Plantagenet Halsey leaned heavily on his cane and met his nephew’s gaze unblinkingly. “Your brother’s greed and contempt for his fellows got him shot. But you blame yourself for his death; for not being able to prevent what was to come. You’re still blamin’ yourself. The very fact you’re uncomfortable with your elevation is proof enough of that. Let me finish! I’ve been wantin’ to say this for some time and it’s time I did, before you sink further into that vat of self pity—”
“Uncle, I—”
“No. You’ll hear me out. While you continue to let your shiny new coronet sit awkwardly; continue to wince when addressed as my lord; continue to put off takin’ your seat in the Lords; continue to dress like a man of trade, with your natural hair unpowdered—”
“Ha! And this from a man who taught me that to live by the dictates of fashion was to be a slave to vanit—”
“—there will always be doubters. You are the Marquess Halsey, whether you wish it to damnation or not. There ain’t a thing you can do about it now! So you may as well wear the title comfortably.”
“Can I?” Alec asked with a skeptical lift of his black brows. “How comfortable can I be when we both know—when it is openly discussed behind fluttering fans and quizzing glasses—that I did not inherit my brother’s earldom, but was elevated to a Marquessate in my own right to put to rest the persistent talk that I was not entitled to the family earldom because nine months prior to my birth my mother and her footman were lovers. A circumstance you stubbornly refuse to confirm or deny.”
The old man did not blink. “The sooner you are comfortable,” he said quietly, “the sooner those malicious scandal-mongering whoresons will turn their attention elsewhere. I’m tired,” he added abruptly and blew his nose. “By the by, how did the lad take the news about Blackwell?”
“Tam? Better than expected,” Alec replied evenly, pleased to take the focus off himself. He wished he hadn’t flung his mother’s affair in his uncle’s face. The old man’s love for the Countess had been unrequited; her affair with her footman, a social inferior and a mulatto, considered abhorrent barbarism by her peers. It remained unspoken between them, but uncle and nephew knew that even if Alec did redeem himself in the eyes of Society, doubt over his paternity would forever remain. “That is to say, Tam didn’t let on to me how much Blackwell’s death has affected him.”
“He’s become a regular close-faced servant since you took him on as valet. And from what I hear about your antics abroad, he’d have to pretend to deafness as well. I don’t know why you bothered taking him with you to Paris when you spent the entire week cavorting between the sheets. His time would’ve been better served here.” He broke off, embarrassed at saying more than he intended, and mumbled under his nephew’s steady gaze, “The boy has a gift for healin’. The poor deserve access to the same medicinal treatments that are provided to the rich and if—”
“Save me the customary lecture on rich and poor. I know it well enough,” Alec answered flatly. “And don’t think, just because I’ve been caught up in estate business in Kent, or, as you so plainly put it, romping in a Parisian bed, I don’t know what you’ve been up to. Sending Tam to help Blackwell in St. Judes, the most dangerous parish in the city, is trying my patience that bit too far. I don’t object to the boy using his apothecary’s skills to dispense medicines to the poor at my garden gate. I’m even prepared to defend him should questions be raised by the beadles. But exposing a youth who has barely made his mark on the world, and worse, yourself, an infirm old man, to the treacherous underworld of cutthroats, murderers and disease-ridden hags, was reckless, irresponsible and utterly foolish!”
Plantagenet Halsey looked sheepish. “The vicar asked for m’help. As I said, the boy has a gift for healin’. It shouldn’t be wasted.”
“I don’t disagree with what you’re trying to do but—Damn it, Uncle! There are other ways of offering help. As it happens, I was about to put a stop to such nocturnal visits when Blackwell’s death saved me the necessity.”
“It was that snaky-eyed butler who tattled on us,” the old man muttered rhetorically. “Interfering old buzzard.”
“Then it’s settled. You’ll take my advice and have a holiday.”
Plantagenet Halsey eyed his nephew with loving resentment. “At Bath?” He shrugged, the fight gone out of him. “I’ll go at the end of session. Not before. I want my day in the Commons. Then you can send your old uncle to any watering-hole you damn-well please!”
