by Aileen Fish
“I searched Emily’s room when she was out wandering in the gardens with Tilly.”
“And found the laudanum.”
“It wasn’t hidden but sitting on her vanity amid all the other bottles of perfume and lotion. I’ve had need of the poison from time to time over the years. I don’t know a lady who hasn’t. Of course, what I knew about laudanum, about opium and its effects, at that point would fit on the head of a pin.”
“Did you confront Emily?”
“I was waiting for her when she returned to her room,” Margaret said. “I waited until she was standing before me to pour the poison out the window. She only laughed, said I was being ridiculous, that she certainly did not need the magical elixir. That’s what she called it.”
“Go on,” Nick urged when she fell silent beside him.
“But she did need it. Her body had become accustomed to the stuff. She seemed fine that day and the next. But by the third she couldn’t drag herself from bed. She lay buried under a mountain of blankets, the fire roaring until the room was like a furnace, while she shivered and moaned. Then the purging began.”
“Purging?” he asked in alarm.
“Laudanum… Well it stops a body from… Physicians prescribe it for cholera.”
“Oh,” Nick replied as realization dawned.
“She was in a terrible way for two days, then she was up and about again. I heard her in the house, saw her in the gardens, but she avoided me. I thought it was embarrassment. I’d seen her at her worst after all.”
Nick supposed he was expected to respond when Margaret paused again. But he was quiet and still, gathering himself for what he knew was to come.
“She’d sent Tilly to the village, to the apothecary.”
“Stupid,” he whispered.
“It’s not the girl’s fault, Nick,” she hurried to defend. “Tilly is little more than a child and Emily in a temper is truly terrifying.”
“I wasn’t talking about Tilly,” he murmured. “You must have known a headstrong woman like Emily would find a way to get what she wanted.”
“I had yet to meet the real Emily,” Margaret argued. “And, as I said… the head of a pin. I did not know how the opium takes hold of a person, makes them irrational and fixed.”
“How long before you figured it out?”
“Nearly a month,” she admitted. “Then I had the maids scour her rooms. They found bottles stashed under her mattress, behind books on the shelf, in the pockets of her frocks in the wardrobe, they were everywhere.”
“Jesus,” Nick whispered.
“It was the strangest thing.” Margaret spoke so quietly he barely heard her. “All those bottles were blue, some cut crystal, others porcelain, all of them exquisitely made. There was one made from the thinnest glass I’ve ever seen, dainty and feminine, with a fluted neck and a curved handle just big enough for a lady’s finger to fit within.”
Nick shivered in the warm carriage and turned to stare out the window with sightless eyes. In his mind he saw that bottle, all of those bottles, and Emily, his strong, courageous, willful Emily, undone by the poison they held.
He came back to himself as the carriage turned onto High Street.
“So it went for weeks. I’d find her cache of bottles and dispose of them. Emily would find a way to procure more. I sent Tilly to the servants’ quarters and allowed only my maid, Dorothy, to tend Emily. But as soon as Dorothy turned her back, Em would be gone to the village.” Margaret words came faster and faster as they made their way up the bustling village street. Nick reached over and clasped her fidgeting fingers in his hand.
“I told the apothecary I would shut down his shop, burn it to the ground if he sold even one bottle of laudanum to anyone. I paid for every drop of the tincture in his possession and watched as he disposed of it in the dirt behind his shop.”
“And yet?” Nick prompted as they neared the corner, as the horses prepared to turn right.
“And yet, one evening, she disappeared. She’d taken a horse and ridden to Colbert, nearly twenty miles away.” Margaret’s harsh laughter told him they were fast approaching the crux of the story. “I had the grooms lock the stables, carried the keys on my person at all times.”
The carriage made the turn onto the narrow little side street.
“She was finally unable to get her hands on the poison. I was more ready for the aftereffects this time. I was prepared to withstand her temper while her mind cleared. I was prepared for the heat in the room as she sweated the laudanum from her body. I was prepared for the indignity, hers and mine, that was to come with the purging. But I was in no way prepared for her howls of anguish, for the wrenching sobs that filled the house. Nor was I prepared for her to beg me for one sip, one spoonful, just one taste.”
