Chapter 34
Owen glared across the dance floor until Barnes said, “At ease, Brackley. You compromised her, remember? She will not jilt you for him now.”
The “him” in question was Lord Hartford, who was smiling benevolently at Ivy as they danced.
She and Owen had already turned heads with their first dance together, when they had flowed together like liquid.
Owen had never cared much for dancing, preferring instead to match his skill with a horse’s, but as in everything else, Ivy had simply fit him, and he had found himself wanting to continue the dance even after the song had ended.
Of course Hartford had immediately swooped in, and now Owen was considering whether or not he should ruin Hartford, too.
“He is a better match,” Owen said sourly. “It is no wonder she wanted him.”
“You, my dear friend, are an imbecile.”
Owen finally tore his glare from Hartford so that he could cast it on Barnes. “Is there a reason you are standing here?”
Barnes smirked. “You cut my father off at his knees, and I must say, it was the high point of my year. Do you truly intend to ruin his credit?”
“Yes.”
“Good. He only respects brute strength and cutthroat cunning. If you follow through, he will not bother Ivy again. Thank you for supporting her.”
“You are welcome, but your sister did not need me. She can protect herself.”
Barnes lifted a brow, and Owen inwardly cursed. He did not think Barnes would be appalled by Ivy’s unusual skills per se, but it was Ivy’s secret to share, not his.
“What did you say to him?” Owen asked.
“What did I say to whom?”
Owen’s eyes were back on his future wife. “To your father, to make him leave the house all those years ago and never return.”
“Ivy told you about that?” Barnes rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and gazed into the distance. “I lost my composure that day. I told him if he did not pack up and leave, I would strangle him in his sleep. It was not an empty threat.”
Owen cast an approving look at his former friend, although perhaps no longer former. “I wish I had done the same to my father.”
They drank in silence.
Ivy spent the entire dance with Lord Hartford wishing she were in Owen’s arms, but she patiently exchanged pleasantries about poetry while the notes of the song drifted over them.
Although Hartford upheld his end of the polite conversation, he appeared distracted, his eyes continually drifting to the blond-haired gentleman who had passed them in Hyde Park.
The gentleman was dancing with a flushing girl who could not be more than sixteen, and yet he appeared as unhappy as Hartford.
As the violin approached the last portion of the song, Ivy dared to say, “You know of my betrothal to Lord Brackley?”
Hartford nodded, his hand flexing in hers when the chit dancing with the blond man batted her eyelashes and swayed closer.
“I regret that I did not meet you before Lord Brackley, but I hope we can remain friends in the future.”
“I hope so too, Lord Hartford.” Ivy glanced at the blond gentleman. “Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.”
She had his attention then. He gave her a wary look from those chocolate eyes.
“I love Lord Brackley, and I think even if I were not supposed to, I would continue to love him.” This time she pointedly stared at the blond gentleman, who was scowling at them across the floor.
Hartford caught her indiscreet look and paled.
“I believe everyone deserves love. And”—she was taking a huge gamble, but if she was reading the situation correctly, it was the right thing to do—“I hope you are able to pursue your own happiness. If you ever have need of a friend, or a sympathetic ear, please think of me.”
Hartford gazed at her, his suspicion and fear clearing as he regarded her with genuine warmth, and she realized then how false all of his other admiring looks toward her had been. “It is difficult for people like me and Hans. The masks we must wear are stifling.”
She squeezed his arm. “’Tis unfair. If I can help in any way…”
“Would you like to come to tea next week? I think you and I could be good friends.”
Ivy beamed. “I would love to.”
Hartford kissed the back of her glove, and she was about to turn and look for Owen when a gasp went through the crowd and several women began to scream.
Ivy lifted her wine-red skirts and plunged into the crush, nudging her way through the men and women who had formed a loose ring around something taking place along the outskirts of the parquet floor.
When Ivy broke through, she saw why everyone was keeping their distance, and why no one was helping the poor woman who was drifting alongside the wall, occasionally banging on the panels and whimpering that she wanted to be let out as if she had no awareness of there being a door.
