An Independent Miss (15 page)

The demands of
Montfort Abbey, being a wife, daughter-in-law and, hopefully soon, motherhood,
would fill her life. He would outline his expectations, while assuring her that
he too must meet her expectations.

He dipped his pen
in the inkwell, blotted it on the desk pad, and started to write.

My Dearest Lady Felicity ~

Is it arduous, missing the resurgence of the
social whirl? Your last letter implies not. I would that matters were
different, that I would be in town with you, leading you onto the dance floor
but, alas, Montfort needs to be awakened to welcome a new bride.

And what of this conversation you so desperately
seek, is it not better left in that courtyard, complete? Surely, the death of
Mrs. Smith conveyed my feelings far better than words ever could.

You have my oath, I will do everything in my
power to provide you with a rich and full life. You’ll have no need of
gypsy-scratching in the woods.

My regret is that you were left with my ill temper,
forged by the measure of my fear. To lose you, to lose anyone I love, to such a
foul end, is crucifixion beyond bearing. And to have that placed upon a fierce
desire to remain in your company when needs must for me to be away, was beyond
my ability to stem. Forgive me. I should not have been so hard.

Oh, that you could have joined me, that we
did not already have enough scandal to subdue.

As I am requesting your forgiveness, I must
forebear upon you again, for not speaking of my mother’s melancholy sooner. In
my defense, I cannot believe she will suffer so, once your soothing calm reaches
Montfort Abbey. No need for any concoctions to confuse her mind. Just you, as
you are, my dear Felicity, a bright light to sweep the darkness of mourning
from Montfort Abbey.

Soon, I will be in London, to offer escort
and quiet any tattle-mongers. Mother is improving, which I had feared impossible,
so well I believe she will travel with me. A good thing, except it delays my
arrival. Another fortnight, I fear.

A trial, thinking of you, eager to be by
your side, soothed by your gentleness.

A fortnight, a short time that now seems
interminable.

Your Servant, forever

Andover

****

London ~ Day 5

The bell over the door jingled, as
Felicity stepped into the apothecary shop, Jesse close behind her. The
herbalist looked up from the packet he offered another customer. “I’ll be with
you in a moment.”

Feliciy nodded, and went to the
cabinets on the other side of the shop, looking down into a case filled with
dried herbs and roots. Much like the other shops they’d stopped in that
afternoon, three sides held floor to ceiling rows of cubbyholes holding
bottles, small box-like drawers, and a ladder with wheels for reaching each.

Impossible to keep surfaces free of
dust when one worked with dried plants, this place was surprisingly tidy, with
its musty aroma. Like a home away from home. She noted particles caught in the
sunlight streaming through the large picture windows.

Jesse fooled with the napkin
covering their wares from earlier ventures.

“Yes,” the apothecary asked, as the
woman and her small child left the shop. “May I help you?”

“Please,” Felicity smiled. “Have
you anything for gout? My father is suffering badly.”

“Ah!” The man nodded his balding
head, adjusted his glasses. “I have just the thing.” He gestured toward the
back-to-back benches in the center of the room. “If you’ll have a seat, I will
make some up for you.” And headed toward his back room.

Felicity always asked for gout
remedies. Liked to see what others used for the one recurring ailment she had
trouble with. This way she could compare the various methods.

“Thank you.” She started to sit on
the bench but stood up, before she even got properly down. “Oh, my, I’m sorry.
Is this something of yours?” She lifted a piece of paper—one that hadn’t
been there a moment ago—for his inspection.

“What?” He turned, halfway through
the doorway to his back room. “What is it you have there?”

Felicity studied it herself. “This
looks like a flyer of sorts. By a Mrs. Comfrey?” She gave it to him.

“Mrs. Comfrey?” His lips tightened.
“I see. Hmm. And where did you find it?”

Eyes opened wide, Felicity gestured
to the bench. “Just there, on the bench. Do you think someone left it there?”

“Yes,” he nodded, speaking more to
himself as he studied the paper. “Yes, I suppose. I’ll just keep it back here,
in case they come back.” He looked up, offered a small smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Felicity
returned his smile and promptly sat down to wait.

Gout mixture in hand, she and Jesse
stepped outside.

“That’s the last one, isn’t it,
m’lady?’ Jesse asked.

“Yes,” Felicity told her, “It’s the
last apothecary, but I have one more errand.”

“But I thought we were just
delivering flyers?”

“Yes, we were, but I heard Papa
talking to Thomas this morning. Our Jack is convalescing somewhere near here, I
would like to find him.”

Jesse tripped after her. “But
m’lady, you can’t go there, not with just me! You need your father or your
brother to take you to such a place.”

