Mistress of Scandal

by Sara Bennett

  “No, I’m not.”

  The voice was Uncle William’s, and it was coming from behind them. Her heart jumping, Francesca turned toward him. Were there any more shocks to be had this evening? Her uncle was standing at the library door, a glass of brandy in one hand and a book in the other. His austerely handsome face was lined with weariness, but his gaze was as steely as ever.

  “What is going on, Francesca? You are shouting. Mrs. March? I demand an explanation.”

  The housekeeper drew a breath, preparing to lay her grievances before him, but Francesca was too quick for her.

  “Aphrodite is ill, Uncle,” she said in a quiet and reasonable voice. “I need to go to her at once. I asked for the carriage to be brought around but Mrs. March refuses to allow it.”

  “She’s planning some mischief, that’s what it is,” Mrs. March insisted, a hint of a whine in her voice. “I don’t trust her, sir.”

  “It isn’t your place to make those decisions,” Francesca reminded her. As she expected, Mrs. March flew into a rage.

  “My place is to see that you don’t take advantage of your uncle! Who knows what she’s up to now, sir. You don’t know what—”

  William hadn’t taken his eyes from Francesca. “Order the carriage around,” he said abruptly, cutting through his housekeeper’s complaints.

  Mrs. March’s mouth opened and closed.

  “Do it,” he said, sharply.

  There was no arguing with that tone, and she turned away with an angry rustle of silk skirts, her shoes tapping, her feelings clear for all to see. Mrs. March didn’t like losing, she wasn’t used to it, and Francesca had a feeling she was the sort who would take pleasure from plotting her revenge.

  “Thank you, Uncle William,” she said. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all, she thought. Perhaps she could even grow to like him.

  “I never liked the bitch.” His voice was emotionless. “But she is your mother.”

  Francesca took a step toward him, wondering if she had misheard, but he’d already turned and walked back into the library and closed the door. Such cruelty, such heartlessness, at a time when most people would expect some tact and kindness. But this was Uncle William, and all he cared about was the gossip Aphrodite and her daughters had attached to his family. He would probably be glad if she died, she thought bitterly. It would be one less scandal for him to worry about.

  “Miss Francesca, the carriage will be here in a moment.”

  She’d forgotten about Lil. “We’ll go and wait outside,” she said, forcing away the tears and lifting her chin. “I need to breathe fresh air.”

  “Yes, miss, so do I.”

  “Oh…I forgot. I should tell Mama…Mrs. Jardine.”

  “I can ask one of the servants to wake her if it becomes necessary, miss.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Lil.”

  Outside, the square was quiet, apart from the occasional passerby. Francesca looked in the direction of Half Moon Street, and wondered what Sebastian was doing. Was he out wandering the streets and the rookeries, hunting for people who were running from their misdeeds? Or was he asleep in that magical room, like a sultan in his palace? She wanted him beside her. She felt suddenly bereft without him. But such thoughts were romantic dreams—she and Sebastian could never have that normal sort of relationship. They could never be other than brief, if passionate, lovers.

  “Miss?”

  Lil was there, and so was the carriage, creaking its way across the cobbles toward them. Francesca gathered her cloak about her and stepped down the stairs to meet it, and prepared herself for the worst.

  Aphrodite was dreaming. Restless, feverish dreams of her famous past.

  He’s dead. T. is dead. I am finding it difficult to believe such a man can be dead. My T. was so alive. My daughter, my Francesca, will be the poorer for not knowing him. I look into her smiling baby face and see T., and I weep.

  The sadness makes me vulnerable. I turn to the other one. For a time I trust him, I believe in him. But he isn’t a good man.

  He is not a kind man.

  “My love? My dearest love?”

  She blinked and opened her eyes. For a moment she saw him, the man she blamed for her life’s tragedy, but then it changed and became the face she loved above all others. What was his name? Oh, why couldn’t she remember his name?

  But he seemed to sense her frustration.

  “It’s only Jemmy,” he murmured, stroking the damp hair from her brow. “And you have a visitor, dearest one.”

