The Maid of Fairbourne Hall(70)
There stood his answer.
In the steely form of bald Mr. Tompkins, arm stretched before him, pistol still smoking.
Margaret blinked and the scene before her changed. Perhaps it was due to her nightmare, or the fact that she’d read too many gothic novels, but for a moment she’d thought she’d seen a man bent over the bed, pressing a pillow to Lewis’s face. In reality, the man sat on the bed. He was neither masked man, pirate, nor Sterling Benton. By the light of the lamp burning on the side table, she recognized the familiar figure of Connor. The young valet sat, stoop-shouldered, on the edge of his master’s bed, head bowed, pillow on his lap. Defeated. Had she only imagined him trying to suffocate Lewis?
She darted a look back to Lewis’s face, then to his chest. Was there any rise and fall there? Was she too late?
“Nora?” Connor looked up at her, face bleak, eyes bleary. Had he gotten drunk for courage?
“Connor.” She licked suddenly dry lips. “What are you doing with that pillow?”
He looked down at it as if only then realizing he held it in his arms. “Nothing, as it turns out,” he whispered, more to the pillow—to himself—than to her.
“Is Mr. Upchurch . . . ?”
“Alive and well,” he muttered darkly.
Relief filled her. She amended, “Not exactly well.”
“He will be. Dr. Drummond said as much.”
Margaret felt her brow pucker. “Said what?”
“That Mr. Lewis would recover. Was quite sure of it. And you heard him talking. Coming around. It is only a matter of time.”
Realization prickled through her. “Is that why you are here?”
As if in a stupor, he nodded. “But in the end I couldn’t do it.”
Worriedly, she glanced at Mrs. Welch, unnaturally still on the settee. “Connor, why is Mrs. Welch still asleep?”
He shrugged. “A little laudanum in her tea is all.”
Is that why the woman slept so heavily? “This isn’t the first time, is it?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t want her to see me giving him the stuff. She might have said something. I only meant to keep him quiet until he passed on.”
“Is that what you were doing when I walked in on you a couple of days ago?”
“You made me drop the stuff. It’s not cheap either.” Connor rubbed his brow. “Mr. White was so certain he wouldn’t survive. I thought I could bide my time, but he lived on and on.”
“But it was you, wasn’t it? You shot him in the duel?”
He uttered a desolate laugh. “There was no duel.”
“But, Miss Upchurch mentioned a challenge letter—”
“I wrote that letter and slid it under Mr. Lewis’s door the night of the ball. When he finally returned to his room and read it, he believed Mr. Saxby had called him out over Miss Lyons. How he blustered and paced. I feared he would back out. He decided he would meet Saxby but hoped to dissuade the man from the duel. Said he planned to apologize instead.”
“But still he brought the dueling pistols?”
“I brought them. I had cleaned and loaded them enough times to know how it was done.”
Now that he was talking, it seemed Connor wished to confess all. Margaret wished she was not alone in hearing it.
“When we arrived at Penenden Heath, we tied our horses and Lewis looked for his challenger. I gave Mr. Upchurch one of the pistols, and said I was he. I told him to face me man to man, but he refused. ‘Dueling is only for gentlemen,’ he says.” Connor spit out the word like a vile thing. “And apparently as a valet, I am barely even a man, let alone a gentleman. And Laura’s honor not worth risking his life over, not worth anything at all, beyond the few trinkets he’d given her.”
“Who is Laura?” Margaret whispered, fearing she already knew the answer.
“My little sister. Dearest creature God ever made. Only sixteen.”
Margaret did not know which act sickened her more.
“To see his smirking face, when he spoke of sweet Laura. It was beyond me to endure. . . . I pointed the gun and told him to stop laughing, but he would not stop. He said he knew I could not shoot him, that I knew I could not shoot him.”
White-faced, Connor swallowed and whispered, “He was wrong.”
Margaret slowly, gingerly pulled the pillow from his grasp, as though a loaded pistol. “Did you intend to kill him?”
He inhaled deeply. “I was angry. I wanted to stop him. To punish him for hurting her, using her. I didn’t think past that. But later . . . Later I saw how stupid I had been. I tried to throw suspicion on Saxby, even that Poet Pirate fellow. No one suspected me. But Lewis knew. If he lived . . . I would hang.”
