Free Drury Lane Darling by Joan Smith

let you do it?” Pamela asked.
    “She’s dead,” he said in a quaking voice. “She didn’t answer when I knocked, so I went in—I wasn’t sure she could hear me from the drawing room, so I opened the door, and she was lying on the bed…stone…cold—dead.”
    His words petered out to a whisper and his knees buckled. As Pamela and Breslau watched in horror, Nigel sank gracefully to the floor in a faint.
     

Chapter Five
     
    “Brandy, Wes. Get him some brandy, and a feather to burn.” Pamela jumped up, her arms flailing the air futilely.
    Breslau was already rushing toward Nigel. He lifted his head and tapped his pale cheeks lightly. “Bring some wine,” he called over his shoulder.
    She found it easier to follow one explicit order than to think rationally. She took up her own wineglass and flew to hold it to Nigel’s lips. His watery eyes opened and looked up in vague confusion.
    “She’s dead,” he muttered, and gulped the wine.
    “She can’t be dead,” Pamela said. “She was hale and hearty not fifteen minutes ago.”
    “Damme, I know death when I see it,” Nigel scowled, and with assistance from Breslau, he gained his feet.
    “Could she be foxed?” she asked.
    Breslau shook his head. “Fleur’s not much of a drinker. She quacks herself with laudanum when she can’t sleep. That could be it."
    “She wasn’t trying to sleep. She was working on chapter four,” Nigel reminded them. “If you don’t believe she’s dead, go and see for yourself.”
    “I have no intention of charging into the lady’s chamber on such a fool’s errand,” Breslau stated. “You might have a look, Pamela, if you’re worried.” In the excitement of the moment, first names cropped out unthinkingly, without their even noticing it.
    “I think I should,” she said, and went down the hall. Her insides were shaking, but the marquise was so very lively it was impossible to think of her being dead. In his confusion, Nigel had left the door ajar. Pamela tapped, and when there was no answer, she pushed the door inward.
    By the dim light of the dresser lamp she could see there was no body on the bed, and a tide of relief washed over her.
    “Lady Chamaude,” she called toward the connecting room. “Are you all right?” There was no answer. Pamela advanced to the drawing room, where a lamp flickered in a gush of cold air. The door to the outdoors was open six inches, blowing lightly in the wind. The drawing room was empty. The folder of hand-written memoirs sat unopened on a desk, the pen sat in its holder.
    Perhaps she’d felt faint and went out for a breath of air? Pamela hurried to the open doorway and looked all around, calling into the darkness. A fine curtain of rain fell, turning to soft ice as it landed. The sky was a moonless ceiling of silver. Obviously Fleur hadn’t gone out on such a night.
    Her suite was situated at the back of the house. The door opened on the west side to a stoned and hedged garden. Stripped of its summer flowers, it resembled a small, dark cell, furnished with a stone bench and three large tubs holding black bushes.
    As she turned to close the door, Pamela noticed a blot of white in one of the bushes. It looked like snow, but there had been no snow. She made a quick dart into the freezing rain, grabbed up the white thing and returned to the room to examine it. It was a lace-edged handkerchief. No obliging monogram decorated the corner, but a light, musky scent still hung about it.
    She closed the door and turned to go back to the saloon. Impatient at the delay, the others had come to join her. She heard Breslau’s confident voice in the next room. “Probably sound asleep at her desk,” he said.
    “You’d best come in here,” she called. Walking to the next room seemed beyond her powers.
    The faces that soon appeared at the door were alive with curiosity. Nigel’s was still bone-white.
    “She’s not here,” Pamela said, and explained her findings. “She must have left, but