The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

"I know," I said. I didn't feel alright, or fine, or great, but I wouldn't spend one minute, not one second admitting it, whether to Simon or to Henry, and if Lydia asked then I was feeling the best I'd ever felt. It was only a matter of time until I could leave and then I'd be home safe, sleep off the nausea, and that would be the end of it. That I was tired now made no difference, because I had to be here. For Lydia's sake.

Chapter 12

John Paul stood by the door as Simon opened it back up again. He'd taken the bills and fit them into his own waistcoat pocket; they puckered the fabric just so, and anyone looking might have known that his wallet looked awfully thick, but he seemed not to mind it. Perhaps he preferred it, being as perennially troubled with money as he seemed to be.

"Where is my sister," he said softly, looking around the front area. From where the two men stood, they could see into two rooms, and in both of them several dozen guests bustled about, holding thin-stemmed glasses full of honey-colored drinks that thy sipped from on occasion. However, of Lydia Wakefield there was no immediate sign.

"I'll just pop upstairs and see if she's powdering her nose, perhaps."

"Of course,” John Paul answered, and started into a room to find a glass for himself.

He found it, a moment later, on a tray being carried by another staff member he'd never seen before. He took one and stalked back to the front of the house, waiting on Simon to come back downstairs with the verdict. He found after only a few moments’ wait that he was agitated, perhaps even worried by Lydia's absence.

Where could she be, that it took more than a few moments to find her in her own house? She couldn't have been having some sort of trouble, could she? Nor, he hoped was there any chance that

she might have left. He shuddered at the thought. If she was worried, and her brother seemed to suggest that she almost certainly was, then he realized that he was at least as worried as she. His stomach had made it difficult to tell for certain, but as he thought now he realized exactly how much he worried about the entire thing going off according to plan. The only way he would get any relief, it seemed would be to see her, to have some confirmation that things would work out as planned.

But he didn't get to have that relief, when Simon reappeared alone atop the stairs, stepping down them two at a time. As he came to the bottom he slowed, his hurried footsteps became more relaxed, and he turned to John Paul.

"I don't know what to tell you, mister Foster; I can't find her. She's not upstairs, and I didn't see her in the Lounge..."

He spread his hands out wide in a gesture of apology.

"Perhaps she's in the kitchen, or in the back of the house somewhere?"

Simon looked uncertain.

"It's definitely possible, I suppose, but..."

"But nothing," John Paul said softly but firmly. "I'm going to look, and you may accompany me. I am sorry if I am being too terribly rude, but I—"

"No explanation is necessary, Colonel. I understand implicitly. Let's go."

The first door on the left was a parlor. A half-dozen ladies stood around the center of the room; when they saw the door open they grew quiet, though there had been a fairly obvious buzz of voices from the door. One of them looked up at John Paul through the doorway.

“Ah, mister Foster! So nice to see you again.” Through the fog of anxiety and fatigue, the Colonel recognized missus Raymond. She looked worried, and for a moment he failed to make the connection between his condition and her concern.

“Missus Raymond,” he answered. “It’s nice to see you, as well. Have you seen Lydia?”

“Lydia,” she repeated back to him, as if she were just hearing the word for the first time. “No, I haven’t seen her since my husband and I arrived.”

“Thank you,” he said and left promptly. He heard the women start talking again almost immediately after he had left, Simon hot on his heels as well. He ignored them and kept moving.

She wasn’t in the next room, either, though it took them longer to check. A small room, but a dozen people mingled and talked, some coming and some going. Nobody had seen Lydia, either. John Paul felt his exhaustion beginning to get the better of him, combined as it was with his mounting concerns that Lydia had, for whatever reason, decided to quit the engagement before it had even properly begun. With his showing signs of illness days before, and with the growing illness he felt now, he couldn’t blame her after the death of her father.

He was stopped by Timothy Raymond, who asked idly where his wife had gotten off to; John Paul pointed him back to the room, but when John Paul made a motion to leave, mister Raymond walked with him instead.

“You look awfully pale, my boy.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” the Colonel answered distractedly. He kept pushing the sick feeling in his stomach to the back of his mind, hoping that the next door he opened would have Lydia on the other side. He pushed open the back door and stepped through into the cool evening air.

He’d never been out the back of the Wakefield home, and he found that they had a perfectly attractive back deck. Facing away from him was a young woman in black.

“Lydia,” he said, breathless.

“Yes,” she answered, turning to look. Then she saw John Paul and rushed over to him. “You’re so pale!”

“So I am told,” he answered, and gave a weak laugh. “I think I just drank some turned milk with breakfast, it’s quite alright. I’ll be fine in the morning. They’re holding a party for you, and the guest of honor was nowhere to be found!”