Tam sat hunched at his workbench, head in his hands, a finger absently wrapping itself about a carrot-colored curl. Concentration was impossible. He’d spent an hour flicking through the pages of the English pharmacopoeia, trying to decide the main ingredients for a poultice to apply to weeping ulcers of the legs. He should’ve known the answer without the need to consult his texts. After all, he had less than a sennight until his examination before the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. But the voices across the hall disturbed his concentration.
There went the old man’s voice again, rising above that of his nephew’s measured tone, as if by shouting him down he could win his point. Tam smiled. It wasn’t that easy. That tactic might work for the old man in the House of Commons but Lord Halsey had a way of getting what he wanted without the need to raise his voice.
If I can’t study, then it’s best to keep occupied.
He decided to tidy his workroom. There was plenty to do to ensure his thoughts did not wander to the death of the Reverend Blackwell. Then he would start crying again. Imagine! Turned nineteen and blubbering like a girl. What would the servants make of his red eyes?
From the lattice-fronted cabinet he took out the specialist apparatus needed in the preparation of his growing collection of prescribed medicines. He hoped to have at least a third of the labeled bottles restocked that evening, when his valeting services were no longer required. And there were the new clippings to sort through: gathered earlier from the herb garden at the back of the kitchen. Several piles of sorted roots, tubers, stems and stalks from various plants were drying on racks by the window; some had been purchased at the Chelsea physique garden.
Who would want to harm an old vicar? And why?
The attending physician had diagnosed heart failure, but his lordship’s questions hinted at the possibility of foul play. An apothecary worth his fee knew any number of substances could kill man or beast and look for all the world as if death was by natural causes. But the Reverend Blackwell? A harmless old man from the poorest parish in London. It was inconceivable to Tam. Blackwell was a gentle man, a sweet and loving man who cared for the unwanted, nameless children cast on the parish by desperate mothers and faceless fathers.
Common Plantain: Plantago major. A weed found by the roadside and in meadowland. As a poultice, fresh whole leaves were applied directly to the ulcerated leg.
Tam smiled. Perhaps the examination wouldn’t be so bad after all?
If time allowed he would unpack the new ceramic jars that had arrived only that morning; another generous gift from his lordship, as was the dispensary and all its contents.
Lord Halsey had given Tam the use of the small room beside the butler’s pantry as a preparation room. It was the sort of room every student of pharmacy dreamed of having at the end of a seven-year apprenticeship. It was fitted out with shelves, cabinets, a worktable and a small stove for the brewing kettles, and it was next to the kitchen and the herb garden beyond. It was Tam’s alone. He had the only key to the door leading onto the passage; the back door he could bolt from the inside. Not even the butler was permitted to trespass.
Tam fingered the key and its chain that was attached to a button inside his plain cloth waistcoat pocket and grinned. He considered himself the luckiest lad alive and daily thanked God for his good fortune. Valet to a wealthy nobleman, who was not only the best master a youth could hope for, but one who encouraged his servants to better themselves.
Unlike his lordship’s butler, who was forever looking over hi
s shoulder trying to catch Tam out for attending on the poor wretches who often called at the garden gate in search of free medicinals and advice. And making house calls on Blackwell’s sick and miserable parishioners was, in the butler’s opinion, the height of wastefulness.
The butler’s familiar short, sharp rap on the outer door interrupted Tam’s thoughts and he reluctantly went in answer to it, wiping his eyes on the back of a sleeve.
Wantage stood in the doorway, scowling. He disapproved of Tam and he certainly did not approve of his hocus-pocus. He considered it beneath the dignity of a Marquess’s valet to get his hands soiled with garden filth. He tried to take a look into the room but Tam stood firmly in the doorway.
All that study of botanical mumbo jumbo had made the boy’s eyes red.
Tam pulled the door on his back and made a point of taking his time to turn the key in the latch. The butler stood so close Tam could smell the cheroots on his breath.
