Loving Lily: Fair Cyprians of London: a Steamy Victorian Romantic Mystery

by Oakley, Beverley

  “Give it to me,” Lily said faintly, swallowing with difficulty, and slipping the letter into her pocket. Then, unable to bear the suspense, tearing the seal and scanning the few lines while Grace busied herself with tidying the room.

  Dear Lily,

  Your fame has spread. It was indeed a shock to learn of your escape from your house of care, and of your unusual profession in London, if sorcery and hocus-pocus deserves such a title.

  The truth is, that while it would be more comfortable for both of us to pretend the reality is otherwise, the law is the law, and this precarious existence of yours, combined with your notoriety, puts me in a difficult situation.

  I am still legally responsible for you, and I have a reputation to protect.

  I do not know with whom you have been associating while you have adopted this false identity, but I trust you have been discreet, for the taint of scandal would be ruinous to all.

  I shall call on you at my earliest convenience.

  Yours,

  Robert

  “Yer look done in, ma’am,” Grace said with sympathy in her tone, looking up from shaking out an antimacassar. “Why don’t yer sit down, an’ I’ll fetch yer summat ter eat an’ mayhap a nice soothin’ drink ter calm yer nerves?”

  Unable to speak as she tried to hide her shaking, Lily allowed herself to be fussed over.

  “You are good to me, Grace,” she murmured, barely knowing what she said.

  “Jest lookin’ afta yer, ma’am. Now, put yer feet up on the ottoman. Yer do look pale an’ wan. I ’ope yer not sickenin’ fer sumfink.”

  Lily pushed from her mind the niggling fear that naturally would intrude at such an observation. She’d not conceived after five years of marriage, which included her shameful affair with Teddy.

  The thought was one of mixed emotions: relief at the probability she was barren, and therefore that her wan looks weren’t symptomatic of pregnancy, and sadness that she could never enjoy a proper relationship with Hamish that included marriage and children.

  Overriding all was this new horror.

  Robert had returned to claim her. Not to look after her as a husband should.

  But to punish her, as he always had.

  She must have put her head in her hands to sob the anguish her thoughts caused her, for a few minutes later, Grace was at her side with a plate of steak and kidney pie and a mug of steaming warm milk.

  “It’ll ’elp settle yer nerves, ma’am,” she said, when Lily wrinkled her nose at the faint aftertaste. “’Elp yer get a good sleep, which I fink is jest wot yer need, if I says so meself.”

  Lily closed her eyes as she sipped her milk and thought of Hamish.

  Should she tell him of Robert’s letter? Of his threats?

  She hiccupped on another sob. Robert would never allow her to love Hamish. He might be married, but he’d find a way to destroy whatever happiness Lily had found. She knew it.

  “Now, now, ma’am, it surely ain’t as bad as all that.” Grace stood awkwardly at her side.

  “It is as bad as all that, Grace,” Lily wept. “I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”

  “Then that nice feller wot were ’ere will know wot ter do. ’E’ll know how ter make yer better.”

  “Dr Swithins?” Lily sat up with a start, but Grace shook her head.

  “No, a’course not, ma’am. Doctors are only good wiv prescribin’ medicines fer the body but yer need someone ter fix yer ’eart. I were referring’ ter Mr McTavish. Now, drink up yer milk an’ then I can ’elp put yer ter bed. An early night, mayhaps, ma’am.”

  She felt the trickle of tears down her cheeks, and the warmth of her drink sliding down her throat, the precursor to the welcome dulling of her senses.

  “Yer need a good night’s sleep, ma’am. That yer do.”

  “I’ll stay here a little longer, Grace,” she said. “I need to think. I’ll call you when I’m going to bed.”

  Lily rested her head on the side of the chair. She should rise before the effects took hold. She knew how sleeping draughts worked. She should be in a darkened room where she’d slip into oblivion as the medicine did its magic.

  In the morning, Robert’s letter wouldn’t seem so ominous. She’d show it to Hamish. He loved her. He’d know what to do.

