Sleepless in Southampton by Chasity Bowlin
Chapter Eighteen
Sophie was numb. It was impossible to really process what had just happened. Branded a thief and literally tossed out into the streets, it was far worse than she had ever imagined it could be. Even discovering that Lady Parkhurst had died unexpectedly and her waiting position was no more had not left her so low. It was worse perhaps because she’d held the Duke and Duchess of Thornhill in great regard. The warmth and easy welcome she’d been shown had been revoked so quickly and without compunction. Even on their short acquaintance, she’d thought them kind and pleasant people. Philippa was already a dear, dear friend and now she might never see her again. And what of Henry? Would he believe the lies? Or would he see it for the Machiavellian twist that it was?
Oh, how she prayed that he would see through the machinations that surely originated with Mr. William Carlton. As for Lady Horatia, she had no notion of whether the woman was a knowing participant in the scheme to see her ruined or if she was simply a dupe, as well.
As she trudged toward the inn, valises in tow, she had more questions than answers. How could they have believed it of her so quickly? The answer was, of course, class. She was illegitimate and impoverished. While Mr. William Carlton was still in trade, he was wealthy. It was simply the way of the world.
“Miss Upchurch? Are you quite well?”
Sophie looked up to see Dr. Blake walking toward her. Panic hit her then. “I’m quite well, Dr. Blake, thank you.”
“Nonsense! You are quite pale, Miss. Peaked even. Let me escort you back to the Thornhills’ home,” he offered.
“I am not going in that direction. I will not be returning there. I shall be returning to London on the public stage today,” she stated and hoped very much to leave it at that. He was the last person to which she wanted to explain her current situation.
His expression shifted to one of quiet knowing. There was a hint of satisfaction behind his eyes, even as his tone filled with feigned sympathy. “I see. There has been some sort of falling out?”
“I have no wish to discuss the matter, Dr. Blake,” Sophie stated.
He nodded. “I do understand. It is not easy, Miss Upchurch, to be in this terrible limbo between servitude and respectability. As a physician, I find myself there, as well. I am forced to take a fee for my service which makes me part of the trade, and therefore somehow less than. Yet, because of the nature of the service I offer and their dependence upon me, I am not entirely outside of their social sphere. It makes them very uncomfortable to be confronted with people they cannot simply place in a familiar box.”
Sophie shook her head. “I’m certain it’s all a misunderstanding, Dr. Blake. I shan’t speak ill of them when they’ve been so terribly kind and gracious to me.” Until today.
He smiled sympathetically. “Of course, Miss Upchurch. And it speaks volumes about the nature of your character that you would be so willing to forgive any slight. Allow me to see you to your destination, at least. There has been a flurry of ships just in at the docks and the streets of Southampton are no place for a young woman to be unescorted. Where are you going?”
Sophie didn’t want his assistance. She didn’t trust him at all. But even in her state of upset, it had been impossible to miss that there were far more sailors roaming the streets than was the norm. Many of them had leered at her already and called out things that, had she understood them, would surely have put her to blush. “To the inn, sir. The Duke of Wellington,” she answered.
“You are departing Southampton for good then? You have a position waiting for you in London?” he surmised.
“Perhaps. I… do not know yet if my departure will be permanent,” she stated honestly. Surely there was no danger in disclosing that?
“Let me get a carriage and see you there myself. Those bags must be terribly heavy and you do look unwell, Miss Upchurch,” he stated again. “I insist upon it, in fact.”
She couldn’t protest. If she continued to say no, he would suspect that she suspected him. “Thank you, Dr. Blake. You are most kind.”
Sophie waited there while he hailed a hack for them. When it arrived, she noted that it appeared far nicer than the hacks in London. This coach was newer, cleaner and far less worn.
“Let me take those,” Dr. Blake offered, reaching for her bags. He had them plucked from her hands and tucked inside the hack before she could even respond. Then he offered her his hand to help her inside.
Reluctantly, Sophie accepted it. She didn’t know what else to do without making a scene. If she refused him there on the street, he could take off with her bags which also contained the only bit of coin she possessed. Not to mention that it would likely have no effect. He was a respected physician, regardless of whether or not he deserved it and she was no one of consequence. He could simply claim her to be an overset patient and others would likely help him load her into the coach despite any protest. Cooperation and the hope that he did not know how much she knew already and what she suspected him of was her best chance.
