Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  It was only later, waiting in the quiet of the paneled anteroom with several other nervous apprentices, that panic set in and fear chilled his bones. Monkshood: its preparation and ingestion. He’d been so puffed up with his own cleverness that he was blind to the significance of such a question. And it had been put to him by the Chief Examiner, a haughty, gaunt little man who had been apothecary to the previous King George and knighted for his services.

  Surely the question was mere coincidence? Sir Septimus Bott could know nothing of Tam’s suspicions regarding the cause of death of the Reverend Blackwell: asphyxiation and stoppage of the heart brought about by the inhalation of a powdered form of Monkshood blended with his snuff. But the coincidence was enough for Tam to seriously wonder if the question was deliberately put.

  As he drifted off to sleep, stretched out on the grassy bank, listening to the flow of the river and the mews of waterfowl amongst the reeds, he wondered if he was being overly sensitive to Bott’s pertinent question. But Sir Septimus knew he was valet to Lord Halsey and, like every other educated Londoner, he read the newssheets, thus knew that his lordship had been present at a dinner party where a vicar had up and died of a heart attack. But surely Sir Septimus could not know his lordship’s suspicions regarding the Reverend Blackwell’s death? Yet, that was exactly what Tam now believed.

  He had been the last of the apprentices to be dismissed and the only one to be informed that as he had a dispensary at his place of employment, which was not presided over by a master apothecary, it would be inspected and appraised before a final decision was made on Tam’s suitability for admission as a fellow of the Society. No time or date was given and he was sent on his way.

  Tam didn’t know how to tell his lordship that not only had he no idea if he had passed or failed the examination, but that Lord Halsey’s London residence, No. 1 St. James’s Place, was to be visited without invitation by three wardens of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

  Dogs barking as they chased waterfowl out of the reeds had Tam scrambling to his feet and brushing grass from the back of his breeches and frockcoat before he was fully awake. The sun’s position high in the sky told him he had fallen asleep and he ran all the way to the Abbey, only stopping when he reached the churchyard. Bent over from being out of breath, he looked up from his knees and saw that the service was well and truly over, the last of the congregation coming out into the sunshine. Most of the worshippers lingered, making plans for the afternoon, while the more infirm were carried back to their lodgings by sedan chair, their servants and retainers walking behind the burly chairmen.

  One private sedan chair remained by the Abbey entrance, its door held wide by a liveried servant and the two long poles on which it was carried allowed to rest easy by its carriers as they awaited its aged occupant. Several of the churchgoers drifted back to this chair as word went round that one of their number had taken ill inside the Abbey. For one dreadful moment Tam thought it was the old man but as he did not have a chair the thought was quickly dismissed. Then, as he continued to skirt the small gathering looking for Plantagenet Halsey and his companion and not seeing them, he wondered if the young lady had gone into early labor.

  He felt anxious for Miranda Bourdon. But it was not only her advanced stage of pregnancy that caused him to be apprehensive. The moment he caught a flash of her face on the hotel’s stairwell he had experienced a frisson of recognition and with it a sense of foreboding. But later, watching her talk with the old man, he convinced himself that there was no circumstance he could think of when he would have come into contact with such a well-bred young lady. Her beauty alone was cause for remembrance. Yet, the feeling he had met her before had stayed with him and again, as he shouldered his way to the open front doors, he racked his mind to think of an occasion or a place where he may have met the young woman.

  He would have stepped inside the Abbey but for the tight knot of persons coming out into the muted sunshine. At its center was a grand dowager, kept upright by two men who supported her bulk by holding her limp arms at the elbow. She was incapable of walking unaided and her rich silk petticoats dragged under her feet. Her head, with its elaborate coiffure of powdered curls brushed over padding and bright turban with ostrich plumes, lolled to one side and her eyelids fluttered.

  In Tam’s opinion, the woman was clearly in no fit state to be moved, but one of the two richly clad gentlemen following up behind was loudly urging the men carrying her to get her into the chair as quickly as possible. To add to this din, the dowager’s maid was sobbing and trying to put salts under her mistress’s nose while another woman patted a limp hand and mouthed soothing platitudes.

