Chapter 49
Caroline struggled onto her knees, but the carriage was already lurching forward.
“Tie her hands, Sidney,” the woman instructed with rising excitement. She bounced on her seat, clapping her hands. She looked half-crazed with glee, her blond hair straggling around her face, lank and unkempt.
“No!” Caroline burst out, attempting to straighten her bonnet before realizing she had lost both hat and cloak in the struggle. “I will not resist anymore. If you only let me sit on the seat beside you, I will be quiet, I promise.”
Sidney grunted. “Only see that you do!” he snarled. “Or you’ll get that for your pains!” He lifted his hand in a threatening gesture.
Caroline cast down her gaze to hide the flare of anger she felt.
She wanted to fly at him, to kick his shins and rake her nails down his face, but her kid gloves prevented it.
Clambering onto the seat beside him, she folded her hands to show herself meek and biddable, while inside she felt anything but.
The first chance she got, she vowed, the first time the carriage came to a halt, she would spring at the door and fling herself out of it. Any fate would be preferable to remaining in the clutches of two such wicked individuals.
Her gaze traveled over the face of the woman opposite and suffered another dreadful shock, for she recognized the features partially obscured by the fall of greasy blond hair. “Mama?” she gasped incredulously. “Is that really you?”
The other woman smiled, slowly until all her teeth showed. It was oddly jarring. Angela Needham never showed her teeth, considering such a thing as quite uncouth. “Found you,” she said triumphantly. “You thought you had escaped me, didn’t you, foolish girl?”
She wagged an admonishing finger, and Caroline saw Mama’s cuffs were dirtied as though she had not worn clean clothes in days. “Thought you had gotten away, did you not? You have led us quite a dance these past few weeks, but you shall never defeat Mama.”
Caroline stared at her quite stupefied. “What has happened to you?” she asked, taking in Mama’s disheveled appearance.
No hat, no coat, she looked as far from her habitual appearance as Caroline could imagine.
If she was not mistaken there was a stale, sour smell emanating from her too, instead of the usual waft of violets.
Caroline edged off her gloves by tiny degrees lest either of them should notice. She wanted to have every weapon at her disposal, even if it was only tooth and nail.
“Happened?” her mother echoed sharply. “Why? Whatever do you suppose? You have caused me all manner of suffering, as is your custom,” she said resentfully.
“Ever since you were small you have given me nothing but trouble! I didn’t even want to kill Sophy!
It has been most inconvenient doing without a housemaid all these weeks! ”
“It weren’t my fault! You said as to clobber the female I’d find under that archway,” her accomplice interjected sullenly, “and that’s what I done! Weren’t my fault you sent the wrong one down there!”
Mama rounded on him. “Goring and I have explained it to you a dozen times, you stupid oaf!” she screeched. “Caroline ruined it all! As she ruins everything!”
“Sophy?” Caroline whispered, a cold feeling spreading over her. “Sophy is dead?”
“Yes, and like I said, it’s all your fault,” her mother replied petulantly.
“I told you to go down to the pergola and what must you do but go wandering off to pick herbs? It was all most vexing and not at all what Goring and I had planned. Then you turned up at dinner and caused such a scene in front of Lord and Lady Faris. I will never forgive you for that, Caroline. If you would just do as you are told I would have been spared all my suffering.”
Caroline stared at her. “You meant to kill me?” she said shakily. “I always knew you disliked and resented me, but…”
“I had to, Caroline. Don’t you see?” Mama tipped her head to one side and regarded her expectantly.
“The money,” Caroline breathed. “It was all due to my inheritance?”
“Of course,” said simply. “I always intended that money for Edgar. The house too but your father had to go and leave it all in trust for you in that wretched will! His solicitors were growing quite insufferable, wanting to meet with you, threatening to send representatives to Cornwall.”
She waved a hand. “I simply could not stave it off any longer. I did not really want to kill you.” She frowned.
“Indeed, it was quite dull without you, I scarcely knew how to occupy my days. And then Edgar went and spoiled everything! If not for him, I might have enjoyed mourning my lost wicked daughter. I scarcely even had the chance to take to my sickbed when that wretched female showed up, trying to usurp me!”
