Wrapped

by Jennifer Bradbury

  Fear.

  I’d never seen the man nervous before. Even when he first made my father’s acquaintance (Father inspired many men to new depths of self-doubt, so quiet and confident was he), he seemed as sure of himself as he did when relaying the history of some urn on his mantel. Now I recognized an apprehension that was almost startling. The crowd around him began to disperse, some coming forward to return just-acquired trinkets back to the mummy, others scattering for hats and shawls.

  Showalter caught me studying him. I straightened, suddenly nervous again. Guests flowed past, offering hands and thanks, but our host seemed to have eyes for me only as he wove his way through the crowd to stand before me.

  “A most exciting evening, sir,” I managed.

  He nodded gravely. “Though not for the reasons I’d anticipated,” he admitted. “I was so looking forward to this evening—to celebrating the advent of your debut. I had it all planned perfectly. . . .”

  Planned? Was he trying to tell me he’d arranged the party for me? That he knew Mother would accept the invitation? And how, I wondered, was the process of disturbing the carefully preserved remains of a thousand-year-old pharaoh the perfect way to commemorate my introduction into society? Or better still, to signal his intentions to offer for me? If a courtship began this way, I could not imagine what we might do to celebrate an engagement.

  I smiled and said, “But how fortunate the error was discovered before the remains had been further compromised.”

  “Yes, I think we were in time.” He reached down and took my hand, giving it a light pat as if it settled the entire matter.

  I looked around to see if anyone else had caught the gesture. Mother was beaming at me from a few feet away. Yet it took all my will to keep from snatching my hand from his grasp.

  “Thank you, Lord Showalter, I’m sure all the residents of the Park will look forward to—” But I was interrupted by a scream piercing the air.

  Showalter dropped my hand and ran for the front of the house. I followed him through the open garden doors, through the ballroom, the great hall and foyer to the front drive where the carriages stood waiting. A knot of partygoers buzzed about a small black coach with a door hanging open, horses idle in the traces.

  “He’s dead!” I heard the voice of Dr. Clerval call out.

  The crowd launched a fresh round of gasps into the air. Husbands and fathers clutched wives and daughters gallantly, and Showalter tossed me a look that made me wonder if he intended to go all in then and there and draw me to him. I looked quickly away and slipped closer toward the body.

  It wasn’t merely retreat from his affection that pushed me away from Showalter. I had never seen a dead body before—at least not one presumably so freshly dead.

  “It’s the mummy’s curse,” I heard more than one voice whisper.

  The man’s body looked to have fallen from the carriage; one leg still dangled from the step below the door. I could see no mark upon him. No wound or cut or spot of blood to match the scarlet serving coat he wore. But his head did seem to be turned a bit too far to the left. It appeared unlikely that he’d so contorted himself in his fall from the carriage. Unlikely that he was meant to be in that carriage at all. And unlikely now that I’d ever know for certain who had been stalking me in the garden. Because the corpse that lay before us now was the very man I’d fled not a quarter of an hour ago.

  Chapter Five

  Rupert collapsed into his chair at breakfast, reaching for his cup, complaining that the tea had gone cold before he even touched the pot. My brother might have been easier to love if he appreciated how ridiculously advantageous his life was, if he had the good grace to be a little humble. I wondered if any girl—Julia included—could inspire him in this direction.

  “Some excitement last night, Aggie?” he asked, using the pet name given me by my other brother, David. David was at sea, a lieutenant on a sixty-four gunner. I loved to hear him call me Aggie, but from Rupert’s mouth it sounded as insulting as he no doubt meant it to.

  “Quite,” I said after sipping from my own cup, trying to mask my curiosity. Upon returning home last night, I knew I should have been upset by the evening’s events. Mother had been so agitated that Father dosed her with a drop of laudanum and sent her to bed.

  But a dozen drops from Mother’s small amber vial wouldn’t have made me even drowsy.

  Before falling asleep, I resolved to tell Father my tale at the first opportunity. But when I awoke just after dawn and hurried downstairs after dressing, I learned from Mrs. Brewster, our housekeeper, that Father had risen earlier and ridden into town on urgent business.

  So I would wait. Father would know what to do, who to tell about what I’d seen, or if it even might be of importance. He might have been handed his title and place in the House of Lords by an accident of birth, but if any man could earn it, I’d no doubt it would have been him. His intelligence and integrity were the favorite topic of my friends’ parents when Father was not around.

  The door from the front hall opened as Mrs. Brewster glided into the room. Her long gray summer dress was starch-stiff, pleats in the sleeves that would have wilted by midday in the summer heat on anyone but her. She stared proudly over our heads at the portrait of my grandfather as she announced, “Lord Showalter to see you, Miss Wilkins.”

  “So early?” I muttered, tossing my napkin to the table and rising from my chair.

  “Come to see if you’re all right, I’d wager,” my brother said.

  “Or perhaps he has no tea and toast at home.”

  Rupert looked positively confused. “Of course he has tea and toast. He has twenty thousand pounds a year, you git.”

  Rupert’s obsession with the wealth of others was not among his better qualities. He’d memorized the incomes and assets of virtually every one of his peers in London society. It was the closest he came to any true talent.

