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“Believe what you will,” Lady Lydia said coldly. “It will not change my actions. I was only trying to ease that delicate conscience of yours. You will have to toughen up if you want to gain purchase in my organization. If not, well…” she shrugged. “You have to know I cannot allow you to walk away unscathed. Now, about our dear Mr. Crowley. He does like to keep things up to snuff.”
“But won’t another solicitor just pick up where Mr. Crowley left off?” Marilee inquired, grasping at straws.
Lady Lydia shook her head. “I’ve found a solicitor willing to handle the account. It will be released from Crowley and Crowley, and the new solicitor is willing to turn his eye for a fee; therefore Mr. Harding, sans Crowley must be, shall we say, expunged?”
She chuckled using the solicitor’s own words. “The purpose is twofold,” she continued. “My debts can be transferred and paid through a more, how shall I say it, amenable solicitor… and the magistrate will reach a dead end with his questioning. Quite literally. All will be well and it only takes a moment of effort on your part. Our dear Mr. Crowley shall make his departure feeling slightly off and no suspicion can land here for you will have drunk from the same pot without effect. In truth, many will think that the guilt of killing his wife finally caught up with him. You shall find some relief that you will no longer have to tolerate his pawing. Men can be so taxing.” She sighed as if the affection of a gentleman was something she saw as a chore, rather than a pleasure. “In a few days, the matter will have resolved itself, and we can get on as we were.”
“I thought I was just to break his heart?” Marilee asked, hoping that she could convince Lady Lydia that such a plan would create enough issue as to convince the solicitor to pass the account and perhaps be too crushed to take visitors, particularly the magistrate.
All of the pieces of this puzzle were topsy-turvy in her mind and she wanted a moment to think but she had no time. She was certain that if she explained all to Nikolas, he would have an explanation for his wife and Lady Lydia’s accusations. He couldn’t possibly be so devious, could he?
She demanded that she look at the source of this information. It was Lady Lydia. Of course, the woman was lying. Nikolas would find a way to play this and still achieve his goals: their goals. They were a team, but he had lied to her; kept secrets. She had kept secrets too.
She groaned and sat in a chair. Lady Lydia in a moment of compassion said nothing. She only waited for Marilee to gather her wits. Marilee did not know what was truth or lie, but she had to deal with the matter at hand. Regardless of what he had done, or how he may have lied to her, Marilee did not want him dead.
Finally, she spoke. “I can send him packing. I am sure that would do. He will be so heart-broken that he won’t wish to come here any longer.” She prayed she could convince Nikolas to do so.
Lady Lydia laughed. “You are welcome to break his heart if it will amuse you. After all you have had to endure his… attentions It might even weaken some of his resolve and help him succumb at a faster rate, but in the end it would not be enough. I know him. He will not let this go, and in any case, you wouldn’t want him hanging around mooning. We wanted him to yearn before this development with the magistrate, a lingering distraction that would possess his mind. Now, I need him disposed of.” Her face hardened. “Permanently. There can be no mistake. Do you understand?”
Marilee nodded. “When does this need to be done?” she asked in a whisper. She was doing her best to pretend that she wished to please Lady Lydia, but all she could think about was that she needed to warn Nikolas so that he might pretend to be ill and take an extended leave of absence for his own protection. She wanted to speak with him; to understand the accusations that Lady Lydia made against his person. Thoughts flooded her mind like a deluge.
“Immediately,” Lady Lydia chirped with a clap of her hands. “No need to delay and dwell on it. He’s below as we speak.”
“He’s here?” Marilee squeaked. “I can’t…”
“How sweet that you can pretend to be so innocent!” Lady Lydia laughed. “I see now how he fell for the ruse.”
“I—I am not ready,” Marilee protested.
“You had better get ready,” Lady Lydia growled. “He is here. It is best to act straight away before the magistrate has a chance to add up the ledgers. If all goes well, Hetty can be sent off by the end of the week. She shall fetch a good price, and you shall resume your position at that time.”
