Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (25 page)

‘I don’t know,’ said Amelie, realising that it was true.

Caterina was laughing as if she had not a care in the world.

For Amelie, the remainder of the visit passed in a daze of puzzling thoughts that, far from unravelling as she had hoped, were now even more tangled. Dorna’s informed opinion that her brother was sincere about marrying, that he was in love at last had, naturally, to be taken with a pinch of salt since Amelie knew the truth behind the arrangement better than Dorna did. His determination to get her into bed was the reason for that, especially in view of her resistance to the plan. Amelie was not such a goose as to fall for Dorna’s conviction, for she had seen with her own eyes how he had been attracted to those two women. Well, she had seen him
dance
with them. The rest she could easily imagine.

But why, when the Marchioness’s past was so improper, had he represented her as one who would hesitate to help Caterina if she knew of the skeletons in the Chester cupboard? She did not sound like a vindictive woman. The rest of Dorna’s revelations were just as puzzling. Amelie knew, as did everybody, of Lord Nelson’s baby Horatia, but how many people knew that her twin had been abandoned simply because the mother wanted only one, not two, by the man she claimed so stridently to worship? If
they
couldn’t manage to rear two, who could?

At first, the disturbing news had frightened Amelie into supposing that Lord Elyot might insist on her using the same amenity, but by the time she and Caterina had returned to Lansdown, her resolve had hardened like tempered steel.
Nothing
would induce her to part with any child of hers. Not
for any reason. Not even if it remained the best-kept secret in the world, or if the whole world should know of it.

The enigma of Caterina’s unsettled behaviour plagued Amelie for the rest of the day, for now her mood was so bouyant that nothing would persuade her to practise for tomorrow’s meeting with Signor Rauzzini. Instead, she picked armfuls of seed-headed foliage from the garden, insisting that it was the most colourful she had ever seen and then, to Amelie’s utter despair, vanished for three hours while every possibility was investigated except the one actually employed. She had walked alone up to the top of Lansdown Hill to see the view.

‘By
yourself
?’ Amelie said, not bothering to hide her anger. ‘Could you not have taken a maid with you? Or said where you were going? What on
earth
were you thinking of, Caterina?’

Dishevelled, wind-blown and quite unconcerned, Caterina smiled, her hair tumbling down her back like a fall of horse-chestnut leaves in autumn. ‘Of views,’ she sang with her eyes half-closed, ‘of hills … like home … ah!’ Tears of joy squeezed through her lashes as the jewel-words fell from her lips. ‘Home, hills, sheep, the wind in my hair … and peace … and no pain. Oh, Aunt Amelie, you should have seen it, heard the birds … the harp-songing birds.’ As Amelie opened her arms, Caterina fell into them, whispering through her tears about the beauty she had experienced, which Amelie knew was being compared to home in the Derbyshire hills.

‘Shh … shh,’ she crooned. ‘I’m glad it gave you such pleasure, my dear one, but we were
so
worried about you. You must not wander off on your own again. Shh, it’s all right. Come and eat. You must be starving.’

They had accepted an invitation to spend the evening with
the Ellison family at Laura Place and, in spite of Amelie’s reservations concerning Caterina’s strangeness, she believed that to take her mind off things was preferable to having her dwell on them. So they went, the young son and daughter being among those they had first met in Meyler’s Library, a lively pair but well bred and respectful. Caterina would be in good company. There was music and a cotillion or two, even on a Sunday, card games and mild flirtations, a very good supper and then, to the dismay of some of the elders, waltzing. The Ellisons, Caterina told her later, were an unconventional family who happily turned a blind eye to such harmless capers. Amelie would like to have tried it herself.

They were in bed by midnight, Amelie lying wakefully in the soft candlelight, comparing Caterina’s breakfast mood with the rest of the eventful day and the almost feverish energy she had displayed later. To her relief, Tam had behaved more soberly, but she hoped he would stay away tomorrow, for Caterina must relax and prepare herself for the singing assignation.

Her failure to appear at breakfast next day, her disappearance from the house apparently dressed for riding, and the lack of any message, while causing alarm, was at first taken to be another visit to the top of the hill. But no one had seen or heard her go, and not even the groom who slept above the stable knew she had taken her mare until later. Riley was sent post-haste up the hill to find her, but returned with nothing to report. A man sent to Sydney Place came back with the same, but said that Mr Tam Elwick was still at home and knew nothing of Caterina’s whereabouts. Amelie thought he might come to help in the search, but he did not.

