “I merely wanted to better understand Mr. Neville’s actions.”

  Amity slouched elegantly in her chair and threw her hands in the air. “There is a capital way to bring a party to a crashing end.”

  “Amity.” Jeremy took her hand. His eyes were pained. “Please—”

  “I will not apologize, my love,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I am tired of tiptoeing around the very idea of Mr. Neville. He proved himself nothing more than a selfish coward who did everything in his power to take away our happiness. I am sorry for all of you who grieve his loss, but we ought to remember that he chose his course of action with deliberate calculation.

  “Mr. Neville may have had no choice at all,” I said, aghast. “His—”

  “I am afraid, Emily, that I am going to have to insist that this be the end of the matter,” Amity said. “Enough death, enough jealousy, enough of every negative thing. We are here to celebrate, and if you find yourself unable to do so, then I am heartily sorry. Do not think me cruel, but I cannot bear to see Jeremy suffer any more than he already has.”

  “I understand,” I said, doing my best to convince myself that she had not intended to be rude. Her enthusiasm was not always appropriate, but that did not render it deliberately malicious. “Do please forgive me.”

  “I do not mean to scold, Emily,” she said. “Only to drag us all—even if it should require kicking and screaming—out of these morose shadows and back into the sunshine.” The sentiment was a noble one, worthy of an Englishman, and I could hardly fault her for voicing it.

  A waiter, who now appeared bearing a heavy tray of drinks, could not have better timed his arrival. Margaret made a rousing toast to Mr. Neville, saying that from this moment onward, we would remember only happy things about him, and the mood was restored to its earlier jubilation. After she spoke, Augustus turned slowly and watched me with the same unblinking stare he had unleashed on me that afternoon. I was not the only once to notice.