“But I—I thought,” Marilee stammered. “I thought Hetty was your lady’s maid now. I thought you liked her.”
“Oh pooh,” she said waving a hand. “She does not matter. I only did not want to overtax you.”
“Over tax me,” Marilee repeated. She laughed bitterly.
“I’ll even allow you to take the adjoining servant’s chamber if you’d rather not sleep with all of those pitiful girls. Honestly, it would free up a bed in the dormitory, and you’d be much happier near me should I have need of you.” Marilee could only manage to stare dumbfounded at Lady Lydia who prattled on as if the matter were settled and she was pleased with Marilee’s assumed agreement. “Off you go. Mrs. Cavendish is preparing the tea as we speak.”
“Yes, my lady,” Marilee mumbled. “I’ll just clean up first.”
“Do hurry,” Lady Lydia beamed. “Penelope Firth is expecting me for a dinner party, and you know how I hate to be late. I want him out of here in no more than one hour so that I can be on my way.”
Marilee nodded, curtsied, and made it out into the hallway without bursting into tears. Shaking, but still somehow managing to maintain the appearance of composure, she made it to the dormitory and closed the door behind her. With her back to the whitewashed wood, she slid to the ground and buried her face in her knees taking a series of laborious breaths. What was she going to do now?
She did not have the luxury of crying, nor did she have time for it. She was expected to make her way to the small parlor any minute now to murder the man that she had come to love; a man who may have lied to her and deceived her, but still, a man she most certainly loved. She did not have any time to find a way around it, save for convincing him to abandon her and go into hiding. Her mind was frantic with the thought that she would have less than one hour to make her point when the question her heart wanted answered was: did you have a wife and what happened to her?
Marilee forced herself to take slow, calming breaths. First things first. She could find out the truth later. She had to save Nikolas. That was the most immediate problem and the only way to save Nikolas would be to convince him to leave London. Better yet, leave England for a time. If she could warn him of Lady Lydia’s plot then he could slip away to safety before any harm might come to pass. Even then he might not be willing to forsake Marilee or Peggy, but if he was still resolved to get them away, as she hoped, then she would confront him about his wife.
Even if she could manage her argument, it did not solve the matter of the poison. If he were to make his escape, his supposed illness, and death, would have to be believable lest he be followed. She would need him to appear well and truly ill, gravely so. Nikolas may be adept at investigations but she was unsure of his ability to play the farce. Could he pull it off? She doubted it. How could one falsify the effects of poison... the pallor and fever, the rattle of the breath? Even if he could pretend an ache to his stomach, it would not be enough for Lady Lydia. She might still conclude that Marilee had not given him a proper dosage and she would follow through with her secondary plan and send assassins after him. This was all happening too fast.
Marilee stood, smoothed her hands over her hair and paced the room. The vial weighed heavily in her hand, reminding her of another moment not so very long ago when the emetic had felt much the same. An emetic which she had smuggled with her into Blackwell house.
“Please still be there,” she whispered to the empty room.
Upon first arriving here, Marilee had painstakingly plucked at the threads that seamed her lumpy mattress. Within its coarse stuffing, she had slipped the bottle of the tartar emetic in the hope that she would never have need of it. She had on several occasions considered dosing the night guard with the tonic so that she and Peggy might slip away but she had never found an opportunity to do so without suspicion. Still, it had been her only true possession to link her to her previous life, and so she had hidden it away for safekeeping like all the other secrets that she had been forced to keep. Secrets that paled against the one that Nikolas held.
She sighed when her fingers closed around the hard shell of the stoppered bottle. She weighed the pair in her hands; one lethal and the other much less so. She was thankful that the bottles looked nothing alike. She had no idea if the tartar emetic would still be effective all these weeks later. Nikolas would likely know the answer and she only hoped that she could convince him to take a draught for pretenses. His brother had thought the ruse safe enough for Miss Caroline and Nikolas had shown a great deal of respect for his brother’s skill in medicinal administration. It would have to work. She would have prayed, but it seemed wrong to ask a blessing upon the horrible act she was about to undertake.