Her bosom heaved with indignation and Caroline could discern dark patches of sweat under her armpits. She could not help but stare. Mama had always been so polished, even fussily dressed. Now she looked as though she was unraveling at the seams.
“Does Edgar know you are in town?” Caroline asked faintly.
“Edgar?” Her mother’s expression turned bitter. “I should say not! He traveled to London with the Farises,” she muttered angrily. “He does not listen to his mother anymore. If you only knew how he has treated me! The magnitude of his betrayal.” She brooded a moment before continuing.
“I have had to move heaven and earth to make my way to London without all of Penarth knowing I have left my sickbed. Goring is at home, maintaining the fiction while I snuck to town with her cousin, Sidney.” She glanced across at the ruffian sat beside Caroline.
Caroline turned her head to scan his crude, lumpish features. “This man is Goring’s cousin?” she asked. She could see no resemblance between him and Mama’s faithful lady’s maid.
Her mother nodded. “On her mother’s side,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “Her aunt was dismissed from service and fell in with a bad lot.” Sidney sent her mother a resentful look, and suddenly she remembered overhearing Goring whispering in the shrubbery with a man.
It had been him, she realized, remembering his gruff tones.
He had been there on the morning of her flight from Benham Hall.
He must have lingered after killing Sophy.
She shivered. If she had not left in the early hours, would he have turned his murderous attention in her direction once again?
“What did you do with…with Sophy?” Caroline forced herself to ask.
“Sidney disposed of her,” her mother said with a wave of her hand. “And I dearly wish that had been the end of it, but you would not believe the fuss that has been made. The impertinence of that man Penrose!”
“Penrose?” Caroline echoed. “You mean Penrose the fishmonger?”
“The very one. Leaving impudent messages for me and then going to the squire when I made no reply! The squire, if you please! As if I had time for such considerations!” Caroline stared at her in bewilderment and her mother looked impatient.
“It appears he and Sophy were meeting on the sly,” she explained contemptuously.
“I told the squire Sophy must have played the wretch false and run away but he won’t listen to reason.
And now Goring says he has written to the girl’s family to stir up trouble, and they are writing letters too!
None of them have any consideration for my poor nerves! ”
Caroline felt sick listening to her mother’s self-absorbed ramblings, but she had to bide her time before the opportunity arose for escape. She cleared her throat. “And how in all London did you find me?” she asked with only the smallest tremor in her voice.
Her mother smiled. “Now there we were quite clever, were we not, Sidney?” Her acquaintance grunted.
“We have been watching Lord Faris’s house in Belgravia for the past two days waiting for their arrival.
Sidney tailed Edgar last night to that infamous place you have been holed up in.
We simply waited for you to emerge this morning, then pounced. ”
“And where have you been staying if not with Edgar and the Farises?”
“Oh, an evil slum called The Rookery,” her mother replied nonchalantly.
“Sidney has acquaintances there. It’s cheap and no one sticks their nose in your business, that is the best that can be said of the place.
” Caroline thought she had heard one of the new barmaids speak of former lodgings in The Rookery.
Even Cherry had complained about the squalidness.
She struggled to imagine Mama staying in such a place.
“That’s the trouble with country neighbors,” her mother continued darkly.
“They all want to poke and pry. I have been quite out of temper with them all since your disappearance. Miss Delia Pebmarsh had the impudence to ask what has been done to recover you. As though your disappearance was some failing on our part! I am convinced that is why Edgar has been conspiring with the Farises. Really, it is not to be borne!”
Mama gave herself a little shake. “Still, it is of no matter,” she said briskly. “Soon, all will be put to rights again. You are going to drink a little concoction I have made for you, and Sidney knows of a quiet spot where you can enter the Thames under cover of night.”
“Another concoction, you mean,” Caroline said with an edge to her voice. “You dosed me with something that day of the dinner party, did you not?”
“Of course!” her mother replied. “I am not so cruel that I would send my daughter to be slaughtered without a calming dose.”
“Poor Sophy had none.”
Her mother shrugged irritably. “She was not supposed to be there!” she said pettishly. “I daresay she did not suffer overmuch.”
Sidney shifted in his seat. “Caught her unawares, I did,” he rumbled. “She never knew what struck her.”