Reluctantly, Sophie climbed into the coach and then the doctor climbed in after her. It was only when they were underway that she noted his medical bag. He hadn’t been carrying it on the street, yet it was sitting on the seat beside him. A feeling of trepidation overtook her. “This isn’t a hack, is it?”
“No, Miss Upchurch,” he said. “How remarkably observant you are!”
Sophie didn’t care how it looked. She reached for the door, ready to leap out. But he caught her wrist, twisting it so viciously that she cried out.
“You may scream if you wish. This is my coach. The driver is loyal to me and will not aid you,” he warned.
“Why are you doing this?” Sophie demanded.
He smiled coolly, his grip loosening on her wrist slightly. “Now isn’t the time for your questions. It’s the time for mine.”
“What questions are those?” she asked.
“Why are you and Viscount Marchwood interfering in my affairs?”
“He only wanted to be certain you were the best physician to be treating Philippa,” she stated.
“Did her father ask him to undertake this investigation?” Dr. Blake demanded. “No. I do not think that he did, Miss Upchurch. No one had even the slightest suspicion that I might be less than a most excellent physician until you arrived in Southampton. Is that a coincidence, Miss Upchurch?”
The carriage turned down another street, carrying her away from the Duke of Wellington Inn. Sophie jerked her wrist, trying to pull away, but he held firm. “Where are you taking me?”
“You will not be harmed, Miss Upchurch, so long as you cooperate. But I cannot have you spoiling my plan.”
“What plan?” Sophie asked.
“I mean to marry Lady Philippa Meredith,” he stated boldly. “I will have her as my bride. Then all of my financial woes will be far behind me. Her mother and father will be so grateful for the tender care I give her and the care I take in nursing my dear, sickly wife, they will be quite generous, I’m sure.”
Sophie considered her options. She could jump from the coach, assuming she could break free of his hold. It wasn’t going overly fast yet as it was still town. But if she did, and managed to not injure herself terribly in the process, where would she go? She could wait until the coach stopped and attempt to make a run for it, but she had no notion of where they were going or if there would be people around to offer aid, or at least witness the situation. “I see. And Lady Parkhurst? Where did she fit into your nefarious plot?”
Dr. Blake smiled. The carriage had picked up enough speed that he must have felt safe in letting her go. He thrust her wrist from his hand with far more force than was necessary. “It is impossible to enter society, even in the guise of a physician, without having proper entree. I began with other ladies of slightly lower standing and worked my way up to Lady Parkhurst. You see, she had the reputation that was required. I needed her stamp of approval before I could ever get near one such as Lady Philippa Meredith.”
“You’ve done this before,” Sophie stated. “How many young women have been laid to waste in your wake?”
“They haven’t all been young,” he said. “My first wife was an aging widow with a generous annuity… which I borrowed against heavily. My second wife was another young woman who suffered from similar symptoms to poor Philippa. It was a bit of trial and error to figure out how to worsen her symptoms without just poisoning her outright. And then I chanced upon laudanum. Oddly enough, withholding it produces significant megrims. So I would alternate. One bottle of my elixir will have it and the next will not. That insures Philippa will not get so well that she no longer needs me.”
“And the most recent bottle?” she asked.
“Without,” he said. “But the one before had it aplenty… but then you know that don’t you? Your apothecary was asking questions, as well. Sadly, he was not very discreet. He’ll ask no more questions, however.”
He wasn’t simply a greedy and unscrupulous fortune hunter as she’d initially suspected. He was a monster and quite possibly a madman. “What did you do to him?”
“He had an unfortunate accident. Terrible thing, getting into one’s cups and then falling drunkenly into one’s work bench. Head wounds bleed terribly, you know. Alas, it happens all too often,” he offered with a sad half-smile. “Tis a shame really. He was very good at his work.”
Sophie felt positively ill. He was dead. That kind man, who had done nothing more than help two strangers had now lost his life because of it. “And me? What is your plan for me?”
“Many young women meet misfortune on the road, Miss Upchurch. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that your sex makes you a target for all manner of wickedness. Alas, I owe a bit of money to a woman in Brighton who will be able to put your many assets to good use.”
