When She Was Wicked (16 page)

The frosty weather had kept most people at home in front of their cozy fires, and the shop was abnormally peaceful. Mrs. Smallwood had taken to the back room with her ledgers, leaving Anabelle in charge of the front room. Miss Peckham and her friend, Miss Devlin, had come into the shop barking demands.

“The milliner’s shop is quite inconveniently closed. I’d like you to make this hat”—Miss Peckham plopped a plain white chip hat on the counter—“look like this one.” Beside the hat she laid a wrinkled copy of
The Lady’s Magazine
, showing a woman wearing an ornamented headdress. It appeared to have grapes or berries attached to one side, which, of course, made Anabelle’s stomach growl.

She attempted a bright smile. “I can show you a variety of trimmings. We have artificial roses, sprigs of myrtle, ermine, ostrich feathers, and lace and velvet in every color. Where would you like to start?”

Miss Peckham smiled in amusement. “I haven’t the faintest, darling. Hats aren’t my specialty.”

Miss Devlin giggled. “Peignoirs, on the other hand…”

“Pardon?” Anabelle asked.

“Never mind,” said Miss Peckham. “Would you be a dear and sew something onto this for me while I wait? I’ll be riding in the park later—with a gentleman.”

“How lovely,” said Anabelle, although frankly, a ride in the open air on such a bitter cold day sounded anything but. “I think we should use the ermine to take away the chill. And perhaps a blue ribbon to contrast with it?”

“That’s fine,” Miss Peckham said, pulling up a chair. “I don’t expect the earl will be very interested in my hat.”

Miss Devlin raised an unnaturally arched brow. “Men have no appreciation for hats. Garters, however, are another matter entirely.”

Anabelle felt herself flush. She tried to steer the conversation to less risqué territory. “If you’d like, I could add a bit of ermine trim to your tippet as well.”

“As long as you can finish in an hour or so,” Miss Peckham said.

Miss Devlin poked an elbow into her friend’s side. “A fur-lined stole presents all kinds of interesting possibilities.”

Since the women seemed intent on discussing the earl’s proclivities and, perhaps, their own, Anabelle said, “You’ll be here for a bit, so I’ll put on some tea. Excuse me.”

She breezed into the back room and passed Mrs. Smallwood on her way to the tiny kitchen.

“How is everything out front, Anabelle?” the shop owner asked distractedly. Her eyes were almost crossed from staring at the book in front of her.

“Quiet,” she called. “I’m making over a hat for Miss Peckham.” Anabelle wanted to prove that she could handle greater responsibility. Maybe Mrs. Smallwood would give her a modest raise; God knew her family desperately needed every shilling they could get.

“Let me know if you require assistance, dear.”

“I have things in hand.” Anabelle put a pot of water on the stove and retrieved a few more supplies from the back room. Then, bracing herself for further embarrassment, she marched into the front room.

“… no wonder the duchess left,” Miss Peckham was saying. “She chafed at the rules of polite society. Did I tell you about her house party last month?”

Miss Devlin looked up from the fingernail she’d been examining. “No.”

“She invited the earl and me into her bedchamber. Huntford would have skewered Winthrope on the spot if he’d discovered all three of us romping in his wife’s bed. As it turns out, we
were
discovered.” Miss Peckham had her friend’s attention now. She had Anabelle’s as well.

Miss Peckham smoothed the bodice of her very snug pelisse, and her eyes flicked to Anabelle, who busied herself
searching through various drawers behind the counter. The earl’s mistress shrugged and continued her story. “The three of us were having a perfectly lovely time when we heard the door to the duchess’s bedchamber slam. The earl pulled on his breeches and poked his head out into the hallway, but by then, the intruder was gone. The duchess said it had probably been her lady’s maid and that she knew better than to tell tales. She convinced the earl to come back into bed.”

“I had no idea the duchess was so depraved.” Miss Devlin’s voice held a touch of awe.

“She is beautiful as well. I wouldn’t have minded a repeat performance, but rumor has it she’s fled to the Continent.”

Anabelle listened with prurient interest. The women’s conversation flitted from the lewd to the mundane and back again, and the dress shop remained otherwise empty. When at last she’d finished the modifications to the bonnet and the tippet, she held up the articles for Miss Peckham’s inspection. “Will this do?”

