Drops of Gold (12 page)

The horror that darted across Miss Wood’s face pulled a chuckle from Layton. “That, I assure you, is precisely how Bridget felt about it. She couldn’t, of course, be forced to wed the man her father had selected, who was, by the way, fifty if he was a day and about as intelligent as a turnip. Being underage and entirely dependent on her father, Bridget could certainly be coerced. And her father spared no effort in coercing her.”

“Horrible,” he heard Miss Wood mutter.

“Mr. Sarvol is not the most kindhearted of men.” Layton knew that well. He seldom ran across Bridget’s father, but their encounters were inevitably tense and confrontational, just as they had been during Bridget’s lifetime.

Layton pressed ahead with the retelling. “I was already living here at the Meadows at the time Bridget was facing a forced match. I lived here alone and had begun to think it might be nice to have a companion, someone with whom I might share my days. I knew I would inherit my mother’s title after her death, becoming the Baron Farland, and I needed an heir of my own. When Bridget told me of her situation, I thought of the perfect solution. We got along well enough. And, I flattered myself, I was something of an improvement over a portly, bacon-brained man in his sixth decade.”

“A vast improvement.” Miss Wood agreed with so much conviction Layton felt his ears grow a little warm.

“Bridget was ecstatic. We’d always been friends, she pointed out. We liked and trusted and cared for each other. What more, she asked, could a person hope for in marriage?”

Miss Wood didn’t seem entirely convinced.

“Fortunately for our plans, the heir to a barony was quite good enough for her father, seeing as how the older gentleman he’d selected was a mere baronet and not nearly as well connected.” He allowed a generous helping of irony to color his words. “I
am
related to an earl, you know.”

Miss Wood laughed at his mock pomposity, as he’d intended. The sound did him a world of good. Her tears were gone, replaced by a smile.

“I am surprised he didn’t hold out for the earl himself,” Miss Wood said.

“By that time, Philip was gone quite a lot, off fulfilling his duties.”

Miss Wood nodded. “Better a bird in the bag than one in the bush, I suppose.”

“A lowering comparison, Miss Wood. Remind me to consult you if I ever need to be brought down a peg or two.”

“Right-o, guv’nuh!” she said with a laugh and a mischievous wink.

“I was sorely tempted to send you off with a flea in your ear the first time you addressed me that way.” Layton smiled at the memory of her saucy salute.

“I am so glad you didn’t, sir.”

“So am I, Miss Wood. So am I.” And he meant it fiercely in that moment.

She tucked her arm through his, blanket and all, as they walked along the winding path that followed the river. Layton didn’t know what had possessed her to make the gesture, but he gratefully accepted it, pulling her arm a little closer to him.

“So Miss Sarvol’s father accepted your offer and sent the tubby old man packing,” Miss Wood cued him.

“Ah, yes.” When had the telling of this history become so much easier? “Now, ours wasn’t a love match, not in the truest sense of the word, but we were happy. Her father seemed satisfied enough. Though he hardly spared me a glance, he and Bridget wrote to one another when he was in Town.”

Layton told Miss Wood story after story of that first year of his marriage as they continued to walk. He spoke of the time he and Bridget had raced on horseback and Bridget had beaten him by more than a horse length and could not be convinced he hadn’t let her win. He told her of the time the vicar had come for tea and, much to his and Bridget’s shock and eventual amusement, spent a full two hours declaring the house, the furnishings, and the color of Bridget’s dress too “worldly” and suggested they’d do well to address their obvious struggle with pride. Layton recounted the myriad experiences that had built their connection into an enduring friendship, though never beyond, as well as the little things that had made their marriage comfortable and happy.

Miss Wood listened attentively, laughing when the stories warranted and nodding her understanding at a recounting of some disagreement or another they’d had during those early weeks and months of adjusting. She was an easy person to talk to, a more than adequate listener. He discovered that talking about Bridget was almost medicinal for him, and the heaviness he usually associated with any thought of her seemed to slowly slip away.

“A few months after we married, Bridget realized she was increasing. We were both ecstatic. I believe she conducted the most rigorous interviews any potential nurse has ever been forced to endure, convinced no one was worthy of the post of raising her precious child. She embroidered more infant dresses than any child could possibly wear. I set an entire army of workmen to fixing up the nursery. I’m not sure there have ever been two people more overjoyed at the prospect of becoming parents.”

