Chronicles of Love and Devotion: A Historical Regency Romance Collection

by Abigail Agar

  As soon as he was out of sight, Vera made quick movements towards her hidden laudanum. She tried but could not suppress the smile at the opportunity that she had found.

  Hiding the bottled drug up her sleeve, just near her wrist, Vera waited for the dentally challenged guard’s return. She tried to steady her heart by taking deep breaths, but it proved difficult.

  The guard’s key sounded like a battering ram hammering at the door to her sensitive ears. Until it slipped into the lock with an oily clank and scraped around in a turn that let out an almost endless screech of metal on metal.

  To Vera, it sounded like swords clashing.

  The door opened, and the guard came in with an oil lamp burning dirty with a plume of foul smelling smoke coiling off the top and blackening the glass.

  That’s good, thought Vera. The flickering gloom will cover my own dark purposes.

  She smiled as sweetly as she could through the nausea he made her feel and heard in her mind the passages from the book:

  Let me cut short the rest. I grew worse and worse in my head! now stupid, now raving, now senseless. The vilest of vile women was brought to frighten me. Never was there so horrible a creature as she appeared to me at this time.

  She took the wine from him and then two glasses.

  With swift eager steps, he came forward, his eyes landing hungrily on Vera.

  She smiled at him and tried to look glad to see his leering face.

  ‘My, my, look what you’ve found,’ said Vera.

  He held the bottle up aggressively along with a lump of cheese. ‘Cost a pretty penny. Nice stuff though. Strong. The cheese and wine both. Only the best for a woman like yourself.’

  Vera tried to saunter forward but hesitated and instead kept her distance saying, ‘How delicious. I will keep my word and see that you are fully compensated for this.’

  ‘What a sinful woman you are,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s been a while since you’ve had such pleasures? Little for a woman to enjoy in this prison.’ He laughed at his own words and bent over the table laying out the food. The cheese was wrapped in a greasy cloth.

  While he was engaged setting the table, Vera considered trying to pour the laudanum but hesitated. It was like the moment where she had tried to throw the bottle into the bushes. Fear stopped her, froze her stiff. The stakes were higher now. She couldn’t afford to go wrong with this again.

  Vera forced a coquettish giggle out. ‘No, no, please let me wait on you.’ She needed to get some space between him and the glasses.

  He stepped back and sat down on the edge of her bed, his legs sprawled and his boots planted on the floor. ‘See if you’d always been so obedient, perhaps you wouldn’t be in this mess, eh?’

  Vera poured the wine and nodded meekly. ‘I’m sure you are right about that.’ She glanced up. ‘Shall we have the cheese as well?’

  ‘Always wanting things, you are.’ He reached down to unfold the cloth that was around the hard cheese.

  Vera ignored him, her mind was running through the passages in her memory, letting her anger at the rake, Lovejoy, fuel her actions now.

  I remember I pleaded for mercy, she thought, repeating the words of the novel in her head. I remember that I said I would be his— indeed I would be his—to obtain his mercy. But no mercy found I!

  And no mercy will I give, she added for herself.

  The guard bent his head and rubbed the back of his neck. It was only a moment for her to act, but this time she took it, and with one smooth movement she slipped the bottle into her hand.

  My strength, my intellects failed me—And then such scenes followed—O my dear, such dreadful scenes!—fits upon fits, (faintly indeed and imperfectly remembered,) procuring me no compassion …

  The cork came away cleanly in her fingers, exactly as she had practiced. From anywhere but directly below the offending hand it would just look like she had stiffness in her right arm and wrist.

  But death was withheld from me. That would have been too great a mercy!

  Tilting the bottle as she passed her hand over the nearest glass she let the liquid spill from it into the bottle. Five or six drops, it was hard to estimate, but she felt the weight of the bottle change and heard the splash of the drug in the pewter of the cups.

  Thus was I tricked and deluded back by blacker hearts of my own sex than I thought there were in the world.

  The wine bubbled a little as it left the bottle, pouring into the cup and covering up the evidence of her crime. Then with a quick movement of her hand, she swapped the glasses around and passed the drugged glass to her keeper who smilingly drank down half of it in one long gulp.

  He stood up, pulled a knife from his pocket, and plunked it onto the table next to the cheese. ‘There it is then. More luxury than most criminals can dare to dream of.’ He began cutting a piece of cheese off.

  Vera sipped her wine nervously. ‘It’s just delicious. May I have a piece of the cheese as well?’

  He smirked. ‘Open your mouth.’

  ‘What?’ Vera’s jaw clenched.