  Leading the charge was a po-faced churchwarden officiously parting the ways with his outstretched arms, clutching his bible in one hand and this he flung left and right as if it was a sword fending off the hordes.

  Tam flattened himself against the brickwork to allow the commotion to pass out into the courtyard and slipped inside the cavernous Abbey. He found Plantagenet Halsey standing to one side of a group of chairs, leaning on the head of his Malacca cane, talking with another of the churchwardens. Miranda Bourdon was seated on a chair close-by.

  “I regret this incident occurred here before you both,” apologized the churchwarden as Tam approached and waited a little way off. “As you will appreciate, particularly at this time of year, Bath has many elderly inhabitants who are not in the best of health. Those with exceptionally delicate constitutions require the utmost care and attention. Her ladyship could just as easily have taken a turn at the Assembly Rooms as here in the Abbey. And it was far better that she did so here than, say, whilst bathing in the King’s bath. I have every confidence that, God willing, she will be herself again in no time at all.”

  He looked expectantly from the old man to the young lady, as if requiring their confirmation and was surprised when Miranda continued to stare straight ahead at the great East window. Her delicate profile was deathly pale while a rapid pulse beat in her long slender throat. It was only when she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a lace handkerchief that he realized she had been crying. She was so lovely to look at that he allowed his gaze to linger longer than was polite. His little eyes wandered from her tear-stained cheeks to her slim arms, over the fullness of her breasts and down to where her hands were clasped under a very round belly. His eyes widened and flashed up at the old man whose slow lift of bushy eyebrows not only confirmed the warden’s immediate thought but made him fire up red with embarrassment in cheeks and bulbous nose.

  “If anyone will make a recover it’ll be Frances Rutherglen,” Plantagenet Halsey stated, aware of his young companion’s distress and more to cover the warden’s acute embarrassment than to provide an opening for further discussion. “The woman has the constitution of an ox and as much feelin’ as a dead cod. Besides, she ain’t as old as she looks. White lead paints and too much snuff has aged her before her time.”

  “You know Lady Rutherglen, sir?” the warden asked, feeling he should say something, although he had a great desire to crawl under the nearest vacant chair. “She is one of the more, dare I say it, acerbic members of our congregation. But a most generous benefactress.”

  “I don’t doubt it. The only way she’ll see the gates of Heaven is to buy ’em!”

  The warden forced a laugh. “Now, now, sir! I hardly think this the place to jest about her ladyship’s—”

  “Who’s jestin’?” said Plantagenet Halsey to cut him off. He made an upward gesture with his thumb. “He knows only too well what I mean. It’s time we got some fresh air, don’t you agree, Mrs. Bourdon?”

  “Perhaps Mrs.—?—Mrs. Bourdon would care to sit a little while longer?” the warden suggested gently. “Lady Rutherglen’s collapse has unsettled her nerves. Most understandable, given the—um—circumstances. Perhaps her ladyship had an unexpected fright? Perhaps a mouse ran out from—”

  “Don’t be an ass, man! The woman had a fright all right. But it’d tak
e more than a mouse to frighten Frances Rutherglen.”

  Miranda turned wide, glistening blue eyes up at the old man. “Why do you say so, Mr. Halsey?”

  “She looked straight at me, that’s why, ma’am.”

  Miranda blinked and glanced down at the wet, twisted handkerchief on her lap. “At you? Oh… Yes, yes at you… But why, sir?”

  “My outspoken, fools would call ’em radical, opinions on particular topics offend the Quality; especially the stiff-necked matriarchs of Frances Rutherglen’s ilk. If she had her way I’d be clapped up in the Tower.” The old man grinned sheepishly. “I’m sure they think I ain’t fit to enter God’s Temple.”

  “Surely not, sir—” began the warden but was interrupted.

  “You have a good heart and a clear conscience, Mr. Halsey,” Miranda stated. “Lady Rutherglen has neither…” She made a sudden move to stand and the old man and the churchwarden were quick to assist her. “Thank you. I—I am not quite myself.”

