“After the miscarriage, Mama was different. She lost interest in the world and stayed in her bedchamber most of the time. Wilmington encouraged this. He hired a physician who insisted that she take laudanum instead of her own herbal tinctures and confined her to bed rest. She never recovered. She died when I was fourteen.”
The loss cut like a dull knife. She’d grown used to the pain, even if sharing it was new. She forced herself to go on.
“I was left in Wilmington’s care. Whilst he maintained the façade of being a caring guardian, he resented me—resented the expense of raising a young girl. ‘Your dress, your meals, and your very existence are the result of my generosity,’ he would say. ‘Never forget your debt to me.’” Shuddering, she said, “What made it worse was the pleasant, mild way he would say such things. It made me feel ungrateful…as if I wasn’t doing enough to please him and earn my keep.”
“He was manipulating you,” James said curtly. “A fourteen-year-old girl who’d lost both her parents and didn’t know better.”
Evie nodded, grateful that she wouldn’t have to explain. “He did the same thing to me as he did to Mama: he cut me off from friends, controlled everything I did. When I displeased him—or if he was in a vile mood for some other reason—he would berate me. Say that I was fat and worthless. He called me a bad investment because I had none of my mama’s beauty and would never land a rich husband. I was lucky to have him because no one else would want a pathetic creature like me.”
“The bastard,” James gritted out.
“I grew terrified of displeasing him, especially when he was in his cups. He was…” Her pulse spiked at the memory of objects and expletives being hurled at her. “He was unpredictable when drinking. I learned to hide from him, to make myself as invisible as possible so I wouldn’t catch his notice. I became quite good at it. Hiding, I mean. Until I turned sixteen, and things changed. In the months that followed, his attentions grew increasingly…unnatural.”
Unable to meet her husband’s gaze, she stared instead at the hearth. The sight of the flames made her tremble, for fire and brimstone would one day be home to her immortal soul.
“I was a late bloomer, but that year I became a woman. And Wilmington noticed,” she said in a low voice. “When some young man sought an introduction after seeing me at church, my stepfather accused me of wantonness. He went through my belongings, read my journal, burned my correspondence. One time, I was reading, and he came up behind me and…and he touched me.” She hugged her arms around herself. “He rubbed my shoulders and said that a bluestocking wouldn’t fetch much on the marriage mart. Afterward, I told myself what he’d done was innocent, but I couldn’t stop my skin from crawling. Then it happened again.
“He gave me some trinket and bade me to thank him by sitting on his lap and giving him a kiss. I was too old to do such a thing, but I feared his wrath if I didn’t. So I did. And when I tried to kiss him on the cheek, he turned, and his lips met mine. Shocked, I realized that he…that his hand was on my breast. I managed to get free, and he blamed me. Called me a slut, for tempting him.
“After that, there were other instances, mostly when he was drunk. The final time, he cornered me in the stairwell. He started…started pawing at me. He said that since no man would want a nobody like me, he might as well enjoy what he’d paid for. I was lucky that a servant walked by, and I ran to my bedchamber. Harkness was there, and she helped me to bar the door. Somehow, we managed to keep him out.”
Fear and shame poured through her in waves. Her insides churned, and she wondered if she was going to be sick. Then James was there, in front of her, lifting her chin up.
“I wish Wilmington were alive,” he said. “So that I might kill him.”
His face was radiant with rage. That rage was somehow cleansing, cutting through the filth that clogged her throat and letting her breathe again. It gave her the strength to let out the rest.
“While I appreciate the sentiment, it is unnecessary. For I did the deed myself.”
“You had sufficient reason,” James said starkly. “Nonetheless, I should like to hear the rest.”
“I didn’t intend to take his life,” she blurted. “I only meant to drug him so that he…he would be too lethargic to pursue me. He’d trained me to bring him his after-supper brandy, and it was a simple matter of adding a few drops of my mama’s valerian tincture, which induces sleep but is otherwise harmless. At first, my plan seemed to be working. The tincture made him too sluggish to harass me, and sometimes he dozed off. I thought I’d come up with the perfect solution…until I made a mistake.”
“What happened?” James asked.
“I am not sure exactly.” She wetted her lips, her heart racing as the memory flooded her. “I brought him the brandy, which I’d doctored as usual. After drinking it, he…he collapsed. He lay shaking on the carpet. I froze, but then I came to my senses and called for help. His valet, Merrow, ran in. He…he pinned me to the wall, shaking me and asking me what I had done. I couldn’t respond. He tried to revive my stepfather. But it was too late. Wilmington had stopped breathing. I’ll never forget the way he looked: bone-white, utterly still. He was dead—because of me. I murdered him.”
“Evie, look at me.”
James held her by the shoulders. His touch was gentle but firm. He was an anchor, grounding her back in the present.
“What did you give him?”
“I thought it was valerian. But when I took the bottle from my skirt pocket, it wasn’t the sleeping tincture but Atropa belladonna. God help me, I’d poisoned him—with deadly nightshade.”
“It was an accident. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” she whispered. “I hated Wilmington. In my head, I had wished for his demise countless times. And then…and then I made it happen.”
James caught her chin, made her look at him.
“Did you knowingly give him the belladonna?”
“No. The tincture bottles were similar, but I don’t know how I could have switched them. I think…I think I am cursed, James.”
“There is no such thing. That Bloody Thom nonsense has gone to your head.”
“I am cursed.” A tear rolled down her cheek as she finally bared the hideous truth of who she was. “I am a harbinger of ill fortune, and you would do well to be rid of me. I should not have married you—it was wrong, selfish. Then, when the blackmail started, I should have left. But I couldn’t leave when you are everything…everything I ever wanted. I tried to protect you the only way I knew how: by paying the blackmailer. If I didn’t, he threatened to expose what I’d done and ruin your name and political future. How could I let that happen?”