  His red face filled with amusement. ‘Open your mouth.’ He raised a slice of cheese up. ‘So I can give you your serving.’

  With her spine prickling, Vera parted her lips.

  ‘A little more.’ His voice was singsong. He wiggled the cheese tauntingly.

  Vera opened her mouth all the way it would go.

  He paused to stare at her and nodded. ‘That’s a good girl.’ He placed the large piece of cheese on her tongue, his rough thumb brushing her lip as he did.

  She closed her lips immediately and began vigorously chewing the over-sized chunk.

  ‘Is it good?’ he asked, filling his mouth greedily with an even larger slice. He seemed to be enjoying watching her struggle to chew.

  Vera took a giant swig of her wine and swallowed. ‘Amazing.’ She took another gulp hoping it would take away the salt-sweat taste of his fingers. ‘Why don’t you try some more wine?’ Vera smiled sweetly, gesturing to his glass.

  He lifted his cup. ‘Women, always leading men down the road to sin. Eve was the first, hasn’t stopped for a minute since then.’ He took another deep swig.

  Inside herself, Vera cheered. Finally, the plan was truly in play. ‘Well, it is a good thing that women have the guidance of men then, isn’t it?’

  He took another mouthful of cheese and gulp of wine. ‘That’s the sad truth. Where women would be on their own, the Lord only knows.’ He spoke without bothering to swallow.

  Vera sipped her own wine more slowly now. ‘How did you decide to become a man of the law? A guardian of wayward sinners?’

  ‘It’s a strange story, with fate playing no small part …’

  Though the guard continued to speak, sloshing the red wine and white cheese in his mouth as he did, Vera didn’t pay heed to a word he said. All she did was smile every time he took another sip of his laudanum-laden wine.

  Eventually, his words began to slow. ‘What was I saying?’ he asked, a look of confusion crossing his face. ‘I don’t quite feel right.’

  Vera giggled with sugary delight. ‘You’d just made a delightful joke.’ In truth, she had little idea what he’d been prattling on about.

  He nodded slowly like his head was under water. ‘Oh good. I’m often told I possess great wit …’ Now his eyelids drooped. He took another sip of wine. ‘Powerful stuff,’ he muttered. ‘How many glasses have we had?’

  Vera pretended to drunkenly shrug. ‘I have no idea.’ In truth, neither of them had finished their first, but she had clearly added more laudanum to his that she had expected.

  I hope it isn’t sufficient to kill him, she thought with only a cursory feeling of worry that she put down to the wine she had drunk herself rather than some awakening criminal instinct in her.

  The guard’s head nodded forward. ‘You are a woman who leads men to sin, aren’t you …’ His words slurred and trailed off.

  ‘You’re repeating yourself,’ she said.

&
nbsp; ‘You … you are … something. I don’t quite remember what, though?’

  ‘I’m just the Devil’s plaything. That’s what you called me, remember?’ Vera watched his heavy body sway, even though he was seated. ‘You’ve almost finished your cup sir. Why don’t you take the last sip, and I’ll pour you another?’

  He nodded like an obedient child and downed the last of his drink.

  ‘You look tired,’ she whispered. ‘Why don’t we just lie down together for a little while.’

  ‘Yes,’ he slurred. ‘Yes … that might be … might be …’ He blinked one long blink and then another. ‘Yes, yes I think I might do that,’ he said. ‘You must come in beside me. We had an … arrangement …’

  Vera leaned forward and heard a drugged snore emerging from the man. ‘We did have an arrangement,’ whispered Vera. ‘And I’m changing the terms. You should know better than to deal with the Devil’s mistress, sir.’

  Smiling for real now, Vera shoved the remaining lump of cheese into his mouth. ‘Enjoy.’

  The keys to the cell were attached by a short loop of chain to his belt, and so she had to pull his belt off to get at them.

  Once that was done, it seemed an obvious next step to pull his trousers down around his ankles leaving him lying face down shining a full moon directly at the door. Leaving him there drugged and exposed like that seemed likely to end his career in a job that he had abused so mightily.

  If they do not throw you out of your position for that, then I don’t know what they will, Vera thought. It was a nasty thought that Mr Phillips might cover up such a reprobate in his own prison.

  She took the keys and went to unlock the door, but as she put metal to metal, she heard voices in the corridor.

  ‘Well, it’s all a bit irregular dragging me out of my study at this time of night, but if the judge wants it, I don’t see what I can do.’ It was Phillips’ voice.

  The warden! Vera thought.

  She froze briefly, then rapidly dimmed the lamp until the flame was barely throwing more light than a matchstick. She didn’t have a flint and so was anxious not to let the fire burn out, but she covered it as much as possible with her body.

