by Sarah Zettel
I was still in danger. I was still in doubt, but I was no longer alone. Surely after this, all things would become easier.
But when I opened my door, it was to see an oblong man clothed entirely in black turn away from the fire where he’d been warming himself.
“Where have you been out so early?” asked Mr. Peele. “And where the devil is Mrs. Abbott?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE DISCOVERS SHE IS NOT THE ONLY ONE RECEIVING UNWELCOME NEWS.
There are times in one’s life when all training in deportment and manners fails. One is then thrown back on mother wit.
“I . . . erm . . . I don’t know.” I looked about the room, which was indeed deserted, except, of course, for Mr. Peele.
“You don’t know where you’ve been?” Mr. Peele sneered. “Oh, don’t bother. I do know what you meant. You don’t know where Abbott is. Come in here and shut that door.”
I did as I was bidden, closing the door carefully. I advanced a few steps into the room, but not so many as would bring me within arm’s reach of Mr. Peele. I had been thinking far too much on murder, and a cloud of anger surrounded him. It filled his rectangular face and keen eyes up to the brim. I did not plan to enter further into that miasma than was absolutely necessary.
Mr. Peele did not fail to note my hesitancy, and snorted in impatience. “Well, young woman? I asked you more than one question. Where have you been?”
“Walking in the gardens.”
“It is remarkably early for a courtier.” One of his fine hands reached out and touched the clock on the mantel, running his fingers over its polished silver sides and the smooth glass of its face. Neither of us could fail to note it had not yet gone on eight o’clock.
“I am following the example of Her Royal Highness as to the importance of fresh air and exercise,” I said, remembering to draw myself up as I did. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit, sir?”
Rather than answer, Mr. Peele reached into his coat and brought out a letter. This he handed to me. I noted that it was not one of my nightly dispatches. This was some other missive. The messengers and postmen had clearly been busy over the past day or so. It was a wonder they had not all bumped into one another in the courtyard.
This letter was in French, and written in a clumsy, block-letter hand I knew I had seen before. Slowly, I realized it was the same hand that had labeled the myriad jars on my dressing table.
Sir:
With this writing, I leave your employment. But in partial payment for your many kindnesses to me, I render you this last service. I warn you your protégée has once again entered into communication where she should not. Remove her at once from this place before further harm can be done.
A.
I leave your employment. I stared about the empty room. It was not possible. Mrs. Abbott was committed to the scheme. Unhappy, yes, but committed. She had gone so far as to help me by following Robert the night before.
The night before. She followed Robert; she told me what she’d seen. Then she vanished. Completely and entirely.
Forgetting Mr. Peele’s presence, I hurried to the little back room that kept her bed and things. I had not thought to do this before, because it had not even occurred to me that she might have left for good. But now I stood and stared at a room stripped quite bare. Only the cot, dresser, and chair remained.
I do not need you so much as you may think, she had said. And then there was Sophy’s little aside about stealing her away. Had Mrs. Abbott gone to work for Sophy Howe?
Why? What on earth would Sophy want with her? That question, at least, had a simple answer. Sophy wanted her for gossip. So she could learn something that might be turned against me.
“Struck dumb, my lady?” Mr. Peele retrieved the missive from where I’d dropped it and stowed it once more in his pocket. “That is most out of character.”
“Mrs. Abbott sent her note to you?” I asked, as confused about this point as any other since I walked into the room. “Not Mr. Tinderflint?”
Mr. Peele shrugged. “Perhaps she does not trust our Mr. Tinderflint to be as firm with you as is required.”
I whirled around. Mr. Peele’s visage was still and calm. This was the same blank mask he donned at the card table. It was meant to reveal nothing to the opposing player, but in this it failed. For it said he played a game with me now and was surely lying about how that letter had come into his hands. I found I had moved several steps away from him without entirely realizing it. I was afraid of Mr. Peele. I was afraid of his unmarked hands, and the strength of his anger, and the fact that we were quite alone.
“What is the communication to which Mrs. Abbott refers?” asked Mr. Peele. “What have you done and with whom?”
I showed him my own bland mask, the one he himself had taught me how to fashion. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
“You’re lying.”
I did not let my eyes so much as flicker at this accusation. Mr. Peele turned again to the contemplation of the clock. He opened the glass facing and touched the wrought silver hand, lightly of course. So as not to disturb its motion.
“Perhaps Mrs. Abbott is correct,” he said to the clock. “Perhaps you should be removed.”
He waited then. The ticking of my little silver clock filled the space between us. A stick cracked in the fire, falling into the ashes with a sad rustle. Mr. Peele continued to wait, to see if I would protest or beg.
I did neither.
“It is, of course, up to you whether I stay or go,” I told him. “Or, rather, as Mr. Tinderflint is known to be my guardian, it is up to him.” Mr. Peele shut the clock facing. The click sounded very loud, as if he were laying down a coin on the table. I had surprised him.
How is it gentlemen think we maids do not know who rules us? We who serve, whether we stand or sit to do it, know very well the workings of power, especially when they affect us directly. I had lived too long under my uncle’s thumb not to have a mathematically precise understanding of who was in charge of what in any given house and how far that power stretched.
