One Perfect Rose

by Mary Jo Putney

  Catherine asked, “Have you come up with a different diagnosis, Ian?”

  “Aye. I’ve been wondering whether I dare mention it, because my idea is so incredible, and I don’t want to raise false hope. Yet it fits the facts as nothing else does.” The surgeon ran tense fingers through his white hair, tangling it hopelessly. “If I’m right, Ashburton, it changes the prognosis entirely. And yet, I can’t understand how it could be true.” He fell silent, his expression troubled.

  Stephen might live? Michael said sharply, “For God’s sake, Kinlock, what are you thinking?”

  The surgeon hesitated for another long moment, then said slowly, “I believe the duke is being poisoned.”

  Chapter 36

  Ian Kinlock’s statement produced a stunned silence in the people gathered around the bed. Poison? Shocked to alertness, Stephen waved off the opium pills Rosalind had been about to give him. If Kinlock was right, he could not afford to dull the pain at the price of his wits. “How can that be?”

  “Absurd!” Michael snapped at the same time. “Who could possibly want to poison my brother?”

  “It may not be deliberate. The symptoms are of arsenic, which has many uses in medicine and household materials such as wallpaper, so the poisoning could be accidental.” The surgeon regarded Stephen soberly. “If I’m right about your condition, you could make a complete recovery.”

  Michael gasped and Catherine breathed, “My God!” Her gaze went to Stephen.

  Recovery. The possibility was a shock more profound even than the suggestion that he was being poisoned. Stephen felt a curious numbness at the thought. Perhaps he had gone so far toward death that life no longer seemed possible. Then Rosalind’s hand locked around his. He turned his gaze to her and saw unbearable hope in her expressive eyes. If Kinlock was wrong, her disappointment would be crushing.

  Stephen took a deep breath, praying that Kinlock was right for Rosalind’s sake even more than his own. “What is the treatment for arsenic poisoning?”

  “Actually, drinking milk was the best thing you could have done. Not only does milk soothe the esophagus and stomach, but it binds the arsenic and reduces the likelihood of permanent damage.” Kinlock gave a troubled sigh. “If I’m correct in my diagnosis, and if the source of poisoning can be located and removed, you would start recovering immediately.”

  Catherine, the former nurse, frowned. “Stephen could have some form of gastric fever. What makes you think it’s arsenic poisoning?”

  “Because I’ve treated two cases, and the similarities to Ashburton’s are unmistakable. One was acute poisoning, when a young Spanish wife decided to get rid of her rich old husband.”

  Rosalind made a choked sound. Stephen said in a warning tone, “If you so much as look at my wife, Kinlock, I swear I’ll get up from this bed and throw you out of the house.” When a stab of familiar pain lanced through him, he added wryly, “Or at least, I’ll tell Michael to do it.”

  Kinlock made a dismissive gesture. “By your own account, you were ill long before you met your wife. You’ve had some acute episodes, but most of your symptoms are those of chronic poisoning, which is usually accidental.”

  Catherine asked, “How could that happen?”

  “The case of chronic poisoning I treated was a child sickened by arsenic vapors given off by new wallpaper in his bedroom. There are other kinds of contact that could produce a similar result.” Kinlock regarded Stephen narrowly. “But I don’t see how you could be suffering from accidental poisoning. If the poison source was on your estate, you should have recovered when you left.”

  “The same argument applies to deliberate poisoning,” Catherine said slowly. “Stephen hasn’t been with any one person through the course of his illness. After he left the abbey, he spent weeks traveling under an assumed name with no one knowing where he was. Michael couldn’t find him, so I doubt that a murderer could.”

  Stephen thought back over the course of his illness. There was no consistent environment or person. Which must mean that Kinlock’s colorful theory was wrong, and Stephen was suffering from a mortal illness after all.

  Then Rosalind broke the baffled silence. “Your medicine, Stephen,” she said with horror. “The opium mixture.”

  She opened her other hand to reveal the two pills she’d almost given him. “You’ve been taking at least one a day for months. Lately, more than that.”