It didn’t require a great deal of imagination to deduce precisely what assets he was referring to. She needed to distract him, to delay him. “Surely escorting me as far as Brighton will take you too far from your patients,” Sophie insisted. “However will you explain your absence for so long?”
“Oh, I don’t have to get you all the way to Brighton. I only need to get you as far as Salisbury. I’ve a man there who acts as an agent for the woman in question… he’ll pay me, she will pay him, and you will have all the work, as it were, that you can manage.”
Sophie’s gaze shifted to the window. They were heading out of the city, likely already on the road to Salisbury. If she didn’t attempt an escape now, she’d be too far from anyone’s assistance for it to matter. Wracking her brain, she tried to imagine where she might go.
Lady Hemsley.
Would the woman help her? Or would she have been turned against her, as well? Had word already spread through polite society that she’d been branded a thief?
“Don’t even think it,” he warned.
“Think what?” she asked.
“Escape. You cannot. I will catch you. And while I have no real desire to hurt you, Miss Upchurch, I will if you force my hand. We’re the same, you and I,” he said, “Miss Upchurch. Sophie. May I call you Sophie?”
“How are we the same? And you may call me Miss Upchurch, though to be honest, I’d prefer not having to speak with you at all!”
“Bastard children who have been forced to make their own way in the world. Oh, yes. I know all about your Darrow School. I also knew that I couldn’t afford to keep Lady Parkhurst around when she’d have a nosy companion to poke into things. I added arsenic to her elixir when I found out she’d hired you. A little bit every day until she simply couldn’t hold out anymore. Poor old bird.”
“And is that what you will do to Philippa? See her dead? Poisoned by your hand?”
He shrugged. “That will depend upon the generosity of her father. So long as the funds flow freely in my direction while we are wed, she may languish in an opium-induced stupor for as long as she lives. Now, should he decide to stop providing for us, then I will have to look into other options.”
Sophie considered her options carefully. She had only one. Escape. But this was not a man who knew what being a student of Effie Darrow’s entailed. She waited for just a moment, long enough for the carriage to hit a particularly deep rut. And then she clutched her stomach. “Oh… I don’t feel well.”
“Do not try these ploys with me!” he shouted at her.
“I always suffer such sickness when traveling by carriage, but especially if I ride facing backward. Perhaps if we moved seats?” she suggested.
He stared at her for a moment, weighing and measuring. The truth was Sophie did feel quite ill, but it wasn’t the motion of the carriage. It was disgust at him and being in his presence, coupled with fear, that left her thus. Still, whatever he saw must have swayed him.
“Fine,” he ultimately agreed and rose, levering himself onto the seat beside her.
Sophie rose then, moving toward the other seat. There she stumbled slightly, pitching forward onto the seat and knocking his medical bag to the floor of the carriage where all the instruments spilled out.
She felt him grab her hair, pulling her head back roughly. But even as she was jerked to her feet, she managed to place one of her walking boots over a scalpel on the floor of the carriage, kicking it until it rested against the wooden block beneath the seat. He shoved her forward onto the seat, her head connected painfully with the wooden seat back. But the stumble allowed her to drop to her knees, to slide the scalpel forward enough that she could grasp it before pulling herself up.
“Do not toy with me, Miss Upchurch. The fate in store for you may not be the one you desire, but I could just as easily see you dead,” he warned coldly.
“There is one major point of disagreement, Dr. Blake,” Sophie replied.
“And what is that?”
“You are not the one who will decide my fate,” she said softly. And without warning, she lunged forward, scalpel in hand, and slashed at his face.
He let out a roar of rage and pain as he clasped one hand to the wound which bled profusely. With his other hand, he reached for her, blinded by the blood flowing into his eyes. Sophie evaded him, continuing to lash out with the scalpel as she pushed open the carriage door. She discarded the blade just as she leapt free of the carriage. There was no way to land safely with it and she couldn’t afford to be slowed down by a puncture wound.
Her only hope for survival would be that he was bleeding too profusely to give chase. Regardless, she couldn’t afford the isolation of ducking into the woods to conceal herself. Her only real protection would come from being in a crowd with witnesses. To that end, Sophie ran. She headed back toward Southampton, her legs pumping beneath her and her breath billowing as she ran as hard and fast as she could.