Mr. Peele remained silent, fully aware that play had passed to me and I had not yet finished my bids.
“You should be aware, sir, that if I am ordered away by my dear guardian, I will protest to Her Royal Highness. She has taken a liking to me, you know, as has her daughter Anne.” This was a bit of a bluff, but not too great a one. I hoped. “I will say my guardian, Lord Tierney, is most unkind and ask her to intercede for me.” I paused there to be sure that Mr. Peele had time to take note of this entire speech. “I wonder what Mr. Tinderflint will do when faced with a royal request.”
Mr. Peele’s eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. “You are daring a great deal, my girl.”
And yet I did dare, despite the danger, despite the murder done and the very real possibility it might be done again. I had to. “You want something here, Mr. Peele. You don’t have it yet, or you would already have ordered Mr. Tinderflint to take me away.” My voice hitched as I said this, but I forced myself to continue. “I must conclude that, despite all, I remain your best chance of acquiring whatever it is. Possibly even more so now that Mrs. Abbott has deserted you.” I was not fully cognizant of this truth until the words had left my mouth, but I knew my words to be correct.
“Do you know where she has gone?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Why would she choose now to leave our merry band?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, and though I had my suspicions, I truly did not. She could be anywhere and doing anything. She could have lied to me from beginning to end about what she’d seen when she followed Robert. That thought tightened my throat with fear and anger, but at the same time, I wondered at Mr. Peele’s questions. It had not until that moment occurred to me that this careful, inscrutable card player might not compass the motivations of the other members of his conspiracy. Perhaps he tested me only in order to discover how much I knew. But his ha
nd had strayed back to the clock. Its silver legs had been worked into the likeness of little lion’s paws, and he tapped his fingertip against one now. It was a telltale gesture. The first I had ever seen from him. Mr. Peele was nervous.
“The fool,” he remarked, but at the same time, he took hold of the clock’s paw with two long fingers, to pinch it tight between them. “She knows—” He stopped, becoming aware of his own words and his fingers pinching the unfeeling clock at the same time. He released the clock and came forward to stand directly in front of me.
“Why are you still here? You have been left all but unguarded with money and jewels enough. You could have helped yourself and made your escape at any time. But you have not. Why is that?”
“I like it here,” I answered, using all the strength of nerve I had to keep my voice and gaze steady. “The life of Lady Francesca suits me very well. Why are you still here, Mr. Peele?” I asked in return. “What is it you still hope to gain by having a Lady Francesca at court?”
“Why would you think I would tell you that now?”
“Because keeping me in ignorance has not achieved your ends, so it might be time to employ a fresh stratagem.”
“What a clever girl,” he murmured. “Very well. I am still here because I have not made enough money from this proposition yet.”
“How could two hundred pounds a year ever be enough for you?”
He snorted and waved his hand. “You already know the salary to be a mere blind. No, I am after much bigger fish with infinitely deeper pockets.”
“And the letters I’ve been writing with their descriptions of the card games, these will give you access to those pockets?”
Mr. Peele returned nothing but silence then, but one word still hung clearly in the air between us. Blackmail. Cheating at cards was an unpardonable offense among the ranks of aristocrats and other gentlemen. A card cheat himself, Mr. Peele would know this. With my descriptions of the games and the parties and the gossip, he would extort money from the players. Be a man ever so titled, an accusation of cheating could result in ruin. It could even bring a messy death in a cold meadow at an uncivilized hour. Such was the importance of honor among gentlemen.
Mr. Peele considered the clock once more. It ticked and it tocked. One silver hand lowered itself a fraction of an inch.
“Why do you need me for this?” I asked, a little frightened and at the same time a little piqued. I should have guessed this was what was happening, but with all the revelations about spies and Jacobites, I had given up on money being the root of any of the firm’s diverse machinations. “Why not go to some gaming house yourself and play?”
A smile and a slight shake of his head demonstrated Mr. Peele’s amusement with such naiveté. “Some of our finer gentlemen are surprisingly fastidious about those they enter into play with. They fear to be cheated.” He let the word fall lightly, as if he had no knowledge at all of such sordid matters. “I do not present a pleasing exterior; neither do I turn a good phrase or sketch an elegant bow. Therefore I cannot, as others do, pass for a true gentleman, let alone one of the noble sort. Nor do I particularly relish being caught at my trade. I am a tolerable shot, I assure you, and passable with a sword, but bloodletting in a duel is something I choose to avoid. Also, I was indiscreet a time or two, and gained a certain . . . notoriety that has made things difficult in recent years.” He shook his head at his own folly. “So, I am forced to use other means, and other hands.”
I did not answer at once. Something here did not ring true. It was . . . too complex a scheme. Mr. Peele was too careful a man to conceive of a plan that involved so many confederates, especially when he did not know them as well as he might. He was still lying.
“So, what is it you thought Mrs. Abbott was doing here?” I asked this to goad him, to see how much he would dare say.
Unfortunately, Mr. Peele seemed to have regained his customary steely self-possession. “Mrs. Abbott is no longer part of this discussion. It is you I am concerned with. It is time for you to leave.”
