Pretty Poison (28 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Nick awoke sometime before dawn with a marching band parading through his head and a herd of fuzzy sheep residing in his mouth. He stumbled naked from the bed to brush his teeth and make use of the chamber pot before wandering to the window and pushing back the drapes. The first rays of the sun were just cresting the distant horizon and the fields were coated in a heavy frost.

He leaned his forehead against the cold glass as bits and pieces of the proceeding day’s events filtered through his sluggish mind.

He’d gone with Charles,
Charlie
, to see a cottage that was not a cottage at all. Rosewood was a sprawling manor house built along the lines of an old Tudor mansion with dark brown timber and crisp white trim. Constructed in a giant “U” with a courtyard nearly overrun with roses in the middle, it was bigger than both of his country houses together. The land itself was insignificant, barely two hundred acres of fields and woods surrounding the grand mansion. It would serve as a pleasant retreat rather than a working estate.

He’d known Emily’s father was a wealthy man. How could he not? The dowry Charlie had named as they’d discussed the marriage settlement had been staggering. In his wildest dreams he’d never thought to come into such a financial windfall. But as he’d watched Charlie wrangle with Rosewood’s current owner’s solicitor, as he’d listened to him strike a deal to purchase the house entirely in gold, gold that was sitting in a London bank, he had realized that the man could pay off the King’s whopping debts and hardly miss the sum.

He thought about the conversation he and Emily had shared with Bernice the evening of that lady’s arrival.

I’m not certain a lady of good fortune and a fortune hunting gentleman are likely to find contentment together… If he is a proud gentleman, surely he must feel a certain amount of indignity in the knowledge that her funds have allowed him to continue in the lifestyle to which he is accustomed.

Nick knew he was a proud man. Would he come to resent the enormous fortune that had saved his family from ruin?

But you do not allow for the gentleman to be properly gratified by the gift his bride has bestowed upon him… She might remind him that those qualities he possesses that led her to choose him, the goods he brought to market, so to speak, are of value. That it was a fair trade.

Lady Bernice was a surprisingly intuitive woman. A fair trade, indeed. What qualities did he bring to market? What could he give Emily that might somehow make their marriage a fair trade?

She would be the wife of a gentleman, daughter by marriage to a viscount.

But Emily cared nothing for titles or the doors a title would open for her. She did not aspire to become a leading matron of the
ton
. Hah, she would fight tooth and nail not to have to walk that path.

Perhaps they could set up their own horse breeding program at Rosewood, build their own empire together, something they could leave to their children.

Children. He could give Emily children, lots of children. Little girls with red curls and flashing green eyes and big strapping sons to carry on the Avery name.

Laughter. She had a ribald sense of humor, one he’d never expected to find in a lady. They shared the same sort of humor, would doubtless continue to discover a shared joy in the absurd. They would have years of laughter and love in their house.

She would never doubt his love, he would make damn sure of that.

Passion. Nick had only begun to show Emily the beauty and power of passion. She was a sensual woman by nature. And she’d thought to be happy with a man who didn’t have a lusty bone in his body!

Nick heard the soft click of the door knob give way and turned to watch the door slowly swing open. A small white hand wrapped around the thick wood and the door came to a sudden stop with only the smallest space open. One dainty blue-slippered foot appeared in that space.

“Emily,” Nick whispered in relief. He had only a vague memory of stumbling drunk into Lady Margaret’s dining room with a wilted bouquet of winter greens clutched in his muddy hand. He figured between that shameless display and his earlier error of the morning, he had his work cut out for him to get back into his fiancé’s good graces.

Yet here she was, sneaking into his room just as the sun’s first golden rays topped the horizon.

He heard a soft sigh from behind the door and pictured Emily drawing in a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, gathering her nerve to confront him. He stepped away from the window as the door slowly swung open.

And Veronica Ogilvie stepped into his bed chamber and pushed the door shut behind her.

“Holy Hell!”

“Oh!” Veronica cried as she found him in the shadowy room.

“Get out,” he ordered, taking one step toward her where she leaned against the door draped from head to toe in pale blue satin and lace. Her blonde hair was swept up into some sort of convoluted arrangement of braids and ribbons atop her head. Her long, lean body was revealed to him by the sheer night gown and robe she wore.

He stopped in the center of the room, suddenly conscious of his naked state. He searched the room until he spotted his dressing robe listing toward the floor from the foot of the bed.

The bed! Christ, it looked like a herd of wild horses had run through it during the night. The coverlet was bunched at the foot, pillows were strewn about in abandon, and one corner of the sheet was pulled away from the mattress. He’d ever been a restless sleeper when deep in his cups.