This was where the story became difficult to recount. The memories seemed to rush at him, painful, difficult, and bewildering. Yet the words poured out of him like a volcano exploding under the mounting pressure built up underneath.

“The time came for her confinement, and the delivery was, thankfully, unexceptional. She was understandably worn down that first week: tired, perhaps a little out of sorts, but nothing to raise any suspicions of coming difficulties.”

He felt Miss Wood’s fingers close more firmly around his arm. He laid his hand on top of hers, where it rested on his sleeve, noticing in the back of his mind that she wore no gloves and her fingers felt cold even through his own gloves. But the words he’d held back for so many years didn’t stop long enough for him to react to her state.

“Bridget was never what one would call perpetually cheerful, neither was she prone to moodiness or pessimism.” Layton hardly noticed where they walked. “She was different after Caroline’s birth. She didn’t leave her room, even after Doctor Habbersham declared her fit enough to do so. After those first couple of days, she never wanted to hold Caroline. After a few weeks, she refused to see anyone but her lady’s maid and myself. After two months, even I was barred at times. And she cried for hours on end, sobs that filled the house. She began drawing the drapes on all of the windows in her sitting room and bedchamber.

“By the time Caroline was three months old, Bridget wouldn’t leave her own bed. She just lay there in her nightclothes. Crying or sleeping, mostly. I would go to her when she allowed it, try to speak to her. Every visit seemed to end in her either weeping or raging at me.

“I tried to tell her about Caroline, but she didn’t want to hear. I don’t know if she was unhappy with motherhood or disappointed with Caroline or with me. That’s when I started walking along the river. The hours of sobbing became too much. The house felt . . . closed in, like I was suffocating in there, like if I stayed one minute longer, I would be forced to sob myself at the sheer frustration of it all.

“I did everything I could. I visited whenever my presence didn’t unduly upset her. I tried to rally her spirits with tales of Caroline’s adventures: her first smile, first laugh, Nurse’s belief that she was going to produce a tooth despite being not quite four months old. I suggested she write to her father, something she had done regularly before Caroline’s birth. Though I was never privy to their correspondence, she did seem to enjoy hearing from him. But Bridget either acted as though I weren’t speaking at all, or she cried.

“Then one night, the crying stopped.”

“Oh, sir.” Miss Wood’s tiny voice echoed in his ears.

“I ran to her rooms, convinced something had happened, that she’d taken ill.” He closed his eyes, the setting so real he might have been experiencing it all over again: running frantically into a room decorated in blue, eerily quiet. “The window drapes were all pulled back, moonlight spilling across the floor, but the bed curtains were pulled shut. The room was so quiet. The clock on her dressing table had been stopped. I . . . I didn’t even hear her breathing.”

The story flowed from him then, and he felt powerless to stop the words.

“I walked to the bed. I think I was even shaking. I hadn’t been so scared in . . . probably my entire life. I grabbed the bed curtains, knowing I needed to check on her. I kept telling myself she was just sleeping, that everything would be fine.” Layton felt a warm tear run down his wind-bitten cheek. His breaths shuddered in and out of him. “I was too late. Too late. She was dead.”

Suddenly, Miss Wood held his hand in her two smaller ones, looking up at him. Dawning horror touched her usually cheerful face. Little did Miss Wood realize, he hadn’t reached the worst part of the story. But he couldn’t stop. He needed to tell someone after all these years. He needed to tell
her.

“I sent for Dr. Habbersham, of course, not because I thought he could do anything but to determine what had”—somehow he couldn’t say
killed her
—“happened. She didn’t look peaceful, like she’d passed away in her sleep. She’d obviously been terribly, terribly ill.
Violently
ill, even. I’d never seen anything so horrible.” He felt her fingers tighten around his hand as if she knew he needed that, needed to feel the strength of human contact. “I kept the servants out, hoping to spare them the sight of her final moments. It was while I waited for the doctor that I found it.” He took a deep breath, remembering too vividly. “A vial. On her bed stand. It was empty. I hadn’t seen it there before, and I wondered about it.

“Dr. Habbersham had no trouble identifying what it had once held. One look at Bridget, and he knew. Arsenic. Pure, unadulterated poison.”

