Authors: Lynsay Sands
"Lydia sent for Clarissa's spectacles before the wedding. They
apparendy
arrived the day before, and Joan rushed them upstairs, but Clarissa said she accidentally knocked them from the woman's hand with her blankets. I wonder now if Clarissa really did knock them, or if Joan just said she did and threw them to ensure that they broke and she could not see and recognize her."
"Hmm. That seems possible,"
Reg
murmured. He frowned, "But why would Joan—
er
, Molly, if she is Molly—why would she even want Clarissa dead?"
"Fielding died in prison," Adrian reminded him, as they led their now saddled horses out of the stable. "Perhaps she blames Clarissa for his death. He was imprisoned for what he did to Clarissa, after all."
"Damn," Reginald muttered as they mounted. "I say it over and over again; it is so hard to find good help nowadays. It's bad enough when they are robbing you blind, but now we have to worry about them trying to kill us?"
Adrian grunted in response, then put his heels to his horse, urging the beast into a run as he headed for home. He was glad his cousin had forgiven him enough to come; he was so angry at the moment that he could kill the maid with his bare hands. Of course if she'd harmed a single hair on Clarissa's head while he was gone, he would do just that. Even Reginald would not be able to stop him.
Chapter Twenty
“Do not hover in the doorway, Joan. Come in," Clarissa murmured, glancing up from the book she'd been trying to read. The effort had been wasted; her mind was too preoccupied with thoughts, most of hem about the woman
presendy
crossing the library toward her.
Joan and
Keighley
were the only people besides A
drian
,
Lydia, and Reginald who had been in the city and were now here at
Mowbray
or in the vicinity. Clarissa did not believe either Lydia or Reginald could be the culprit behind her rash of accidents, and she certainly knew it was not Adrian. That left Joan and
Keighley
.
Joan was the more likely suspect.
Keighley
was an old man. Clarissa simply could not see him breaking into the London house in the dead of night to set a fire in the hall outside her door. Nor could she see
him climbing the back gate, as Adrian had done, to creep about the footpaths and knock her unconscious.
Joan, on the other hand, wouldn't have had to break in. She'd always been present, and had been privy to information about Clarissa's location and whom she would be with. Joan was really the only viable suspect.
Clarissa's problem now was that she could not think of a motive for the woman to do these things. That, and the fact that she liked the girl, she acknowledged with a sigh.
Closing her book and setting it aside, Clarissa peered up at Joan as the maid paused in front of her desk. Her eyes immediately narrowed. She'd never seen the maid from this angle. Not while wearing spectacles. It allowed her to see the small raised beauty mark under the woman's chin. Clarissa had seen a beauty mark like it before, and in the exact same place. Ten years ago.
She stared briefly, then raised her eyes to Joan's face, looking her over more carefully before saying, "What is it, Molly?"
"I just wondered if you would like a cup of cocoa or tea while you are reading," the maid asked.
Clarissa's mouth tightened. Joan had not even noticed the name change. That and the beauty mark were proof enough for Clarissa. "Not if it will be poisoned like the pie . ..
Molly,"
she said again.
The maid stiffened, her expression closing and her eyes suddenly wary as those of a cornered cat. "You know."
"I know who you are," Clarissa allowed. "But not why you have been trying to kill me."
Molly Fielding's hands clenched into fists at her sides. "My brother."
"Jeremy," Clarissa murmured, recalling the man. He'd cut a dashing figure in his uniform. At least, she'd thought so when she was young. He couldn't hold a candle to Adrian.
"And my mother," Molly added.
"I never even met your mother," Clarissa said with amazement.
"And me," Molly continued. She added bitterly, "When Jeremy was charged and sent to prison, we lost our support. I had to take to the stage to put food on the table. I'd led a sheltered life up until then. It was an eye-opening experience."
"I am sorry you had to do that to support yourself and your mother—," Clarissa began, but Molly wasn't finished.
"And it was all for nothing, really," the woman said. "I did it for Mother, but she died of a broken heart after the scandal hit and Jeremy was convicted. And then he died . . ." She lifted angry eyes to Clarissa, and rage made her words a growl. 'You killed them both."
"And I promised myself then that someday I would make you pay."
Clarissa sighed, gazing on Molly with pity. "And you have waited all this time to have your revenge."
"In truth, I did not expect ever to have the chance to get it," Molly admitted, picking up the letter opener off the desk and absently toying with it. "But then, at the beginning of the season, you and Lydia and her cronies showed up at a play I was in."
Clarissa blinked in surprise. She said, "A play? I have
only ever been to one play in my life. It was one of Shakespeare's tales, when we first arrived here for the season." She frowned, unable to remember the tide. She hadn't been able to see anything without her spectacles, and had fallen asleep listening. Giving up on the title, she asked, "You were in that play? As an actress?"
Molly nodded. "My character died in the first act. It was as I lay, supposedly dead, that I saw you up in one of the boxes. During intermission I slipped out to the lounge to get a closer look and to be sure it was you. I overheard Lydia saying that you needed a lady's maid, that your maid from home was too old to come to the city with you. I was standing right behind you, and you suddenly turned and glanced around. You looked right at me, and there was no recognition on your face at all. And then I realized you weren't wearing your spectacles."
"Lydia had already taken them away," Clarissa said
quiedy
.
Molly nodded. "I am not sure I would have done anything even then if fate had not lent a hand. I went home that night exhausted and angry, and woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. Our row was on fire. I managed to slip out a window, but I hadn't had a chance to grab any clothes. I had to steal some. I lost everything in that fire. It wasn't until sunrise that I saw what I had stolen. I looked like a maid." She gave a short laugh. "It seemed almost providential. I did not contact anyone I knew from my life before. I let them all think I had died in the fire, and decided to apply for the position as your maid."
