A Pressing Engagement (A Lady Darby Mystery) Read online

  I assured her that we did not wish for any. “But would you like me to make you a cup?”

  “I thank ye, lass, but no,” she replied, shaking her head against the pillow. “But if ye could help me to drink a bit o’ that water . . .”

  Gage stayed me with a touch on my arm and moved forward himself, leaning down to help the woman sit up to drink from the glass of water he held for her. “I thank ye,” she told him when she finished, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them to look at us again. “Noo, what can I do for ye? ’Tis no every day I have such fine visitors.”

  “Are you Miss Dottie McKay?” I asked hesitantly, wondering if we should return later, except I suspected then we might be too late.

  “I am.”

  “Were you once employed as a companion to Miss Lavinia Collingwood?”

  Her pale eyes suddenly brightened while her voice remained soft. “Aye. That I was.”

  Encouraged, I inched another step closer, glancing around me for a place to sit rather than continuing to tower over this prone woman. Gage crossed toward the single ladder-back chair set before a small table and carried it closer, but not too close. I had assessed Miss McKay’s symptoms as swiftly as he had, and I understood why he did not want me near her. However, I still felt rude sitting so far away, with Gage standing protectively at my back. Miss McKay, for her part, seemed to take it all in stride.

  “This may seem like an odd string of questions,” I said, trying to decide how best to approach this. “But if you could bear with me.”

  She didn’t object, so I continued.

  “I recently came into possession of a gold torc.”

  Her eyebrows lifted minutely.

  “It was a gift purchased from a curiosity shop not far from here. And I wondered if you might have been the person who pawned it.”

  Other than her eyebrows, her expression gave nothing away, and I realized that as a companion she had probably learned rather quickly to mask whatever her thoughts might be. “Noo, why would ye think that?” she murmured with a minimum of inflection.

  “Because I know Miss Collingwood owned a torc,” I replied gently, recognizing that any hint of accusation in my tone would keep her from talking. “One that she allegedly donated to the Society of Antiquaries, but that they have no record of. I wondered if you might know something about that.”

  She stared back at me unblinking, and for a moment I thought I’d pushed too hard. Then her cracked lips tightened. “Did her nephew send ye?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Gage. “No. We are not here on his behalf. I don’t think he even knows you’re still living, and we don’t intend to inform him.”

  “So you’re not here to cause me trouble?” Her voice was doubtful and I sought to reassure her.

  “We merely want to see that the torc goes where it rightfully belongs, wherever that might be. I don’t wish to keep it if it should be owned by someone else.”

  Miss McKay continued to assess me, judging my sincerity. Whether she deemed it to be true, or she had simply decided this might be her last chance to tell someone her side of the tale, I didn’t know, but either way, she relented.

  Her eyes drifted up toward the ceiling and her face softened in remembrance. “Did you know her? Lavinia?”

  I shook my head, but then realized she wasn’t looking at me. “No. I didn’t have the pleasure.”

  “Aye. And that it was. She saved me from the poor house, ye ken. Gave me respectable employment, and a roof o’er my head, and a reason for risin’ in the mornin’.” She swallowed hard. “She was a grand lady. A good one.” She flicked a glance toward us. “Aye, she owned a gold torc. A lovely thing, found by an ancestor on her family’s estate. Her father gifted it to her in his will, which angered her brother somethin’ fierce. He wanted it for his collection, ye see. Had to have it, though it’d only sit up on a dusty shelf like everything else he owned. He was a magpie, he was. And his son was the same.”

  She turned to gaze at me almost defiantly. “So she gave it to me. In private. And told her brother that she donated it to that society. She knew they’d come after me if they knew, or claim I’d stolen it. So she lied. To protect me.”

  I could hear the shock and wonder in her voice at such a thing, even after all this time. “So you kept it?” I prodded gently. “For almost fifteen years you kept it safe?”

  She began to knead the bedcovers between her fingers. “Aye. I just couldna bear to part wi’ it. It was the only thing I had left o’ hers.” She gestured toward the walls around us. “Even when I was forced to move here after her brother stopped payin’ my pension.”

  I knew what was coming next.

  “But then my illness grew worse. An’ I couldna pay the apothecary for his visits or my medicine, let alone my rent.” Her face crumpled. “I had no choice.”

  I wished I could reach out to take her hand, to offer her some small bit of comfort. “I’m certain Miss Collingwood would have understood,” I said. “Surely such a good and grand lady would not have begrudged you that.”

  She nodded and tried to speak, but her words devolved into a cough she smothered with her handkerchief. I watched her struggling to catch her breath and wished there was something I could do. But consumption was incurable, and once it reached such an advanced stage all that could be done was to make the sufferer as comfortable as possible. Leaving the torc or money with her was futile. She would likely never leave this room again—the exertion would kill her—and should anyone wish to steal from her she would be unable to fend them off. A priceless gold torc or a stack of coins would be too much temptation even for the kindest of tenants who struggled alongside her.

  Gage’s hand settled comfortingly on my shoulder, as if he could read my thoughts and sense my distress, but there was nothing he could do to help Miss McKay either.