She was wearing a bright-green dress and matching hat, the feather drooping grotesquely over her face as tears streaked down her cheeks.
As Ivy hurried toward her, she noticed that the woman was breathing heavily, as if she could not quite fill her lungs.
“You must not go near her!” someone in the crowd cried at Ivy. “The hysteria is catching!”
The room was a cacophony of frightened voices and men angrily demanding that the woman be carried out by the servants and brought to an asylum.
Ivy ignored everyone and approached the woman. She did not know her name, but Owen did. He was behind Ivy within moments, resting a heavy hand on the back of her neck. “Mrs. Iverson,” he said to the confused woman. “Let us help you. Is your husband here?”
She pressed a trembling hand to her cheek. “My husband?”
Owen nodded, but she seemed befuddled by the question, so he scanned the crowd himself until his eyes landed on a balding man cowering with the spectators.
“Come collect your wife,” Owen ordered, his tone so authoritative that Ivy would have jumped to do his bidding if she were the man.
But the woman’s husband simply shook his head and shrank back to the approving murmurs of several men saying, “Quite right. I would not touch a hysterical woman, either.”
“You are a coward,” Owen said scornfully. He turned to Mrs. Iverson. “Can you walk?”
But her confusion persisted, because she began scratching at the wall, frantically begging to be let out, so Owen scooped her into his arms. There were gasps of horror, and another two women fainted.
He was carrying Mrs. Iverson to the exit, when a woman with blond hair burst into the ballroom.
She was dressed in a muted shade of green, unlike Mrs. Iverson’s vibrant gown, and her blond hair was an artful masterpiece of disarray.
She wore gold spectacles, and when she spotted Owen and the dazed Mrs. Iverson, she walked so quickly toward them that a less generous person would have called it a run.
Following closely behind her was Mr. Jasper Jones.
“Lord Brackley,” the woman in spectacles cried, “you mustn’t touch her dress!”
“Who are you?” Owen growled, but then he spotted the man behind her, and his expression gentled. “You must be Mrs. Jones.”
“Frankie,” she said, pushing at the bridge of her spectacles even though they had not been sliding down her face, “and I have finally discovered the common denominator among all of the women who have been sent to the sanitorium.”
Mrs. Jones had the attention of those near them now. She did not seem to notice, nor care, that there were a number of skeptical eyes turned toward her.
“It is her dress,” she blurted. Her blue eyes scanned poor Mrs. Iverson and she added, “And her hat. It is the new green dye that has swept across London, the shade they are calling ‘parrot green.’ The bright green dye is made with arsenic. That is poisonous enough on its own, but a particular factory has been selling the fabric on the cheap. They claim their parrot-green dye is ‘brighter’ and ‘bolder’ than all other shades, and they are not wrong. It is so laced with arsenic that within months of wear the fabric becomes nearly lethal.”
“Preposterous!” a gentleman shouted at their side, his jaw quivering with outrage. “If you mean Brackley’s factory, I am an investor, and what you spew is utter nonsense.”
“Careful,” Mr. Jones warned silkily. “That is my wife you are disparaging.”
Ivy’s head felt light. Oscar Forsythe had opened a factory under Owen’s name, where he treated his workers horribly and produced garishly green textiles on the cheap. He was poisoning the women of London, who were far more likely to wear the bright green dyes than men.
Oscar had visited the houses of noblemen and secured their investment, and in return those men must have received the very first bolts of parrot-green fabric.
They would have had the material turned into gowns and garments for their wives and daughters, which explained why many of their families were the first to succumb to “hysteria.” But rather than look for a sensible reason for the sudden rash of mental confusion, memory loss, and lethargy, London had instead consigned the women to sanitoriums out of fear and ignorance.
Had any of the women in the sanitoriums progressed to the more obvious signs of poisoning that would clear up the misconception of hysteria, such as white lines on their nails, sore throats, and vomiting?
Or had they been parted from their poisonously fashionable gowns before they could reach that stage?
Owen glanced down at the woman panting in his arms, his expression stricken. “’Tis not my factory,” he mumbled. When his eyes met Ivy’s, she could read the horror in them.