“I’ve already told you, I will appeal—”
“Oh, you are not leaving through the front door, my dear,” he said. “You are going to take advantage of the jewels and money and leave by the back, very, very quietly.”
What was he doing, suggesting such a thing? But a moment later, I understood him. If I stole away, quite literally the thief in the night, I could never tell where I’d been and what I had done, not if I wanted to keep my neck out of a noose.
Mr. Peele smiled, a small smile indeed, but all the more chilling for the amount of triumph distilled into that tiny, precise curve.
“You have already contacted your cousin. Well and good.” He folded his hands behind himself, and for a moment he looked enough like my uncle that it raised goose bumps all down my arms. He might have been guessing about who it was that I had entered into communication with, but it was not a difficult guess to make. “Let her help you to a swift retreat with as much as you can contrive to carry.”
“Why?” I asked him. It was the only question I had left in me.
“Because with Abbott’s departure and what I have seen now in this room, it is clearly time for this nonsense to end,” he replied calmly. “And because if you do not, I will take it upon myself to expose you for the fraud that you are.” He paused, as if some new and unexpected thought had just occurred to him. “I would take the garnets, if I were you. I believe they are valued at five hundred pounds.”
He walked out of the room and shut the door. I sat down in the chair nearest the fire and stayed there for a very long time. I waited for fear to set me trembling, as it had so many times during my rash adventure. But no tremors came. Instead, bits and pieces of understanding dropped into place, slowly, like coins falling at the card table.
Of them all, Mr. Peele really was in this scheme for the money. Mr. Peele was threatening me, yet again. He wanted me frightened, and yet he did not want me to stay and be obedient. He commanded me to be gone. He might well be having me watched to make sure I complied. A blackmailer would know whom to bribe, and when and how to receive news of me. He could be watching for the moment when I fled the palace, presumably under cover of darkness, with Francesca’s jewels and money, especially those garnets valued at five hundred pounds. He might even take it into his head to follow me as I made my way down deserted roads to some secure country retreat. He was a “tolerable shot,” and “passable with a sword,” but preferred to leave bloodshed to others. But even I knew that men who had no such qualms could be hired in the less reputable quarters of London town.
Would even Mr. Tinderflint stop one moment to wonder at the robbery and death of a girl who had turned thief? Of course he would not. No more than he would question the death of his nervous and exhausted ward when she fell low with a fever.
This whole time, my eyes had been lowered, taking in the details of my hems, the toes of my slippers, and my workbasket. Slowly, I remembered kicking that basket underneath the chair when last I pulled out Lady Francesca’s sketch. Now, however, it rested tidily beside the hearth.
I lifted the basket up. I removed the cloth and colored threads. And the padded bottom I had added, and the layers of tissue.
I removed nothing else. Because there was nothing left to remove.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IN WHICH POISON IS REVEALED TO COME IN MANY FORMS.
“There you are, Francesca! Oh, you poor dear!”
Those were the words Molly Lepell greeted me with as she walked, wholly uninvited, through my chamber door two hours later.
At that time, I was kneeling in the midst of a mess of embroidery thread and unmended lace, staring at the dying fire. I had madly searched through Mrs. Abbott’s empty chamber and my writing desk, even turned over my pillows and bedsheets, in case in some fever dream of a moment I had moved the sketches to another location. But there was nothing. All Francesca’s sketches, save for the one I still had tucked into my sleeve, were gone. They ha
d been there this morning. They were not there now. Mr. Peele had taken them away.
Molly sank to her knees beside me, her bright blue skirts billowing around her, and grasped my hands. “I know everything. And it’s abominable!”
Molly’s words speared through the cloud of despair, and they drew a swift, and loud, response.
“You KNOW!”
“Of course I do! Sophy is practically parading her through the palace. Fran, you mustn’t let this dishearten you!”
I stared at Molly Lepell. She stared at me. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you think I’m talking about? Sophy Howe has stolen your maid.”
I opened my mouth. I closed it again. I realized I had better do something else, if only to disguise the fact that I currently bore a striking resemblance to a madwoman.
“Oh, Molly!” I flung myself into her arms. “She just did it to be spiteful. I’m sure she did!”
“Why else does the Howe do anything? Fran, you ninny, you should be thanking her!” Molly grabbed both my elbows and raised me to my feet. Apparently so it would be easier to give me a solid shake. “The woman was plaguing your heart out.”
I blotted at my eyes with the back of my hand. The fact of Mr. Peele finding and stealing Francesca’s sketches had driven out of my head all consideration that Mrs. Abbott might have turned her coat. Now, as my thoughts struggled to right themselves, I saw it made perfect sense. Sophy had threatened to steal her, and Mrs. Abbott had declared shortly after that that she did not need me so much as might be thought. One of them, or both, had been planning this for some time. The question was not why did the Abbott leave the firm of Tinderflint and Peele at this moment, but why did she leave at all? What did she hope to gain in Sophy Howe’s employ? Did she think she could use Sophy to get to Robert? Why would she need to? Mrs. Abbott and Robert were servants together. Involving our silken set in spying or quarreling between them would only cause complications.