Chapter 18
Minerva Crell reclined in her rolling invalid chair in the garden next to the little table where Meredith had laid out the tea. A contented sigh escaped Meredith’s neighbor.
“It is quite lovely this evening, is it not?”
Meredith added two lumps of sugar to her teacup and stirred it with a dainty silver spoon.
Meredith agreed. “Quite lovely… Perfect, in fact.”
It was just as she’d hoped it would be to have her new friend over for tea.
There was a gentle breeze, and the night was pleasantly quiet with a nightingale singing in a nearby tree.
She took a sip from her cup, relishing the way the tea warmed her throat.
But it left a strange taste behind… something like laudanum.
From the far end of the garden, Darius walked toward their tea table, pausing a moment to take in the scent of roses that bloomed amid the wildflowers. He shot Meredith a smile that made her belly tingle with warmth and excitement.
“You’ll be happy with him,” Mrs. Crell said. “I know it.”
“You think so?” Meredith still feared that she would not be enough for Darius, that someday he would find her lacking and regret marrying her.
“They say opposites attract. But in truth, love is a calling, and like calls to like. You and he are so similar, at least in the ways that matter, the ways that heal. You need each other. There is no greater destiny than one loving heart finding another.”
Meredith studied Mrs. Crell’s face. “What went wrong…with you and your husband?” It was an intimate question to ask, but Meredith sensed her new friend would answer. “Were you ever actually in love?”
“I had been enchanted by his looks and charm, and he by my sizable inheritance. I thought in time it would become something more. But as the years passed and my illness set in, no foundation of love had grown between us. Money and desire will never be enough to sustain the flowering of true love. But I was too young and foolish to know that. And now…”
Meredith reached out and curled her fingers around Mrs. Crell’s hand, squeezing it gently. Her hand was strangely cold the touch. She let out a soft little sound, almost a choked sob, before she turned to Meredith again.
“Perhaps in time I can rest. But you… you’ve rested far too long.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have taken up too much of your time. You must wake up.”
“Wake up?”
Mrs. Crell shook Meredith’s hand, her eyes wide and suddenly fearful. “Wake up, my dear!”
Meredith jolted awake. She tried to swallow, but her throat was painfully tight. She was in a darkened bedchamber. Comforting images of ocean waves greeted her upon the walls. She was in the Seaside room of Darius’s townhouse, not in the garden with Minerva Crell.
A dream… just a dream.
Minerva Crell was dead. Meredith touched her throat and winced. Mr. Crell’s hands around her throat. She’d been trying to get him to confess what he’d done. She’d goaded him until he’d attacked her.
I was such a fool to think that would work.
Vague memories of Darius holding her surfaced.
Had he been there, or was that a dream too?
Darius was supposed to be in the countryside with his friends on a shooting party.
It must have been Warren who’d come to her rescue.
But Darius must have been there. She remembered his arms around her, his masculine scent filling her nose.
She recalled only brief flashes of seeing Crell pulled to the ground by Warren and Doyle before she blacked out.
She pushed back the covers and walked around the room. Her body was stiff and sore, and she had a sense that she’d been asleep a long time. She poured herself a glass of water and drank, though her throat protested each time she swallowed.
Moonlight bathed the bedchamber with a pale, milky light, and she took in the night as she drank the water.
She looked out at the lonely dark Crell house.
How long had she been asleep? A few hours?
Days? She found her dressing gown draped over the back of a nearby chair and slipped it on, tying the sash tight around her waist. Then she slipped her feet into her mule slippers.
She opened the bedchamber door and peered into the corridor, finding a quiet, darkened house.
Darius’s bedchamber door was closed. Just then, a shadow emerged in the hall and moved towards Meredith.
She held back a strangled scream but then a lamp was lit and Frances’s face appeared in the darkness at the end of the hall as she held the lamp up.
“Meredith? I knew I heard something. What are you doing out of bed?” Frances said in a hushed tone. She also wore a dressing gown, her hair pulled up in a messy knot atop her head.
“I needed to move about a bit. I’m dreadfully stiff. How long have I been asleep?”
