He cupped the back of her head and moved his face closer. “I’d have made it terribly hard for you to have left again. I’d have claimed you completely, ruined you until there was no doubt in anyone’s mind where you belonged.”
“How romantic,” she said.
He laughed and then kissed her. He spoke against her mouth. “I’m glad you think so.”
When he pulled away, she asked, “So when shall I meet Leonard?”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve not seen my brother for some time. He’s not the most dependable man.”
The carriage came to a jerking halt in front of their house and the door swung open.
“I resent that.”
Elisa looked the tall uniformed man over and wondered why the driver was speaking to them in such a manner.
But then the driver looked up and grinned.
Those eyes. She knew before Nick said his name.
“Leo? What are you doing here?”
“Protecting you, that’s what. I’ve been driving you for the last three days. I dare say, I’m surprised you didn’t notice.” The man gave them a boyish grin. “Sorry about letting Lord Bush in on the whole anklet thing. Forgiven?”
Elisa had no clue what the handsome lord wished forgiveness for but imagined few could refuse a face like his.
Nicholas was out of the carriage and hugging his brother a second later. “Leo!” He grinned and looked him over. “Still alive.”
“For today, at least.” Leo took off his hat and revealed dark brown hair. He bowed deeply to Elisa. “My lady.” He lifted his gaze and grinned. His face was stony lines of pure perfection. “Thought I’d never see the day my brother would fall in love.”
Elisa bit her lip but knew her face had turned red. “He’s been married before.”
“Ah, but that was the love of a rebellious boy. He’s a man now.”
Nick turned his brother toward him. “And you? Found the one yet?”
Leo’s eyes glazed over. “Oh, I find the one every night, my friend. Sometimes her eyes are blue. Sometimes her hair is gold.” He looked at Elisa. “Often she’s a brown-eyed lady with fire the color of flames.” He winked.
Elisa laughed and thought Leo was far too charming for his own good.
“Come,” Nick said. “You’re staying with me tonight.”
Elisa enjoyed seeing her husband smile, enjoyed his happiness as though it were partly her own. She hadn’t known until this moment just how worried Nick had been for his brother. Maybe he hadn’t either, but he wouldn’t stop touching Leo.
His arm went around his brother’s shoulders as though to secure him close.
Leo’s arm went around Nick’s waist. “Stay the night? I’ve been living here for days.” He offered Elisa his free hand.
She took it and asked, “How is that possible?”
Nick answered, “My staff is part of the organization. They know my brothers are always welcomed.”
“They helped me play a few tricks along the way,” Leo said. Then he turned to Nick. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”
“Indeed.”
The butler opened the door and a man came out of the receiving room.
Elisa’s eyes widened at the sight of the giant red-haired man.
“Oliver?” Nick broke away from Leo. “What are you doing here?”
Oliver scratched his head with his free hand. “Leo came back. I told him about the mess he’d created. We decided to pay you a visit.” He had a bowl of something in his other hand. He popped something bright and yellow into his mouth and then grinned at Elisa. “Sister.”
“What are you eating?” Elisa asked hesitantly.
“Comfits,” Oliver said.
Nick frowned. “Where’d you get it?”
Oliver looked around and then shrugged. “They were in a jar by the back door.”
“No!” Elisa rushed over and snatched the jar away. Tears bloomed in her eyes. “There are poisoned!” Her heart ached. She couldn’t believe the marquess. “Oh! You can’t just go around putting anything into your mouth.” She turned to Nick. “Send for Sparrow immediately.”
Oliver plucked the jar from her hands. “Don’t you dare send for a doctor. I know there’s nightshade on these things. Quite tasty. Planned to finish them off before anyone else ate them,” As if to torture her further, he plucked another into his mouth and grinned.
Elisa stared and began to feel weak, but Nick’s arm went around her and kept her upright.
“Don’t worry, Elisa. Oliver’s body is no longer affected by nightshade. It won’t kill him. Not anymore.”
She looked at Nick and then Oliver. “Is that true?”
“Nightshade, wolf’s bane, hemlock,” Oliver said.
Elisa blinked and wiped away her tears. “Was this another one of your father’s lessons?”
Oliver sobered and nodded. Then he smiled and ate another comfit. “Delicious.”
She turned to Nick. “Are you and Leo—”
“No, that particular lesson began and ended with Oliver.”
“And perhaps it was for the best,” Leo said. “The likelihood of Oliver being poisoned is much higher than either of us.”
“Why is that?” Elisa asked.
“Didn’t Nick tell you?” Leo took her arm and began to lead her away.