Felicity stopped at the crossroads,
comparing street names to a small handwritten map she’d pulled from her
reticule. “Don’t be silly, Jesse. Rules do not apply in cases such as this.”

“They do if you’re the one
tattling.”

Astonished, Felicity turned on her
maid. “Are you planning on tattling on me?”

“No, m’lady, but you never know who
might see you.”

With a quick look down at herself,
Felicity laughed and moved on. “Who would know me dressed as I am? With this
plain straw bonnet hiding my face? Surely I’m as well disguised as I would be
at a masquerade.”

She took Jesse’s hand, tugged her
around the corner and halfway down the street, to stand behind an unpretentious
townhouse.

“Oh, please, miss, don’t go there.”

“Jesse, for goodness’ sake!”
Felicity scolded. “I know you don’t like to be around the ill. That’s fine, but
please, do not stop me.”

Jesse shuddered. “It’s more than
that, m’lady. It’s a place for men, in beds. Their limbs will be showing, if
not worse. It’s not a place for a fine lady, really it’s not.”

“I’m not just any lady, Jesse. You
know that well enough and you don’t have to go in.” She stopped in front of a
townhouse in a quiet little neighborhood. “You can wait out front.”

Jesse stood rigid, shaking her
head.

“Really, I shan’t be long.”

“How do you know this is the
place?” the girl asked.

“Look, see?” Felicity pointed to a
placard placed inside one of the ground floor windows picturing a man in
uniform on a bed. “This is it.” And she climbed the stairs of the modest home.

CHAPTER 15 ~
CHANGING GOALS

Andover,

If you have yet to leave for town, do so.
Now. Town is ripe with rumors. People are saying you introduced Lady F. to a
frolicking orgy at Easter. Which lends itself quite nicely to wicked, evil
doings. All believe you’ve given her the slip.

The books are filling, all bets on. No one
questions Lady F. now in delicate position, but betting is on whether she has
gone, post-chaste, to resuscitate up north versus having developed such a rabid
taste for the orgy, she’s left for the continent in search of greater
adventure. All this despite Lady F. being seen in the park, lithe as ever,
receiving the cut direct.

Lord D. placed ten pounds she ran off with
the gardener.

Lady B. is frantically determined to defend
her cousin, which terrifies me the stink will rub off and I’ll be dueling for
her honor. How we’ve kept Lord R. out of the wind could inspire a comedy of
errors, if the greater fear of multiple duels didn’t weigh so heavy.

This would all be a damn sight easier if you
were here with a special license in your pocket.

Upton

The fecundity of the hot house hit
Andover with the assurance he needed. Flowers would be available to greet his
bride on their wedding night.

“You’re certain we will have
enough.”

“A roomful of sweet-scented blooms.
That’s a promise, my lord. We won’t disappoint your marchioness.” The gardener
pulled on his forelock. “We even have orchids just about ready. I can push them
a bit harder and you will have what you want.”

“And oranges?”

“Aye.”

“Good.”

The last of his errands, now done a
week earlier than expected.

He left the greenhouse for his
carriage. His mother, so much better now, waited outside the coach, her face to
the sun. Better, but still a worry.

After that awful night, he refused
to leave her again.

He helped her into the conveyance,
settled her with a lap robe despite the warmth of the day. As he settled beside
her, he covered her icy hands with his own, lifted them to the warmth of his
lips.

“Are you comfortable, Mother, for
the journey?”

“Yes.” Her eyes drifted shut. “I
will rest.”

He allowed a full measure of
evening draught for this ride, to stave off the boredom. To aid her to sleep
through the ride.

The miles carried them, as he
leaned against the squabs, focused inward, picturing Felicity. Sweet, calm,
practical Felicity, the perfect bride, the perfect wife, to marry into the most
imperfect of households.

****

London ~ Day 13

Screams echoed against the walls,
two beds away from Jack.

“You really must move him, Robbie.
He really must be in another ward,” Felicity fretted, as she bathed the raw
stump of Jack’s leg.

“We are lucky to have him here,”
Robbie argued.

“But you won’t…” Fiercely, she met
his eyes. “…if he is not moved.” She risked a look. Jack watched them, silent,
his jaw clenched in pain. “I know this hurts, Jack, I know but it needs be
done.”

He shook his head. “Just hurts,” he
gritted out. “Wash soothes.”

She blinked, focused on pouring
another fresh bowl of herbal water over the wound, fighting tears. She could
not let her emotions show, refused to cringe from the screams down the ward.

“I’m sorry about the sounds, Jack.”
Robbie offered.

