Death of a Dowager (25 page)

Chapter 54

I woke a short time later to the sound of Lucy humming a sweet tune.

“Hello, dear heart,” she said, as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurts.” That was all I could say.

“Cook has made a lovely beef tea for you. We’ll have Sadie bring it up. Mr. Lerner says you must take as much of it as you can.” She smiled at me and stroked my cheek. Turning toward the windows, I realized it was nearly dark outside.

“Ned? Edward? Adèle?” The names came out in a rush.

Despite the drawn look of her features, she laughed, and a brilliant white ruffle framing her face swayed gently. “Bruce will be hurt when he hears he was forgotten. All are well. You’ve been asleep for hours. The men are downstairs. The children are asleep.”

“Lucy, I have good news,” I said. My mouth felt as though I’d been chewing on a strand of wool, but I told her about my visit with Lady Conyngham. “I know it doesn’t sound promising, but I have her word that she and the King will stand up for Evans at his baptism. They’ll serve as his godparents . . . if you want. And if you agree that I should turn over the letter.”

She marveled at me. “You are amazing. After nearly losing your life, you cannot wait to share a plan for protecting me! But that’s enough about the letter. We can talk about it later.”

“But it is safe, isn’t it?”

“When I returned home and heard about your altercation with Mrs. Biltmore, I checked on it. The letter is inside the strongbox, behind the painting, and that horrid woman has been incarcerated.”

She filled a glass with water, put in two drops of laudanum, brought it to my lips, and helped me drink. After I did, I said, “I know you worry about Maria Fitzherbert and Minney, but if I don’t give the Marchioness the letter, she and Miss Ingram will work together to ruin you!”

Lucy gave me a tender look. “Hush, Jane. Do not distress yourself so. I spoke to Maria about the letter. That was one reason for my visit.”

“You did what?”

“She already knew about it. Carlton House is full of courtiers who have no loyalty to the King. They will report anything they hear to anyone who offers them a coin or two. The Duke of York has several persons there who work for him, and he told Maria what was happening.”

“And what did she say?”

“She, more than anyone in the world, knows the King. She had expected something like this. Maria is no fool, and she had sensed there was danger in the air. With the populace already angry about how the King has treated Caroline of Brunswick—and with word coming daily of the tremendous sums he is spending on his coronation—they could easily be convinced to riot against him in the streets.”

“But she came here to London and appeared openly with her daughter!”

“Yes, she did. She came to meet with the Duke of York to beg his assistance. If the letter is made public, she plans to flee the country.” Lucy spoke with such calm and such resolution that I knew she and Maria Fitzherbert must have discussed this at length. My friend was far too settled in her discourse for me to believe that she harbored any questions as to the correctness of this plan.

“And she is happy with this course of action? This resolution?”

Lucy had been staring down at her fingers. Now she lifted her chin and fixed her gaze on a spot outside the window, someplace far away from here. “She is at peace with her decision. It is the only way.”

“But?” I heard the hesitation in my friend’s voice.

“But Minney refuses to go along. She will not leave the young man she wants to marry. He is in the Army, and if he were to quit the country, he would be a deserter.”

I had thought the matter was settled. I had worked it out in my mind. I planned to hand the letter to Lady Conyngham and free Lucy from this curse. And now, once again, I was confused—and the laudanum made matters even worse, as I struggled against it.

I knew that I must weigh my loyalty to my friend against fairness to a young woman I had met only once, a young woman in love.

“But Lucy, if I don’t give Lady Conyngham the letter, she and Miss Ingram will conspire to ruin you.”

“They can only ruin me if I care about being accepted by the ton.” She stood up and began pacing the room, a habit she indulged when she was thinking through a problem. “Your visit has forced me to reevaluate all that I once thought important. When I came back from a morning call and discovered my dear friend had been stabbed, my conversion was complete. You must understand, Jane, I turned to the ton for entertainment, affection, and companionship when I recognized that Augie might never be allowed to leave India. But since you and your family have welcomed me into your lives, I have come to realize that I don’t care about the ton. They mean nothing to me. You and Edward and Adèle and Ned do! My true friends won’t desert me, no matter how society shuns me.”

When she returned to the chair beside my bed, her face was calm. I could tell she had given this much thought, and I was glad she found resolution.

“What about their accusations?” I asked.