"Were
you
not
afraid
of
being
recognized?"
Clarissa asked curiously. "If not by me, then by someone else? Surely, as an actress, your face would be known."
"Not really. No one ever notices servants," Molly said with a shrug. She added, "I was more worried about whether I would be able to get the position. I knew nothing about being a lady's maid. But I guess my acting stood me in good stead. By that afternoon, I was your maid."
"And
tiien
the accidents began," Clarissa said. "I take it I have you to thank for falling down the stairs?"
"The item you tripped over was my shoe. I put it back on and rushed down to see if you were all right after you fell."
"And in front of that carriage?"
Molly shook her head. "That was just an accident. I had nothing to do with it."
"The poisoned pie?"
"I gather I did not use enough poison."
"Hitting my head and falling into the fountain?"
Molly's mouth tightened with remembered anger. "I hired the father of the boy who brought the message. He was only supposed to hit you over the head and knock you out. I was supposed to finish you off, but he got overexcited and tried to do it himself. He was trying to impress me," she said dryly.
Clarissa considered that, then asked, "The fire?"
Molly nodded. "I locked your door and started it in the hall, then slipped back to bed so that I could be startled awake when it was discovered."
Clarissa sighed and shook her head. "I am sorry about your mother, Molly. I lost my own, and know how hard that can be. But you have been blaming the
wrong person. The scandal—all of it, really—was your brother's doing. .And he died in prison. His death had nothing to do with me," she pointed out quietly.
"Nothing to do with you?" Molly echoed in disbelief, then pointed the letter opener at her and said, "He died in prison . .. where
you
put him. He never should have gone to prison. He was a good man; kind and sweet and—"
"I am sorry, Molly," Clarissa interrupted with amazement. "But you seem to forget your brother kidnapped me and tricked me into marrying him to get at my inheritance. I would hardly call that a good, kind, and sweet man."
"He loved you."
"He loved my inheritance, and devised a plan to get it," Clarissa corrected impatiently. "And—as all bad plans do—this one went awry. He was caught and forced to pay the price."
"There would have been no price to pay had he consummated the marriage."
Clarissa couldn't argue with that. Had Captain Fielding forced consummation on her, the marriage would have been irreversible. She would even now be stuck in a loveless match with someone interested only in her inheritance.
"Thanks to his kindness, he let you rest that night— and that kindness killed him," Molly said bitterly, tears glazing her eyes.
"Kindness, my arse!" Clarissa snapped irritably, recalling in stark detail that night and all its humiliation. She'd not told Adrian everything about her first wedding night; she'd not told anyone. Captain Fielding hadn't really asked if she was too tired when he broached the subject; he'd
stated that
she was and then
left her alone. She was grateful now, but it had been a humiliating rejection for her at the time.
"Your brother did not consummate the marriage because he could not be bothered," Clarissa informed Molly grimly. "He did not find me attractive. My bosoms were not large enough, and the tavern maid at the inn was more to his taste."
"You lie!" Molly gasped. "It was his kindness that prevented his consummating the match with you. He told me so. His kindness got him killed. A little of that kindness in return from you would have saved him. But you gave none in return."
"I could do nothing once my father's men found us," Clarissa argued. And then honesty forced her to admit, "But even had I been able to do something on his behalf, I do not know that I would have. He was a stranger to me, and by the time the men found us, I knew it had all been a lie to get my inheritance."
"A stranger?" Molly cried with disbelief. "He
loved
you. He told me he fell in love with you the moment he saw you."
_
'
"Then he lied to you as well," Clarissa said firmly. "Probably to make his plan more acceptable to you, and to gain your help."
"Nay." Molly shook her head.
Clarissa
tsked
in irritation. "We never even met. How could he claim to love me?"
"He told me all about it when he was in prison. He said he ran into you at the theatre and—"
"Oh, bollocks!" Clarissa snorted. "I was never allowed anywhere alone at that age. We had not met. Surely you remember, when I first arrived at the inn he introduced himself. Why would he introduce himself if we had already met?"
She saw the confusion on Molly's face as the woman was forced to recall their first meeting. Thinking it was working, Clarissa added, "And as for his loving me, that is not true either. I heard it from his own mouth. I had a nightmare the night we were married and went to find him. When I opened the door between our rooms, it was to hear him explaining to the maid— Beth, I believe her name was—that she was a lovely lass with luscious breasts, while his wife, alas, was as flat as a board and plain as a boot.
"When the girl asked why he had married me, he very kindly explained that, while my charms were on the light side, my purse was heavy. He then went on to flatter her further, telling her that she was the reason he had neglected to consummate the wedding, that he would attend that duty the next night on the ship if he had recovered sufficiently from his night with her, but that the whole time he was attending his duty, he would be imagining it was with her.
"Your brother then proceeded to service her as I closed the door. It seems his greed did not confine itself to money. Had he managed to control himself, he would have consummated our marriage, thereby saving himself." Clarissa shrugged wearily. "As it is, I have since been eternally grateful that I was still as flat as a plank at that age. And I was even more grateful when my father's men showed up."
"Lies. All lies," Molly growled, raising the letter
opener.
"Are they? Come. You were there. I was as pliant and passive as a willow all the way from London to Gretna Green . . . until the last morning. Do you not recall how cross and contrary I was then? How I demanded to return home? Your brother said I was just over-