Storming forward, he retrieved his robe, wrestled his arms into it and pulled the belt tight before turning to find Veronica staring at the bed with huge eyes.

“What the bloody hell are you doing in my chamber?” he grated out between clenched teeth.

“There was no announcement last night,” she whispered, her gaze still riveted to the bed.

“What?” He barely heard her quiet words. His mind was a jumble of panicky thoughts, all of them centered upon how best to remove the lady from his bed chamber without touching her or waking up the entire household. He couldn’t storm out of the room, not with his bed looking as if he’d spent the night reveling in debauchery. He wouldn’t even need to be present in the room with the lady should anyone enter. The bed would be enough to ruin his chances with Emily forever.

“You are not officially betrothed.”

The hint of steel underlying the softly spoken words brought Nick’s attention back to Veronica with such sudden clarity that he felt a moment of supreme dizziness. He reached one long arm out to wrap his hand around the bedpost for balance.

“It’s still possible,” Veronica said, finally turning her eyes from the bed to focus them on a spot just below Nick’s chin.

“No,” he barked. “Whatever you are thinking is definitely not possible.”

“You are my last chance, Mr. Avery.” The way she said the words, the cold finality he heard in her voice, sent a shiver down his spine.

“Miss Ogilvie,” he began, not quite sure what he intended to say, what argument he might offer that would send her running from his bed chamber.

“I have only until the new year,” she mumbled and now her eyes were darting about the room as if looking for a safe place to land.

Nick wondered if she was even aware that she’d spoken aloud. It seemed as she spoke more to herself than to him. His suspicions were confirmed when she continued.

“It’s not enough time. How will I bear it if he won’t relent?”

There was a wealth of despair in the words and just enough acceptance that Nick took one step forward, dropping his arm to his side. “If who won’t relent?”

“Don’t you see?” she asked plaintively, raising her eyes to meet his for the first time since she’d entered the chamber. “I must… In that bed…”

“No, Veronica. Whatever it is, whoever threatens you, I will help you.”

She jumped at his words, trembled before squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin in the air. “There is only one way you can help me.”

“I will not marry you.”

“You will if they find me in your bed.”

“No one is going to find you in Nick’s bed.”

Veronica spun around with a smothered cry as Nick’s gaze flew to the door.

Lady Bernice stood at the threshold, one hand on the door knob, the other on her hip.

“Thank God,” Nick said, relief rolling though him in a giant wave.

Bernice stepped into the room and closed the door before marching forward until she stood toe to toe with a shaking Veronica. “You’ve gone too far this time, Ronnie O.”

What a sight she was with her vibrant hair tumbling around her shoulders, color flaming on her high cheekbones and her pale green eyes blazing. Nick imagined this was just how she’d looked before she slapped Jamison and again he wondered how his friend had been able to resist all that fire.

“Yes, I have gone too far.” Veronica waved one small hand in Nick’s direction. “We have gone too far.”

“Balderdash,” Bernice bellowed so close to the other lady’s face that Nick saw Veronica’s curls shimmy over her forehead.

“We did it right there in that bed,” Veronica insisted, her gaze shifting to the bed before skittering away again.

“You? In
that
bed?” Bernice demanded heatedly, her eyes widening as her gaze flew across the rumpled bed. “You haven’t enough passion in you to mangle a bed in that fashion. And your lovely coiffure would not be quite so lovely if you’d risen from
that
bed.”

“My coiffure,” Veronica spun away from the taller woman, her eyes darting once more to the bed before they landed on Nick standing beside it.

Nick lifted his hand and ran it through his hair until the curls stood in wild disarray on his head.

Bernice followed his example, took it further, ruffling her already wild hair until it shot out from her head in gnarled tangles before she flung her head from side to side in a overdone approximation of what he assumed was supposed to be the throes of passion. “You’d be rumpled and sweaty and listing around on bowed legs. Not standing in front of me with your slippers on and pretty blue ribbons artfully arranged in your hair.”

“Bowed legs?” Veronica asked in alarm, her horrified gaze locked on Bernice.

“Men are perspiring, moaning, grunting animals at the best of times, you nitwit. In the bedroom they are a thousand times worse.”

“Oh,” Veronica murmured, clearly appalled by Bernice’s words.

“Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from a man’s bed as you can for as long as possible.” Bernice’s voice was softer, calmer but still determined.

“But I must marry.”

Bernice stared long and hard at the small blonde woman before she said, “We’ll find another man to marry you.”

“I only have until the first of the year,” Veronica whispered.

“Nearly a month,” Bernice replied with a decisive nod. “We’ve plenty of time.”

