The Rivals

A Smile

She laid on her stomach, on the bed, her legs were crossed at the ankles and swung lazily from side to side. A small smile and a pair of wide, hazel eyes lay trained on the book in her hands. Long, dark curls cascaded from one point on top of her head and fell down her back and across her bare shoulders. Single tendrils fell forward and just covered her breasts as they grazed the silk covers underneath her.

She was beautiful.

Edmund sat in the corner of the room in his high-backed, dark velvet chair, observing her. He smiled over the rim of his glass tumbler as her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, causing small lines of age to gather just above her forehead. She was four and thirty, eight years his senior, and he wondered whether, if by now, she had lost her use.

Light peals of laughter escaped from her mouth as she closed the book at the last page.

"It's wonderful Edmund. A work of art." Edmund smiled wider now and stood up, placing his tumbler on a small table beside his chair. He could not help but remember those exact words he charmed her with.

You are wonderful Abigail, a work of art. Allow me to show the world.

"Thank you, Abi. I tried hard to capture your spirit within Caroline." Abigail laughed and sat up, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

"Well I think you rather did me justice, dearest. She was fantastically adventurous and so young, oh how I'd forgotten what young felt like." Unbeknownst, she had brought up the plague at the back of his mind and now he looked at her with this in mind, he saw she was right.

Already, her breasts had begun to drop towards God's earth. Small, sun blemishes were appearing on her shoulders and creeping up her neck. Crows feet appeared at the corners of her eyes as she beamed up at him but God did she radiate beauty. Still, beauty was no competition for youth.

He placed his hands in his pockets and looked down upon her figure, a stern look on his face.

"Edmund, darling, are you well?" Edmund caught her eyes, pools of golden confusion and he sighed lightly. Initially she had been a conquest, a mystery and a way into the publishers. Now, she was something of a close confidant but he found she could no longer help him advance.

"I am well, very well, but I am afraid I shall have to ask you to leave and never return to my chambers." Abigail froze against the dark wooden headboard. Her already pale skin grew ashen, chalked.

"I... I do not understand" Edmunds face was set into a hard, immovable line.

"You are past your usability as a muse, Abi. I cannot write about an alluring spinster. Why that is a perfectly ridiculous oxymoron."

Pain flashed across Abigail's face.

"A spinster? You call me old, Edmund?"

"No, just ageing. You are not married an..."

"And who's fault is that! Edmund you took me from the ballrooms and into the limelight of your books and your tours. You promised me love and tranquility but all I have had is two years of sex and broken promises." Edmund smiled, sardonically.

"But wonderful sex, no?" Abigail blushed and pulled her dress from the floor, hurriedly dressing herself in the afternoon sun.

"I will go then. I will leave but will that make you happy?" Edmund blanched slightly and Abigail smiled to herself. "But of course, you have never been happy have you? You do not know the meaning of the word, happy. When was the last time you felt love in your heart Edmund?"

Silence.

"That's what I thought." She laced her back quickly, far too efficiently for Edmund's liking. This was happening far too fast. "Because whatever happened when you were a babe it destroyed your ability to be anything short of a devil. Edmund Carr let your name be blackened upon this earth for I shall never think nor speak of you fondly again!"

Edmund was now pale, rocking unsteadily on his feet. He did not predict this reaction, nor the wrenching feeling in his stomach. She was ruthless.

"Good Day, Mr Carr. I hope you shrivel and die." Edmund jumped as she slammed the wooden door behind her. He stuttered, attempting to find words that would not climb from his mouth.

He looked downs her chemise lay on the floor, it's thin, translucent fabric calling to be touched and ripped in the heat of passion. He bent down and held it in his hands, a pitiful tear rolled down his cheek and he wondered if he would be condemned to cause sadness wherever he went.

He brought the chemise against his face and inhaled her scent but stopped when he smelled something odd. He knew her scent, so well... achingly well, but this was not it. It was bitter, tangy and left an odd taste and feel on his tongue.

He stumbled back a little more, regretting the many tumblers of whiskey he had downed... or had it been many? He could not remember and a panic set into his chest as he fell backward into his chair, the chemise still gripped in his fingers.

Whose chemise was it? Where was he? who was he?

Questions plagued his hazy mind until his eyes closed and an eternal sleep overtook his mind and his body.

~~~~~

BATH, ENGLAND, 1840

Inspector Toyner

"A murder they think, sir" Matthew's heart did a leap in his chest.

"Murder? Of Edmund Carr? Surely they are mistaken!" The clerk simply grimaced.

"A poison was inhaled, Sir. Nasty business and all. Chief wants you to take the case. He said, Matthew Toyner's the man for the job. So 'ere I is." Matthew looked the man up down. His drab but well pressed, brown suit was a little big for him and he had a small stain on the edge of his collar. It looked like beer but Matthew could not begrudge a fellow a beer at times like these.

"I see. Well, you may tell Hodrick that I will take the case but with a heavy heart; Edmund Carr was in my year at school. A ghastly boy but I understand he grew to become a famous writer?" The clerk nodded solemnly.

"Aye, quite a man he was, Sir. But then they be sayin' a man who has great loves, has great hates." Matthew would have smirked at the mans confusion of a phrase too often heard in Whitehall Police Station but he was already thinking of the case at hand.

"Where did you say he was murdered?" he prayed in his heart that it would not be...

"Bath, Sir." Matthews internal voice sobbed with self-pity.

"I see." The clerk nodded his goodbye and strode out of the office, his hat clutched sadly in his hand.

Bloody Nora, was Matthews only thought. This meant a visit to his socialite family in Bath. This meant balls and aristocrats. This meant... this meant women!

Matthew gulped down a feeling of dread in his stomach and leant back in his chair. His hands found their way, exasperatedly, through his dark hair and onto the back of his neck, rubbing the back of his neck, gently.

He had left Bath for a reason; at the age of five and twenty all his mother had attempted to do was throw woman after woman at his face until eventually she drove him to Whitehall. He had always enjoyed mysteries and murders but Whitehall was like candy to his young, eager hands.

Whitehall was dangerous but Bath was positively suicidal. He had not been in 'high society' for over a year and Matthew hoped the women he had previously known and rejected, did not hold too much of a grudge against him. Or rather he hoped he could avoid them all, altogether.

All's well that ends well. Matthew thought, and prayed that the bard knew what he was talking about and that this whole ordeal would do just that - end well.