Margaret was crying by then, big fat tears falling from her eyes to roll down her pale cheeks. Her sobs filled the small carriage much as Nick imagined Emily’s had filled the house.
“Margaret,” he whispered, ready to halt her tale. He didn’t truly need to hear the rest.
“Then came that terrible night.” Margaret swiped at the tears that kept falling, gave a shuddering sigh and tightened her hold on Nick’s hand. “She’d been quiet most of the day, just lying in her bed staring at the wall, and I’d begun to believe the worst was past, that she was finally, oh please Lord, finally, coming back into herself and she would become the girl from Charlie’s letters.”
Nick could see the bright green awning over Morton’s bakery at the end of the street, the bakery where they’d ridden one early morning for fresh scones. Emily must have gone right past the apothecary’s shop that day.
“It was just past midnight. I remember I heard the clock tolling the hour. I was sitting up in bed, trying to read. Canterbury Tales. Can you imagine? A quiet knock on the door, I barely heard it over the summer storm raging outside my window.”
“Emily?” he asked as he spied the apothecary’s shop outside the window. They were almost upon it, only seconds before they would pull up below the wooden sign hanging out over the street, waving listlessly in the breeze.
“She was in her night clothes, a white cotton gown and a pink velvet robe trailing over her shoulders, her hair braided down her back. She looked about twelve standing there in the doorway as if uncertain of her welcome. Do you know what she said to me?”
Nick shook his head, unable to speak as the carriage lurched to a stop before the apothecary shop.
“‘Please help me, Auntie Margaret. I think I might die.’” Margaret drew in a stuttering breath and met his eyes. “Just that. ‘Please help me, Auntie Margaret. I think I might die.’ She was clutching an empty blue bottle, the one shaped like a woman, her hands wrapped around it, pressing it to her chest. She started toward the bed, toward me, such a look on her face, such fear, as if she simply could not endure the cravings clawing at her. And I knew I would give in, I would ride to London myself in the storm to give her what she wanted, to erase that look from her eyes, to vanquish the fear of dying.”
Nick waited, picturing Emily standing in her night clothes begging her aunt for help.
“But her night rail was slipping from her shoulders, falling down her arms, trailing behind her, around her. Her bare foot got caught in the hem. She stumbled and fell. It happened so quickly. One moment she was coming toward me, the next she was falling with that damned bottle clutched to her heart.”
Nick pulled Margaret into his arms, held her cheek pressed to his heart, absorbed the shudders that ran down her back. “Shhh, it’s over.”
“She fell right on that…that bottle… I couldn’t… There was nothing… She was so still on the floor… Her hands still clutching… She never even threw her hands out to catch herself… The bottle broke…shattered beneath her… I didn’t hear it… Just the tiniest cry as she landed… Then nothing… I saw the blood… before I even reached her… The blood was rolling from beneath… And when I turned her over…oh, God, oh God…”
“S
hhh, no more,” Nick begged, undone by her anguished words, by the picture they painted.
“I rolled her over and…and it was just sticking out… The neck…that fluted neck…the delicate glass…thin as parchment…protruding from her chest… So much blood…a crimson river above her breast… And the broken neck…right beside her heart…” the words ended in a low wail as Margaret sobbed against him.
Nick held her for long minutes, swaying gently, soothing her while he blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. He refused to cry. He would not pity Emily. There was no room in his heart for pity. It was filled with awe for her courage and gratitude for her survival. And an overwhelming need to see her, to bask in her laughing eyes, to kiss her smiling lips.
Margaret shivered and drew in an unsteady breath before pushing away from him to sit beside him on the carriage seat.
“Dr. Connor stitched her up,” she said calmly, her watery eyes fastened upon him. “I tried to make her take the laudanum he brought with him. Emily would not. Good Lord, I split her lip trying to force the bottle to her mouth. A fierce little warrior she was. Screamed to wake the dead but lay perfectly still and let him sew her torn flesh together.”