Bernice led a surprisingly docile Veronica to the door, whispered something low in her ear, before gently pushing her from the room and closing the door.

“How did you know?” Nick asked.

“I was in the hall… Um… Going…Never mind.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “I saw her come in.”

“And you waited to follow her?” Nick demanded as his legs gave out and he sat on the rumpled bed.

“I wasn’t sure what to do! Etiquette lessons most assuredly do not cover what to do when you see a scheming she-wolf enter the bed chamber of your friend’s fiancé.” Bernice seemed to realize she was screaming and drew in a long breath. “I was still half asleep and it took me a moment to decide what was most important. Quit looking at me like that. I got here before anything happened.”

“Before anything happened?” he asked warily. “Do you honestly believe that something would have happened had you not arrived when you did?”

“Of course not. I only meant that I arrived before she screamed and brought the entire household to your door. ”

“Was that her plan?” Nick could picture it in his mind. Margaret and the duchess bursting through the door with Adelaide and her mother and all the others right behind them. The houseguests jostling for position to see into his chamber. Him in his robe and Veronica with her coiffure intact. And his obscenely mussed bed.

“I don’t know what her plan was when she entered your room,” Bernice admitted. “But I’d bet my last dollar she couldn’t have brought herself to actually crawl into your bed.”

A door shutting in the hall outside his room had Nick jumping from the bed.

“Egads,” Bernice squealed. “I’m in your bed chamber alone with you.”

“Christ, could this morning possibly get any worse?”

“Shh,” she hissed.

They stood frozen in the center of the room and Nick knew a moment of sheer panic as he stared at Bernice with her tangled hair and flushed face. Good Lord, her feet were bare!

She crept to the door, pulled it open, and whispered to someone on the other side, presumably Veronica.

“All clear,” she murmured over her shoulder before giving him a cheerful wink and disappearing out into the hall.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Nick descended the curving staircase an hour later he found Lady Margaret in whispered conversation with his father while Joan, Oliver and Bernice stood off to the side. Emily’s lady’s maid, her cousin, the pretty little Tilly, sat in a chair with her head buried in her hands.

Nick could hear her muffled sobs from halfway up the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded as he took the remaining steps two at a time. “Where’s Emily?”

Tilly’s wailing escalated in volume until it bounced off the walls to assault his whiskey tender head.

“Margaret.” His harsh voice brought the lady’s head around and she pinned him with glittering green eyes.

“A rusty blade,” she growled, taking one unsteady step toward him.

“Now, turtle dove.” His father grasped her upper arm in one beefy hand, halting her at his side.

“Nick did nothing wrong.” This from Bernice who stepped away from the gathering to stand beside him as if she might protect him from Margaret’s wrath.

“I warned you, boy,” Margaret screeched.

“What on earth?” But he knew. He and Bernice had heard the sound of a door closing in the hallway. Veronica had been standing just outside his room. Christ, Emily must have seen her leave his room.

He drew himself up to his full height and glared down at Margaret. “Nothing happened. Where is Emily?”

“She’s gone,” Margaret spat at him. “Run off to Lord only knows where to lick her wounds. Wounds that you inflicted. How could you?”

“When?” he demanded, ignoring her words, focused only on finding Emily. “How?”

“Miss Em… She just went flying out of the house… After she seen that…that woman in the hall.” At Tilly’s stuttering words, Nick looked beyond Margaret to find the girl looking at him with tears streaming down her face.

Nick took a deep breath. “Surely she’s out riding with her father.”

“Charles is outside quizzing the stable hands,” his father replied with a shake of his head. Nick realized then that his father was still in his dressing robe as were Lady Margaret, Oliver and Joan. Only Tilly and Bernice were dressed for the day.

“Who roused the household?” he asked.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Tilly wailed. “So I knocked on Lady Maggie’s door.”

“The commotion awoke the rest of us,” Oliver added.

Looking around at his family, at the sorrow and condemnation written upon their faces, he wondered how it was possible that none of them knew him at all.

Nick strode through the throng, his gait purposeful, his head pounding, and his heart heavy.

He saddled a horse while Charles Calvert followed him around the stables bellowing.

“Groom said she come running in like a mad woman, hair waving around her, and her coat flapping around like a bat’s wings. A bat’s wings!”

“I’ll find her,” Nick replied with a calmness he was far from feeling.

“She took off on Danny boy as if the hounds of hell were after her!”

“I’ll find her,” he repeated, wondering if Charlie was reciting the groom’s cliché metaphors or simply adding them to the tale.

“I thought all that was finished,” the older man said as he leaned down to cinch the saddle Nick had thrown over the horse’s back.

“All what?” Nick glared over the horses back at Emily’s father.