  “What you need is fresh air,” Plantagenet Halsey stated. With a nod to the warden and a signal to Tam to follow, he led Miranda across the wide-open expanse of the Abbey, a hand holding her arm above the elbow, the other resting on his Malacca cane. “And a good dish of black tea back at Barr’s will revive us both.”

  “Yes, I should like that,” she answered in a distracted voice and permitted the old man to lead her out of doors into the openness of the busy church courtyard.

  Lady Rutherglen’s chair had been taken up and was making a slow progress toward the sycamore trees of the Orange Grove, her retainers keeping step with the chairmen. One gentleman with a lace-covered white hand lightly on the chair door was talking earnestly to its suffering occupant. Plantagenet Halsey’s eyes narrowed, taking in this scene but he quickly recovered, remembering his companion, and turned to suggest they continue on their way and found her staring fixedly at the departing chair. A glance at Tam, who shrugged his shoulders in acknowledgement that he, too, was aware of Mrs. Bourdon’s preoccupation, and the old man’s curiosity about the young lady deepened.

  He wondered if Miranda Bourdon had any idea that Blackwell was dead. He wondered what had brought her to Bath when such a journey must be twice as hazardous in her advanced stage of pregnancy. He wondered about Mr. Ninian Bourdon and if that gentleman was the reason she had left Ellick Farm to come to Bath. Not least that she may be in Bath for her lying in. And then there was her distress just now in the Abbey…

  But he was unlikely to find the answers standing in the churchyard and so he was about to suggest they head on their way when a smooth, insolent voice grated on his ear. He knew at once to whom it belonged and it was no surprise that the man had doubled back to confront him; in fact, he was glad he had.

  “Dear me, Halsey! I can’t decide what boggles the mind more: Seeing you emerge from a church, or the fact you have on your arm the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes on.” His brows rose slightly at Miranda’s obvious pregnancy but his gaze remained riveted to her face. “May I say how well you’re looking, ma’am?”

  Before Plantagenet Halsey could unleash a torrent of abuse at the man’s forwardness, Miranda put out a gloved hand. “How do you do, Mr.—Weir?”

  Sir Charles Weir bowed over her hand, a smug smile at the old man. “How good of you to remember, ma’am. It’s Sir Charles now.” His gaze again dropped to her belly. “And to see you looking as bonny as the last time we met is a joy to behold…”

  “Thank—Thank you, Sir Charles,” Miranda replied politely and withdrew her hand, and knew not what else to say.

  “May one enquire where you are lodging?” asked Sir Charles.

  “At-at Barr’s—”

  “—in Trim Street? A most respectable establishment and one that offers quite a good dinner…?”

  “You are welcome to call upon us there if you so wish, Sir Charles,” Miranda answered, well-aware the invitation was being forced upon her, yet not feeling up to inventing an excuse to rebuff him. She hoped the old gentleman was keen enough to take the hint at her joint invitation.

  Sir Charles inclined his powdered head. “And under what name should I enquire for you, ma’am?”

  The old man felt her tremble and lean in against him.

  “Name?” Miranda repeated, even more flustered. “Yes, of course. It’s Bourdon. Mrs. Bourdon.”

  “You’re not to out-stay your welcome, Weir,” Plantagenet Halsey lectured, adding as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “My niece needs her rest.”

  The politician’s eyebrows shot up at this piece of interesting information but he made no comment and bowed to Miranda with a crooked smile. “I shall call upon you this evening, Mrs. Bourdon.” And wandered off to rejoin the others surrounding Lady Rutherglen’s chair as it continued its slow progress to her lodgings.

  “Thank you, Mr. Halsey. I am most grateful to you,” said Miranda, eyes on Sir Charles Weir’s back. She looked up at the old man, a slight flush to her porcelain cheeks. “Forgive me for ill using you in that way, sir, and if you have no wish to join me for—”

  “I’d be honored, ma’am,” he answered, patting her hand in a fatherly way. “And my apologies for being so forward as to own you as my niece, but it was the quickest way of being rid of him. You should know that Weir and I are bitter political rivals.”