“They cannot prove an action that never happened. They might try, but they can’t. And thanks to Mary Ingram’s accusation of Mr. Lerner, the whole of Bow Street knows the Ingram girls are prone to making spurious assertions. No, I say either give the letter to Lady Conyngham or burn it. That wretched pile of papers has caused too much grief for you . . . and for me. It’s a cursed thing; Maria feels the same. Minney and her young man will have to work out what they want to do. There is the possibility that the Duke of York can secure for him a foreign posting. We shall see. But again . . . I counsel you to burn it. Or do what you will with it. But you cannot protect me. Or Maria. Or her daughter.”

Sadie brought in a tray loaded with tea, wafer-thin crackers, and a tureen of wonderful-smelling soup. “Mr. Rochester asked me to fetch him when you were awake, ma’am.”

“I’ll go get him.” Lucy planted a kiss on my cheek before she left.

Moments later, my husband came to the door, holding Ned in his arms. “Look, little man. There’s your mother! You have a surprise for her, don’t you?”

“Ma-ma!” said Ned. I almost melted with happiness.

“I taught him that.” Adèle peeped out from behind them. “I was very worried about you!”

The French girl launched herself at me, but Edward caught the back of her sash and stopped her in her tracks. “
Faites attention! Doucement!
”

“Just for a while,
ma petite
,” I assured Adèle. “I am hurt, but I will heal.”

Amelia appeared in the doorway. “Time for your bath and bed, Young Master. You can come and help me, Little Miss. I’m awful glad you weren’t hurt too much, ma’am. Awful glad.”

When the door closed behind her, at long last, my husband and I were alone.

“How are you?” He uncurled my fingers and kissed the palm of my hand.

“Weak. My head is muddled. My side hurts, and I am confused. Edward? Why did you not tell me that you once fought a duel?”

“Oh? So you heard about that.” I had caught him off-guard. He did not drop my hand, but he relaxed his grasp. “It is one of the many foolish incidents of my youth. One where my temper prevailed upon my good sense, and I paid the price for it.”

“So . . . did you? Fight another man?”

“I did not. I was waiting there at dawn, hands shaking and knees quaking, wondering what I had gotten myself into when John crept up behind me and threw a potato sack over my head. Oh, I railed and struck out at him, but all the while I secretly blessed him for saving me from myself. Why do you ask?”

I explained about my worries when the King summoned me. I also told him about Lady Conyngham’s promise that she and the King would stand up as Evans’s godparents in return for the letter.

Edward’s mouth puckered with surprise. “Did she really?”

“Wouldn’t that make a difference to society?”

“It certainly would. A child is to have three godparents, so the King, the Marchioness, and Mr. Douglas could all stand up for Evans. By the laws of the Church, the godparents are auxiliary parents, whose charge is to assure the child a proper spiritual upbringing. No one could argue that Evans wasn’t desirable after that sort of public commitment. Actually, dear girl, it’s a brilliant idea,” he said, stroking my jawline with the knuckle of his good hand.

“But Lucy says she doesn’t care,” I said, and I told him how she had decided the ton did not matter to her.

“Ah,” said my husband. “But when Evans arrives, she may change her mind. A child forces you to consider your life in context. At least, that is what Ned has done for me.”

I related what Lucy had told me about Maria Fitzherbert and Minney Seymour. “So you see, dear husband, I cannot help Lucy without hurting them. Nor can I be assured that Lucy will not be charged with the Dowager Ingram’s death. If it were up to Mr. Waverly—”

“It would be disregarded summarily as ridiculous. He knows what the Ingram daughters are about,” Edward finished for me. “But if the chief magistrate is pressured, who knows what might happen?”

“Edward, I have no idea what to do. None.” I gripped his hand hard, hoping that his strength would transfer to me.

“Then let it rest, Jane. For this evening at least, let it go.”

And I did.

Chapter 55

The next morning, Sadie brought me a poached egg, toast, beef broth, and tea. Although I still felt weak, the breakfast was a help. Polly, that mistress of fashion and of aid to the injured, came a half hour later. “Mr. Lerner told me to check your wound and see how it’s doing. I’m going to dab it with honey. Me mum says it helps with the healing.”

Polly was nearly done tending to me when Lucy rapped lightly on the door. “How are you this morning?”

“Better, and I’m determined that there has to be a way around these accusations of murder, as well as the difficulty with the letter. While I am confined to lying down, I plan to apply my mind to both problems. Would you be so kind as to bring me my pencil and sketch pad? It might help me to think. Oh, and can you bring me that book on flowers from your library? The one I was looking at before?”

