Her Ladyship's Companion (20 page)

Excerpt from the letter of
Cecilia Luffington to Melissa Rivenwood, August 10, 1818

Melissa was already stripped to her damp shift when Betty arrived.

“Cook’s sent you up one of her tisanes to help you sleep,” Betty said. She clucked sympathetically at the slim figure shivering in front of her. “Would you like a nice hot bath?”

“Too much of water hath she already,” Melissa joked weakly, sitting down to pull off her wet stockings. With uncharacteristic untidiness she rolled them into little sodden balls and tossed them into a corner. “Tomorrow morning maybe. I’m too tired tonight.” She looked dubiously at the cup Betty held. “Do you suppose I should drink that? The last thing I need tonight is something to make me sleep.”

“Cook made it up special,” Betty said.

“And we can’t hurt Cook’s feelings,” Melissa concluded for her. “Worlds may crumble and empires topple to dust all around us, but we mustn’t offend the cook. She means it for the best, I’m sure.”

Melissa took the cup and, planning to get it over quickly, swallowed the mixture all in one draft. It was, as she expected, noxious in the extreme. She gagged. When she recovered somewhat, she asked, “I don’t suppose anyone ever dies of these brews Cook’s so fond of concocting?” She examined the dregs in the bottom of the cup. What a memorable taste.

Betty smiled very faintly. “Not that I know of. But folks around here don’t get sick so often either.”

“Commendably foresighted of them.”

Melissa stood quietly and allowed Betty to remove the last of her clothing and wrap her in one of the long flannel nightgowns she’d brought from school. The maid toweled her hair dry and steered the girl, groggy from weariness, toward the bed.

“Get some sleep, miss,” she said, blowing out the candle and tiptoeing from the room as from a sick chamber.

Melissa, lying under the covers, should have been snuffed into sleep as quickly as the candle. Perversely she’d no sooner laid head to pillow than her mind took on that nervous excitement and crystal clarity which are the hallmarks of the insomniac. The curtains on her window opened slightly, and flashes of lightning intermittently created a widening strip of spectral light running across the floor of the room. Melissa sighed and rolled over on her stomach. There was a highly unpleasant taste in her mouth. She’d been afraid to ask what the tisane contained. Judging from its flavor, the ingredients had spent a great deal of time lurking on the bottom of brackish pools.

Melissa lay on her side and watched the fire writhe as the roaring wind outside whipped a gale up the chimney. It was hopeless trying to sleep in this mood. Melissa sat up in bed in the darkness, her knees under her chin. Something was bothering her, something more than the churning in her stomach caused by the cook’s kindly meant interference with her digestion.

It was as if she were trying to remember something. But what? Was there some important thing she’d forgotten to do? It was no good trying to sleep until she’d sorted out whatever was bothering her.

Melissa crawled out of bed and dragged on her scratchy bed robe. It was a brown workaday garment, nearly shapeless from many washings. She lit a taper from the fire and ventured down the hall.

The schoolroom was dimly lit by a single lamp. Though the house could hardly be called silent under the lash of the raging elements, the room had an atmosphere of hush. She opened the door to Robbie’s room. He slept quietly. Nanny sat next to him, dozing in her chair. Melissa closed the door again without disturbing them. There was no trouble there. Where did her uneasiness lie?

She stood motionless in the schoolroom, gazing into the embers. She was very close to it now, she felt sure. Something about the scene bothered her obscurely. Something had happened, earlier. The picture grew in the depths of her mind. She’d set a plate down, here, next to the tray. The tray had glowed white next to the lamp. The chocolate pot went there. Nanny had been talking. Had she offered biscuits around? No, that had been Harold.

Before that then. She’d poured chocolate. Anna had been greedy with the toast. Anna. Was that what was bothering her? No. She meant to leave anyway. Anna was nothing to her.

Before that, what had she done? She’d poured chocolate for herself and for Robbie. She set his mug down here. And Nanny had been talking to Lady Dorothy. Melissa ran her left hand to one spot on the table and stood transfixed. Nanny had put the laudanum bottle down here. A brown bottle, nearly full. Melissa remembered having noticed the many candlelights in the room burning within it in miniature.

