The Duke she Desires

by Violet Hamers

  She knew that the maid would not be able to abscond without notice until then, but Lavinia had no idea how to entertain herself in the interim. Her mind would not focus on literature, and she knew that reading her notes would only send her to sleep, and ruin the whole plan.

  When the clock finally struck ten and the household retired, Lavinia was so affected by nerves that she practically ran to the duke’s chambers and jumped into his wardrobe. She was still shaking with fear and anticipation when the door to the chambers opened twenty minutes later, and in crept the petite, shadowed figure of the maidservant known as Leslie.

  Leslie was carrying a small bottle and a teaspoon in her hands, and her eyes were wide and her steps quick as she made her way toward the duke’s bed. It was clear from the way she walked directly to the bed that she was familiar with the room, which made sense, of course. She must have visited at least three nights by now to poison Peter with whatever was in that bottle.

  Lavinia watched Leslie remove the cork from the bottle, making a small popping sound.

  Do I jump out now? She wondered, but decided against it a moment later when the maid set the bottle and spoon down on the table by the duke’s bedside. She took a seat in the chair adjacent to the table and wiped her hands on her nightdress.

  “I’m sorry, Sir, but I’ve got no choice,” she whispered, laying a hand on Peter’s bedcovers briefly before reaching for the bottle and spoon.

  Now! Lavinia jumped out of the wardrobe with a cry, her hands raised and her eyes wild.

  Leslie turned and dropped the bottle, which fell to the ground and immediately burst into hundreds of tiny pieces of glass scattered all about the chair.

  Leslie put her hands over her face and ducked down, as though worried that Lavinia might fly directly at her face like a bird.

  If only. Though Lavinia still suspected the girl had been preyed on by someone who took advantage of her vulnerability, she couldn’t help feel the unjust urge to scratch the girl’s eyes out for trying to kill her love.

  Thankfully, her good sense kept her from doing so, and instead of scratching Leslie, she grabbed her hands and drew her into a standing position. Then, she hastily tied her hands together with a bit of ribbon she had stashed in her pocket in the event that she did in fact apprehend a poisoner, and needed to detain them while she called for reinforcements.

  A ring of the bell brought Stevens, still in his butler tail and coat which looked as stiffly starched as they had at eight that morning. Lavinia didn’t have time to marvel at this example of sartorial mastery. Instead, she said, “Ring the constable, please, Stevens. This maid has just tried to poison and kill His Grace.”

  “No! Please!” Leslie shouted, her voice high and squeaky. “Please, don’t take me away. I didn’t mean it! He made me do it!”

  “Who?” Stevens and Lavinia both asked at the same time.

  “Him with the bushy beard and the freckled face. Wouldn’t tell me his name, but he offered me a year’s wages if I helped him. I didn’t think he wanted me to kill the duke, though! Just make him a bit sick for a while,” she said.

  “And you accepted this offer?” Lavinia asked, rage coloring her tone and making the girl shrink back, or at least attempt to, since Lavinia was still gripping the ribbon that tied her hands together.

  “Yes. My mum’s real sick, you see. The surgeon told us she needed a special treatment, and none of us can afford it. She’ll die if she doesn’t get it, miss. And I don’t want my mum to die.”

  “So you would have the duke die instead?” Stevens asked, and Lavinia was gratified to hear a similar level of anger in his voice to hers.

  “No! I mean, I don’t know…” Leslie said, shaking her head, tears falling from her eyes. “He was very mean to me, and the man with the beard told me he deserved it. Said the duke deserved to die, and me mum deserved to live. I was so angry at the duke for yelling at me, and so scared of the man with the beard, that I said yes. And then he gave me that bottle of poison and said to give the duke two spoonfuls every night for a week,” Leslie said, nodding over her shoulder at the remains of the bottle of poison by the bed.

  “Man with a beard? Stevens, have we had anyone in the house lately who might meet with that description?” Lavinia asked, confused. She couldn’t recall seeing anyone with noticeable facial hair or a particularly freckled face in the last week. But then, most of her attention had been focused on Peter, first on helping him walk, then on tending to him in his sickbed.

  Lavinia noticed the color drain from Stevens face. “The Marquess,” he muttered. “Of Stafwood,” he clarified to Lavinia. “It’s him, or rather, his manservant. He was so angry when he left, and I spied one of his footmen helping him into the carriage. The man had the skin of a child who spent too much time in the sun, but the beard of a man twice his age. I thought it rather odd at the time, but dismissed it. But it’s him. I know it is.”

  “So you think it’s his butler, rather than the marquess?” Lavinia asked.

  Stevens shook his head. “I think the marquess forced the butler to do his foul deeds. He’s a very rich gentleman, you see. He could convince anyone to do anything with all the coin in his coffers. He must have sent the butler to convince our maid to murder the duke in the marquess’s stead. But of course the marquess’s name wouldn’t be mentioned, so the crime could not be traced back to him.”

  “So it’s not my fault, then? You’ll tell the constable it was the marquess’s, won’t you?” Leslie said, but her words fell on deaf ears. Lavinia and Stevens were far too busy contemplating the aftereffects of accusing one of the most powerful gentlemen with the most powerful temper of murder.

