Chapter 5
Bel returned to the kitchen, after brushing past Conlyn—Ridgemont-—but didn’t get far in her preparations for the following day’s meals and Aunt Violet’s mandated snacks before she was invaded.
Cecil and two of his friends wandered in loudly demanding to see what there was to eat. Cook wrung her hands and the two little kitchen maids hovered in the corner, wide-eyed.
“Cecil! You needn’t disrupt the kitchen. Ring for a foot man if you require service,” Bel declared wiping flour from her hands.
Cecil pranced around the table. “When the Westcott Menace has her hands in, we have to inspect our vittles carefully,” he scoffed setting off a round of laughter. “Came down to inspect.” He grabbed the jar containing yesterday’s biscuits, reached in, and began tossing them to his friends. “Wesley, did you or the Menace make these?” he demanded.
Mrs. Wesley glanced frantically between Bel and her employer’s son. “I done ’em, my lord,” she whispered.
“Stop terrorizing the kitchen, Cec. Take the biscuits and go,” Bel demanded.
He tossed a few more, ignoring the ones that hit the stone floor and shattered, stuffed several in his pockets, and sneered at Bel. “Menace!” He shouted, striding toward the door where he spun around to face her again. “The Westcott Menace—Ridgemont came up with that one. Did you know that, Bel? Next Season’s big fish calls you a menace. Wait until we drop that in the ear of the gossips,” he laughed. He pelted his friends with another biscuit and left, leaving silence in his wake.
Bel wanted to follow and throttle him. Instead, she had to rally her staff. A half-hour later, breakfast had been prepped, dinner planned, and she was well on her way to a third batch of cakes and biscuits.
“Thank you all, but get you off to bed. Breakfast will come early,” Bel told them. She lifted the chin of the most capable of the kitchen maids. “Remember, Annie. I trust you to support Mrs. Wesley. And also—do be careful in salting the eggs. I plan to sleep late after I finish up the baking tonight.”
Much later—Bel suspected midnight had passed—she sat, alone and weary, at the worn and marred wooden table to enjoy an herbal tisane before finding her own bed. She leaned her elbow on the table, her head on her hand, no longer able to keep thoughts of Cecil’s horrid behavior at bay.
Cecil had made her life a misery since he cut off one of her braids when she was six. Their grandfather, informed by the gardener, had called Cecil on the carpet and given him a birching. Cecil blamed Bel. When Grandpapa died a few years later, Cecil blamed Bel that he was excluded from the will as well. His behavior toward her worsened.
Aunt Violet’s blindness to it all was a familiar ache. There would be no point in complaining about him. His threat to ruin yet another Season, however, left her desolate. If only she could convince Aunt Flora to give up trying to present her and allow her to withdraw to the country. If only they would release her dowry into her own keeping.
She took a sip of her tisane and shook with a sigh. Cecil had confirmed one thing. John Conlyn—his preening lordship of Ridgemont—had created her hated nickname and would be at the center of more humiliation in the Spring.
She sat up straight in her chair when an idea came to her. There is no use trying to live it down; I could just as well use it.
If Ridgemont and Cecil wanted to paint her as a menace, she should treat them to a dose of her talent for chemistry. She could humiliate them before they did it to her, and get her revenge at the same time. Her reputation would be the same in the end.
Bel pushed herself up with both hands. She lit a candle, unlocked the room she had converted to her laboratory, and searched bottles until she found it, a vial of Cephaelis ipecacuanha that she had distilled into a syrup . The perfect emetic .
She stared at the bottle while finishing her tisane. She could make sure it went up to Cecil and his friends with their breakfast tea or coffee, but they would be so ill from drink they might not even realize it. No, she needed something public. If she wanted to make someone vomit, she needed it to be outside to avoid damage to Aunt Violet’s parlors.
The skating party would be perfect.
She considered methods to get something laced with ipecacuanha to Ridgemont alone, and avoid other guests. If Bel planned carefully, she could slip him tainted hot chocolate. She could count on George to help. Dinah Beckwith planned to force Ridgemont to partner her. Beckwith might get some also, but Bel wouldn’t weep over that.
Let the skaters beware! Bel blew out the sconces and carried her candle up to bed.
The next morning, John waited at the front door bundled in a warm coat and scarf, hat in hand. He hoped to catch sight of Belinda Westcott, though she insisted she would not skate. If he were lucky, he might escort Lady Sophie Gilray to the lake.
A sound on the stairs caught his attention, and he saw Lady Sophie on the first-floor landing. He started to smile, but Dinah Beckwith shouldered past her and danced down the stairs to ambush him.
“Are the coaches ready?” she asked, clamping on to his arm, and forcing John, who had planned to walk, to follow her.
After much fussing and demanding that she be wrapped warmly under coach blankets and pouting when a footman carried out the wrapping rather than John, they finally set out with Miss Beckwith squeezed next to Lady Sophie and another lady with John on the back-facing bench next to Walter Davis, a cheerful gentleman who seemed to be a friend of Peter and who quite looked forward to skating. John wished he had stayed in bed.
The pale sun glistened off the lake when they arrived, however, and his mood lifted. Footmen arranged skates on a table set up for that purpose and tended fires placed in barrels around the nearer banks of the lake. John helped the ladies from the coach and escorted them to benches set near the fires.
Miss Beckwith tossed him a coy look. “Please find me a small pair of skates,” she demanded “I have very tiny feet.” He couldn’t politely refuse.
When he found lady Sophie examining the skates carefully and selecting a pair, he rather admired her independence. “May I request that we take at least one turn around the lake?” he asked.
“Perhaps after Miss Beckwith tires out, “she responded, gazing at him sympathetically, amusement bright in her eyes.