Sick with worry, she sent servants to every part of Bath, to
the Pump Room, the abbey, the libraries and the favourite shops in the abbey precincts and Milsom Street, to the milliner’s and to the apothecary in Wade’s Passage, thinking of her headache. The apothecary, Mr Carey, said he had not seen Miss Chester since Saturday.

‘Mr Carey saw her?’ said Amelie, incredulous. ‘Did you ask him what she wanted?’

‘Yes,’ said Millie, who had no reservations about asking such a personal question, ‘I did, my lady. He said she went in to purchase some laudanum drops. He suggested that pills would be safer, but she said she preferred the drops and that anyway they were for you. She even gave him her bottle to fill.’

Words and imaginings did a slow somersault in her mind before she could force them out. ‘Laudanum? I sent her for no such thing. Did he sell some to her?’

‘Yes, m’lady. The best. He said she had only just enough money to pay for it.’

‘And she had a bottle … to be
refilled
? God in heaven, Millie. Did you know anything about this?’

‘I swear to God I didn’t, m’lady,’ said Millie, stoutly. ‘Miss Chester must’ve been very careful to keep it hidden, ‘cos I didn’t even smell it. And I know what it smells like ‘cos my mother takes it for her pains.’

‘But Caterina didn’t have any need for it. Why would she want it? And who has introduced her to it? And where?’

‘On her visits with the young ladies and gents, m’lady, I dare say. I know people like them take it for fun. Lots of them do. It makes them happy, though I must say I never thought Miss Chester would do it. Still, she’s been a bit down lately, hasn’t she?’

Clapping a hand to her forehead, Amelie uttered a long
slow sigh of despair, sitting down suddenly to fight the wave of nausea that swept hotly over her. Laudanum. Easy to obtain as a painkiller, used in small doses on teething babies and feverish children, more widely used to relieve war wounds and the pains of the elderly and the incurable, but deadly dangerous for young people unless administered by a doctor. The liquid version was a mixture of opium and alcohol coloured yellow with saffron, the pills brown and easier to measure accurately. No wonder Caterina was sky-high between bouts of unhappiness. For the pain of rejection, laudanum would do wonders.

‘Then young Tam Elwick must know something about this business,’ Amelie said. ‘That must be why he’s keeping out of my way, though I thought he’d have shown
some
concern. Tell Riley to bring the phaeton round, Millie, and then go and look in Miss Chester’s room to see if you can find anything that might help. Ask Mrs Braithwaite to come up.’

Millie disappeared, talking as she went about not worrying, while Lise lit the spirit stove beneath the little brass kettle.

Things did not improve, nor was it young Mr Elwick who called ten minutes later, but Caterina’s travel-weary father.

‘Mr Stephen Chester, m’lady,’ said Mr Killigrew, sonorously.

Next to the appearance of Caterina herself, or Lord Elyot, this was the most comforting. ‘Stephen! Oh, thank heavens you’re here!’

The enthusiasm of her welcome was as much of a surprise to him as
his
timely appearance was to Amelie, though the new butler’s serious face had warned him that something was amiss, and his first words were not an enquiry after her health but, ‘What is it? What’s happened, Amelie?’

‘How on earth did you know?’ she cried, taking both his hands in hers, but misreading his questions.

‘I don’t know anything. Tell me what’s going on. Where are you off to?

‘But how did you get here so soon?’

‘In my carriage, of course. How else? Caterina’s last letter sent from Richmond was so disturbing that I thought I’d better come and see for myself what the situation is. I’m glad I found you at last.’

‘So you went to Richmond first?’

‘Of course. They told me you were in Bath. Look, Amelie, sit down and tell me. We’re talking at cross-purposes here.’

Only then did she actually look at him to see the dear friend and brother-in-law whose kindness had been her mainstay in Buxton. Like his late elder brother, he was tall but more physically active and slender, almost willowy. Dark red and thinning, his hair looked as if he’d been standing with his back to the wind, and his gingery eyebrows sloped downhill to give him an air of scepticism that was quite undeserved. His usually merry brown eyes were now almost green with concern as they searched affectionately over Amelie’s face, absorbing her agitation.