  God help us.

  A knock at the door sounded.

  “It’s the constable! Open up, I say!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Magdalene was sound asleep when the banging started. At first, she thought it only a part of her dream, of the sound of the horse’s hooves beneath her as she thundered down the walking trails of Hyde Park.

  She’d always wanted to ride there, but her father forbid it without a chaperone, and Magdalene positively hated her chaperone. She was an older woman named Miss Paula, who had once been her mother’s nursemaid. Miss Paula fell asleep approximately every hour and hated horses with a passion, calling them “wild beasts” who stole women’s virtue and created far more filth than they were worth.

  Riding with Miss Paula was, therefore, a nightmare, which is why Magdalene so adored the dreams where she was riding free. She loved the feeling of having no encumbrances or chaperones stopping her from feeling the wind in her hair, the swish of her skirts flying out behind her.

  But then the banging continued, and Magdalene woke up to find it was coming from the ground floor of her house.

  There were muffled words being shouted through the door as well, which was rather a rude thing to do at this time of night.

  Falling back onto her pillow, she assumed that one of the servants would answer whatever wastrel was trying to beg from them at this hour. However, sleep did not return to her, because the door was opened a moment later and she heard the words, “Marquess of Stafwood, come immediately to the ground floor. It is a matter of utmost urgency.”

  That had Magdalene jumping out of bed and shrugging on her robe as she grabbed a candlestick and a match. Her hands were shaking as she struck the match, and she broke two before finally getting the candle lit.

  She had thought her father had been acting oddly pleased with himself these last few days, especially given the revelation she had thrust upon them the week before. However, she had naively assumed that perhaps one of his investments had returned more profits than he initially suspected, or that perhaps he had a particularly lucky night gambling at the club.

  Now, however, she wondered whether her suspicions that his happiness was not due to more devious actions might not be true.

  Magdalene therefore took her time on the staircase, not wanting to confront her family’s fat
e before it was absolutely necessary.

  Still, the confrontation did eventually come, in the form of her father being held, arms behind his back, by a constable, while a man she quickly recognized as the Duke of Kingwood’s butler stood by watching with a deep frown on his face.

  There was a woman present as well, though Magdalene could not immediately place her. She was wearing the ugliest gown she’d ever seen, and looked as though she had not slept in days. Despite these failings, however, Magdalene could see that she was a pretty woman, perhaps even beautiful with the right coiffure and dress.

  “I didn’t do it! You can’t prove anything!” her father yelled in response to something the constable said. As usual, her father was yelling, therefore obscuring whatever it was the constable was saying at a normal volume.

  “Maggie!” her father said, causing the whole party to suddenly turn toward her in unison. “Tell them I didn’t do it!”

  “Didn’t do what? What is going on, Father? Why are you being restrained by a constable? And what is the duke’s butler doing here?” she asked, looking from one agitated face to the next.

  The woman seemed to be the most willing to answer, and she stepped forward and around Magdalene’s father and explained, “We are here because we have good reason to believe that your father hired a maid to poison the Duke of Kingwood. P… I mean, His Grace, has been bedridden with fever for days, and has not responded to any of my treatments.”

  “Your treatments?” Magdalene asked, glossing over the fact that the woman had nearly uttered the duke’s Christian name. That in itself was odd, but the use of the word “treatments” from a member of the female sex was far more so. “What do you mean, your treatments? Treatments for what?” she asked, though she answered her own question a moment later.

  “You’re the physician, aren’t you?” she asked. The realization had come as she asked the question, resulting in her not being able to lace her words with the appropriate amount of derision this woman was clearing deserving of.

  Therefore, the woman smiled at her and nodded. “Yes. My name is Miss Lavinia Bell. My father is the duke’s family physician, but he brought me in to treat one of the duke’s fevers, and I have stayed on to help treat his leg injuries. He was doing quite well, until...” she trailed off, clearly not wanting to go into much detail about the current state of Peter’s health.

  So this was the upstart bluestocking who thought herself more skilled, more knowledgeable, than all the physicians Magdalene’s father had paid good money to tend to the Duke.

  Magdalene had disliked this woman on principle before, since she abhorred all women who tried to rise above their station. But now that she saw who Miss Lavinia Bell was, she loathed her to her very core.

  Not only was this woman accusing her father of murder, but she had also been so indecorous as to nearly call the duke by his Christian name, something reserved for only the most intimate of his acquaintances. Which meant that either the duke and Miss Bell had managed to get very intimate indeed in the last week or so, or this woman was in love.

  Magdalene’s engagement, or lack thereof, was no longer the only scandal her family had to worry about. If she was not careful, her father would bring true shame on the family, outweighing any that might have come as a result of her now being unwed.

  “Constable,” she said, turning away from Miss Bell and back toward her father and the man restraining him. She give him her most intoxicating smile, which she knew was helped by her long, dark curls falling over her back and bosom.

  “I’m sure there’s been a mistake. My father is a marquess, well-known in society for his charitable endeavors. There is no possible way that he could have had reason or desire to poison the duke.”