He waved one beefy hand in the air before growling, “Don’t you judge my girl. Em’s a strong woman, but even the strong ones make mistakes. She’s paid for her mistakes with a pound of her own flesh!”

Nick had neither the time nor the patience to discover what the other man was rambling about. He jumped into the saddle, ignoring the pain that shot through his temples with the movement.

“I’m right behind you,” Charlie called as he ran from the stable and Nick saw a groom holding the other man’s horse in the yard.

Nick headed off to the North only because it was the route he and Emily invariably took on their morning rides. Emily liked to watch the morning sun throw shadows across the woods and fields before bathing the valley below in golden light, to toss stale bread to the ducks wintering along the banks of the small pond.

He rode for over an hour, occasionally catching glimpses of Charles and Oliver and his father away in the distance. He saw no sign of Emily.

He picked his way through the thicket surrounding the woods where Emily had encountered the wild dogs. Margaret had had the woods cleared and thinned the day after her niece’s misadventure. He thought it unlikely she’d re-enter those trees anytime soon, cleared or not, but one never knew what strange turn his fiancé’s mind was likely to take, so into the shadowy forest he went.

If Emily had been there she was gone now.

As he crested the rise above the woods he saw Margaret’s carriage lumbering down the long drive. The vehicle was just turning onto the road to the village when he caught up with it.

“Any word?” he asked when Margaret leaned her head out the open window. She rapped on the roof and the driver brought the carriage to a stop.

“I know where she’s gone.” The lady blinked repeatedly, whether from the sun that had risen high in the sky or to hold tears at bay, he couldn’t determine. “Tie your horse to the back and get in.”

“My horse is faster that your carriage,” Nick replied. “Tell me where she is and I’ll bring her home.”

“Tie your horse to the back and get your arse in this carriage,” Margaret commanded. “I have a tale to tell you before we find her.”

Impatient and frustrated, Nick jumped from his horse and did as the lady ordered. Once in the carriage he glared across the space separating him from Emily’s aunt.

“No matter what happens next between you and my niece,” Margaret said, “I’ll have your word as a gentleman that this story goes no further than this carriage.”

“What happens next is that I marry your niece and we live happily ever after,” Nick growled.

“Your word,” she hissed.

“I’m surprised you would take it,” Nick replied and all the bitterness he felt at his family’s lack of faith in him was in his voice.

“Pshaw,” she answered with a wave of one gloved hand. “I know you didn’t make the pretty with the Nasty Baggage. I was just frightened and angry and in need of a whipping boy.”

“You have my word,” he responded with a nod to her words.

“We are going into the village, to the apothecary’s shop, and likely to the green behind the church.” Margaret patted the seat beside her. “We’ve a quarter hour before we arrive.”

“I’d be there in less than five minutes on horseback,” he pointed out as he moved to sit next to her.

“Emily won’t be in any condition to ride.”

“Why?” he asked as dread danced along his spine. “What in the hell is she doing?”

Margaret took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh that was very nearly a moan.

“Emily was a bit of a hoyden when she was growing up,” she began softly, “Charlie let her run wild and her mother spent most of her days in bed preparing to birth a baby or recovering from the loss of one.”

“This is the tale you pulled me from my horse to hear?” Nick demanded in exasperation. “I already know Emily’s mother died in childbed and her father ignored her unless she was up to some mischief or other.”

“Hush,” Margaret admonished with a smack to his thigh. “The meat of the story means nothing without the bones. Just keep your mouth closed and your ears and heart open and you might yet come to understand the lady you intend to make your wife.”

Nick reined in his impatience and frustration to sit quietly listening to a story he thought he already knew.

He was mistaken, terribly, incomprehensibly, astoundingly mistaken.

“Now, where was I?” Margaret asked before turning to look out the window. When she turned back Nick nearly smiled at the fierce look of concentration upon her face. “Ah, yes. Emily was ten years old when Anne passed on birthing another stillborn babe. Nate was six and his raising fell to Emily. No sooner was her mother’s body in the churchyard then Charlie brought his mistress Martha and baby Charlie to live at Emerald Isle. Two years later Patsy came along and shortly thereafter Martha went to join Anne in the family plot.”

Margaret paused as if waiting for Nick to respond.

“I know all of this,” he finally said, wondering if she truly thought that all he and Emily had done in the long hours of the night was mangle the sheets.

“So you know Emily raised those three and the Danson boy with only the help of servants and the occasional tutor and governess.” At his nod she continued, “She never felt a part of what passed for society in the little village nearby or in bustling Baltimore. Her life wasn’t comprised of mint juleps and debutante balls. Emily’s life was filled with grammar lessons, bedtime stories and snotty noses. Later she acted as Charlie’s hostess at business dinners and later still picked up the slack in the stables when her da went wandering far and wide in search of the best price for cotton and female companionship.”