But it was not the sounds Felicity
fretted over. It was what those screams meant, hospital gangrene, so-called
because it spread so virulently within a hospital. This meant a higher
percentage of such deaths for amputees in hospital together than treated alone.

Unfortunately, Jack was far too ill
to be moved again. He suffered enough, being brought over from the continent.

“What’s the time, Robbie?” she
asked, knowing she could not leave, even as she knew she must. Her mother would
fret if she weren’t home for afternoon tea.

She dipped her bowl into the bucket
by her side, washing away the thick goo on Jack’s leg, worrying over his skin,
hot and dry and yellowing. His pulse was weak and sporadic, his tongue shades
off from what a healthy tongue should be.

All signs he’d been infected,
leaving her with little hope.

“Let’s cover this up.” She smiled
at her patient, even as he groaned. “We’ll not use dry cloths,” she promised,
dipping clean dressing material in her mixture, folding it and placing it ever
so gently over the stump. Still, Jack stiffened as he stifled a cry.

Robbie turned away.

“That’s the worst of it,” she
promised, though she knew it wouldn’t be. At best, he would suffer more
dressing changes. At worst, the pain would be critical even when no one touched
the wound.

Swiftly, but very gently, she
wrapped his wound and placed a tented sheet over it to keep even that small
weight from his leg.

“Robbie,” she summoned, “I think
our Jack could use some more laudanum.” All the while, she smiled at Jack,
soothed. “I’ll just have a word with the nurses, shall I?” She kissed her
patient on the forehead, squeezed his hand and left, to beg the nurses to allow
her treatment plan.

“Maggots?” the head nurse cried.
“Those filthy little buggers. Do you know how many of those we cleaned from his
wound when he arrived?”

Cleaned
from his wound.

“Filthy it was. I don’t think
anyone bothered to change his dressings, half off, they were.”

“Those maggots may have been his
saving, and, as he is now, worth trying. It is believed they eat the dead flesh
from a wound, this sort of wound,” Felicity argued.

“I don’t think so.” The woman
sniffed, arms akimbo, shaking her head.

“Please, nurse, please.” Felicity
stilled as another scream split the air. “Don’t risk him getting to that
stage.” She gestured toward the source of all that pain.

“Do you really believe you can keep
him from getting there?” The woman scowled. “I don’t think the doctor will like
it.”

The overburdened doctor had readily
agreed to let Felicity oversee Jack’s care, Felicity readily reminded the
nurse.

“I’ll not have them crawling about
my rooms!”

“They won’t be,” Felicity promised.
“They stay secured in a muslin pouch that’s fit over the wound.”

“You say it will keep him from…” No
need to finish her words as another painful cry carried through the home. “I’m
half-tempted…”

Felicity didn’t need any more
permission. Robbie had hired a returned soldier to help with Jack’s care. She
spent the next hour explaining to him Jack’s treatment. How to mix the herbal
water for washes and the use of maggots.

Fearing they would come to this,
she’d spent the night before sewing up pouches to apply the little buggers, as
the head nurse called them. For the past few days, she’d had the stable lads
find the best fishing maggots, which they assured her were from blue bottle
flies, and place them in a container of oatmeal. Last night, she doused them in
her father’s finest brandy for cleaning, as her grandmother had taught, alcohol
cleared debris from most anything.

Long after she should have gone
home, Felicity broke free, promising to return the next day.

Jesse jumped from her bench in the
entry hall.

“Did you get the missives
delivered?”

“Yes, I gave them to boys, with a
halfpence, and made sure they entered the shops before I left.”

“Brilliant, you are a gem, Jesse,
and the ribbons?” Felicity asked as she hurried down the hall.

“Aye.”

“The feathers?”

“They are here, in this bundle.”

“Wonderful!” Felicity took her
apron off, grabbed her shawl from the peg, and found her bonnet.

“Here, m’lady,” Jesse offered. “Let
me fix your hair before you put your hat back on.” Thick straight tendrils
escaped their confines in her efforts to write and read and console.

“Thank you, Jesse. I don’t know
where I would be without you.”

“Still at home, I imagine.” Jesse
worked quickly. “Which is where you should be. Especially today, with your
gentleman calling.”

Felicity grabbed her arm.
“Gentleman calling?”

“Lady Westhaven asked me not to
tell you.”

“Lord Andover?”

Jesse nodded.

“Oh dear.” Her heart thumped, a
misstep for a missed encounter.

Foolish of her, when in truth she
merely wanted to speak with him. Must speak with him. Urgently, now that he was
in town.

No yearning allowed. He could not
save her from the torment of men screaming in pain, or the almost certain death
of a friend.

