The Undoing Of A Lady

pulled her friend back down into her chair and poured another cup of tea. Lizzie, shaking with fury, was astonished to see that Alice’s face was quite calm and her hand quite steady.

“I do not know how you can be so serene,” she began, then stopped as Alice met her eyes and she saw the bright fury there was there.

“I am not,” Alice said, “but I refuse to give Lady Willoughby the satisfaction of seeing that she has angered me. She wishes to provoke me into an ill-bred display simply to prove her point. Well, I will not oblige her.”

“No,” Lizzie said, subsiding. “Of course you are right.”

“Revenge,” Alice said, very precisely, “is far better than an overt display of anger.”

Lizzie sat forward, her attention caught. “What did you have in mind?” she said.

“I HEARD THAT LADY WILLOUGHBY sent her apologies tonight,” Alice whispered to Lizzie in the interval at the al fresco concert on Fortune Parade that evening. Miles and Nat had gone to fetch refreshments and she and Lizzie were sitting beneath an awning in the warm evening sunshine, and listening as the orchestra tuned up for the second half of the performance.

“She claims to be suffering from a headache but the servants say she has contracted a dreadful skin complaint. Apparently she itches, and the…um…intimate areas itch the most. It is the latest on dit.”

“How awful,” Lizzie said, shuddering. “Do they have any idea what could have caused it?”

“No,” Alice said. “It is quite a mystery.” She examined her programme. “Oh good, the Bach cantata is next.” She lowered her voice again. “I have heard, though, that the juice of the Buckthorn Alder can be very itchy if it is accidentally rubbed against the skin.”

“I heard that, too,” Lizzie said, nodding to Lady Wheeler and Mary as they passed by on their way to their seats. “Particularly if it is accidentally absorbed into one’s undergarments.”

“But of course that could never happen,” Alice said, smiling angelically as Miles and Nat rejoined them, “for that would necessitate the juice getting into the laundry water and how could that be?”

“Only by the most extraordinary accident,” Lizzie agreed. “Perhaps if she had received a gift of something like lavender water that she believed was from an old admirer…” She cast Nat a sideways glance under her lashes but he was talking to Miles and fortunately not attending. “Did they say how long it was likely to be before Lady Willoughby recovered?” she asked.

“Several days, I believe,” Alice said, shaking her head.

“Really?” Lizzie said. “How terrible.” Her eyes met Alice’s and they smiled, conspiratorial as a pair of schoolgirls. It felt good to be wicked, Lizzie thought; good to take revenge on Priscilla Willoughby, who so richly deserved her comeuppance. She doubted that Priscilla was the sort of woman to be routed for long, however. It would take more than a bottle of doctored lavender water to vanquish her. Like the evil witch in the fairy tale she would surely be back for revenge.

Lizzie glanced at Nat and tried to erase the knowledge of his love letters to Priscilla from her mind. It had all been a very long time ago, she told herself. Nat might not love her but he no longer loved Priscilla, either. He could not. Nevertheless her jealousy of the woman who had once held her husband’s heart was difficult to ignore. All those letters, all those declarations of love, all the words and the emotion that she wanted and was denied…The music started again and Lizzie fixed her gaze on the orchestra and tried not to care too much.

THE FOLLOWING DAY NAT had left the house before Lizzie had even woken up.

“His lordship has been called away on urgent family business,” Mrs. Alibone murmured, when Lizzie came down for breakfast. “He did not wish to wake you but asked that I let you know he hopes to be back this evening.”

She slithered out of the room like a snake leaving Lizzie feeling fretful and cast down. Why could Nat not have taken her with him to Water House? It was several years since she had seen his family. Was he ashamed to have married her? He had been absent so often lately that they barely felt married anyway. And why had he not left her a note rather than leaving a message with Mrs. Alibone, whom she hated? The housekeeper, with her sharp tongue and prying gaze, made her feel as though she was a prisoner in her own home.

Lady Wheeler and Mary called that morning, full of barely concealed curiosity as to how the investigation into Sir Montague’s murder was proceeding. Lizzie thought that Mary looked dreadful. Her face looked drawn and sallow, her body was twitchy, fidgeting, utterly unable to keep still whilst her mother gossiped and chatted and accepted a second cup of tea.