  “Oh? I am quite ignorant of the world beyond my little corner of the Mendips; a circumstance Mr. Bourdon assures me he counts as one of my most endearing qualities,” Miranda confessed with a shy laugh. “No doubt Sir Charles is somebody very important in the government by now. It was remiss of me not to have congratulated him on his knighthood.”

  Plantagenet Halsey stopped abruptly on the corner of Trim and Queen Streets and faced her. “Weir was knighted some five years ago, ma’am.”

  “Is that so? Yes! It must be so because I have not seen him since before his elevation. How odd he was in the Abbey with Lady Rutherglen…” she mused, then suddenly came to life with a smile and put out her gloved hand to the old man. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Halsey, I have an errand that cannot wait. And I have walked quite enough for one day. I look forward to continuing our acquaintance at dinner.”

  The old man watched her walk a little way down Queen Street before hailing a sedan chair, which took her up and disappeared from view into Quiet Street. To Tam, who stood at his shoulder, he said quietly, “My boy, see where’s she’s headed. And mind you keep your distance.” He then went off to Barr’s with a spring in his step, hoping Alec had returned from his playing the knight errant, for he could hardly wait to tell him he had spent the morning in the Abbey in company with the elusive Miranda Bourdon.

  “Harlot,” Lady Rutherglen spat out, shoving aside her hovering maid who was attempting to put a burnt feather under her nose. “Out, woman! Out!” she screeched. “I’ve not fainted, you dim-wit!” She struggled to sit up amongst the silk cushions and threw off the tasseled rug covering her voluminous petticoats, ignoring the glass of claret Sir Charles was patiently waiting to hand her. “How dare she show herself amongst respectable persons, and in the Abbey of all places! And flaunting the fruits of her wantonness in God’s temple. Whore. Harlot. Witch.”

  “Your wine, my lady,” Sir Charles reminded her.

  “To think she took the sacrament…!” Lady Rutherglen breathed, lace handkerchief pressed to her cracked pale lips. “Brass-faced. Wanton. Wicked.”

  “Halsey had the stupidity to own her as his niece.”

  Lady Rutherglen’s jaw swung open and outrage turned to mirth. She let out a loud watery cackle of disbelief, falling back against the silk striped sofa, wheezing. “Did you hear—hear that, George? George! His niece? That old fool’s niece?” She cleared her throat of phlegm and stuck out a hand for the glass of claret that Sir Charles was only too pleased to relinquish. “Well! Two people couldn’t be better suited than an old cunny-hunter and a mistress cunny-warren!”

  A series of loud laughing snorts issued forth
from behind the outspread pages of the Bath Chronicle before the newssheet was ruthlessly crushed in Lord George Stanton’s crossed-legged lap. “Mistress cunny-warren? Now that’s a great joke, Aunt! Cunny-warren! Ha! Ha!”

  Sir Charles took a turn about the drawing room; to distance himself from Lady Rutherglen’s repellent person, a decaying corpse had more life to it than her husk of wrinkled flabby flesh and brittle bone, and Lord George, who smelled of horseflesh and sweat. He had ill-manneredly gone riding to escape accompanying his aunt to the Abbey, as he had done the day before in preference to attending a recital in the Assembly rooms, leaving the old serpent in Sir Charles’s care; who wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Stanton was still wearing the riding raiment of the day before such was the pungent odor pervading his bloated person.

  “A pity she isn’t Halsey’s niece, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament, would we, my lady?” Sir Charles commented wryly, looking out the window at the meandering river Avon beyond the Green.

  Lady Rutherglen grimaced. “Think she’s told him?”

  Sir Charles shrugged and took snuff. “No. Or he wouldn’t have made such an outrageous claim as to own her as his kinswoman.”

  “Did you discover her direction?”

  “She is staying at Barr’s in Trim Street.

  “Barr’s?” Stanton pulled a face. “How can she afford it?”

  “More to the point,” mused Sir Charles, “why such an exclusive lodging house would permit one such as she to stay under its roof. I wonder if she’s brought her bastard in tow?”