  She closed her eyes. She’d rise in a minute. Usually, her eyelids would feel heavy and her body lethargic. Tonight, though, the sleeping draught was having the opposite effect. Strange colours in the form of shooting stars were exploding in the back of her head, and she was pulsing with nervous energy.

  “Let me ’elp yer up, ma’am.” Lily felt Grace’s gentle hands exerting pressure on her upper arms.

  “In a moment, Grace,” she murmured. She felt captive, unable to stir.

  A kaleidoscope of colour was metamorphosing into strange, contorted objects.

  She blinked open her eyes. And then found she couldn’t stop blinking.

  It was as if the whole world was blinking with her.

  Gasping, she gripped the arms of the chair as she stared at the blue wallpaper.

  What were the flowers doing? Were they looking at her? She closed her eyes again, but the colour pulsing at the back of her head made her open them again. The flowers were beckoning to her. Not only did they appear more vibrant, but the very walls appeared as if they were breathing.

  In and out, their pursed mouths pulsed air, like trumpet players at first before the breaths became words. Taunting, threatening, unkind.

  Lily screamed, curling into her seat as she put her hands over her eyes, squeezing them tight.

  This couldn’t be happening to her. Not again.

  Vaguely aware of another presence in the room, she reached out her hand and grasped at it, crying out, “Look at the walls! Do you see what they’re doing!”

  “Wot ’tis it, ma’am? Please, ma’am, are yer ’oright?” The faint frightened voice of her maid was swept away by the ominous tones of the flowers themselves, booming at her in unison, “Evil woman! God will punish you! Bigamist! You deserve to die for your sins! Hamish will be ruined because of you!”

  Lily shook her head vigorously, and opened her eyes to try and clear her vision. But the flowers all had faces that glared at her with spite and malevolence, their words searing her brain.

  “The flowers! Tell them to stop! Tell them to leave me alone!” she cried, feeling the wetness on her cheeks as she thrashed in her chair until someone tried to restrain her.

  “Liar! You’re a liar!” shouted the flowers. “If you love Hamish, you must give him up!”

  Swaying on their long stems, they threatened to burst from the walls and devour her.

  Lily thrust out of her chair, disregarding the pain when she crashed to the floor, banging her knees on the bare floorboards.

  Scrambling to her feet, she dashed to the far wall where she cowered, covering her eyes.

  “I’m not evil! Don’t hurt me!” she pleaded. “It was never my intention to hurt anyone. Not Robert. Not Hamish. No, not Hamish!”

  “Ma’am! Ma’am! Wot are yer sayin’? Ma’am! Yer need ’elp! Listen ter me, ma’am!”

  But Lily was beyond listening to anyone. With a cry of despair, she picked up the cut-glass decanter from the sideboard and hurled it at the grinning, malevolent faces of the flowers on the wallpaper, then stared hopefully at the stain and the shards of glass.

  Weeping uncontrollably when that didn’t stop the flowers’ cruel taunts at all.

  Chapter 27

  “Your father is here to see you, sir.” Miniver put his head around the door, just before the old man pushed through.

  How was it that Hamish hadn’t even heard his laboured tread upon the stairs?

  He supposed, quite simply, that love had a habit of obliterating everything else in one’s world.

  “How are you, Father?”

  “Not well, and even more unwell after the rumours I’ve been hearing of your conduct.”

  At first, Hamish assumed w
ith a shock that he was referring to Lily, until the old man began a long and precise criticism of every editorial decision Hamish had made in the past month.

  Well, Hamish’s tenure at the newspaper might just have reached its natural course. If he had to decide between the family business and the woman he loved, he knew which one would win.

  When he despatched his father with soothing words, for he would fight the real fight another day, he was pleasantly surprised to receive a visit from his sister.

  “Mr Myers wishes to take me to a piano recital tomorrow night,” she said, thrusting out her chin as if she were expecting opposition. But Hamish merely smiled. “I’m glad to hear he sounds a cultured young man. I’d hate to see you spend your future with a philistine, Lucy.”

  She frowned. “Why, Hamish, that almost sounded like you’re ready to give your consent.”