The last pin in, hair secure, Jesse
arranged Felicity’s bonnet. “At least this will fit right and tight now.” She
stepped back and grimaced. “I don’t want to know what those stains are on your
dress, my Lady.”

Felicity rose from the bench,
beyond tired. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

“There’s something else,” Jesse
warned, as they stepped out into the grey drizzle of the day.

Adjusting her shawl, Felicity
asked, “And what is that?”

“A friend of yours was at the
haberdasher’s when I was getting the ribbon.”

Felicity scowled, as she considered
which path to take home. They didn’t have the time to meander. She would have
to risk passing acquaintances; certain no one would recognize her in her
servants’ clothes.

“A friend?” None seemed important
after a day such as this.

“The fair-haired girl, Lady Jane.”

Felicity snorted, “Missing her was
a pleasure. She is one of the reasons I prefer not to go out and about.”

“Well then, you should be all the
more sorry, because she recognized me and wondered where you were.”

“No!”

“Yes. I fixed her hem when she came
to visit. Remember, her mother stepped on it and it tore?” Jesse skipped
forward a bit, to catch up with Felicity’s pace. “She asked me to be her
abigail. Claims she will marry better than you.”

“You never told me this.” The sides
of the poke bonnet were so deep Felicity turned wide, left and right, before
crossing the road.

“She said it, my lady, but I
wouldn’t go. Not with her. Half expected her tongue to dart out of her mouth,
all forked and all. She was that wicked in the way she said it.”

“An asp is an apt comparison,” Lady
Felicity admitted. “Best to stay far enough away that you don’t feel her bite
when she spits her venom.”

“She’s a misery, that one.”

They walked swiftly along a park
closed in by an iron fence. Felicity, always on the lookout, even in town,
spotted a plant on the other side of the fence. Five-finger leaves. Masses of
it. Perfect antidote for boils in the mouth. She knew of one such case at the
convalescent home.

“Lady Jane enjoys making others’
lives a misery,” Felicity answered, her mind on the plant. She could make a
wash with it, or a tincture. She looked about for the entrance to the little
park. “But Lady Jane wouldn’t have any power if society wasn’t so eager to hear
her comments.”

“My lady,” Jesse tugged at her arm.
“We need to be going.”

Felicity sighed, “It’s too late for
that.” She’d already missed tea. Her mother would be in a state. “Just one
moment.”

A fruitless walk to the gate proved
it locked. “Oh, blast!” She looked at her challenge, as dew-like rain hit her
face. The fence was not terribly tall. Absolutely climbable.

Jesse stayed her. “No, you mustn’t,
someone will see you and call for help.”

“Don’t be so missish,” Felicity
argued, pointing. “Look, there.” Around the corner from where they stood, a
bush grew close to the fence, shadowing the walk. “I’ll go over there, no one
will notice.”

“They will, and you’re already
late!”

“This won’t take long.”

There were more than bushes at that
end. There was a large oak that had grown into the iron fence. Felicity grabbed
a branch, hefted herself up, used that to get to another branch, and then
another, until she was over the fence. She jumped down and hurried over to the
five-fingered cinquefoil.

Jesse ran back and forth on the
other side of the fence. “You need to be home.”

“This won’t take long.” Felicity
spun around.

“There’s a ball, hosted by your
mother’s friend, she wants you to go tonight.”

“She never told me.”

“She sent word around to me last
night. Said I wasn’t to say anything.”

“Oh drat!” Felicity stood, her
hands full of plants. “A ball is the pettiest sort of activity after today.” No
matter the hostess, people would stare, turn their backs when she drew near.
She was not socially adept enough to handle that with grace.

She would not go.

She searched for the tree she’d
climbed. “I’ve been busy all day, Jess. It’s been wonderful and awful and so
different than just working with the plants. So different from having a patient
here and a patient there.”

Looking from plants in her hand to
the tree, she thrust her fist through the fence, handing her newly gathered horde
to Jessie. “As if there wasn’t enough I could do, there were pages and pages of
sad letters the men needed written and if someone would just read to them, to
distract them…” Again, she fought tears. “How horrid to go out now and pretend
that people are really pleased to see me for anything other than gossip
fodder.”

“You’ve not been out in an age. It
will do you good.”

“Blast my mother for even thinking of
it.” She would go to her workroom. Her comfortable, safe workroom.

“Lady Felicity!” Jessie warned.
“You may clean up from the work you do, but you haven’t cleaned your mouth any.
It’s a dead giveaway you are not spending your days in the shops with
gentlepeople.”

Felicity looked down at the gown
she wore, one which had been turned, patched, mended, and was covered with
stains. A dress she saved for working in the stillroom.