  Another face came into focus, and just for a moment she thought she was dreaming again, and that this was herself, made young—Aphrodite, at the height of her powers and her beauty. And then Francesca said, “Mother?”

  Of course. It was Francesca, her youngest daughter. Her most troublesome daughter. The one she worried about the most.

  “Petit chaton,” Aphrodite whispered, “I am sorry you must see me like this. I am not at my best. I have been unwell. But I will get better, you will see. Soon I will be myself again.”

  Tears filled Francesca’s eyes, and her mouth trembled. “I’m so sorry,” she said shakily. “This is all my fault.”

  Aphrodite frowned. “Nonsense!” she said, as strongly as she could manage. “It is not your fault. It is not anybody’s fault. I was sick once for a year, but I forced myself to get better.” Francesca’s face shimmered, changed. “You look like your father,” she whispered, and smiled. “He was a wonderful man, petit chaton. You know, you are very like him.”

  “Who was my father?” Francesca gasped. “Please, tell me who he was?”

  “He died,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you never knew him.”

  A grief Francesca had never expected to feel filled her heart.

  “But he had plans for you. Grand plans. He wrote and told me. The letter was stolen…long ago.”

  “What was my father’s name?”

  “Tommy,” she said, and smiled. Aphrodite’s eyes closed, but she reached out her other hand, and Dobson closed his fingers over it. “The letter.” She was struggling to get the words out. “We must…the letter…” But she had slipped back into her feverish sleep.

  “Will she get better?” Francesca sounded stark as Jemmy walked with her to the bedchamber door. Despite his own pain, his gaze was compassionate for her. Such kindness from a man she hardly knew, while her own uncle treated her with contempt! She felt as if her heart would break.

  “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “She’s not strong in her body. But there’s no one else I know with a stronger will. She’ll fight.”

  “This is my fault.”

  “No, it ain’t,” he retorted.

  “But Rosie! I sent Rosie to her.”

  “She made you a promise that she’d care for Rosie, so she did. It meant a lot to her that you’d asked.”

  Francesca stared up at him, a lump in her throat.

  “It weren’t Rosie who made her sick. This ain’t the cholera. Believe me,” he said with certainty, “I’ve seen it and I know. This is something else.”

  “My sisters…?”

  “I’ve already sent a message.”

  Her mother was dying. It was true. He wouldn’t have sent for Vivianna and Marietta otherwise. The acknowledgment was suddenly too much for her, and Francesca began to sob.

  A step behind her, and someone turned her around. Arms enclosed her, amazingly strong and comforting. And familiar. With a gasp, Francesca lifted her ravaged face.

  Sebastian?

  He looked into her eyes, his own full of compassion. Her lips trembled. “Poor darling,” he murmured. “You have enough to bear, but there is more, Francesca, and I can’t spare you. You must be strong for me, for your mother.”

  She pulled away and wiped her cheeks impatiently. “What do you mean? What are you doing here?”

  “Francesca.” Jemmy Dobson looked weary beyond words. “Mr. Thorne is here to help. Your mother’s sickness…someone is poisoning her.”

  She felt
as if the floor were moving under her feet.

  Sebastian gave her a little shake. “I haven’t time to explain. We need your help, Francesca, if we’re to get this person to admit what they’ve done, and tell us what they are using. Your mother’s life may depend upon it. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you,” she said, “but I am finding it difficult to believe you.”

  “Believe me.”

  His eyes were dark and deadly serious.

  Francesca nodded her head jerkily. “What do you want me to do?” she whispered.

  “Wait in the sitting room, and when a certain person comes to join you, engage them in conversation. Be natural. We’ll do the rest.”

  Francesca gave a little laugh and covered her mouth. She had just been told that her mother was being poisoned, and now they wanted her to sit and wait for a poisoner to appear, and engage them in conversation. Be natural?

  Sebastian turned her away from Dobson, cupping her face in his hands. He was warm and alive, and somehow the feel of him, the sight of him, fed her strength. “Darling girl,” he murmured and, bending, kissed her lips, once, and then again. “Do this. Be brave and strong and it will all be over. I will explain afterward, I promise. But you must trust me now. Do you trust me, Francesca?”

