Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

Author:Caitlin Starling [Starling, Caitlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Yellow Jessamine;Neon Hemlock Press;Novella
ISBN: 9781952086083
Publisher: Neon Hemlock Press
Published: 2020-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Officer Pollard stood at the first brush of her heavy skirts against the rug. He was in full uniform, his hair combed back and pomaded. His expression was carefully schooled to a professional blankness that Evelyn could not read. Violetta rose from the couch opposite of where he had been sitting and retreated to one of the other doors, lingering until Evelyn gestured with a tilt of her chin that she should go.

“Lady Perdanu,” Pollard said, bowing slightly. “I apologize for the lateness of my visit.”

“I presume,” she said, moving to the couch and settling down upon it, “that news of what happened at Countess Urvenon’s has reached you.”

“It has,” he said. Instead of sitting, he came close to her, lips pursing. “I... I was concerned for your wellbeing.”

“I am well, as you can see.” His gaze dropped to her lips, and she realized that he had never seen the lower part of her face unveiled before. “I heard that you left in quite a hurry. If you’ll pardon my saying so, my lady, you aren’t a woman easily scared.”

She watched, impassive, as he settled on the couch beside her, almost too close to be proper. Even now, the impulses that led him to shield her had not been extinguished.

She must rely on that. She must nurture that. The thought was sour and heavy in her mind, but how hard would it be, to play the distraught maiden, overwhelmed by the impossible?

Not hard at all. She felt it in every inch of her, shameful and unshakeable.

“I could not handle hearing that wailing,” Evelyn confessed. “No, I imagine not,” he said, then fell silent. It was not the silence of a man with nothing to say, however, and Evelyn watched him, dread growing in her chest. There was something else, something here that threatened his desperate trust. That was what had brought him to her door.

“Please,” she said, and he looked up at her with a flash of pain. “You wish to say something. Say it.”

Better to know the danger she was in upfront. Better to know if her fears had been correct.

He looked embarrassed as he dragged the words out of his own throat. “It... was suggested, by one of the witnesses, that at other times and at other parties, you have made deliveries of certain items to women of fortune.” His eyes searched hers, as if he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was true.

Evelyn hoped her own growing panic was invisible on her face. What she wouldn’t have given for her full veil, to mask the tension growing around her mouth. “One of the witnesses, officer? But I can’t imagine you were assigned to the investigation. Countess Urvenon’s estate is nowhere near the docks.”

“And yet you are the connection,” he said, leaning forward. She nearly recoiled. “Countess Urvenon and several others of her guests are now in the same state as your employees, in the same hospital, with the same helpless prognosis. The doctors sent for me. And then I heard about that witness.

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