  Kinlock said sharply, “Where did the pills come from?”

  Stephen stared at the small, innocuous disks on Rosalind’s palm. A sick chill went through him. “My physician made them up for me. George Blackmer.”

  The faint squeak of the door sounded loud in the shocked hush that followed his words. Then Blackmer entered the room. Stephen wondered if he was hallucinating, until he remembered that the physician had accompanied Michael on the ill-fated search.

  Blackmer halted, feeling the weight of watching eyes. “The duke. Is he…?” His voice broke and his face paled.

  “No, he’s not dead.” Michael exploded across the room like a panther and grabbed Blackmer in a furious grip. “Stephen is being poisoned by the arsenic you gave him. You bastard!” He slammed the physician against the wall.

  “Wait!” Kinlock protested. “Perhaps the pills aren’t the source.”

  But Blackmer made no attempt to deny the charge. He simply stared at his attacker, horror and guilt vivid on his haggard face. Everyone in the room recognized the wordless admission.

  Michael said in a low, lethal voice, “Say your prayers, Blackmer, because I’m going to kill you.” Suddenly there was a pistol in his hand, and it was aimed at the physician’s skull.

  Before Michael could shoot, Stephen snapped, “No!” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper, but the authority in it sliced through the room. “Don’t kill him, at least not yet.”

  His brother hesitated, then reluctantly released the physician and stepped back. Though he tucked the pistol back under his coat, he kept a dangerous gaze on his quarry.

  Poison, not a lethal illness. He was going to live. To live. Stephen could barely get his tired mind around the fact. This crisis must be dealt with first. Dredging strength from some unknown reserve, he said to Rosalind, “Help me sit up.”

  “You’re not going to die!” she whispered, her face radiant. She raised him with an arm behind his back, then shoved pillows into a solid support. “Thank God!”

  Stephen pulled her down to sit on the edge of the bed before turning his attention to the man who had nearly killed him. “Since my life was the one threatened, I claim the right to question him. Blackmer, do you admit that you’ve been trying to murder me?”

  “I…I didn’t mean you to die.” The physician drew a shuddering breath. “It started with the medication I gave you when you had food poisoning in the spring. Only about a quarter of the pills contained arsenic, and the amount varied from pill to pill. The chances of you taking a lethal dose at one time were very remote.”

  “But taking the pills over time gave him chronic poisoning, with acute episodes whenever he ingested a particularly large dose,” Kinlock said grimly. “Diabolical. The more pills he took, the closer he came to death.”

  “Good God, these might have been the ones that would have killed him!” Aghast, Rosalind hurled the pills into the fire, then wiped her palm on her gown with revulsion.

  Michael glanced at Stephen. “The swine has admitted his guilt,” he said conversationally. “May I kill him now?”

  “Control your bloodthirsty tendencies a little longer. We still don’t know why he did it.” Looking back, Stephen saw how the first moderate pains had indeed begun as he was recovering from food poisoning. And the attacks had always come shortly after he took some of the pills. As Kinlock had said, it was diabolical. Voice like ice, he asked, “Blackmer, what the devil have I ever done to deserve such treatment at your hands?”

  “I never meant for it to go this far.” Blackmer sagged back against the wall, visibly shaking. “I…I was g
oing to wait until you’d had several bad episodes. Then I would miraculously ‘cure’ you.”

  “So you damned near killed a man to cater to your ambitions,” Kinlock said incredulously. “How could any physician stoop so low? Don’t shoot him, Colonel. He deserves to have his liver sliced out with a dull lancet.”

  Stephen frowned, trying to understand. Surely there had to be more to it. “You still haven’t said why. You’re a successful physician with a respected position in the community. Prosperous. You’ve been keeping company with the vicar’s widowed sister for years. You didn’t need miracles to improve your standing.” A horrific thought struck him. “Or have you been poisoning other patients in the guise of healing? Christ, you were attending Louisa when she died!”

  “No!” Blackmer said vehemently. “I swear, I have never deliberately harmed another patient. Certainly not the duchess.”