  Hamish couldn’t stop the grin that stretched his face. “If he remains faithful to you and hardworking, then it will be a relief not to have to worry about having you live with us when I cut my ties with the newspaper.”

  “You and Mrs Eustace?” Lucy squealed, coming round to give him a hug. “Why, Hamish, I’m so happy for you.”

  “I haven’t made any firm decisions, but my thoughts are taking me in directions I’d not expected, lately,” he said, still unable to stop smiling. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few calls to make.”

  “An’ I ’ave a picture ter buy, sir,” said Archie, coming into the office at that moment, doffing his cap and putting down his satchel. “I met Sir Lionel in the street, an’ ’e said ’e wanted ter buy a copy o’ me picture I took o’ the blonde beauty yer like ter keep in yer desk. Reckoned it t’would solve some age-ol’ mystery that ’ad bin troublin’ ’im.”

  Hamish opened the drawer and drew out the picture of Lily sitting on the bench next to Celeste. He gazed at it lovingly. “Sorry! You’ll have to make another copy,” he told Archie, tucking it into his breast pocket, before putting on his bowler hat and picking up his umbrella. “Now, good day to both of you. I have much more important business than labouring here all day.”

  At the gate to the quiet house where Lily would live for just another week at most, Hamish paused to look up the path to the windows of the front parlour. They were half drawn, which was surprising. Sloppy housekeeping? The little maid was sweet but very young, and there was only her to attend to her lovely mistress.

  He saw a flash of colour and a stirring of movement within, so he knew someone was at home.

  Taking the steps two at a time, he knocked, and to his surprise, the door was flung open revealing the little maid looking wild-eyed.

  “I ’oped yer’d be the doctor come back!” she cried, twisting her hands in her apron and staring at him. “I dunno wot ter do, Mr McTavish, but mayhaps yer can ’elp me, sir. Come this way, quickly!”

  Struck dumb, Hamish followed her a few steps down the passage before she thrust open the doors of the parlour.

  Lily was ill? He’d thought this with a lurch of his heart when the girl had greeted him, but what met his eye was infinitely worse than anything he could have conjured up on his grimmest of days.

  “Lily?” He took a tentative step forwards. “Lily, what is it?” Then, when there was no indication she even recognised him, he crossed the room to take her elbow and help her up from the ground where she was curled up, he now realised, apparently in fear.

  Of him? Of someone else?

  “Lily, tell me what’s happened?”

  To his horror, his touch occasioned a shrill cry of anguish, and she made a tremendous effort to remove herself from his orbit, hampered by her skirts though she did manage to put an overstuffed chair between herself and him, almost tipping it over in the process.

  “I dunno wot’s got inter ’er, Mr McTavish,” Grace whimpered. “One minute she were right as rain, then she walks inter this room, an’ next ‘fing she’s…like this.” The confusion on Grace’s face must mirror his, he thought. He glanced back at Lily, whose hair was in disarray as she raked her fingers through it, disregarding the effort she must have made that morning to fashion it into the stylish ringlets that tumbled down her back.

  “Lily, you need to lie down. Rest,” he tried to soothed. “Take my hand and let me help you up.” She seemed insensible to him, but he couldn’t leave her cowering on the floor like some wild creature. He was frightened, but clearly not as much as she was. Her eyes were glazed with fear, and she looked at him as if he were the devil himself.

  “Make them go away!” she screamed, covering her face with her hands, and hunkering into herself, resisting his offer of help and swatting away his hand when he tried a second time.

  “Make what go away? What is it, Lily? What are you frightened of?” he tried again, his desperation rising, unable to make sense of the situation.

  “The flowers!” she shrieked. “They’re evil! They want to punish me! Kill me! If you don’t get rid of them this instant, they’re going to kill me; I know it!”

  “Flowers? What flowers?” he asked, inching forwards so that he might be ready to seize her and draw her to her feet to comfort her, or at least help her to bed or somewhere she could lie down. There was nothing else to be done, except call the doctor. And he couldn’t do that until Lily was properly restrained.

  “There!” With her eyes averted, she stabbed a finger at the walls. Hamish and Grace exchanged glances, for the floral-covered wallpaper seemed to present the only flowers he could see.