In the half-light of the schoolroom she sucked in her breath, trembling as if she’d been struck. That was it! When she’d handed the bottle back to Giles, rather, when he’d grabbed it from her so rudely, she was sure, perfectly sure, that the fluid had sloshed back and forth in the bottle. It had splashed against the sides because the bottle was only half full. But that was impossible.

Melissa looked down at the table. Her hand was still on the polished walnut where she’d picked up the laudanum bottle.

Robbie’s chocolate had tasted so peculiar. But no one in his right mind would give a boy half a bottle of opium. That was enough to kill three grown men.

No one would do that. Unless he meant to kill him.

If Robbie had sunk into a stupor tonight and died before morning, wouldn’t everyone assume it was some internal injury, the aftereffects of the shock of cold water, a blow on the head? No one would have suspected.

Or if a boy had suffocated in an accidental fire ... Or if he were killed by a careless shot during a robbery attempt ...

There was something else. She chased the thought around in her mind until she caught it. Robbie had insisted the board he slipped on had been sound when he went across the bridge, but had broken away free when he came back. Had someone pried it up?

How many times did Robbie have to tell her that someone was out to kill him?

Not just someone. There had been only six of them in the schoolroom when the chocolate had been poured. If Robbie’s chocolate had been tampered with, there were very few candidates.

Melissa looked down at her hands. What if the doctor found traces of poisoning? She knew little of such matters; perhaps the signs were unmistakable. If it were discovered, who would be blamed but the stupid nanny who’d misjudged the dosage? Truly her actions had been convenient for someone tonight.

Wait. She was building a huge structure on very little foundation. She had only a single vagrant memory and a lot of conjecture. Perhaps she’d been misled by some trick of light.

Melissa pulled her robe tightly around her and hastened out of the schoolroom. The laudanum would be back in the housekeeper’s cabinet, wouldn’t it? If the bottle were full, then she would have merely imagined the whole thing. If the bottle were half empty ... She didn’t want to think about that. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to find Robbie’s cup and the remains of the chocolate in it. Perhaps she could have the contents tested. There would be some way to prove all this.
If
there were anything to prove.

If there were villainy here, by God, she wouldn’t be silenced. Not unless she walked too close to the edge of the cliffs, like poor Miss Coburn.

Her bare feet padded on the cold polished oak floors. She ran down the empty halls, shielding her candle with her hand, down the long, curving front staircase, along the side corridor, past the library to the housekeeper’s room. It was unlocked, of course. None of the rooms in Vinton was locked.

She looked for the cabinet where the medicines were stored. A long mirror ran down one side of the room, hanging over a long, unpadded bench. The rest of the room was taken up by a great desk loaded with account books and stacks of papers. At the back of the room was a little wooden case. That must be what she was seeking. The reflection of her candle sparkled back at her in the mirror as she crossed the room to open the case. There was no lock there either.

Creams and ointments in little bottles, glass jars full of dried herbs. They all were labeled in spidery handwriting. Then, on the bottom shelf, were patent medicines, blue pills, James’s powders, openers, more smelly creams. There it was, the little brown bottle from the chemist’s, alcoholic tincture of opium, laudanum. Giles had been here before her and put it back.

She pulled it out very carefully and lifted it before the candle.

What a fool she’d been. It was full. Of course it was full.

What had she expected, some dire plot? Real life wasn’t like that. So much for all these flights of fancy. A few accidents, and her mind became as blithering as any of the addlepated heroines in lending library novels. There was no poisoning, no plot to kill the young earl, no villain lurking behind the arras. Nothing. Only a slightly stupid schoolteacher half-dead on her feet from worry and fatigue, who couldn’t even see straight anymore, much less think logically.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She put the bottle back on the shelf and closed the cupboard. Now she could go back to her room and get some sleep. The frenzied fear that had been holding her exhausted body upright evaporated. She sagged against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut, then sat on the bench.

How tired she was. She’d have to get up soon and retrace her steps through the cold corridors back to her bedroom. And it had all been for nothing. But still, she saw that vivid picture of Giles urging Robbie to drink the chocolate and the way he’d almost grabbed the bottle away from her, the way he’d dumped the mug out so quickly. Her thoughts were a confused jumble of suspicions. How utterly absurd, though. Giles was no murderer. You had only to look at his eyes to see that.

