The Chemickal Marriage (45 page)

‘Poppy?’

The Queen was querulous. The Duchess swam to her. ‘You are safe, Your Majesty –’

‘Won’t see anyone! Won’t talk to a soul! Won’t sign a scrap!’

‘Of course not, Majesty. But if we can get news of Lady Axewith –’

The Contessa tugged at Miss Temple’s bathing costume, signalling their subtle retreat.

‘Says she’s
poisoned
!’ hissed the Queen.

‘
We
will send word, Your Majesty, and hurry to Lady Axewith,’ the Contessa offered. ‘But I do urge every precaution be taken with regard to your person.
The threat is grave
.’

The Queen groaned aloud and began to flail, her attendants moaning in choric sympathy. The Duchess pleaded uselessly for order. The Contessa hauled Miss Temple from the pool.

‘Meet no one’s eye, do not hurry, do not speak.’ They had not reached the doorway before details of Vandaariff’s plot echoed around them, rebounding in a dozen more dire variations. In the attiring room, the Contessa flung Miss Temple to an attendant and hurried to her own, the buttons of her bathing costume ripped free, dancing on the floor.

‘My dress!’ she barked at an attendant, and then to Miss Temple, ‘Stop staring, you imbecile! Move!’

But Miss Temple could not move: too much was happening too quickly. Her bathing costume was stripped away and her skin chuffed to vigorous life by the attendant’s strong hands – hands that thrust the towel without apology, like a dog’s prodding nose, into every tender crevice. Again the Contessa stood nude, arms up, tearing the white turban and shaking her dark curls free. Her breasts shifted with the movement, a sketching measure of their soft weight, and with a whimper Miss Temple arched to her toes. Heedless of her distress, the Contessa primped with a practised economy, while the attendant worked the first stocking up her leg and towards the tangle of black hair.

‘With luck, if your Mr Pfaff is not a total donkey …’

Miss Temple shut her eyes, yet in her mind she knew more, too much, the tips of her fingers tingled, a pearling cleft, her tongue –

In utter frustration Miss Temple slapped her thighs until the white skin burnt with the imprint of each hand. The attendant retreated, in fear. The Contessa caught Miss Temple’s wrists.

‘
Celeste
.’

Miss Temple turned her face, not wanting another slap.

‘O good
Lord
.’ The Contessa motioned her attendant to help the other. ‘I will manage my own. Get her sorted.’

With both women tugging her to order, Miss Temple’s shame overcame her stimulation and eventually she stood, corset tight and tied, dress restored. The Contessa pushed money at the attendants and waved them out. She met Miss Temple’s hapless, tear-streaked face with an intolerant glare.

‘Our survival depends on whether Lord Axewith still waits outside.’

‘Why Lord Axewith?’ Miss Temple’s eyes burnt. ‘I thought it was
Lady
Axewith –’

‘Lord Axewith waits for Her Majesty’s seal. His declarations do not
require
it, but – the crisis being what it is – he is frightened. Lord Vandaariff – who is rich and never wrong – has offered his aid and Axewith has leapt for it like a bishop in a choir loft. Yet, because these orders will spark new blazes of unrest – people displaced and their property claimed – Axewith, for he is weak, and Vandaariff, for he is shrewd, want the
Queen
to issue the commands, allowing Her Majesty – who is despised already – to take the blame. But
now
, because of
your
story, the Queen will refuse to sign any order coming from Vandaariff, whom she considers a traitor. The Queen’s refusal will be a denouncement, which means the orders cannot be issued at all! Unless, that is, Axewith has lost patience, walked out and issued them himself!’

‘But why should he? If he has waited so long –’

‘O Celeste, why should a man do anything?’

‘So if Axewith
is
gone –’

The Contessa pulled Miss Temple to the door. ‘Then we, little piglet, are undone!’

The door was thrust open by a heavy woman with hair as bright as a Spanish tangerine. For an instant each side smiled in apology, but then the heavy lady’s face went white with shock.

‘
You
! How
dare
you! How dare you show yourself
here
!’

‘Lady Hopton, how unexpected –’

‘
Harlot!
I have just come from Axewith House!’

The Contessa stepped back, eyes lowered before the other woman’s rage, hands submissively behind her back. ‘Indeed? I trust Lady Axewith is well –’

‘You
trust
! Lady Axewith is
dead
! But, unlike her physician, I am not
blind to the cause!’ Lady Hopton raised a fist. She shook it at the Contessa – still cowed by the woman’s anger – then wheeled round with a snort for the far door. ‘Out of my way, you filth! Once I speak to the Queen –’

The Contessa lunged, a cord in her hands. In a flash it was around Lady Hopton’s throat.