Margaret looked away, gave a startled squeak and reached for the door handle. “Why didn’t you tell me we’d arrived?”
“Emily isn’t here,” Nick said.
“No, she’s come and gone by now,” Margaret answered as she pushed open the door and the footman stepped forward to offer his assistance. “But perhaps the poison purveyor saw what direction she took.”
“Emily isn’t here, Margaret.” He followed her from the carriage, looked at the innocuous little shop with its windows filled with jars and boxes, hanging herbs and shark fins, powders and pestles and bottles. Nick stepped closer to the window, leaned down to peer into the shadowy interior.
There in the back, behind a small porcelain box painted with a scene of fairies frolicking on dew covered flowers, was a little blue bottle that seemed lit from within, the glass shimmering in the dim light cast by the sun over his shoulder. It was small, standing no taller than the span of his hand, delicately crafted, the shape reminiscent of a woman standing with one hand on her hip. The glass appeared as thin and fragile as the finest silk. The narrow neck gently belled out at the very tip, hiding a small jeweled stopper that was barely visible over the rim.
The bell above the door jingled as Margaret pushed it forward and disappeared inside. Nick looked back at the blue bottle in the window, gave his head a quick shake, and followed the lady into the shop.
“I’ll run you out of this village if you’re lying, Mr. Abernathy,” Margaret threatened the stooped old man behind the long wooden counter.
“Now see here, your ladyship,” the man protested. “I’ll not be harangued by you, no matter that you’re the grandest lady around for miles. I can’t stop selling the laudanum forever else I’ll be out of business. But I’m telling you true, your niece ain’t been in here since the trouble of last summer. Not today, not yesterday, not any day. And if’n she or her dark-skinned maid were to come in my door, I’d shuffle them out so fast t’would make your head spin.”
“All right, all right, Abernathy.” Margaret turned and marched past Nick before pausing at the door to look back at him where he still stood by the counter.
“Mr. Abernathy, that box in the window,” Nick said as he turned to the ancient man.
“Which un?” Abernathy asked, coming around the counter.
“With the fairies,” Nick replied as he led the man to the display.
“Pretty little box for holding a lady’s gewgaws and whatnots,” Abernathy murmured as he lifted it. “Made in Ireland. Traveling fellow talked me into buying two of them last month. Ain’t sold either, t’other’s over yon, but this one’s finer.”
“Nicholas Avery,” Margaret screeched from her post in front of the door. “This is no time to shop!”
“I’ll take it,” Nick said to Abernathy before turning to Margaret. “Emily is not here.”
“Perhaps she sent someone, some villager to make her purchase,” Margaret replied. “Well, Abernathy? Has anyone purchased laudanum today?”
“Well, now you mention it,” Abernathy said without looking up from wrapping Nick’s purchase. “I did sell some laudanum to Mrs. Price this very mornin’. Her man’s ailing, bit by a dog he were.”
“A wild dog, I suppose?” Margaret replied archly. “Hah! Emily likely made up that story!”
Nick barked out a rumbling laugh.
“Now, your ladyship, Mrs. Price ain’t one to lie.”
“Where does this Mrs. Price live?” Margaret demanded.
“Down by the church,” Abernathy answered as Nick handed him the necessary coin and took his wrapped package. “The whitewashed cottage nearest to the green.”
“The green,” Margaret exclaimed. “I knew it.”
Nick shook his head as he followed Lady Margaret from the shop.
“Emily is not in the village,” he told her, hurrying to catch up to her as she took off across the street, waving the footman away.
“She’s at the green,” Margaret all but spat the words at him. “I found her there twice before, after she’d visited Abernathy. Sleeping in the shade of a tree.”
Mrs. Morton was just ahead, sweeping the walkway in front of the bakery. The unmistakable scents of fresh bread and sugar cookies wafted from the open door behind her.