Moment by moment, his expression darkened as he heard in some detail of his daughter’s strained relationships with Lord Rayne and Tam Elwick, which were innocent but not without risk. It was a saga which, in the telling, made Amelie realise what emotional turmoil Caterina was suffering, together with the excitement of a new life among complete strangers without her family to talk to, the sudden discovery of a remarkable voice, and the emergence of the butterfly in all its first trembling beauty, only to find that
none of this was enough to turn the head of the man she wanted. Amelie now saw for the first time that her own lightning-speed engagement to Lord Elyot must have seemed to Caterina like a normal wooing when, in fact, it was exceptional by any standards. She had not set her niece a perfect example.

‘I’m sorry Stephen,’ she whispered. ‘I’m deeply ashamed to say that I’ve failed her. And I’ve failed you, too. Where on
earth
can she have gone?’

‘You have not failed either of us,’ Stephen said. ‘You have your own life to lead, and I placed you under an obligation that I should not have done. But she needed a woman’s hand so much. Sara too, now.’

‘I know, dearest. I know. I was … still am … happy to have her with me. She’s been good company and now she’s made dozens of good connections too. She has an appointment with a world-famous singing teacher this afternoon and now I fear we shall miss it. Perhaps she didn’t really want it, after all. Have I been pushing her too hard, I wonder? For my own benefit?’

‘From what you tell me, my dear, I feel an urgent need to go and find this young Elwick and flog him,’ said Stephen with a rare flash of anger. Striding to the window, he looked out across the town. ‘Where does he live, the little bounder?’

Amelie caught at his arm. ‘No, Stephen … no! I really cannot believe Tam would wish her any harm. He may well have introduced her to drug-taking, but he’s just irresponsible, not … not like
that
.’

He pulled his arm away, turning to her with a fury she had not seen since his brother’s death. ‘Not like
what
, Amelie? He’s a young scoundrel who was floored only days ago by the brother-in-law he sees as a rival. Do you think he’ll have forgotten
and forgiven? Already? No man would. He was humiliated in front of women. He’s getting his own back, isn’t he?’

‘On Caterina?’

‘On Lord Rayne
through
her. You’ve got your charity blinkers on again, Amelie. You were always too damn charitable. And as for getting yourself hooked up to this Richmond family to help launch Caterina into society … well … even a blind man could see what
that
’s all about. Elyot’s name and exploits have reached Buxton, you know, since he sent his man up there, and now he’s gone off to London already, and no word from him in a week. Hah!’

‘Oh,
do
say what you think, Stephen. Don’t be too nice for
my
sake,’ Amelie snapped. ‘You’re saying it’s a sham, I take it. Well, you’re right. It is. I’m not
so
charitable, you see, that I don’t know how I’m being used. But even
you
will have to admit that Caterina has made a
huge
impact locally, and will do so in London, too, if I can hold on long enough.’

Shocked into a new realisation, Stephen stared at her. ‘You
know
? You’re allowing yourself to be
used
, for Caterina’s advancement? Amelie, tell me it’s not true. That’s not what I wanted to happen.’

‘I know it isn’t, but I can’t tell you it’s not true because it is. To all intents and purposes, I am Lord Elyot’s betrothed until I have done what I agreed to do for Caterina and you, and if that means going to bed with him, well, that’s the price of success down here as it is elsewhere. And now I think we have to get out there and find her before something terrible befalls her.’

Gripping her elbows, he held her still before him. ‘Amelie, you had no need to do this. That was
not
part of the deal. Was it Hurst? Did Elyot find out about … you know … Josiah?’

‘He knows about the duel, yes. Hurst is still in London.’

‘Tch! I was right to come. I should have come sooner. You know I would have … well, you
do
know, don’t you? I never wanted you to be tied to a man like Elyot who uses women and throws them away again. It must be so painful for you, after Josiah. He was so—’

‘Yes, Stephen. He was. But I had to buy Lord Elyot’s silence. I had no choice, but he was more than a match for Hurst. We’ll not see
him
again. Now, we must go and look for Caterina. You saw nothing of lone female travellers on the London to Bath road, did you?’