Shouting broke out, and there were angry glares sent toward Mrs. Jones before the onlookers parted, allowing for a middle-aged woman wearing a necklace worth more money than Ivy would ever see to walk toward their huddle.
Ivy’s eyebrows flew upward when Owen inclined his head, even as he held Mrs. Iverson.
Owen was a viscount, which meant whoever the woman was, she was higher ranking than he.
Everyone gasped when the woman reached them, gently removed the green hat from Mrs. Iverson’s head, and threw it to the floor.
“This young lady needs to be removed from her poison clothing,” she ordered. Her tone brooked no argument. She surveyed the crowd. “I highly suggest any other young ladies in possession of this color clothing and its accessories do the same.”
While a mere moment ago the crowd had been ready to tear Mrs. Jones apart for daring to suggest such a thing, they immediately bowed to this lady’s will, and there was a near stampede as people ran for the doors so that they might dash home and warn their loved ones about the poisonous garments.
The lady gave Owen a sharp look. “Carry this woman to the powder room, and we shall take care of her from there. If it is indeed your factory, you have some explaining to do, Lord Brackley.”
Owen did not make excuses. He strode to the nearest powder room and gently set the heaving Mrs. Iverson onto a settee before leaving Ivy, the lady, and Mrs. Jones to take care of her.
“It is good we have our ballroom gloves on,” Mrs. Jones said. “Miss Bennett, hold her up while I unbutton her. Lady Houndsbury, thank you for your support.”
Lady Houndsbury waved her hand as if it were nothing, even though it had been everything. “I have not believed in all of this hysteria nonsense. I should have known you would find the truth, Mrs. Jones. The duke still wishes you would take employment with him.”
The duke… meaning this woman was a duchess. Ivy’s eyes widened in awe while she held Mrs. Iverson still and Mrs. Jones made quick work of the gown’s buttons. Ivy did not think she had ever spoken to a duchess before.
“Is there an antidote for arsenic, Mrs. Jones?” Ivy asked. To her astonishment, the duchess leaned forward to help peel the gown from Mrs. Iverson. The poor woman’s shoulders were beginning to redden where the gown had touched her bare, perspiring skin.
“Call me Frankie,” Mrs. Jones said, “and no, unfortunately.” Her face was grim as the three of them worked in tandem to relieve Mrs. Iverson of her garment.
Once it was off, Ivy rushed to wet a towel and wipe across the tender skin of her shoulders.
“She will survive, and her confusion will abate if she is removed from exposure. I know of a women’s clinic not too far from here where she can recover. Jasper and I will take her.”
Ivy nodded. “I will fetch a dressing gown from the hostess, along with your husband.”
When she returned with the hostess’s worst dressing down, as the lady did not dare part with something so nice for a “contaminated” woman, Mrs. Iverson was lying on the settee, her knees curled to her chest as she breathed heavily and the duchess stroked her hair.
Ivy quickly helped her dress and then called out the door for Mr. Jones.
He strode in and effortlessly lifted Mrs. Iverson into his arms before spinning on his heel and carrying her back out, Frankie close to his side.
As she passed Ivy, Frankie gave her arm a friendly squeeze. “Do not worry,” she whispered, “I will report my findings to the Dove.”
Ivy gawked after her as it slowly dawned that she was the Mrs. Francis Jones, the woman who had helped expose the Dowry Thieves only months ago.
Ivy plunked onto the settee and stared at the discarded green gown on the floor. The candles flickered in the retiring room, the looking glasses reflecting the light to create an ethereal glow. “It is not Lord Brackley’s fault.”
The duchess’s face firmed. “Love can blind, child. Some men are not who they seem.”
Ivy shook her head, and could not believe she was disagreeing with a duchess. “No, Your Grace, you misunderstand. Lord Brackley is exactly as he seems. It is his brother who plays games.”
The duchess cocked her head, her intelligent gray eyes sparking with interest. “I did not know the viscount had a brother.”
“Neither did he.”
“Do tell me more, Miss Bennett.”