Lady Hopton careened in a circle, straining for the door she’d come through. Her face went cherry-red, her mouth a garish, gasping hole. The Contessa tightened the cord with a convulsive snarl, dislodging Lady Hopton’s tangerine wig. The hair beneath was thin and grey. But still the woman bulled forward, swiping at Miss Temple, her voice a terrified rasp.

‘
Help
–’

‘Stop her!’ grunted the Contessa. ‘If she opens that door we will be
seen
!’

Miss Temple froze, transfixed by the bulging eyes – this poor proud woman who had spoken to the Contessa just as Miss Temple had always wanted to. With a helpless clarity Miss Temple saw where she had placed herself, and how desolate her future had become.

She ducked Lady Hopton’s arms and seized her dress, wrenching the woman from the door. Lady Hopton whined with dismay, but the Contessa twisted the cord and the sound soured to an ugly rattle. For five seconds the three of them hung suspended, then Lady Hopton collapsed. Without pause the Contessa knelt on the fallen woman’s chest and, leverage improved, pulled the cord taut for another half-minute.

‘Took you long enough.’ The Contessa dragged the dead woman to the nearest wardrobe niche. ‘Pick up her filthy wig.’

The attendants were told with a tactful nod that Lady Hopton required privacy for a
conversation
, and that any new arrivals might be shown to another attiring room altogether. Back on the mildewed landing, Colonel Bronque waited alone at the rail. The older lady who had shown them to the attiring room called with a knowing smile. ‘Did you meet Lady Hopton?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

The old woman’s eyes glittered. ‘I believe she took your same route to the baths.’

‘We did not see her for the steam,’ the Contessa answered blandly. ‘No doubt Lady Hopton waits upon Her Majesty even now.’ The Contessa turned to Colonel Bronque and raised an eyebrow.

‘Lord Axewith was called away.’ Bronque indicated the satchel at his feet. ‘I am entrusted with his errand.’

‘Called away?’

‘The city is on fire.’

The Contessa wound an errant strand of hair around a finger. ‘How
much
of the city?’

The old lady cleared her throat with a peevish determination. ‘Not one to make your enemy, is Lady Hopton.’

The Contessa’s reply was interrupted by a door opening behind them and the Duchess of Cogstead, wrapped in a robe, stepping through.

‘
You!
’ she called.

Miss Temple did not move.

‘Colonel Bronque!’ shouted the Duchess, with impatience. ‘You have Lord Axewith’s papers?’

Bronque clicked his heels together. ‘I do, Your Grace –’

‘Then you are required, sir!
At
once!
’

Bronque rattled down the stairs and disappeared after the Duchess. The Contessa turned to the old lady.

‘I am obliged for your kindness.’

The old lady glared. ‘Kindness played no part in the matter.’

The Contessa grinned. ‘It so very seldom does.’

Miss Temple’s hands shook. Half the time it seemed as if her senses would overwhelm her – but when she
had
been in her mind and thinking clearly, what had she done but assist with outright murder?

‘Why am I here?’ she demanded recklessly. ‘You are a terrible woman!’

They were hardly alone, and the well-dressed men and women passing in either direction turned at Miss Temple’s angry tone. With a tight smile, the Contessa pressed her mouth to Miss Temple’s ear. ‘Once we are
alone
–’

‘
Signora?
’ An older man in a topcoat had approached the Contessa. She showed him a graceful smile, keeping hold of Miss Temple’s arm.

‘Minister. How do you do? May I present Miss Celestial Temple – Celeste, Lord Shear is Her Majesty’s Minister for Finance.’

Lord Shear had no interest in Miss Temple. ‘
Signora
, you know Matthew Harcourt.’

‘By acquaintance only, my lord.’

‘Still, perhaps you can explain –’

‘You know Robert Vandaariff,’ Miss Temple blurted out, stinging at the memory of Lord Shear through the mirror at Harschmort, kneeling like the rest. ‘If he asked it, you would lick his shoes. And then I daresay you would lick his –’

The Contessa spun Miss Temple to the nearest door and shoved her through. ‘I beg your pardon – the girl’s not well – father ruined, drink and gambling –’

She slammed the door in the face of the sputtering peer. The Contessa snatched a paper-knife off a writing table. Miss Temple backed away, arms outstretched. She opened her mouth, wanting to shout her defiance, but no words came. Her chest shuddered. She could not breathe. Miss Temple sank down to her knees, her words a half-voiced wail.