  “Well, miss,” the constable said with a distinct cockney accent. “That’s your opinion, but this maidservant’s sayin’ differently,” he said, and pointed to a small, quivering girl that Magdalene had not noticed before. This was most likely due to the fact that the girl was nearly a head shorter than Miss Bell, who she had been hiding behind. It did not help that her grey nightdress and long, mousy brown hair rendered her almost nearly invisible against the similarly wallpaper of the hallway.

  “And you would listen to a maidservant over a lady of my status?” Magdalene asked in her haughtiest tone.

  “If the evidence is there, then yes, m’lady, I would,” the constable told her.

  It appears my charms will not work on him. She scrambled to find an alternate way out of the situation that did not result in her father’s arrest.

  Magdalene was about to open her mouth, hoping useful, productive words would come out, when Miss Bell began to speak, effectively interrupting her.

  “Please, Constable, can you question the marquess and the servant? I need to find out what sort of poison was used so I can return to the duke’s house and administer a cure. His life is hanging in the balance right now, and here we are wasting time with introductions and frivolous statements,” she said, and Magdalene noticed that she looked in her direction when she spoke her last two words.

  “Very well, Miss. Gettin’ tired of restrainin’ this old codger anyway,” the constable said, and his comment was met with a huff of indignation from Magdalene’s father, who had up until now stayed conspicuously silent.

  So he is guilty, she realized with a sinking feeling. The only time her father ever stayed quiet was when he’d truly run afoul of the law, either of the household, or, very rarely, of the government.

  God help us and our reputation, Magdalene prayed as she led the constable into the sitting room.

  “I couldn’t have done it! I was at the club that afternoon. You can ask the guard at the door of St. Heneman’s Gentleman’s Club. His name is Henry. He let me in and directed me to the cloak room. I was there all afternoon and well into the evening!”

  “And what about your butler, then?” Stevens asked. Lavinia was glad to see that the constable caught the marquess’s eyebrows as they rose in surprise, a sure sign of guilt if there ever was one.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Marquess of Stafwood said, sniffing as if the very idea of his butler doing anything untoward was distasteful.

  “Well then,” the constable said, standing up and ringing the bell by the door, “Why don’t we ask the lad ourselves?”

  The door swung open a few minutes later and the marquess’s footman ran into the room, his waistcoat askew and his hair in disarray.

  “You rang, My Lord?” he asked. Initially, he was looking only at the marquess, but Lavinia saw his eyes gradually take in the rest of the scene: the constable standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a mean look in his eye; the maidservant, her hands tied behind her back, seated in one of the chairs. And, of course, she and Lady Magdalene watching over the whole proceedings, one with a look of hope in her eyes, the other with one of calculation.

  The footman began to turn around, no doubt to run, but Lavinia managed to slide toward the door. She grasped the boy about the arm, dragging him back into the room and slamming the door behind him.

  “I’m afraid we need your attendance for just a few minutes longer,” she said, before turning the footman over to the constable, who was already striding toward them.

  It was nearly dawn by now, the early morning light peeking through the gaps in the curtains, and Lavinia wanted nothing so much as a good night’s sleep. Of course, she would not allow herself such a thing until the duke had been tended to, and for that, she needed to find out what poison had been used. So really, this investigation needed to proceed with all expedience, for the duke’s health if not for her own sanity.

  Thankfully, the footman was generous with his words, expelling the truth so quickly one might think he had been choking on it.

  “I did it, I did. But the marquess told me to! Gave me half a year’s wages to ask around the street until I’d found out the name of one of the housemaids. Told me to get to know her a bit, ask her about her life, h
er family. Said all servants have something to exploit,” the footman said, glaring at his master, who glared right back, though he winced when the constable looked over at him.

  “What did he say to tell the girl?” the constable asked.

  “He said to offer her a year’s wages for something, and I knew she’d take it for her mum. Told her to go back and plead to be reinstated in her position, and then to slip the duke a few spoons of arsenic each night until he’d been snuffed out.”

  Though Lavinia could have done without the degrading term for death, she could have kissed the footman for naming the poison so easily.

  “If you will excuse me gentleman and lady,” she said, nodding at Lady Magdalene. “I need to go back and attend to His Grace. I trust, Stevens, that you will see to it that this situation is resolved in a suitable manner?” she asked, turning toward the butler who was sitting on a piano stool, holding his head in his hands.

  He looked up, his face suddenly ten years older than it had looked earlier than night, and send, “Of course, Lavinia. Please, go help him. I will make sure this…” he paused here, clearly having to hold himself back from referring to the marquess with a far ruder term than his address, “criminal gets his comeuppance.”

  “Splendid,” Lavinia said, a small but honest smile taking over her face as she made her way to the door.

  Her smile grew when she closed the door and heard Lady Magdalene screaming, “Dear God no, anything but that! What of our reputation? Our social standing?”

  Clearly, the constable was punishing the marquess and his family exactly the way they deserved.

  She had greatly reformed her opinion of the ton these last two weeks thanks to Peter. Still, Lavinia knew that the marquess’s family were more than deserving of the ire she had previously directed at those of their station. They gave the upper classes a very bad name indeed.