  Oddly enough, Stephen believed him. If Blackmer was capable of telling such convincing lies, he would have denied the poisoning. “Which once again leads me to wonder why I was uniquely blessed. Are you a republican who despises the nobility in general? Or was it simply because you despise me?”

  Blackmer hung his head, his chest rising and falling, and didn’t answer.

  The heavy silence was broken by a swift intake of breath from Rosalind. She said sharply, “Blackmer, my husband said once that you were a foundling raised by the parish. Who was your father?”

  His head jerked up and he stared at her, his face gray. “You…you’ve guessed.”

  “Look at him closely.” Rosalind’s piercing gaze went from Blackmer to Michael to Stephen, then back to Blackmer. “The shape of his face, his height and coloring, Stephen’s gray-green eyes. The resemblance isn’t as strong as between Stephen and Michael, but it’s there. Blackmer was fathered by the old duke.”

  Her words caused a shocked silence. Then Michael said with loathing, “This swine is no brother of mine!”

  “Michael.” Stephen stilled his younger brother with a glance. Then he shifted his gaze to Blackmer, who was still in the shadows by the wall. “Come here.”

  Walking as if to the scaffold, Blackmer approached the bed. Michael followed him, ready to strike if the man made a wrong move.

  Stephen studied the physician’s face, seeing the resemblance. As Rosalind had said, it was less pronounced than the likeness between him and Michael, but it was certainly there. This man who had almost killed him was blood kin. “What did you hope to gain by poisoning me? Revenge for the fact that I was legitimate and you aren’t? That wasn’t my fault. Hurting me would not change the circumstances of your birth.”

  When Blackmer didn’t answer, Rosalind said, “It wasn’t revenge he wanted, but recognition. Who was your mother?”

  “A dairymaid who died when I was born. She had no family and had never named the father of her child, so I was turned over to the parish.” Blackmer closed his eyes wearily. “One day when I was eight, the old duke rode by the field where I was digging weeds. He called me over and said I was his son, and that he would see that I got an education and a respectable trade. He also said that when I grew up, he would acknowledge me publicly, but he never did. After he died without naming me as his son, I was furious. Bitterly resentful. Eventually it became a…a kind of madness. I didn’t understand how mad I’d become until you left the abbey, and I realized that I could not stop what I had set in motion.”

  His eyes opened, the gray-green leached to slate. “I wanted to…to matter to you. If I couldn’t be a Kenyon, at least I could be the brilliant doctor who had saved your life.”

  “He wanted a connection that went beyond professional service,” Rosalind said tersely. “To be treated as a friend.”

  Blackmer’s puzzled gaze went to her. “Why do you understand me better than I understood myself, Duchess?”

  “I was a foundling myself,” she replied. “A more fortunate one than you. But I understand that desperate hunger to belong. To be part of a family.”

  “Very touching,” Michael said caustically. “Nonetheless, Blackmer very nearly murdered Stephen.”

  “As God is my witness, I never intended the duke to be seriously harmed,” Blackmer said vehemently. “Why do you think I was so determined to find him? I wanted to stop the poisoning before it was too late.”

  “Or make sure that he was really dead,” Michael growled. “And if Stephen still lived, you were hell-bent on treating him because you knew a different doctor might realize that he was being poisoned.”

  Blackmer sighed and rubbed his forehead. “There is no way I can prove what was in my mind. But you can look at the rest of my career as a physician. There have never been any suspicious deaths. As Ashburton said, I’ve always been well regarded.”

  Stephen thought back to his first wife’s final illness. “When Louisa was dying, he was with her almost day and night until the end. He has a reputation for treating everyone in the parish, whether they can afford to pay or not.”

  Michael said with reluctant honesty, “In the Midlands, we were on the scene when a tree crushed a house with a man and child inside. Blackmer risked his life to crawl into the wreckage to prevent the man from bleeding to death before he could be rescued.” He scowled. “I’ll grant that he’s brave. But courage is a common virtue among criminals.”