She thought about looking into his eyes. Then she thought about the way she had felt when he kissed her. It was too bad ...

She shook herself sternly. Unforgivable foolishness. Nothing lay in that direction but heartbreak or ruin, except perhaps ruin combined with heartbreak. Still, it was a pity.

She shivered. The draft up the chimney in this room was truly amazing. The curtains were twisting like live things.

Well, of course, they were; the window was open. The footmen had been careless. Today, of all days, it was forgivable.

Melissa worked the taper into a holder and pushed the heavy draperies back. She fumbled with the catch that propped the casement window open.

The second she had it loose the wind tore the casement from her hands and slammed it back into the ivy next to the window. Melissa cursed and leaned far out the window, trying to catch hold of it and pull it shut. The rain beat in her eyes and ran down her neck. She shuddered uncontrollably. No need to worry about Robbie’s getting pneumonia; at this rate she’d have it herself. Her fingers slipped and slid along the wet glass of the casement. Every time she had it the wind fought it away from her again.

There. The long, damp drapes lay heavily on her shoulders as she knelt on the window seat and used all her strength to hold the window halfway closed. Where, oh, where, in all this thrice-bedamned darkness was the window latch?

She could hear voices. Was someone in the hall? Were they looking for her? No. She should have remembered. This was Anna’s favorite listening post. The library, with Giles’s office, was right on the other side of the wall, and you could hear conversations from one room to the other. Giles must still be up.

Melissa ran her hand all around the edge of the window. There must be a lock somewhere. Pity they didn’t make all these windows the same way. The rain was blowing into her face. The draperies billowed out into the room from a sudden gust.

Wrestling with the window, she deliberately closed her ears to the clear conversation next door. She didn’t want to eavesdrop. That would be in the worst of taste. But some part of her mind must have been attending. All at once she recognized the voice of the man who was speaking. It wasn’t Giles or Sir Adrian. Her hand went up to her mouth in incredulity. She let the window slip from her numbed hand, and it cracked open again.

She must have made a mistake. Surely she was misled by some chance resemblance in voice, a mere coincidence of the thick country dialect. Even as she strove to convince herself she was mistaken, she knew that her first impulse had been absolutely correct. Speaking in the next room was the man who had robbed their carriage. That was one voice she wasn’t likely to forget.

But what was he doing here? He didn’t sound at all frightened. What did it mean?

Melissa hesitated not at all. The manners of a gentlewoman could be hanged. This might be serious. Unmindful of the storm, she leaned far out the window.

Barely a foot away the library window had been left open an inch. It was enough. She could hear clearly.

“...up te the last, milor’,” the robber was saying. “Then I knew I couldn’t do it. Not put a bullet through the boy’s head, not to zave my life. No zhur. Not if I was transported a dozen times over ver poaching, I couldn’t. He put me in mind of me own brother, milor’, the one thet died young. Had red hair, too, he did. If ye want murder done, I zay, get zum London man te do it. Ver I’ve not the zpleen ver it. An’ zho I tol’ me mate Tim. If it makes me less a man, I’ll still stand by it. It’s one thin’ te take a zhot er two at a gamekeeper er a bloody exciseman en another te kill a boy in cold blood, and a belted earl at that, if ye get me drift. I don’t make no excuses ver goin’ back on me word, nor not ver promisin’ what I did. Yer in no position te judge me.”

Melissa, crouched beside the window in the next room, bit the back of her hand as hard as she could, not noticing the pain. Her brain beat out the rhythm “This is murder, murder, murder.” He was saying those things to Giles. And Giles was listening. Giles was doing nothing at all.

Giles answered in a voice devoid of emotion, “I may be in no position to judge you, Turner. But I’d advise you not to try crossing me.”

“Aye. As ye zay, milor’. But there’s things I’d have te zay thet ye wouldn’t wan’ te hear, not out in open court. Where’s yer honner then, eh, Yer Honner?” There was a sniggering laugh.