  Eventually she collapsed back, heaving shallow breaths, her skin ghastly white despite the effort. I knew our conversation was tiring her, that I needed to bring it to a close, but I had one last question I needed her to answer.

  “Did Miss Collingwood ask you to do anything with the torc when you died? Did she specify where it should go?”

  Miss McKay nodded. “To . . . the . . . society.” She swallowed. “Said . . . they’d . . . care for it properly.”

  I smiled tightly. “Then that’s where we shall take it.”

  Her eyes locked with mine. “Thank you.”

  “Is there someone we can send to you?” I asked, rising from the chair. “Someone to help?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll . . . be fine. Just need . . . to rest.”

  But I could see in her eyes that she knew she was not fine, that these words were spoken to ease our guilt as we walked away from a dying woman in a stale, windowless room in a tumble-down tenement. As Gage and I exited the building into the dying light of day, now shrouded by thick clouds, one single thought stabbed me in the chest. Miss McKay would never see the sun again.

  Gage’s carriage was waiting for us a dozen steps away, where we’d left it, and I climbed inside to sit and stare blankly out the window.

  “Well, I suppose the mystery of our torc has been solved.”

  I turned toward Gage, blinking. “Yes.”

  His gaze turned solemn with sympathy, and he reached out to take my hand. It seemed wrong that I should be comforted when Miss McKay received none, but I did not push him away, needing the warmth of his hand in mine.

  “I’m going to send word to Dr. Graham and ask him or one of his associates to visit Miss McKay. I know they can’t save her, but perhaps they can ease some of her pain and discomfort.”

  He rubbed his thumb along mine. “I had a similar thought.”

  “I suppose that’s the best we can do.”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed and reached up to rub my chest, trying to ease som
e of the ache there. My hand brushed against my watch pinned to my bodice, and I absently glanced down at the time. “It’s after 6:30,” I gasped, sitting up straighter. “Dinner is at 7:00, and if I’m late, my sister will slice me to shreds with her tongue.”

  “Then let’s not be late,” Gage declared, leaning forward to rap on the carriage wall to signal his coachman.

  ***

  6:50 P.M.

  The town house was already ablaze with light as the carriage delivered me to the door. Gage still had to return to his lodgings to change, while I tried to slip past the drawing room filled with guests and up to my chamber without Alana seeing me. A task that proved impossible as my sister had positioned herself in the doorway like a sentry, conversing with Mr. Knighton. Her sharp gaze collided with mine as I dashed past to climb the next flight of stairs.

  “Where have you been?” Bree exclaimed as I threw open my bedchamber door. “Yer sister’s goin’ to skewer yer head on a pike!”

  “I’m not late yet, am I?” I retorted with false bravado as I tossed down my reticule and began to tug off my gloves.

  Bree hurried over to undo the buttons on my gown. “Depends who ye ask. You and yer sister seem to hold different definitions o’ that word. Or at least different clocks.”

  I glanced at the timepiece sitting on the mantel over my fireplace. “Well, the dinner doesn’t begin until seven, and that clock says I still have six minutes.”

  “Yes, but you should have been ready to greet your guests at half passed six.”

  My back stiffened at the shrill tone of my sister’s voice.

  “You should be down there now.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to find her standing in the doorway, her lapis lazuli eyes glittering with fury. I knew it had been too much to hope she wouldn’t follow.

  As if she’d known I was about to make some insolent retort, Bree unceremoniously whisked my dress up over my head, smothering me in fabric. I turned my glare on her, but it was all but wasted as she dropped my gown on the bed and picked up the corset that was to be worn under my dinner dress. I suffered her rough yanks and pulls only because I knew she was rushing for my sake.

  “Where have you been?” Alana demanded to know, advancing toward me. “Don’t even try to lie. I know Trevor has been attempting to distract me from the fact that you’ve been absent.”

  So much for my brother’s assistance.

  “With Gage,” I replied vaguely.

  “Doing what?”

  I reached out to grip my bedpost as Bree gave a particularly sharp tug on my undergarment, hoping the action would hide my silence as I scrambled to come up with an acceptable answer. I should have remembered that older sisters miss nothing you want them to.

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Do not tell me you have been working on an inquiry.”

  I felt my skin begin to flush. “No one hired us,” I snapped back before she noticed. “There was simply something we needed to take care of.”

  “On the day before your wedding?”

  “Yes. It was important.”

  “So important that you had to abandon everything to me.”

  “Yes.”

  But beneath the anger, I sensed the hurt in my sister’s voice, making her tone waver. It stirred up the guilt inside me, making it dig its sharp edges into my gut. My jaw tightened in resentment. “It’s not as if you needed me. You never listen to my opinion anyway.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve asked your opinion about everything.”

  “And ignored it.”

  Bree released me with one last pull, and then reached around me for my pansy purple evening gown.

  “Only because it was wrong.”

  “Then why ask me in the first place?” I rounded on her to argue, only to have Bree wrench me back around. I thrust my arm into the sleeve with more force than was necessary, but upon hearing a seam pop, gentled my movements.

