Page 34 of A Baron's Disguised Lady
After breakfast, Lavinia and Archie made an excuse to walk in the garden together. Lavinia was glad to have his company. She wanted to feel useful, to feel as though she was doing something rather than remaining idle. She was yet to understand how women of her rank and class passed their days in anything other than boredom.
It was all very well to read books and take tea, and sit with other equally idle women and do the same, perhaps with an embroidery pattern to pass the time. But Lavinia was used to hard work, and now she relished the chance to do something rather than nothing. The arrival of the flowers had angered her, but she had no intention of replying to Lord Bath’s letter, in which he had made the veiled threat of a spreading rumor if she did not agree to his demands.
“I’m sorry you have to endure the attentions of Lord Bath,” Archie said, and Lavinia shrugged.
“He’ll eventually realize I’m not interested,” she said.
It was a beautiful day, and the gardens were bursting with flowers, their sweet scent perfuming the air as they walked.
“I had a letter from Wilhelmina Tipping’s father—she was the woman at the ball. He’s inviting me to dinner with them,” Archie said.
“And will you go?” she asked, but Archie shook his head.
“No. I can’t stand her,” he said, and Lavinia laughed.
“Then it seems we’re both receiving unwanted attention,” she said.
Archie smiled. Lavinia was pleased to see it. He had smiled several times at her now, and at the ball, he had appeared almost carefree as they had danced. But Lavinia knew the burden he bore—the burden of responsibility for the estate, and the burden of knowing his sister’s death remained unresolved.
It was a terrible thought to think someone had murdered Gwendolene, and yet the doctor’s notes pointed towards the possibility of something untoward.
“Well… it doesn’t matter. I simply won’t reply. I hadn’t seen her for months. I don’t want to see her again,” Archie said, and Lavinia nodded.
“No… well, the notes,” she said, and Archie paused, sighing, and shaking his head.
“I just don’t understand what they mean. The doctor describes it as akin to the smell of almonds on Gwendolene’s breath. But she was allergic to nuts. She didn’t touch them, and all the servants knew it, too. No one in the house ate nuts. It was safer that way,” Archie said.
But Lavinia knew better. As a maid, she had worked with a woman who had macabre interest in reading accounts of the most brutal crimes. She would sit in the servant’s hall, pouring over the periodicals, and relaying the gruesome details to whoever would listen.
“Another murder in Whitechapel—her throat was slit right to her gullet,” she would say, trying for maximum shock, and usually succeeding.
But in reading the doctor’s notes, Lavinia had been reminded of another account the woman had relayed to her, that of a poisoning.
“It smells like almonds—the poison he used. He put it in a cake, presented it to his wife as a gift. She ate it, and… well, that was that,”she had once said, recounting the story of a woman killed by her husband who was having an affair with the woman’s sister and wanted to marry her.
“Poison. The smell of almonds on a person’s breath can be a sign of poison,” Lavinia said, and Archie stared at her in astonishment.
“But… really? How do you know?” he asked, and Lavinia explained her relationship to the woman who had so often read to her from the criminal pages of the periodicals.
“It would have to be in small doses—perhaps in her food. A little at a time, gradually poisoning her over time,” Lavinia said, for it seemed doubtful Gwendolene had been poisoned on only one occasion.
The baron had described her sickness as a gradual fading away, like a fever, even as he had not believed it to be a natural death. The facts fitted the possibility, even as they had no actual proof of it having occurred.
“How horrible. But… I don’t understand…” Archie replied, his eyes growing wide with fear.
“A little in her food each day, or by some other means—in a tonic she was taking, or in her tea,” Lavinia said, her certainty growing, even as it seemed the most terrible thought to comprehend.
Archie sank down onto the grass and buried his head in his hands. Instinctively, Lavinia sat down next to him and put her arm around him. She wanted to comfort him, and for him to know he was not alone.
“My darling Gwendolene, oh, how cruel… how wicked… she was innocent… an innocent creature… what did she do to deserve this horror?” he exclaimed, and Lavinia shook her head.
“She did nothing, but… the human heart can be a place of cruelty, as well as love. Perhaps there was something you didn’t know—a lover, a friend, some part of her life she didn’t reveal to you,” Lavinia said, even as Archie began to sob.
“But I thought I knew her. I thought I knew everything about her,” he exclaimed.
Lavinia still had her arm around him, and his words made her think of her own mother, and the fact of her concealing the truth about their past. Everyone had secrets—those things which they would prefer others not to know—and if Gwendolene, too, had kept a secret, perhaps it had caught up with her…
“We can’t know everything. Even about those we love the most. But perhaps we can still discover the truth about what happened,” Lavinia said, and Archie looked up at her and nodded.