“Tell me what?” Elisa looked over her shoulder and saw Oliver and Nick engaged in a very serious conversation. Oliver was no longer grinning. In fact, she’d never seen anyone look so deadly in her life.
“He’s an assassin, but don’t get distracted by titles, we’ve all killed a man or two,” Leo said. “But that’s neither here nor there. At the moment, I want to know everything there is to know about you. How is it that a woman as pretty as you settled for Nick?”
She studied her brother-in-law as her heart raced. “You’re trying to distract me, but I’m not sure that means what you said isn’t true.”
Leo gasped and then grinned. “Oh, you’re a sharp one. Very nice.”
“Lord Venmont seems upset.” Would he kill someone? How was it that she had surrounded herself with murderers?
“I’m Leo. He’s Oliver to you now, or Ollie, and he’s every right to be upset. Someone just tried to kill our new sister-in-law and my brother.”
‘We’d have never eaten the confections though,” she said. “Surely, the poisoner knows this.”
Leo nodded. “But until this is over, Oliver will be testing your food before you eat it.”
Elisa had been made glad by their presence before, but now more so than ever.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on as I imagine Nick is telling Oliver?”
They settled into the drawing-room.
It was a long night. Eventually, Oliver and Nick joined them. Elisa was given brandy when it became clear she was shaking. She’d never known murder to be so rampant in England, yet the men around her sat calmly as though it were an everyday thing.
When she and Nick were finished speaking, Leo left. Nick didn’t ask where he’d gone or when he would come back. From all the stories she’d heard about Leo, she supposed there was no point. Leo made his own schedule.
Nick wrote the other houses and told them about the comfits that had been left outside their door. Everyone believed it was the work of Gloria and not Alguire.
As Elisa went to her room, she saw a glove sitting on her bed. It was one Alguire had given her. It was also the same glove she’d used to gather the poison from Gloria’s shop.
Elisa had misplaced it upon her return home that evening.
She called in her lady’s maid.
“Oh, I found it on the front steps,” the maid said with glee. She was scratching her hands as she went on. “How fortunate for us that it was found. Can’t imagine where you left it, my lady.”
Elisa looked down at the girl’s hands. They were red with rashes. “Go find Lord Oliver and don’t touch anything, especially your face.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The maid left and Oliver came in followed by Nick.
Oliver picked up the glove and brought it to his nose. “Ah, cuckoo pint.”
“What?” Elisa asked.
Oliver cleared his throat and tucked the glove in his pocket. “Toast and Cheese. Lords and Ladies.”
Elisa frowned.
Oliver went on. “Adam and Eve? Bobbins?”
Elisa shook her head. “Why does it have so many names?”
Oliver laugh. “Because if you stare at the plant at just the right angle.” His hands began to descend to the front of his breeches. “It looks like a man and woman—”
“Enough.” Nick stepped forward. “Tell the maid what to do.”
“Wash your hands, deary. I’ll do the same.” Oliver left.
Elisa sighed. “I must have left it at Gloria’s, but only Alguire would have known it belonged to me.”
“That means Alguire told her,” Nick said. “But all this seems like a warning. Oliver has tested the food in the house. Nothing else is poisoned. She knew you wouldn’t touch the glove or eat the comfits.”
“What does she want?’ Elisa said.
“For us to leave her alone.” Nick frowned. “I’ll speak to Van Dero.” He kissed her head. “Change and join me in my room.”
It was what she did every night anyway.
∫ ∫ ∫
5 5
* * *
Gloria’s shop was reportedly open the next day, but there was no sight of the woman herself. Alguire was not found either.
“She might have him,” Oliver said. “She’s been exposed, and it’s Alguire’s fault.” They were sitting at breakfast the next morning.
Elisa moved her food around her plate more than she ate it. She knew there to be no poison in it, yet still, she was nervous. “I never meant for all of this to happen.” She looked at Nick. “A soldier at Bedlam told me about her, an old friend of Alguire’s. Could you make sure nothing has happened to him?”
“Of course.”
She gave her husband the name of the man and then he left.
“What do you think made the soldier turn against Alguire and give you the information you sought?” Leo asked.
She shrugged. “I drew him a few pictures. I often entertained the patients with writings or drawings.”
“Are you any good at drawing?” he asked.
She laughed. “No, but I believe they found my pictures more comical than creative.”
“You were a light in the darkness,” Oliver said. “That’s why he helped you.”
Elisa thought. “I think I should write to the people I know to still be there and make some other things for the women and children.”
Nick said, “Seems like a great deal of work for one woman. Why not ask Belle to lend you her army of little workers?”
Elisa brightened. Belle was a sponsor for many charitable homes. “That’s a wonderful idea.” She desperately needed something to do while in mourning, anything that would stop her from thinking about her father and how he’d gone before his time.