John sighed. “I’ll count on it,” he said.
It didn’t take long. He had no sooner escorted Miss Beckwith out and gone a few feet, before she slipped artfully to the ice. “Oh! my ankle, “she moaned. “Please take me back to the bench”
The bench, of course, was inadequate for her terrible agony, or so she said. “I simply can’t do this. I’ll have to go back to the house. Please take me back to the house.” She batted her eyes at him.
John turned away and looked around. The coach had returned with more guests. “You there,” he called to one of the footmen. “Run and stop the coach from returning. Miss Beckwith has injured herself and needs to go back to the house.” She beamed up at him with a triumphant gleam in her eye.
Triumph faded once John asked one of the stronger footmen to carry her to the coach, and he bid her farewell. “Oh no, I—” The footman looked at John who nodded, and the boy kept going to deposit her in the coach.
She glowered back, saw him watching, attempted a pathetic expression, and fell back against the seat.
“Not heroic of you, my lord.” Sophie stood at his side. She peered up with a hint of mischief. “But very effective,” she said.
Neither of them voiced what they were thinking. Dinah Beckwith was no more hurt than Sophie. “May I help you with your skates Lady Sophie?”
She lifted a foot already fixed with a skate. “I’m quite capable of doing it myself. I’ve been skating on Uncle Hartwell’s lake since I could walk.”
They did two turns on the lake before she called to her friends. Peter Hartley and Walter Davis joined them and soon the young people were laughing and chasing one another.
A half-hour later, John did a circle around Lady Sophie and came to a stop in front of her, quite admiring the color in her cheeks and the fun in her expression.
“It appears sustenance has arrived,” he said, nodding at the footmen carrying baskets to the table on the shore. “Shall we see what is on offer?”
They skated to the edge, where ginger cakes and various biscuits could be had. Tall crockery jugs with spouts were wrapped in towels to keep tea and chocolate hot. Sophie peered over the choices.
Before John could ask her if she wanted tea or chocolate, George the footman reached under the table and pulled out a thick flagon with a stopper. “We have a stronger chocolate for gentlemen,” he said. He poured out a mug and handed it to John.
Laced with spirits, no doubt.
Sophie shook her head in irritation. “They always treat ladies as if we were fragile!”
It wasn’t an unfair complaint. When he offered her the mug, her head bobbed up, and she searched his face. Seeing approval, she took the mug and took a quick sip. Her brows drew together, and she stared into the drink. She took another sip. “Sweet. Different. Good, I think,” she said and proceeded to down the chocolate.
John saw George give her a wide-eyed stare. Who is a footman to approve or disapprove?
Sophie raised her shoulders sheepishly. “I must have been made hungry by all this exercise,” she said. She reached for a ginger cake.
“One for you, my lord?” George handed another mug from the flagon toward John.
John considered for a moment. If there were spirits in Sophie’s mug, he’d best keep a clear head. “I believe I’ll have tea,” he said.
George frowned and dumped the chocolate on the ground before he fetched a clean mug, pouring tea for John.
Others crowded around the table, and John led Sophie aside. He didn’t offer her a second mug, and she didn’t ask. They nibbled ginger cake in silence while he drank his tea. “Something warm hit the spot,” he said.
“I agree. It was a treat. Shall we take a loop of the lake while the ice is relatively empty?” Sophie asked, rising to her feet and stepping on the ice. She glided away, taking a graceful spin and moving out. He followed her, relieved to see that she appeared to be fine.
Within minutes, everything changed.
One moment she was skating in circles, laughing. The next her face paled and her joy disappeared. “I think I’ve overdone it,” she whispered, slowing, and raising the back of her hand to her forehead. He reached her as she came to a full stop.
“I feel dizzy. Too much spinning,” she whispered.
John suspected she had imbibed unaccustomed spirits too quickly. He put his arm around her and turned her toward the shore. “Forgive me for being forward, Lady Sophie, but I think you need to sit for a while.”
She nodded. A moment later she moaned, “I feel horrible.”
They were almost to the shore when her ginger cake made an abrupt return, and chocolate followed it to the ground. “Sweet mercy,” she groaned. John pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her, navigating to the bench all the while.
He encouraged her to sit and lean over, her head on her knees. She vomited again, losing her breakfast and more. She murmured “I’m sorry so sorry,” over and over incoherently.
This is too much for a drink of spirits. Something is terribly wrong.
John removed her skates and his own. One of the younger footmen ran over and took them, while John lifted her into his arms. “When will the coach be back?”
“Not soon, I fear. There’s a pony wagon, my lord. We used it to transport the food,” the boy said. “It isn’t much…
By then her friends had circled round, some of the ladies terrified, the gentlemen offering assistance.
“I’ll take her up to the house. You and the others make sure the footmen pack up all the food and drink. Don’t touch any of it! Something is very wrong.”
Peter took charge, directing the nearest footman to show John to the cart, and ordering the others to stop serving food and drink.
Minutes later Sophie lay on her side in the back of the little wagon, towels cradling her head while John drove as fast as he could to the kitchen yard of the manor house. When he lifted her, she demanded to get down, and promptly got sick into the herb garden.
He gathered her up, burst into the kitchen, and barked orders like the lieutenant colonel he once was. “Summon Lady Sophie’s maid and the countess. She has become ill. I’m taking her to her room.” The sight of Belinda Westcott startled him. What was she doing in the kitchen? She had flattened herself against the wall and gone pale, as if she saw a ghost.
“Miss Westcott, your cousin needs assistance. Kindly show me to her room.” He marched through the green baize door to the public rooms without waiting for a reply.