“You’re wanted,” Wantage sniffed, itching to snatch the key that dangled from its long chain in the boy’s hand. “No. Not upstairs. In there,” he said, a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder at the library door. “Tie your hair back, Thomas Fisher.”
Tam abruptly stopped swinging the key and shot a hand to his red curls. Where was that damn riband? He turned out his pockets, found the scrap of black silk, scraped back his curly hair from his forehead, and carelessly tied it up at the nape of his neck. All this under the reproachful gaze of the butler, who took it upon himself to inspect Tam’s handiwork before allowing him to pass.
Tam gritted his teeth and let the butler have his moment. It didn’t do to upset Wantage. He had a way of making those he disliked pay, regardless of their closeness to the master.
He slipped into the library and waited, only coming out of the shadows when Plantagenet Halsey slowly crossed the room on his nephew’s arm. He could tell the old man’s arthritis was bothering him, particularly this cold day, and offered to help him to his room. His offer was greeted with a grunt but was not rejected. When Tam returned he found Lord Halsey had put on his eyeglasses and was seated at his desk, writing. Tam smiled. There was a time when his master had refused to acknowledge his failing eyesight. Finally, necessity had conquered vanity.
Alec looked over his gold rims. “Were you by the door while Mr. Halsey was with me?”
“Long enough, sir,” Tam answered honestly.
“Then I won’t need to repeat myself about your nocturnal wanderings. Do I make myself understood?”
Tam nodded.
“Very well. I should like to know if you think Blackwell had any enemies.”
“None, sir,” Tam answered without hesitation. “He was liked by all. No one had a bad word to say about him. Why should they? He was a very decent gentleman.”
“The times you were with him, visiting his parishioners, did he ever mention anything you thought an odd circumstance or out of character?”
Tam’s brow furrowed. “Mr. Blackwell’s conversation was always full of questions for me. What I was doing. What I thought of going abroad. He was always urging me to keep on with my studies. He wanted me to finish my apprenticeship. He didn’t like the idea of me being a servant. No offence to you, sir.”
“None taken. Did you know Mr. Blackwell had quit Old St. Jude’s lane?”
“Yes, sir. He sent a note about two months ago, just after Mr. Halsey and I went on our last visit to one of his parishioners; a wainwright with two broken fingers. Mr. Blackwell wrote he was going to greener pastures. I don’t know what he meant by that.” Tam screwed up his freckled nose. “Come to think on it, sir, he didn’t give a forwarding direction.”
“Did you hear from him again?”
“No, sir. Perhaps he wrote again while we were in Paris? But we weren’t in Paris long enough for letters to cross on account of—” Tam faulted under his master’s unblinking blue-eyes and lowered his gaze to the Oriental rug. On account of you having a falling-out with Mrs. Jamison-Lewis, was what Tam had been about to say. But it wasn’t his place to mention his master’s Titian-haired mistress. Just as it wasn’t his place to remember how every night for a week he’d been kept awake by their torrid lovemaking in the next room.
“You may write your memoirs when I’m dead and buried. Not before,” Alec said sternly and was pleased the boy had sense enough to remain po-faced. “Tell me: Is it within the realms of possibility that Blackwell was poisoned?”
“But who—?”
“That is something to think about if and only if you think it possible.”
“It wouldn’t be an easy thing, sir.”
“To poison him or to make it look as if he’d had a heart attack?”
“Let me explain, sir. It would be an easy thing to poison him. Something slipped into his wine, or sprinkled on his food, or his handkerchief could’ve been soaked in Oleander water. When Mr. Blackwell came to use it during the evening the poison would be absorbed through his nose and go straight to work on his brain. He would almost certainly have died within minutes. But…”
Alec came round from behind the heavy mahogany desk and propped himself on a corner while Tam paced the rug thinking aloud. “But?” he prompted.
“It’s got to be the right poison in the right form to produce the right effect. Mr. Blackwell died of a heart attack, so says the physician. So we need to be looking for a poison whose effect imitates that of a heart attack. We need to know the form of that poison to know how it was administered.” Tam looked up at his master. “It wouldn’t be easy, sir.”