  “I trust you,” she said, and she did.

  He smiled, but it was a serious smile. “Dobson will show you downstairs. I’ll be about, though.”

  She nodded and tried not to cling to him as he stepped away. But she turned her head back on the landing, for a last, comforting glimpse of him. He was watching her, and there was an expression on his face she had never seen before. Deep emotion and determination, and sadness, too.

  “I’m sorry,” she said shakily to Dobson. “This must be awful for you. You…you love her very much, don’t you?”

  He smiled into her eyes. “Course I do. And Aphrodite knows how much I love her, so I’ve got nothing to prove. It’s you who ’as to make your peace with your mother, Francesca, not me. Now, it’s time.” He squeezed her hand, and Francesca followed him into the sitting room.

  Chapter 21

  She’d imagined the room as dark and empty, but it wasn’t. Lamps and candles were blazing, and a fire was burning merrily in the hearth. In fact, now she came to look about her, the whole club was full of light, and she could hear music and voices coming from the direction of the salon.

  “Is the club open tonight?” she said in disbelief.

  “Aphrodite insisted on it,” Dobson replied, “and we do as she tells us. It matters to her that things go on as normal. The club is part of her, and I think if it were to close, then she would lose hope. Now, make yourself comfortable.”

  He closed the door so quickly that she suspected he didn’t want her to ask any more questions, or change her mind. Francesca stood for a moment, feeling at a loss, and then she went to the sofa and sat down. The room had an expectant feel, as though at any moment Aphrodite might walk in. Her presence was everywhere, in the elegance of the furnishings, in the Egyptian chair with its sphinx armrests, in the miniatures of her three daughters. Francesca remembered when her mother had asked to have them painted, and how she had railed against her own particular sitting, saying it was a waste of her time.

  She shut her eyes, trying not to cry again. She was being self-indulgent. She needed to be strong, like her mother. Aphrodite was one of the strongest women she knew, and she’d only just realized it. Francesca prayed her new appreciation had not come too late.

  The tap on the door startled her so much that she came to her feet. Was this the one? Was this the poisoner? But with relief she saw that it was only Maeve. The pretty Irishwoman looked somber, and she was carrying a tray.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, Miss Francesca. Mr. Dobson sent me. I have some coffee, nice and hot and strong. I thought you might be needing it to keep your spirits up.”

  The smell of the coffee was delicious, and suddenly Francesca couldn’t wait to sample the reviving brew. “Thank you, Maeve.”

  “This is a very sad time for all of us here at the club,” Maeve said, pouring the coffee into a cup and handing it across to her. Francesca noticed then that she had two cups.

  “Please, if you have time, do sit with me and have a cup yourself. I don’t want to be alone.” She needed a moment to gather her thoughts, to come to terms with what Sebastian had told her.

  Maeve smiled. “Thank you, miss. Mr. Dobson did suggest I stay with you awhile, but I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “You’re not intruding, Maeve, I’m glad of your company. My mother is sleeping, and I don’t really know what I’m still doing here, but…I don’t want to go home.” She wondered if Maeve knew about the poisoner, but thought it best not to mention it.

  Maeve sat down on the sofa beside her, and gave Francesca a tentative glance. “If Madame leaves us, then what will happen to her club? She’s the heart and soul of this place. There’s no one can take her place. It’ll be like an empty shell without her. I really don’t know what we will do.” She looked down at the coffee in her hands, and then changed her mind and put the cup back on the tray.

  “Dobson says she’s the strongest person he knows,” Francesca said, willing herself to believe it. Her sisters had told her that the club had been Maeve’s home for many years. If she lost Madame and her home, what would she do? Where would she go? “That won’t happen, you know,” Francesca spoke to herself as much as Maeve. “I mean, whatever happens, the club will stay. My sister, Marietta, will take it over.”

  Maeve said nothing. She looked as if she might burst into tears, and she turned her face away so that Francesca could not see her grief.