  “Don’t answer that,” I hastened to add. “You only hoped to seem as though you cared what I wanted while fully intending to do as you wished all along.”

  “What I wished?” she nearly shrieked. “You’re the one who insisted on this hasty affair rather than the beautiful ceremony I had planned for you in August.”

  “You mean that elaborate spectacle where I would be put on display for all of Edinburgh and half the ton like some prized cattle.”

  “To throw their nasty words and gossip-mongering back in their face. To show them how happy you are,” she snapped.

  “But I don’t need to show them how happy I am. Can’t you see? Their opinions don’t matter. They never have.” I tilted my head. “Or was everything you told me two years ago when Sir Anthony died and my scandal erupted a lie?”

  Bree tugged me over to my dressing table, urging me to sit.

  “Of course not.” Alana spoke over my shoulder at my reflection while my maid pulled out and repositioned pins in my hair. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t throw your happiness in their faces.”

  I’d never paused to consider it that way, too unsettled by the idea of being the focus for so many eyes to ponder my sister’s motives. She had begun planning the wedding as a way to distract herself from the discomfort and danger of her confinement with Jamie, which was why I hadn’t stopped her sooner.

  “But it’s too late for that now,” she grumbled as her gaze strayed across the room toward the mantel. “Just as it’s too late for you to contend you are on time for dinner.”

  “Only because you distracted me with your arguments,” I countered, searching the surface of my dressing table. “Bree, did you move my mother’s pendant?” I lifted my reticule to look inside, wondering if I’d taken it with me when we visited Miss McKay.

  “No,” she replied, patting my chestnut brown hair to be certain it would stay in place—a futile effort, as it never did.

  I stood up to lean forward over my dressing table, trying to see if it had fallen behind.

  “There isn’t time,” Alana huffed. “We’ll find it later. Just wear your pearls.”

  I wanted to argue, but I decided I had exasperated my sister enough for one night. So I allowed Bree to fasten the length of pearls Father had given me for my seventeenth birthday around my neck. Then I followed my sister out the door, noticing for the first time that she was wearing a gown of bottle blue silk rather than the claret gown I knew she had intended to wear.

  “Your cat got sick all over the hem,” she retorted when I asked about it.

  I cringed. No wonder she was so cross. Much as I’d grown to adore the pestering feline, I was not fond of finding his hairballs where I least expected them.

  I glanced about me. “Where is Earl Grey now?”

  “I banished him to the nursery with the children, lest I stumble upon another of his unwelcome presents, or find him filching food from the trays.”

  Stealing food was one of the gray mousers finer skills, along with sneaking into places where he shouldn’t have been. It was how he’d ended up my cat, after determinedly finding his way back into my art studio no matter how many times I expelled him. I predicted we had not seen the last of him that evening.

  When we reached the drawing room, Gage was surprisingly already there. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d changed clothes inside the confines of his carriage in order for him to return so quickly. However, even more astonishingly, Lord Gage was also present. After our confrontation earlier that day, I hadn’t known what to expect. I’d given my success in luring him here even odds at best. And yet there he stood, speaking with Philip and my uncle, Andrew. He glanced over at me with his icy eyes and gave me a short nod before turning back to his conversation.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be responsible for that,” Gage murmured, his warm breath blowing in my ear.

  “For what?” I feigned ignorance. “Your father?”


  I could see from the look in his eyes he wasn’t fooled, but I wasn’t about to admit to anything. Not when my interference should not have been necessary. Besides, just the memory of my brazen threats made me squirm. I couldn’t imagine actually divulging them.

  His hand pressed against my lower back where no one could see it, drawing me closer. “Well, whatever it was that convinced him to come, I’m grateful. Almost enough to throw propriety to the wind and kiss you in front of all these people.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I protested, leaning away from him playfully, even as my heart rate quickened at the suggestion.

  He merely smiled his melting smile—the one I had initially declared I hated because it made all of the ladies, young and old, coo like deranged doves. Now, I conceded I loved it, especially when it was coupled with that tender look in his eyes he seemed to reserve only for me.

  My cousin Rye approached us then to offer his felicitations, and I chatted with him a bit about his young children. I’d always felt a strong kinship with my tall, handsome cousin, who was quiet and reserved. More than once we’d found ourselves seated together in a corner, contentedly watching the whirl and noise of the rest of our family. His late wife had teased us about our hermit ways. Not wanting him to feel lost among the lively party, I introduced him to Lady Stratford, who I knew would set him at ease.

  I couldn’t help but be awed by the transformation to the dining room when we descended to dinner. It was awash with soft candlelight from the chandelier and numerous candelabras spanning the surfaces surrounding the room. The crystal and silverware gleamed across the expanse of the table, which I had been certain would not accommodate us all, but by some trickery did. I suspected some clever addition had been made, though with the tablecloths and gold fabric draped across the length it was impossible to tell for sure. Pale lavender Helleborus and pink flowering currant were intertwined about the table with tiny dove figures nestled amongst their greenery.