Miss Peckham raised her brows. “It looks better than the one in
The Lady’s Magazine
. Well done, Miss…?”

“Honeycote.”

“I predict that the earl will find me irresistible in them,” she said.

Miss Devlin grunted. “Perhaps, if you wore nothing else.”

Miss Peckham paid for the items, and Anabelle wrapped them, grateful to see the women leave. It wasn’t until much later that evening when she returned to the freezing rooms they rented, heard Mama’s hacking cough, and opened a barren cupboard that a thought occurred to Anabelle.

The information she’d gleaned at the shop might be valuable.

Two days later, after much deliberation and drafting her List of Nevers, she composed her first extortion note, demanding thirty pounds from the earl in return for her silence concerning his romantic involvement with the Duchess of Huntford. The money had kept Mama, Daphne, and her from starving, and so she’d never really thought about who else might have been impacted by the events of that night.

Years later, she now knew, and it made her heart ache. The person who had stumbled into the duchess’s bedchamber on the night of the house party had been the duchess’s innocent fifteen-year-old daughter.

Rose.

Anabelle put on her spectacles. The freckles on her nose came into focus in the mirror. It was too early for anyone but the servants to be stirring, so she didn’t bother to change out of her nightrail or brush out her braid before creeping into the workroom and pulling back the drapes to let in the morning light. If stitching the embroidery on Olivia’s dress made her drowsy, she’d be able to slip back into bed for a nap.

But the task of embroidering scallops along the hem provided a welcome distraction. As long as she worried about keeping her stitches even and the spacing of the half-circles consistent, there was little time to worry about other things, like her mother’s health, Rose’s fragile state… or Owen’s kisses.

She’d made it most of the way around the hem when she heard a knock at the door. Heavens. She’d no idea how much time had passed, but the sun was high in the sky, and she
still wore her nightgown. It was probably Rose or Olivia, and she hoped they had some news of Mama. Now that they knew she was ill they both seemed determined to help. Anabelle set down the dress and her needle and thread, padded across the room in her bare feet, and stood close to the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

The door swung open and Anabelle took a quick step back to avoid being hit by it. Owen strode into the room looking almost as surprised as she.

“I didn’t give you permission to enter,” she said with exasperation.

“I grew tired of waiting. And this isn’t a bedchamber.” He raked his gaze over her. “For God’s sake, why are you dressed like that?”

Anabelle bristled. It seemed he was always criticizing her manner of dress. Although, she thought, glancing down at her nightrail, this morning he actually had a point.

“Never mind,” he muttered. He walked to a corner of the workroom where much of the nursery’s furniture had been piled to make room for the tables. He opened a trunk and withdrew a blanket which he wrapped around her shoulders.

The gesture was sweet, more so because of the desire that simmered in his eyes.

“How is your arm?” she asked.

“It’s fine.” Odd; she’d expected a clever retort. Something along the lines of “still attached to my shoulder.”

“Are you certain? I have a needle and thread here,” she teased.

“We need to talk,” he began, gesturing toward the window seat. “Please. Let’s sit.”

His civility in itself was rather alarming, but when she noticed the pinched lines on his face, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She was certain this had to do with Mama, and that the news wasn’t good. “What?” she demanded. “This is about my mother, isn’t it?”

“She’s fine. At least, Dr. Loxton thinks she will be.” He grasped her upper arms, gently guided her to the bench seat, and sat beside her. “He examined her last night and spoke with your sister at length about the course of treatment Conwell has prescribed. Your mother is a very sick woman.”

“I know that.” She battled back tears of frustration. “Can Dr. Loxton help her?”

“Maybe. He’s instructed Daphne to wean your mother off her medicine.”

“What? That is ridiculous.” Anabelle stood, threw off the blanket, and headed toward her room to dress. Clearly, she needed to go home and see to matters herself. She was not going to sit idly by while some strange doctor withheld the medicine that was keeping Mama comfortable. And alive.

“Anabelle.” Owen was two steps behind her. “Let me explain.”

She turned to face him, hands fisted at her sides. “She
can’t
stop taking the medicine. You should have seen what she was like before. She coughed so violently that I feared her ribs would crack; every breath was torturous, and she was delirious with fever. I won’t subject her to that again. I won’t!” Her voice screeched, even in her own ears. Why couldn’t he understand?