  She prayed the warden was here for Catherine or Martha. But the footsteps seemed to get closer and closer. They stopped outside her door, and in a blind panic she stashed the laudanum best as she could in the bust of her dress.

  For a moment, the idea of smashing the lamp and setting a fire occurred to her but burning a drugged guard to death would make her a real murderer, and if the warden opted not to open the door immediately, she might perish by her own hand. Both outcomes which were, on reflection, wildly unhelpful to her current state.

  Within moments, the warden was at the entrance to her cell. ‘Your trial will begin shortly, inmate. Prepare yourself to stand before the law and the Lord.’

  Vera let out a desperate sigh of disappointment. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Phillips peered into the cell and saw the snoring guard with a mouth full of cheese and his arse on show, snoring and drooling slightly. ‘What’s that?’

  Vera shrugged. ‘I think he was tired and hungry.’

  The warden squinted and tilted his head. ‘Looks like I arrived at just the right time. I was dropping by to tell you that your trial will begin tomorrow. Now if you would just hand over the keys, I’d be much obliged.’

  Vera passed him the keys, and he sent the guards in to collect their colleague and cover up his shame.

  ‘Sleep well. Your fate is to be decided in the morning,’ said Mr Phillips. ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’

  Vera tried to suppress the frustration of her thwarted plan and attempted to make her mind and heart ready for what was about to come. She would need all her strength to stand in the face of what was next.

  They carefully searched her person for what they assumed must be a hidden cosh. Instead, in an act that violated all decency, they found the small bottle tucked between her breasts.

  If only she knew what Lord Stanley meant by keep hope. Did he know something she didn’t? It was all she had left to cling to. Her only idea for getting out was now gone.

  At least they left me the wine, she thought.

  Chapter 20

  Much to her chagrin, Vera was fully sober when they came for her in the morning. She had barely slept for just a few hours, and her head hurt like someone had put a quarrying spike through it.

  She had dreamed of the wolf pack again, only this time when the wolves pulled away the wolf pelt that she wore as a disguise, it turned out she was a huge lioness capable of dispatching the pack of wolves with only a tear in her ear right where Fitzwilliam’s hand knocked her out.

  Mr Phillips arrived shortly after she woke with a clean dress for her to change into. Once she had changed, he had the guards place manacle irons around her ankles and wrists. She noticed that the toothless guard she had bested last night was nowhere to be seen.

  The smell of her unwashed body now pervaded her, and she sincerely wished she might be allowed to wash herself before she was presented to the public.

  To hide her hair – which she couldn’t help feeling was headed from just untidy to lank – Mr Phillips had provided her with a plain grey bonnet trimmed in the same cloth as her drab grey dress.

  The clanking she made when she walked in her chains was deafening on her sensitive ears, and even the gloomy autumn morning light was much brighter than she’d have liked it. She was loaded into a coach with two of Fitzwilliam’s men who escorted her on her journey from prison to courthouse.

  They took her in through a gate that led to a back door.

  A few corridors later and there she was stood in the prisoners’ dock slightly lower and just to the left of the magistrate: Judge Kenway.

  The court was largely empty, apart from a small collection of landed men who were to make up the jury and who were milling about not quite having taken their seats.

  Vera sat in silence. Chained and seated, there seemed nothing left to do. She would not even be allowed to speak on her own behalf unless permitted specifically by the judge as a deviation from the usual protocol.

  Judge Kenway, by the look of it, was a country magistrate who had found himself in a big city and had not quite adapted to the post. He was all smiles and spoke jovially with all the men in the room.

  The next arrival in the court was William Fitzwilliam. He strolled into the courtroom with the air of a man who saw this as his own property, maybe even his own home. It was the easiest going Vera had ever seen him.

  He too largely ignored Vera except to shoot her a single smug, victorious smirk. She wished to God they were back on the duellists’ field where she could be allowed to take the shot.

  She’d got a lot more practice in since their last run in; she fancied her odds.

  Once Fitzwilliam had greeted the jurors and introduced himself, he took his seat near the front directly opposite Vera, a seat meant to represent physically her right to face her accuser.

  She was raised up like a priest in the pulpit looking over this place of justice. It felt almost like she was sitting in judgement rather than to be judged.

  After that, the court filled up quickly, the mad murderess of Bathcombe was quite a draw, and the stands were packed with members of the public as well as writers from the Gazette and a number of other papers. From the murmurs going around the court, she understood that the Times of London had sent a reporter out to report on her trial.