  I glared at him, noticing for the first time the outlandish neck scarf he wore. The print looked almost like animal skin—or maybe peacock feathers. Rupert’s attire was usually carefully thought out to avoid drawing attention to anything except how expensively tailored his jackets were. Bright colors and patterns, he once told me, stole the eye away from the invisible seams and perfect lines.

  “What on earth is that?” I asked, nodding at the garish addition.

  He looked down at his chest, and then back at me, his cheeks tingeing pink.

  “Just . . . something. That is—”

  He was saved further explanation by Showalter’s entrance. Rupert also rose from his seat.

  Showalter still wore last night’s suit, and the expression to match. He crossed the room to the table, bowed like a duck diving underwater, and motioned for me to sit down.

  “Miss Wilkins,” he said, nodding. “Rupert,” he said, turning to my brother.

  “Will you sit, sir?” I asked.

  “Thank you,” he said, folding himself into Mother’s chair.

  “Will you take tea?”

  He nodded again, then reached for the teapot and my mother’s waiting cup. “Are you quite recovered?” he asked as he poured, dropped in two lumps of sugar, and tipped the milk pitcher slightly into the steaming liquid.

  “From last night? I assure you I’ve almost completely forgotten it,” I lied.

  He gulped at the tea. “Very well. It is easy for the ladies to move on, is it not, Rupert?”

  Rupert nodded knowingly. “Certainly. They are accustomed to allowing the stronger sex to handle matters, and this is a matter far too indelicate for women to bear.”

  Only my brother could make concern sound so insulting. I resisted the urge to fling the toast platter at his head. It would have been empty at any rate, as Showalter had removed the last two slices and was slathering butter and preserves across them with my knife. I raised an eyebrow at Rupert.

  “Make yourself at ease, Lord Showalter,” I said, adding, “I’m sure your night was even longer and more exhausting than ours was.”


  He nodded his head. Between sips of tea, he told us that the dead man bore no identification. No other household claimed him as an employee, though several of the staff had seen him serving at the party and assumed he was simply one of the many members of neighboring households loaned out to Showalter’s for the evening. And more than once he made mention of the pall it might cast on his household, his good name even, to have a murdered stranger tumbling from a coach on one’s drive.

  It was ridiculous that anyone would associate the death with Lord Showalter or his household, but gossip would link his name with the unidentified dead man for a few weeks at least.

  “It will be forgotten in a fortnight,” I consoled him.

  “Yes, but now with the other attacks—”

  “Other attacks?” my brother asked as the hairs on my neck bristled.

  Showalter gulped down a bite. “You haven’t heard, then?”

  Now I grew impatient. “Please enlighten us.”

  “I thought it would be the talk of London by now,” he said. “Early this morning, two more of my guests from the party were attacked!”

  My hand rose to my mouth. “You don’t mean—”

  “Murdered?” Rupert offered.

  Showalter shook his head vigorously. “Heavens, no! I meant to say their homes had been attacked. Lady Kensington awoke to find the bureau and closets of her dressing room ransacked.”

  “Ransacked!” I repeated.

  “Yes. And a choice jewel or two missing from the chest.”

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  “Better than Mr. Squires,” he said solemnly.

  “Not poor Squires,” I whispered. Squires was solicitor to my father and half of this side of London. He loved A Lady’s novels almost as much as I did, though I suspected I was the only one who knew it.

  “He’s not dead either, but he has a nasty headache. Seems last night he heard a noise in the parlor, went downstairs to investigate, and that was that. Awoke with a knot the size of an apple on his temple.”

  “Anything taken?” Rupert asked.

  “Not that they can see, but he’s uncertain that his memory is as reliable as it should be owing to the force of the blow.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, relaxing back in my chair. “Terrible luck for our neighbors.”

  “But already people are saying it’s more than that. Servants are whispering, vendors are talking. I have it on good authority that the evening newspapers will lead with the story,” Showalter said as he licked jam from his thumb.

  “A slow news day indeed if a pair of simple burglaries take precedence over news of the war—,” I began, before he interrupted.

  “But they’ve blown it all up into something else entirely, of course. One man murdered and two homes vandalized suddenly becomes proof of a mummy’s curse! The Curse of the Hyde Park Mummy, they’re calling it!”

  “Nonsense!” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “The paper can say anything it wants, but it’s simple bad, coincidental luck, isn’t it?”

  Showalter hesitated, scanning the table for more food. On finding he’d cleared it, he reached for the teapot and poured another cup. “Certainly . . . I suppose . . .”

  I was stunned that one who’d invested a fortune in Egypt and its treasures had not developed a thicker skin on this point. “Do you mean to say there is something to this?”

  Sensing my disbelief, he backed away. “No. But the power of these stories and rumors of happenings with other mummies and tombs and so forth . . . they can stoke the imagination in a powerful way.”

  “Certainly—but those are merely myths, are they not? Is there any validity to them?” The pharaohs were merely kings who got salted and wrapped after they died. They weren’t superhuman. They couldn’t curse us from beyond the grave, could they?

  “I’ve never experienced any of it firsthand,” he said carefully, “but there have been many reports of strange doings associated with the opening of tombs, or the removal of artifacts. . . .”