She would have closed her door, shutting him out, but he grabbed her shoulders. “The medicine that Dr. Conwell
prescribed may have helped her in the beginning. Now it’s doing nothing but sedating her. The dosage is much too strong. Not only is it taking away your mother’s appetite, she’s become dependent on it.”

Panic thudded through Anabelle’s veins. She pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep the scream in her throat from escaping. She wanted to trust Owen and knew he had nothing to gain by lying to her. Except, perhaps, to exact revenge for her extortion attempt. But she didn’t think he would do that. Through the thin fabric of her nightgown, his hands felt warm and firm. His steady and solid presence calmed her.

“Are you saying,” she said slowly, “that the medicine she’s been taking isn’t making her well? That it’s doing her more harm than good?”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Yes.”

“Then… then why did Dr. Conwell keep prescribing it?”

“I suspect he figured that as long as your mother was sick, you’d keep paying for his visits.”

Now her head was really spinning. “No, that’s not possible. Dr. Conwell was highly recommended by our apothecary, Mr. Vanders.”

“It’s likely the two of them conspired to swindle you. I do know that Conwell isn’t a licensed physician. I haven’t even been able to track him down at his address. Odds are, he heard I was looking for him and left Town.”

Anabelle went still. Blood pounded in her ears.

She’d believed that Conwell was the thin thread keeping her mother alive. She’d put all her trust and hope in the man and risked everything she had—her life, in fact—to pay him. If her mother never recovered, she would find him and strangle him with his own stethoscope.

But he wasn’t the only one to blame. She’d been a fool, blindly accepting his falsehoods.

“Are you all right? I think you should sit down.” Owen clasped her hand and led her back to the window seat. “You couldn’t have known he was a fraud. This isn’t your fault.”

She blinked and adjusted her spectacles. “How did you know I was thinking that?”

With a sheepish smile, he said, “Because if I were in your position, I would have thought the same thing.”

She dragged her eyes away from his handsome face and studied the dappled sunlight dancing on the drapes. “I suppose the real question is how to make Mama better.”

“Exactly. I’ve asked Dr. Loxton to check in on her every day and monitor her health. He wants Daphne to slowly cut back on the amount of medicine and tell your mother that she must eat at least a little broth before she gets another dose. Loxton thinks she’ll improve rapidly.”

The optimistic prognosis was almost cruel. Anabelle wished it were true, had prayed for it every day, but wishes and prayers were futile. “She has consumption. If she seems better, it’s likely because the disease is in the final stages. It would take a miracle for her to recover.”

Owen encased her hands in his and forced her to look into his eyes. “Loxton isn’t convinced she has consumption. It may take a while for him to properly diagnose her. But she may have had the croup or scarlet fever instead.”

Anabelle wrangled with the idea that her mother might not be dying after all. Croup and scarlet fever were not trifling illnesses, but they were vastly preferable to consumption. It was just too much to hope for. She laid her head against Owen’s chest and burst into tears. Not the
pretty, feminine sort of tears one cries after hearing a moving bit of poetry, but the awful, body-wracking sobs that blindside a person when emotions are too raw for anything else.

Owen didn’t shush her or tell her not to cry. Maybe he knew it wouldn’t have done a whit of good. To his credit, he gently pried off her spectacles so she could cry that much harder. She clutched his shirtfront and sobbed until the fine lawn was soaked with tears. He didn’t seem to mind.

He rubbed her back and arms, ran his hand down the length of her braid, murmured little things that sounded sweet even if she couldn’t make out the words over her own pitiful howling.

She cried until her body was limp with exhaustion and then sniffled and hiccupped for a few more moments. When at last she felt she could sit up without clinging to him, she did, instantly missing the starchy yet masculine smell of his shirt.

Owen withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it with a heart-stopping smile. She gratefully dried her face.

“I don’t want to raise your hopes too high.” He took her hands in his, making her stomach flutter happily. “But Dr. Loxton has tended to me since I was a boy, and to my father before me. I’d trust him—
have
trusted him—to care for my own sisters. Maybe he can help your mother.”