‘What has
become
of me?’

She choked with sobs, cheeks wet and hot, half blind. The Contessa advanced. Miss Temple swatted at her, fingers splayed. But instead of an attack the Contessa knelt and extended the hand without the knife to Miss Temple’s face.

‘You are not so very pretty, you know, that you can withstand such fits. Round faces when they redden extinguish sympathy in a person. You are better served by disdain. Which I suppose is usually your own luck.’

Miss Temple sniffed thickly. Though soft, the Contessa’s voice was not kind.

‘There are two things I can think of to address your problem – you may well imagine what they are – but both will make you scream’– here the Contessa smiled and Miss Temple whimpered – ‘and too many people are too near.’

‘That woman – Lady Hopton –’

‘Had to die, and at once. But half the court has seen you with me, and, while I may brazen out an ignorance of Lady Hopton, I can hardly do so for
you – and so …’ She tapped Miss Temple’s nose with the paper-knife. ‘I cannot take your life here. Unless, Celeste, you give me no other option.’

Miss Temple swallowed. ‘But why did you bring me?’

‘The Comte’s memory, of course. You had seen those rooms. You spied on
me
.’

‘But – but it was the Comte with the Duke, watching Vandaariff – I had to change everything –’

‘Which you did.’

‘But if the story had to be made up and changed, what did it matter that I knew it at all? Why didn’t you tell it yourself?’

‘O I could have, but never so feelingly. The Queen is highly suspicious of anyone seeking favour – by claiming no favour for myself, and by producing a witness without hope of advancement, the odds she would believe the tale were much increased. And besides, you
did
know the story. Even with the necessary embroidery, it did not sound a lie. And if the Queen
did
declare it a lie – always possible, she is as contrary as a mule – it was not
me
who’d done the lying.’

‘But Lord Axewith is gone –’

‘Axewith left his papers with Bronque. By now Her Majesty has flung those papers in the Colonel’s face and the main goal of our visit is achieved. That Axewith is called to some entirely unrelated crisis only benefits us further. It keeps him from the tragic news at Axewith House, and also from Vandaariff. Now, will you stand?’

Miss Temple nodded and rose. ‘Colonel Bronque is your lover.’

‘Celeste Temple, how did you ever escape strangling?’ The Contessa slipped the paper-knife into her bag and came out with a handkerchief. ‘Yours to destroy.’

Miss Temple wiped her nose and eyes and then dabbed at her fingers, for the lace was too thin for its task. ‘Why do all the Queen’s ladies dislike you?’

‘Why does everyone dislike
you
?’

‘But – but I am not –’ Miss Temple flushed. ‘I am not beautiful.’

The Contessa’s voice was flat. ‘No. Beauty is more a danger than intelligence or wit. One becomes a living mirror for the inadequacies of others. Without the whip hand, which as a foreigner in the court is denied me, one
proceeds in secret. Such constraints are exactly why unexpected encounters, such as Lady Hopton, such as yourself, are so gratifying.’

‘But you have not killed me.’

The Contessa sighed wistfully. ‘O
Celeste
…’

When she had stepped off the ship into the incomparably more complicated world of the city – a hailstorm of sounds and smells and people – Miss Temple’s reaction, true to her nature, had been to retreat and, from behind a barrier of sceptical politeness, observe. The vectors of her relations were antagonistic, this new home defined by its otherness. When elements of her transplanted life
did
in time penetrate her reserve – a grudging familiarity with her maids, an appreciation for certain tea shops – the result was an expansion of her private enclosure to include these new pleasures, not a shift from her essential detachment. Now that enclosure, her castle’s keep, housed only mortifying betrayal. Even her hate for the Contessa was blunted, first by the indiscriminate desire that ran in her blood like an infection, and, worse to admit, by Miss Temple’s fear that the Contessa alone understood, however contemptuously, the truth of her polluted soul.

She wondered how many people the Contessa
had
murdered, and why
she
had been so many times spared? Certainly the Contessa had tried once or twice in earnest, but on so many other occasions the woman had refrained. Miss Temple believed that once a person was an enemy – horrible Cynthia Hobart, for example, whose plantation lay across the river – one worked against them without end. Moral sophistication – that one would not merely dissemble, biding time for a master stroke, but actually allow one’s feelings to
change –
laid a chill in the pit of her stomach.