“One wonders if Sir Thomas will be next,” Lady Wheeler said fretfully as she stirred in three spoonfuls of sugar. “I am hoping no one will murder him, for he has been quite attentive to Mary and it would be a feather in her cap to catch him and become Lady Fortune.”

“Tom is hardly a suitor I would wish on any of my friends,” Lizzie said. “If I tried for a week I doubt I could name a single good quality that he possesses.”

“Well at least Mary would be wed,” Lady Wheeler said, with a sharp look at Lizzie that suggested that since she had managed to secure an Earl she should be a little more understanding of a mother’s ambition. “Ever since Lord Armitage’s defection Mary has been sadly out of spirits,” Lady Wheeler continued, “moping around, sighing and sobbing, until it quite tries my patience-”

There was a clatter as Mary dropped her teaspoon against the china cup. Lizzie saw that her hands were shaking and her brown eyes were full of tears.

“Mama-” Mary whispered.

“I hear that Sir Thomas has also called on Miss Minchin,” Lady Wheeler said, ignoring her daughter’s anguish, and speaking of her as though she were absent rather than sitting next to her, “so Mary has a rival there, I suppose, though Flora is only a banker’s daughter rather than Quality.”

“I think it is probably the quality of Flora’s fortune that appeals to Tom rather than her breeding,” Lizzie said, rising to her feet. She smiled at Mary who managed nothing more than a grimace in return. “I pray you will not get your hopes up, ma’am,” Lizzie continued. “Now that my brother has discovered, like Monty before him, that he can fleece his villagers for all manner of taxes I doubt he will bother to tie himself down in wedlock. He is not temperamentally suited to it.”

“Well, it is most inconsiderate of him,” Lady Wheeler said, taking the hint at last and moving toward the door, “especially when there are so few eligible gentlemen left in town. For what are we to do with Mary now?”

“Leave her in peace, I suggest,” Lizzie said, pressing Mary’s hands as they parted in the hall. She watched Lady Wheeler and her daughter walk away down the tree-lined avenue, Lady Wheeler’s bonnet bobbing as she lectured her daughter and Mary dragging her feet and falling behind like a recalcitrant child.

When Sir Montague had first introduced the Dames’ Tax, Lizzie remembered, Lady Wheeler had been one of the most vocal opponents, objecting to Sir James’s attempts to buy a suitor for his plain daughter. That had all changed when Lord Armitage had jilted Mary; it was as though she was damaged goods now and her mother could not get rid of her quickly enough. There were a lot of unhappy people in Fortune’s Folly as a result of Sir Montague’s revival of the medieval taxes, Lizzie thought bitterly. So many of the things that had happened since the previous summer were a direct result of his money-grubbing ways, not least his own death.

Nat had not returned by the afternoon, nor sent any message, so Lizzie went out riding alone, over the moors and down toward Fortune Hall. She wanted to see her old home, even though she knew it would leave her aching with a nostalgia for the way things had once been before Monty had had his head turned by money and Tom had proved himself such an out-and-out scoundrel. There had been a time when they had all rubbed along together well enough, yet something had gone wrong along the way and now Monty was dead and Tom had gone to the bad and even as she looked at the ancient manor house drowsing in the sun, Lizzie knew that that part of her life was over for good.

She was turning away to take the track for Fortune’s Folly village when Tom stepped out of a field gate on her left and startled her so much that she pulled on Starfire’s reins and the mare almost reared as a result. Lizzie calmed her automatically as Tom leaned casually against the gate and looked up at her, a smile that was not quite nice curling his lips.

“Well, if it isn’t my cardsharp of a little sister,” he said. “What brings you in this direction, Lizzie?”

“I was just taking a ride,” Lizzie said. “How are you, Tom?”

“I’m better than some, certainly,” Tom said. He straightened. “Priscilla Willoughby for one. She asked me to give you a message, Lizzie.”

Lizzie raised her brows. “Lady Willoughby is a friend of yours, is she? I might have known.” She tilted her head