She asked gently, “You shot him but could not suffocate him?”
Connor shook his head, expression bleak. “I would do anything to save Laura. But not, it seems, to save myself.”
If you have a bad servant
part with him, a diseased sheep
spoils a whole flock.
—Joseph Florance, celebrated French chef, 1827
Chapter 31
Nathaniel and Helen sat in chairs pulled near Lewis’s bed in his own room at last. Lewis sat propped up with pillows. Though still weak, he had quickly regained his senses once Connor wasn’t there to administer large amounts of laudanum.
Helen raised the teacup to his lips, recalling the doctor’s admonition to give him plenty of liquids.
Lewis sipped, then shook his head. “To think I trusted him.”
Helen bit her lip, then whispered, “As his sister trusted you?”
He glanced at her, then away. “She wasn’t complaining.”
“She is sixteen, Lewis. You must have seemed a god to her. Wealthy and handsome. And old enough to know better.”
He slanted her another glance, then looked at Nate. “So what have you done with him? Has he gone to prison?”
“Connor is on a ship bound for Barbados as we speak.”
Lewis frowned. “What?”
“Nathaniel and Mr. Hudson procured a place for him with an acquaintance returning to the West Indies,” Helen explained.
“But he shot me, tried to—”
Nathaniel cut off his protests before Lewis could work himself into a lather. “Prison means a trial, Lewis. A trial in which your part would be made quite public. In Connor’s mind it was a duel for his sister’s honor. In all truth, I cannot say I completely blame him. If someone treated Helen the way you treated that poor girl”—Nathaniel’s voice shook—“I might very well have done the same.”
Disgust filled him, but he would not lash out at his brother when he was still so weak. He inhaled deeply to calm himself. “Even so, we thought you might sleep better knowing the young man was out of the country.”
Their stillroom maid had begged to go with Connor and would soon be his wife, but Nathaniel did not think Lewis would appreciate the concession and didn’t mention it.
Lewis said nothing for several ticks of the clock, staring at his hands. “And what of the sister?”
With a glance at Nathaniel, Helen said quietly, “She has been settled with relatives. Far away.”
Lewis nodded, lifting his gaze to stare at the striped wallpaper. “Fine by me. She’d grown tiresome of late.”
Inwardly Nathaniel’s anger turned to pity and prayer. Would his brother never change his ways?
Helen offered Lewis more tea, but he waved the cup away, eyes distant. “Still, I shall find her again if I decide to. See if I don’t.”
Pain flashed in Helen’s eyes. Pain and disappointment. “I do see.” She opened her mouth to say more, hesitated, and then instead turned to Nathaniel.
“When you returned from Barbados, I was less than kind to you. I misjudged you, and I apologize. I see now that your motivations were honorable. Your actions meant to protect our family. Thank you.”
Nathaniel’s heart squeezed.
She turned back to their older brother, expression tight. “Lewis, for all your charm and good looks, you are . . .” She broke off, and tears flowed in place of the unspoken words. Her voice thick, she whispered, “But I never could hear a word against you.”
Later that day, Nathaniel sat with his steward and his sister in the library, thankful for the fact that it no longer served double duty as sickroom. Nathaniel enjoyed having the private use of the library once more, though Helen still spent more time there than she had before. As did Hudson.
Robert Hudson rubbed his palms together. “What shall we take on next, sir? New plans for drainage? Expanding the orchards? Another trip to London?”
Before he could answer, Mrs. Budgeon knocked on the open doorjamb.
“Mr. Hudson, sorry to disturb you, but the candidates are here. Should you like to sit in on the interviews?”
Hudson pulled a face. “Mrs. Budgeon, I have every confidence in your ability to hire a suitable stillroom maid.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hudson. And please do remember the annual inspection of linens and livery is at three.”
“How could I forget?” He smiled wryly, and the housekeeper departed.
Helen watched the exchange with interest. “Forgive me for saying so, Mr. Hudson, but life in service doesn’t seem to suit you.”
Hurt and defensiveness crossed his face. “I am sorry if I’ve disappointed you.”
“Not at all. But it is clear to me you are ambitious and capable of a much more self-directed life.”