  “Perhaps. But it’s also true that he was wronged by the old duke,” Stephen said soberly. “You of all people should understand that, Michael. Being raised by the parish in my father’s time means he would have been fostered with different families, treated like an unpaid servant more often than not.”

  “Rags, beatings, and cold gruel,” Blackmer said starkly. “And…and sometimes other things that were far worse. It wasn’t until you succeeded to the title that the vicar was charged with seeing that orphans were well treated and given a basic education. I was relieved when you did that.”

  “You picked a very poor way of showing it,” Catherine said, her expression stony.

  “I’m sorry for what you had to endure—no child should be treated so badly.” Stephen shifted position, fatigue weighing on him like a boulder. “But why poison me to get my attention? All you had to do was tell me of our relationship.”

  The physician stared at him. “Would you have believed me?”

  “Probably. The physical resemblance is there, and I’m well aware of my father’s lecherous habits,” Stephen said dryly.

  “It never occurred to me that there would be any point in talking to you.” Blackmer’s mouth twisted. “I did not expect justice from the Kenyons.”

  So the old duke’s arrogance and promiscuity had reached beyond the grave and almost caused the death of his heir. There was ironic humor in that.

  Wearily Stephen rubbed at the pain in his belly. Hard to remember when it hadn’t been part of him. “What the devil am I to do with you, Blackmer?”

  There was a pause until Catherine said, “The obvious answer is to turn him over to the magistrates for trial and probable hanging. If you don’t want to do that, how about sending him someplace like the Australian colonies? They could use physicians there.”

  “Assuming that he could be trusted not to kill someone else.” Kinlock’s expression was as flinty as Michael’s. “The man’s a disgrace to the oath he took.”

  Stephen glanced at Rosalind, who still stood to his right. “What do you think?”

  “Part of me wants him to suffer as you did. After he’d experienced a year or two of excruciating pain, I might consider clemency. And yet…” She paused, her expression troubled. “Which of us has not made a mistake that might have had disastrous consequences? When Jessica was little, she once helpfully tried to bathe Brian and almost drowned him. What Blackmer has done was not an innocent accident. But I believe him when he says that he didn’t mean to kill you.”

  In his years as a magistrate, Stephen had often administered justice and done it well, but he had never judged a matter that concerned him so closely. He scrutinized
Blackmer’s haggard face. His brother, who waited stoically for judgment.

  Once Blackmer learned who his father was, the knowledge must have been like an open wound. Every time he saw Stephen or Michael ride by, he would have resented the fact that his half brothers lived with wealth and privilege while he was starved and abused. In fact, since he was a year or two older than Stephen, he would have had the additional torment of knowing that if he’d been legitimate, he would have been the next Duke of Ashburton. Poor bastard, in every sense of the word.

  Yet by and large, he’d made the best of his situation. He’d taken advantage of his education and done well enough to be sent to study medicine. He’d become a first-rate physician, generous with his time, caring of those less fortunate. The very model of a self-made man—until bitterness turned him into a poisoner.

  Stephen glanced at his younger brother. Michael had also been treated abominably by the old duke, but he had been raised with the advantages of wealth. He had been able to escape the abbey by going to Eton and the homes of his friends. Even so, the emotional and physical abuses of his childhood had caused Michael to behave in difficult, destructive ways until he had made peace with his demons.

  In fact, all of the duke’s children had suffered from the old man’s harsh treatment. Claudia had grown caustic and bitter, while Stephen, the favored son and heir, had become so detached that he’d cut himself off from what mattered most in life. Should Blackmer, who had suffered the most of all, be destroyed because his anger had erupted in such an appalling way?

  Blackmer broke the tense, waiting silence by saying flatly, “Lord Michael is right. Though my intent was not murderous, the results nearly were. You have every right to send me to the gallows.” The physician’s mouth twisted. “I don’t expect forgiveness. But I must, for my own sake, say how sorry I am. To you, Ashburton, for putting you through hell.” He looked at Rosalind. “To you, Duchess, for clearly you have also suffered. In some ways, perhaps, more than your husband.”