  A chill seized me. “What kind of strange doings?”

  He swallowed hard. “Unpleasant things . . . things far too upsetting to worry you about, much less discuss over breakfast.”

  I’d heard snatches of tales where people involved in digs or removal of artifacts met with calamitous circumstances shortly after. But those were over in Egypt when the items were removed . . . this was England.

  “Could it be true?” I asked. “You said yourself that the mummy was an important one—”

  Showalter held up a hand. “I’ve said too much already, and upset you in the bargain,” he began. “We must leave the topic at once. Here I came to make sure you were all right, and I’ve only upset you even more. Pray, do not think on this any longer.” He bit his thumb. “I do hope these events don’t cast a pall over the remainder of the season’s parties.”

  “No,” I said, but I was still thinking about the possibility of curses.

  He looked at me anew, his expression softening. “You’re a great comfort to me,” he said, his gaze lingering a second longer than was proper before realizing Rupert was still at the table with us. “And you as well, Rupert. Steady heads, the both of you. I’m grateful for your friendship.”

  “Not at all,” Rupert said.

  “We are glad to be of any help,” I said. Showalter smiled. The silence lasted just long enough to foretell he had more to say.

  “Miss Wilkins,” he began at last, “I noticed how very curious you were about the specimen from last night’s unwrapping. And I was wondering—”

  He paused, looked to my brother, and smiled sheepishly. Rupert reached for his own cup, shrugging.

  “I was hoping, rather,” Showalter went on, “that you might allow me to escort you to the museum one morning. I’m sure the curator would be most willing to offer us a private tour, and I’d very much like to afford you an opportunity to have your questions handled by one so peerless in his knowledge as Mr. Banehart.”

  I froze. Last night’s performance was more than just a celebration of my debut, then. Julia had been right. Mother had been right. Showalter was making overtures to court me. I found the confirmation of this more overwhelming than I expected.

  “I—”

  His words came in a tumble. “You probably think me brash for inviting you under such a cloud as the one that has settled on our street, but I confess that I’m afraid that if I do not move swiftly, I may not have another opportunity.”

  Now my head positively swam. Showalter, it appeared, was in even more of a hurry than Mother.

  “She’ll have to speak with Mother,” Rupert broke in. I was grateful for his intrusion, grateful that it gave me a moment to think.

  Showalter turned toward him. “Of course. I would expect nothing less. And we would bring her along, or some other suitable chaperone. You, perhaps?” he asked Rupert.

  Rupert snorted. “No, thank you. I’m afraid the museum bores me. Dreadful stuff.”

  “Your aunt, then?” Showalter returned to me. His smile was eager, his words kind. It was all as simple and as easy as I could have hoped for. Put on a lovely dress, go to a party, and catch a man. I should have been delighted, but I couldn’t help feeling as if it had all been too easy, too pat. As if I’d been robbed of the opportunity to struggle for a match, for love, as a character in a novel might.

  “I will speak with Mother,” I managed to say.

  He nodded, satisfied, and stood. “Well, I’m sure your day is bound to be as busy as my own.”

  Showalter had a day of meetings with inspectors from Scotland Yard or with museum officials to look forward to. I anticipated little more than calling on Julia to see if she might have heard something more, or perhaps even enduring a visit with the Hallishaws, as they always could be relied on for the choicest gossip.

  Showalter paused at the door. “By the way, are you both certain that all the items removed from the wrappings last night were returned to the table?”

 
I felt the heat rise through my chest and neck; the tips of my ears seemed to glow like a coal drawn from the grate. My brother—always eager to take charge in situations he knew nothing about—provided a welcome distraction. “Positive. I was at the table the entire time, even when you were called away by your manservant. All four of the items found were back on the table at the end of the evening when we left the body.”

  “You’re certain?” Showalter asked.

  “Yes,” my brother said.

  “Agnes?” he asked me.

  I thought of the little dog’s head hidden in the black velvet hatbox that I kept in the bottom of my wardrobe. I’d put it there the moment I’d returned from the party. I knew I should retrieve it. But again, Showalter’s attentions muddled things. How embarrassing now to own to my deviance, in front of Rupert no less, and on the heels of Showalter inviting me on an outing. How disastrous might it be for a potential match if he discovered too early in our courtship my imperfections, my attachments to silly objects.

  My independence.

  And what of the curse? What if it were true? If an evil had visited people who’d merely attended the party, what might it mean for a girl who was so foolish as to keep something from the body?

  I thought quickly. It would be much better if I returned it later, when things had calmed down. Or if I managed to leave it secretly behind in the museum when Showalter escorted me there.

  I sighed and spoke. “You said yourself, we women have no head for these things. I confess I was lost in the excitement of the unwrapping and paid no attention. Why?”

  He eyed me with—what? Suspicion, perhaps? He stopped, shook his head.

  “Don’t trouble yourself any more with this, Miss Wilkins,” he said, smiling. “Promise me you’ll go read one of those books you like so much, take your mind off the unpleasantness.”

  I curtsied and thanked him for the suggestion. He nodded at Rupert and ducked out the door.