  In that moment there was something familiar about her, something that niggled at Francesca’s memory, and it had nothing to do with Aphrodite’s Club. Francesca searched her mind, trying to remember what it was, but the urgency faded as the silence stretched out.

  “She’s been so kind to me,” Maeve whispered. “I pray she’d understand if she knew why I did…” But she shook her head and didn’t go on with whatever she’d been about to say. “Never mind,” she said instead. “I’m rambling. Please forgive me. Do you want more coffee? I think Henri has some of his special little cakes in the kitchen pantry. He locks them away but I can always find them.”

  “No, I couldn’t eat anything. Maeve—”

  “Maeve?” The door had opened without them noticing, and a woman Francesca had never seen before stood there watching them. She was short and plump, and when she smiled she had dimples either side of her mouth. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” But that didn’t stop her from coming right inside the room and closing the door behind her.

  Francesca felt a chill run down her back. Was this the poisoner, the one she’d been waiting for?

  “What do you want, Louisa?” Maeve said it so sharply that Francesca was taken aback. She had never heard Maeve speak in such an unfriendly manner.

  “What do I want?” the woman said with a smirk. “I wanted to ask you a question. Yesterday Mr. Dobson was asking me about any medicine that Madame might ’ave had from the apothecary. I couldn’t remember fetching her any. And then I remembered about that little packet you had delivered at the door that time. Was that from the apothecary, Maeve?”

  There was a strangely ominous silence. Francesca looked from one to the other of them, confused, but with a growing sense of foreboding.

  “What little packet?” Maeve asked levelly. “You’ve made a mistake, Louisa.”

  “No, I saw it right enough. It was the boy from the apothecary, and he gave you a little packet, and you paid him for it.”

  “I…” Suddenly she smiled, more like the Maeve Francesca knew. “Ah yes, I remember now. They were drops, for my head. I get the headache something fierce.”

  “Then why were you putting them into Madame’s coffee?”

  Maeve stared, her smile slipping away. “What are you saying? How dare you…?”
/>   But Louisa wasn’t about to be stopped. “Madame always gets you to make her coffee, because you do it just the way she likes it. No one else but Maeve can make Madame’s coffee!” she added, with a dimpled smile at Francesca that contained more than a hint of malice. “It’s a bit of a joke with us, you see.”

  “You probably saw me with the sugar,” Maeve said flatly.

  “Oh no,” Louisa exclaimed, “it weren’t no sugar. It were those drops from the apothecary that the boy delivered. Did Madame have a headache then? Maybe that was it?” Her accent was quickly slipping in the direction of the East End of London.

  Maeve’s gaze narrowed, and her face looked pinched. “You’re wrong, or lying. I didn’t put anything in Madame’s coffee. I don’t know why you’re saying these things.” She stood up, moving toward Louisa.

  Francesca had been listening with surprise and concern, but as Maeve walked away from her, suddenly she remembered what had been niggling at her a little while before.

  “Maeve,” she burst out, “do you know Mrs. March?”

  Maeve spun around, her eyes wide and frightened. “Why do you say that?” she cried in a brittle voice. “What has that to do with anything?”

  “Because I saw you talking to her at the house in Wensted Square. I’ve only just realized it.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Maeve wailed. “I didn’t do it.”

  And then she seemed to break, folding in on herself, with her arms wrapped about her waist and her face screwing up like a child’s. Suddenly she opened her mouth and let out a shrill scream.

  Francesca was too shocked to move, but Louisa was smiling with satisfaction as Maeve screamed again. The door opened abruptly, and Dobson and Sebastian came inside.

  Maeve was still screaming. Dobson pushed past Louisa and caught her, shaking her and then pulling her against him when she refused to stop. The Irishwoman’s eyes were blank, as though her mind had gone beyond what she could bear. But at least, when he held her against his chest, she stopped her terrible cries.

  The door was open into the vestibule, and Francesca could see others gathering to see what the fuss was about, before Sebastian closed it firmly in their faces.