“I realize that, Tam. But look into it for me, would you?”
Tam swallowed something in his throat. “Yes, sir. It’s just that… It’s just that if it wasn’t Mr. Blackwell I’d feel better about it. I’d probably even enjoy the challenge, but…”
“Of course,” Alec said with an understanding smile. “It is not easy when the victim is someone you know; someone you care about.”
Although he nodded his agreement, Alec’s reassurances didn’t make Tam feel any better. “I still don’t understand why anyone would want to poison Mr. Blackwell.”
“Nor do I. Yet, if Blackwell’s death wasn’t from natural causes, I mean to make it my business to find out why someone would want dead a seemingly good and harmless man of God.” And to Alec’s reckoning, if he hoped to learn more about the Reverend Blackwell he would have to know more about the Duke of Cleveley. But how to get close to a man whose very nature precluded closeness?
“Sir,” said Tam, a glance at the mantle clock, “I’d best see to your clothes if you still intend visiting that picture exhibition…?”
“Ah, yes,” Alec sighed. “Must needs support new talent. Oh, Tam, before you scurry off… What would you say to taking a holiday at Bath after your examinations?”
“To keep an eye on Mr. Halsey, sir?”
“Let’s just say, to keep him company.”
“What shall you do, sir?”
“Without you?” Alec tried not to smile at the boy’s look of deep concern. “I’ll manage. I have thus far. Oh, don’t look worried. It’s more important you pass your examinations. Valets are easy to come-by, not so good apothecaries.”
Tam wasn’t reassured. In fact he wondered if this was the first step in easing him out of his position. After all, he’d hardly done a full day’s work as a valet in months. He tried not to look hurt. “Mr. Halsey might not want my company, sir.”
“It’s you or a strong-armed nurse. In all seriousness, he’ll be only too grateful to have you, and I won’t leave the two of you alone for long. I’ll join you at the end of a fortnight.”
With a sluggish step and a heavy heart, Tam went away to prepare his master’s change of clothes. He passed Wantage in the passageway and such was the look of smug triumph on the butler’s long face that Tam was sure it was no mere coincidence he felt his position as a gentleman’s gentleman was under threat. He was sure of it when Wantage winked at him and continued on his way with a decided spr
ing in his step.
“I do not see what’s so interesting about a recipe for Mrs. Rumble’s Strawberry Relish,” Selina Jamison-Lewis commented, not bothering to look up from the heavy oak library table where she sat surrounded by a toppling mountain of ledgers and correspondence. She re-dipped her quill in ink. “Although… It is a particularly good relish. Shall I copy it out for you?”
“Don’t be silly, Lina!” retorted her sister-in-law, Lady Cobham, smoothing a crease in her satin sleeve to hide her embarrassment at being caught out reading a letter Selina had been careless enough to let fall off the table onto the Turkey rug. She shut her fan, tossed it and Selina’s letter onto a little walnut stand, and selected another sweetmeat from the silver bowl at her elbow. Her teeth worried her constantly. “M. Maria? Mary? Margaret? Miriam? Maude?”
“Miranda.”
Lady Cobham’s thinly plucked eyebrows shot up. “Oh? The little orphan with the bastard daughter… Sophie, isn’t it?”
“I detest your memory, Caro.”
Lady Cobham smiled and chose another sweetmeat. “She forms beautiful letters, if that’s any reflection on her character. It’s almost time for your yearly pilgrimage to that squalid little farm where you’ve given her sanctuary, isn’t it?”
Selina put the quill in the ornate silver Standish and proceeded to wash the page of neatly tallied figures with sand to set the wet ink. “I don’t care to discuss Miranda.”
“Discuss her? You’ve not told me more than two sentences about her!” complained Lady Cobham. “You’ve put a roof over the girl’s head; visit her every year; take her child gifts. And, now I learn you correspond. I sense intrigue and mystery. The very fact you refuse to discuss her with me, your dearest and only sister-in-law, is proof enough of that.”
Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) Page 3