  He put his head close to her ear and murmured, “Darling, there are no evil flowers that would do you harm. Only the flowers on the wallpaper.”

  “They’re the ones!” she shrieked, becoming more agitated. “The flowers on the wallpaper.” She ventured a look at him before hunching back into herself, covering her eyes again as if unable to confront the horror of the spectacle before her and sobbing, “They’ve come to kill me! To punish me!”

  “To punish you? To begin with, they are inanimate. They are drawings. You must try to calm yourself.”

  He felt helpless. Nothing he said was getting through to her. Her sobbing had grown louder, and she was now lying in a heap, her hair a tangled mess after she’d torn at it in her attempts to ward off whatever it was that was threatening her.

  “And no one is going to punish you. You’re a good, honest woman who has never done any harm to anyone.” He had to reassure her where he could.

  “I’m not, I’m not!” she wailed. “And now he’s sent the flowers to kill me! I knew he’d find me. I knew he’d never let me be happy!” The pain of her distress was equally painful to Hamish, he was sure. This was the woman he realised only recently that he loved, though he’d been drawn to her for much longer. He crouched down beside her, indicating with a nod to Grace to move slowly to her other side so that she could help him.

  The hand he put on her arm was reassuring and soothing. He didn’t want to use force if he could help it. Surely his words would get through to her.

  “No one is out to kill you, Lily. I won’t let them. And I’m here now, to protect you. Who is it you’re afraid of?”

  “My husband! He wants to kill me! He wants me dead, and now he’s sent his soldiers!”

  Hamish put his mouth to her ear as he snaked an arm about her, trying to get the leverage to draw her up sufficiently so he could carry her to her bed, if he had to.

  “Who is your husband, Lily?” he whispered.

  “Robert! Sir Robert! He has always been angry with me. Especially when I became sick. He hates me, and now he’s sent his soldier flowers to kill me!”

  “Sir Robert Bradden? That’s your husband, isn’t it, Lily dearest?” Hamish asked softly and she tensed, staring at him with eyes burning with fear.

  “You know him?” she asked. “You know my husband? Has he sent you to kill me?”

  With another shriek, she hurled herself out of his arms, heedless of the broken glass beneath the windowsill, picking up the lamp that sat upon a l
ow table, blood dripping from a cut she’d just sustained to her hand.

  Before hurling the lamp with full force across the room—at his head.

  Hamish ducked, just in time, the lamp shattering just as there was a loud banging on the doorway.

  “Lily!” Hamish cried more urgently as he made another attempt to comfort her. “I’m here. It’s all right, my love.” It didn’t matter what she’d just done. She hadn’t tried to injure him out of malice. All Hamish wanted was to help her.

  “Sir! The doctor’s ’ere, praise the lord!”

  Then Hamish was being edged aside as a young man crouched beside Lily, opening his leather bag and selecting a vial of powder. “Grace. Fetch water!” he demanded, with barely a look at Hamish. “We need to get this into your mistress before she does herself any more harm.”

  Helplessly, Hamish gave the doctor room so he could tend to his patient. “Will she be all right?” His throat felt thick with fear.

  The young man glanced up at him, raking him with a considering look. He was in his shirtsleeves and looked as if he’d been summoned from a sporting match, for his light blonde hair was slicked back, and there were sweat marks on his shirt. “I was playing tennis, but I came as quickly as I could,” he explained, following Hamish’s gaze. “As to how the patient will fare, depends.” He weighed up his words. “If she’s kept sedated, she will be unlikely to harm herself or others.” He nodded at Grace. “You’ll do everything that needs to be done, won’t you, Grace? You’re a good girl.”

  “Yes, Dr Swithins. ‘Fank yer, Dr Swithins,” she whispered.

  Turning back to Hamish, the doctor shook his head. “Sometimes patients in her situation enjoy a year or two of relative stability. But when the insanity is upon them once more, there’s no telling if they’ll ever recover.”

  Hamish glanced from the doctor to Gracie, who sent him a stricken look. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.