“A little more than a day.” Frances put the back of her hand to Meredith’s forehead to check for a fever and then searched Meredith’s face with a motherly eye. “The doctor gave you laudanum. He warned us you would sleep for a while. How are you feeling?”
“Everything aches, and I’m still tired, but I didn’t want to stay in bed.” Her voice was a soft whisper. It was all she could manage with her throat hurting as it did. Her belly suddenly grumbled.
The corners of Frances’s eyes crinkled. “Oh dear, you must be hungry. Let’s sneak down to the kitchen. The cook has some rhubarb pie left over from dinner.”
They snuck downstairs to the quiet, darkened kitchen.
Meredith slid onto a stool by the large countertop as Frances produced two glasses of milk and a slice of pie from the cold cellar.
As they shared the dessert and enjoyed the silence, Meredith was grateful that her friend understood she was still processing what had happened and did not want to speak of it right away.
“How does your throat feel?” Frances eventually asked. “We were told it would be a while before you would recover.”
“It is quite sore,” Meredith replied, her voice raspy. “What happened? The last thing I remember was Mr. Crell attacking me.”
Frances’s face paled. “I heard you scream, and saw Mr. Doyle climb over the wall. He and Warren pulled Crell off you, just as Darius arrived. He carried you up to bed and called the doctor.”
“Darius? I didn’t dream him, then?” Meredith’s heart leapt, then panic took over. “Oh no. He must be furious with me.” That image of his bedroom door firmly closed against her was proof enough. If he hadn’t been angry with her, he would have been in bed beside her, as he had the last few nights.
Frances set her fork down on her plate and sighed. “Yes, he is quite angry. But I believe it is because he was afraid for you.”
“What happened to Mr. Crell?” Meredith asked, hoping to distract herself from thinking about how angry Darius must be with her.
“Mr. Doyle took him into custody. It is over. He will face justice for what he tried to do to you, and no doubt a fuller investigation into the fate of his wife will come of this. Lionel provided Doyle with a bit of information about Crell spending his wife’s money in ways that clearly weren’t for her use but for himself and his mistress.
Doyle said he will likely be sent to the penal colonies in Australia at the very least for what he’s done to you, and he’ll be hanged if they find him guilty of murdering his wife. ”
Meredith flinched. Lord Kentwell, Kit, had suffered a similar fate, though he had been wrongfully accused.
But he had managed to return to England.
Would Crell return here someday? Seek revenge?
She shivered and prayed that he would be found guilty of murdering his wife, or else she might not be safe ever again from Crell’s desire to get revenge on her.
“The penal colonies might be justice for me, but not for what he did to his wife.”
“No,” Frances sighed. “But we can hope that Mr. Doyle has enough financial evidence to open a larger inquiry into the wife’s disappearance now and that might lead to a murder charge.” She took their dishes to the sink to wash them, and Meredith helped. It was soothing to do such a simple task.
“Off to bed now,” Frances said when they were done. “You still need rest.”
She put an arm around Meredith’s shoulders as they headed back up there to their chambers.
Once back at their chambers, Frances bid her good night and disappeared into her room.
Meredith opened her own door after a lingering look at Darius’s closed door.
So he was here, but he hadn’t slept in her bed with her.
Was it because she was injured or because he was upset with her?
Either way, she wasn’t going to wake him in the middle of the night.
She wasn’t prepared to face his anger, because it would be entirely justified and she already felt quite wretched.
Facing Darius’s disappointment on top of his anger would be too much to bear.
She stepped into her bedchamber and halted in shock.
Darius was there, silhouetted against the window, moonlight outlining his figure.
He gazed out the window toward the Crell house.
Her desire to avoid him until morning evaporated.
Now she only wanted to curl up in his arms and close her eyes, forgetting everything that had happened in the last day.
She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his shoulder.
He tensed briefly, then relaxed. She took in a deep breath, wanting to steep herself in the comfort of his scent, but he didn’t smell as he usually did.
Instead, he smelled of sweat, leather and hay.
Had he been riding earlier and not changed?