All morning I worked on adding vines and blossoms to the piece I was doing for Evans. After puzzling over the letter and devising no solution for dealing with it, I decided that solving the mystery of Lady Ingram’s death would at least go a long way toward safeguarding my friend’s reputation.

I decided I should review the facts, in case we had all overlooked some fundamental bit of logic. Some discrepancy. Something out of place. Something missing that should be there. “
Qui bene?
” I asked myself. Who stood to benefit from the Dowager’s death? If the Dowager Lady Ingram was an impediment, whose way did she block? How would her death benefit anyone? And why did she need to die right now?

What did the Dowager Lady Ingram represent? Why was she perceived as an insurmountable threat?

To Lady Grainger’s staff, the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters presented a short-term inconvenience. There was no reason to kill Lady Ingram, because eventually the Ingrams would move on.

To Lucy, Lady Ingram was an obstacle, regarding her social standing. But Lucy derived no benefit from killing Lady Ingram. My friend was hoping for a truce with the Dowager. And Lucy knew nothing about the changes to Lady Grainger’s will. Furthermore, Lucy never had the opportunity to poison the coffee. She had held the tin but briefly before passing it along.

To Lady Conyngham, Lady Ingram was simply another visitor. The Marchioness had engineered the visit at Lady Grainger’s as an opportunity to take my measure. She had no reason to poison Lady Ingram.

To Lady Grainger, her sister-in-law and nieces were an annoyance, but nothing more. She exerted control over her brother’s family, because she held the purse strings. So she had no reason to poison her sister-in-law.

To the Honorable Blanche Ingram, her mother was her ally, her help in continuing her whirlwind life as an unmarried member of the ton. As long as Lady Ingram was alive, mother and daughter could share in the excitement of Blanche’s popularity.

To Mary Ingram, her mother was the facilitator of a fantasy. As long as Mr. Lerner treated Lady Ingram, Miss Mary could continue to see the young doctor—and hope that one day he would fall in love with her. Therefore, she had no reason to poison her mother.

All right, Jane
, I said to myself.
You have run into a dead end. What would you advise a student working on a maths problem?

I would suggest that my student approach the conundrum from a different angle.

What if . . . ?
I knew these to be the two most powerful words in any creative person’s vocabulary. What if I paint the sky like this? What if I add the sound of bells to this piece of music? What if I carve around the flaw in this piece of marble?

What if . . . ?

What if the poisoning had been accidental? What if no one had ever intended for Lady Ingram to die?

Chapter 56

I allowed this question to take up residence in my mind. I did not try to shoo it away or force it to bear fruit. I simply allowed it tenancy as I continued to work with my pencil, occasionally switching to my pen when the results were pleasing. After a while, I grew tired of the daisies and roses that I was adding. My artwork demanded a different shape, so I flipped through Augie’s wonderful book on garden plants. I considered this blossom and that, rejecting each in turn, until I happened upon foxglove. The slender thimble-shaped flowers would contrast nicely with the others I had drawn.

Foxglove. Also known as fairy caps, fairy bells, fairy fingers, and lady’s glove. The selfsame biennial herb that Miss Mary had hacked to the ground in Lady Grainger’s garden.

Why would she have done such a thing? Although I had visited many rooms in Lady Grainger’s house, I had not seen one bouquet of fresh flowers. Not one. So what had happened with all those plants? The stubble left behind suggested a fulsome harvest. Where did they all go?

And what was it that Polly told me? Something that Dorsey had said about the younger Miss Ingram leaving a mess in the kitchen.

Why would Miss Mary do such a thing?

Miss Mary, who followed Mr. Lerner around like a lovesick puppy. Miss Mary, who wanted to prove to Mr. Lerner that she would make a good doctor’s wife. Miss Mary, who craved her mother’s approval. Miss Mary, who badly needed her mother to put down her foot, to demand that her sister quit shilly-shallying around and at long last marry someone. Why would Miss Mary cut down an entire stand of foxglove and take it into Lady Grainger’s kitchen?

Unless . . . unless she planned a use for it!

Then I realized what if Miss Mary picked up errant papers from Mr. Lerner’s satchel? She might have read his notes concerning the titration of foxglove, otherwise known as digitalis. And thinking she could follow the instructions, she might have tried to brew a tincture herself. What better way could Mary prove her potential as a doctor’s wife, much less win her mother’s affection, than to cure the woman of problems with her heart?