“Good afternoon, Lady Morris,” the round woman greeted with a smile. “And Mister…”
“Avery,” Nick supplied when she faltered over his name.
“Of course, and I hope you’ll accept my felicitations,” she offered with a quick curtsy.
“Felicitations?” Margaret stopped before the woman, hands on her hips.
“On the gentleman’s coming nuptials,” Mrs. Morton replied happily.
“Thank you.” Nick smiled at her. “I don’t suppose you have any warm scones at this time of day?”
“There’s a batch in the oven, should be coming out right about now,” she answered. “Just in time for tea.”
“How did you learn of Mr. Avery’s coming wedding?” Margaret asked slowly.
“Why, Miss Calvert told me just this morning,” the baker’s wife replied.
“My niece was here this morning?”
“Waiting at the door when I opened the shop, she was.”
Margaret followed her into the shop with a weary sigh and a quick look over her shoulder at Nick.
“Your niece is such a dear, Lady Morris,” Nick heard as he entered the fragrant shop. “She purchased all of my morning scones and a loaf of stale bread.”
“Stale bread?” Margaret asked.
“For the ducks,” Nick answered.
“Just done,” Mrs. Morton cried happily before lifting a long pan from the oven. “I hope you’ve a preference for currants?”
“I do,” Nick answered.
“What ducks?” Margaret asked.
“The ducks wintering at your pond,” Nick replied.
“I’ve ducks wintering at my pond?”
“Quite a few.”
“Why haven’t we had duck for dinner?”
“Miss Calvert isn’t partial to duck,” Mrs. Morton answered.
Margaret shook her head before pinning Nick with a hard glare. “You’ve allowed me to race about this village in the cold when you knew Emily wasn’t here.”
“You hardly raced around the village. You only crossed the street from one shop to the next.”
“Where is she?”
“Taking tea beside a warm fire in your parlor I would imagine,” Nick answered as he took the box of warm pastries from Mrs. Morton. “Nibbling on scones.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Where is he?
She’d been riding about the estate for more than an hour looking for Nicholas.
“Foolish, the lot of them,” she murmured, referring to the houseguests sitting by a warm fire in
Margaret’s parlor over tea and scones, whispering amongst themselves as they relived the excitement of the morning.
“And Nicholas is the worst of them, make no mistake,” she told the black stallion, giving his neck a quick pat. “Thinking I would believe he’d taken that poor pitiful creature to his bed.”
She shook her head, the movement sending her wind-tangled curls flying out behind her.
Oh, she’d seen Veronica Ogilvie emerging from Nicholas’ bed chamber. She’d just opened her door when the pretty blonde had stumbled into the hall, pushed by an unseen hand. Emily had stood in the shadowy hall with one hand on the knob of the door behind her and the other clenched into a fist at her side.
Even in the dim hall she could make out the pretty blue ensemble Veronica wore and the matching ribbons entwined in her upswept hair. She’d been a heartbeat away from marching across the two dozen feet that separated them to claw the other woman’s eyes out when the strangest thing had happened.
Veronica Ogilvie had begun to cry. She’d stood as still as a statue before the closed door, her hands pressed low on her abdomen, her eyes open and staring straight ahead at the wall before her while tears coursed down her cheeks. She’d made no move to halt them, just let them fall.
Emily had watched, fascinated by the sight of the woman she’d thought to be cold right down to the marrow of her bones transforming right before her eyes. There’d been something so honest, so heartrendingly vulnerable in the way Veronica wept without movement or sound.
Something must have alerted her to another presence in the quiet hall, for she’d suddenly turned her head and pinned Emily with her watery gaze. The two women had stared at one another for a long moment, neither moving nor speaking, and Emily had felt a strange tug at her heart, a moment of understanding and empathy passing between them.
Then Veronica’s lashes had swept down and she’d closed her eyes and drew in a shuddering breath. When she’d opened her eyes again, the moment was gone, along with any vestige of vulnerability in the woman’s expression. Tears had still trickled from the corners of her eyes, but those eyes had been sharp and cunning once more.