“Someone poisoned her?” Miss Wood asked in innocence.

“No, Mary. She poisoned
herself
.”

He heard her suck in a shocked breath. “I had no idea,” Mary said, emotion thick in her voice.

“No one has any idea. I haven’t told anyone. Neither has Habbersham. He listed her cause of death as a wasting illness. She’d been out of the public eye for so long, it was easily accepted.”

“Did you tell your family?”

“Of course not.”

“But why?” Mary stepped back from him just enough for him to see her face, tears hovering at the corners of her eyes. “Surely they would have been a support to you.”

“I couldn’t, Mary. I couldn’t.” He pulled his hand out of hers and began pacing among the copse of trees they’d stopped under.

“I don’t understand why not.”

“Because they would have—” He ran his hand through his hair. Sometime during their walk, he’d lost his hat. “Do you know what happens to people who kill themselves, Mary? Do you have any idea?”

She shook her head, her chin trembling but her tears remaining firmly in her eyes.

“Suicide is a felony in England and a sin of some significance. There are repercussions. Consequences.” Layton rubbed his face, the tension in his body almost unbearable. This was why he never talked about that time, tried not to think about it. “Someone who commits suicide cannot be buried in a churchyard, cannot receive a graveside service or a Christian burial. Their death is not acknowledged by the parish.” He was pacing faster, harder. “Bridget would have been buried at the side of a road, Mary! A stake driven through her heart! It is the law: the law of England, the law of the church. I could not,
could not
, do that to her. I would never have permitted her body to be desecrated that way, relegated to an unmarked grave in a place where her family would be ashamed to bring flowers or go to remember her. The few times I have encountered her father since her death have been in the churchyard—we both needed her to be there. Caroline needs her to be there.”

“So you lied,” Mary said.

Layton felt the accusation that was entirely absent from her tone. “I lied,” he said flatly, defying her to condemn him for it. “I lied to the government. I lied to her family. I lied to the church. I even lied to God. I cannot get her into heaven. But she is in that churchyard. And if I have to lie for the rest of my life to keep her there, so be it.”

Marion hadn’t talked to or seen Mr. Jonquil in a full week, and the weight of what he’d told her in that copse of trees sat heavily on her heart. His unhappiness, the oppressive feeling of the house, finally made sense. He had endured so much suffering and unhappiness in only a few short months. The events of years ago seemed still to drain the very life from the house and its occupants. The late Mrs. Jonquil’s sobs may not have echoed through the halls any longer, but joyful voices and laughter had never returned to claim those echoes either.

She stepped inside his library, entirely uncertain of how he would treat her in light of his confessions. Did he resent sharing his past? Would he look on her as a confidant or an unpleasant reminder of the pain he carried?

“Sir?”

“Yes, Miss Wood.” Mr. Jonquil didn’t look up from the papers he was reading.

His return to formality told Marion volumes about his state of mind. She was no longer “Mary.” It was, therefore, a very good thing she’d chided herself for thinking of him once or twice as “Layton.” She regretted the change. While “Mary” wasn’t precisely her name, it came so close that she could almost imagine he’d added the final syllable. Those few times Mr. Jonquil had slipped into familiarity, she’d felt more at ease than she had since leaving home.

“I would like to speak to you, sir.”

He looked up then, wariness in his eyes. Mr. Jonquil quite obviously thought she meant to speak of his late wife and everything he’d revealed about her.

“About Caroline’s birthday,” Marion quickly explained. He relaxed noticeably. “I know it is short notice, sir, but earlier today, she mentioned something she would particularly like to have. I would so like for her to have it. I know it would mean a great deal to her.”

“What is it she wishes for?”

“Well, sir, we have been working on her table etiquette. I told her this morning what a pleasure it was to have my breakfast with her because she has such pleasing manners. She said rather wistfully that she wished she could have a real grown-up dinner in the formal dining room.” Marion took a deep breath and plunged on; somehow, she felt more like a servant than ever asking for this favor. “Caroline spoke on and on about wearing her fanciest dress and wearing her locket and curtsying to the guests. Oh, Mr. Jonquil, I wish you could have heard her. I have never heard her say so much at one time. I think she has imagined just such an evening many times. She is very well behaved. Her manners are flawless.