“And starting a school for the servants and slaves,” he interjected when she stopped to draw breath. “And sewing clothes for the poor with women of questionable morals.”

“Just so,” she agreed. “She didn’t have much opportunity to meet gentlemen, to learn their ways. The only thing she knew was what she saw at Emerald Isle, a father with two illegitimate children and little caramel-skinned children living in the cabins behind the house.”

“And what she saw at the other plantations nearby,” Nick added quietly. “Other gentlemen with slave quarters filled with caramel-skinned children.”

“So when those gentlemen’s sons came calling, they were strangers to her, men who were looking to make a good match. And Emily was surely the best match to be found in Calvert County, in all of Maryland to hear Charlie tell it. Emily wanted nothing to do with the local swells, had no intention of going down that path. She turned them all down, one after another, until they stopped calling.”

“Until Peter Marshall came calling,” Nick replied mostly in order to remind Margaret that he knew all of this.

“She latched onto the idea of marrying Peter Marshall like a drowning man latches on to sodden driftwood. He was different than the others. He hadn’t been raised in the tidewater area but in Boston. He’d inherited the plantation from his grandfather. He was quiet and polite, cheerful and proper, a regular dandy apparently. But he didn’t come calling.”

Nick raised one brow in question.

“According to Charlie Emily chased the poor man, studied him, learned all there was to know of his interests and preferences, and made a valiant effort to curb her mischievous ways and be what she thought he desired in a wife.”

“And still he didn’t marry her.”

“You know the why’s of it? Wearing breeches and swimming in her shift?”

Nick nodded.

“Emily waited until she was nearly on the shelf before deciding to trust her heart to a man she thought would remain faithful to her. I imagine she thought her future was secure, that her lot in life would be better than her mother’s, better than all the Calvert women who came before her. She was going to show those nasty old biddies who smiled at Charles Calvert’s daughter to her face while whispering about her family scandals behind her back.”

“Instead she landed in a scandal of her own and Marshall broke the betrothal.”

“Yes, well, after Peter Marshall’s rejection, she was adrift. She hadn’t loved the fool, but her carefully crafted plan for her future was shattered. It’s difficult for women, given that we have so few choices that are truly our own to make, to let go of our girlish dreams of happily ever after. She must have wondered what was wrong with her, that her natural inclinations, her curiosity and stubborn independence, had rendered her unworthy of marriage, unlovable. Her confidence and her belief in her worth were horribly shaken.”

Nick nodded in understanding, imagining Emily as she must have been at the time, lost and confused. So very different from the woman he had come to know and love.

“Yes,” he agreed, knowing they were done with the bones and finally getting to the meat of the story.

“When Charlie and I dragged her kicking and screaming across the ocean into an uncertain future we took her from the only world she’d ever known, the only place she felt safe to be herself. We stripped her of what little confidence she still possessed and her last hope of shaping her own destiny.”

Margaret paused to draw an unsteady breath into her lungs. “She took sick on the voyage, nothing too serious, a fever with a putrid throat. There was a physician on board who tended her and left her with a bottle of laudanum.”

Nick’s gaze lifted from where he was watching Margaret pluck nervously at the fraying fringe on the carriage seat. She was staring out the window, her face empty of all expression.

“Laudanum?” he repeated, not understanding the significance, only knowing instantly that it was significant.

“At first she only took it for the pain and sleeplessness. But after she was on the mend, she sipped it to escape her own thoughts. Until, unbeknownst to all, including Emily herself, she developed a need for the poison.”

Nick knew the rest. He had no need to hear more. In his mind he saw Emily at the theater, her eyes with their pin point pupils the only color in her gaunt face, her listless movements, vacant expression and inability to hold onto the simplest thought.

“Why didn’t you tell me she’d been… That she was…” he couldn’t even think what words to use.

“An opium addict,” Margaret finished for him.

“She’s not,” he growled.

“She is. Dr. Connor, who helped her… I’m getting ahead of myself,” Margaret stopped, squared her shoulders, and Nick knew she was marshaling her thoughts, pulling from reserves of strength to finish the sad tale. “She is an opium addict, will likely always be one.”

“I’ve seen none of the same signs,” Nick replied, his voice carefully controlled while emotions roared in his head, in his heart. “Christ, the signs that seem so bloody obvious now.”

“Emily has not had a drop of laudanum since that terrible time,” Margaret hurried to assure him.

Nick took a shuddering breath, wiped his stinging eyes with his hand.