She asked Oliver, “How is it that my father couldn’t build an immunity to the poison, but you could?”
“I’ve a strong heart,” Oliver said. “When I first began to take it, it did terrible things to my body, but I was a young boy and managed to handle it well. If your father’s heart was not strong to begin with…”
“I see,” she whispered.
A servant came in with a note.
Nick read it. “It’s from Cass. The search for Gloria has ended. Cass wishes to make peace.”
“Cassius is giving in to this woman?” Oliver asked.
“Poison is hard to avoid,” Nick said. “Cass has a child and wife to think about. While it’s easier to control what your family eats, it will be harder to keep a child from touching everything they see.”
Elisa didn’t have children and knew it would be impossible. She was glad Lord Van Dero would not sacrifice his family for this cause.
“Knowing Cass, he might wish to turn her into one of his own,” Leo said.
“It’s possible,” Nick said. Then he looked at Elisa. “Are you all right with this? She did help kill your father.”
Last night, they’d discussed the possibility that Gloria hadn’t known who she was poisoning.
“Can we not send for the authorities?” Elisa said. “How is it that anyone like this should be free to hurt other people?”
The table fell silent and she looked around and realized everyone here, save her, had likely taken a life.
She stood. “I need to rest.” She was hardly out of the room when she felt a presence come to stand at her side.
Nick asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
She didn’t. Her father was dead. Her life was being threatened. She should be happy now that she was free and with the man she loved, but for every good thing, a terrible thing happened. “I’m fine.”
“A woman is never fine when she says she’s fine, especially you. Anything less than great is not good.”
She glanced at him. “You think you know me that well, do you?”
“I do.”
He stopped her in the hall and wrapped his arms around her. “I know this is a great amount of dark information to take in, especially when you consider the circumstances.”
The circumstances were her father’s death. She settled her hands on his arms. “Your circumstances as a child weren’t great either. It led you here.”
“But I choose to live this life, Elisa. Make no mistake about it. I do not blame my father for the things I do now, only the choices I was given as a boy. As Leo said last night, I’m a man now.”
He was a man who’d chosen to love her.
She closed her eyes. “I wish we were back at the castle. I wish none of this had happened.” She wanted to go back to the day the man she loved had carried her through the snow and into the home he wished to share with her.
He stroked her cheek. “Keep in mind, it was a castle I took from another man. It was neither purchased nor earned fairly. His secret was one that would have gotten him hanged.”
She sighed. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because this is who I am.” He chuckled. “I admit, I always knew I was unworthy of you, but when I thought you mad, we were balanced. Now that I know you are perfect, we are at a greater imbalance than ever.”
She smiled and opened her eyes. “I’m not perfect.”
“You will never see me as I or others do.” He cupped her jaw. “Ollie was quite moved by your tears for him last night. Few would care if he died by poison or anything else. You’re the first woman to have cried over the thought of him being dead since our mother.”
“Really?” She found it hard to believe.
Nick nodded. “He’ll protect you with his life now, not that he wouldn’t have before, but it’s more personal now. Dying for you would be the noblest thing he’d ever done.”
“No.”
“Those are his words,” Nick said. “And they are not far from my own thoughts. I will never be remembered as a morally sound man. There are those who hear my name and weep for past losses.”
That was something Elisa wanted to change.
“I brought all of this on myself,” she told him. “I could have left it alone. The night we walked to Gloria’s, you told me to go home. You told me what I was doing was foolish. It is true.”
“No. You’ve brought a great danger to our attention. We didn’t know Gloria was the Queen of Poisons. You discovered that.”
“And now she is being given the promise of peace. Will Van Dero keep his word?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “He is not one to lie. This offense has been pardoned. Any new offenses she makes will be addressed.”
Elisa looked back down the hall. “I should return to the table. I don’t want Oliver to feel I don’t care for him anymore.”
“No, you should take your time,” Nick said. “I don’t want you t
o feel forced into anything.”
“We’re already married, Nick. There isn’t much else I could be forced into.” When Nick’s expression began to close, she touched his cheek. “Not that I feel I was forced into our marriage. I love you.”
“Would you do it again?” he asked. “If we could go back. If everything could be undone…”
“To undo anything would mean to have never met you.” She smiled. “I saw you and my soul soared with happiness and hope.”
He cupped the back of her neck. “But if you could undo our meeting—”
“I wouldn’t. You are all I want.”
He didn’t seem convinced. He let her go. “I’ll give you time. This would be too much for anyone.”
She kissed him and was glad when he kissed her back.
Her husband thought himself unworthy of love. Elisa wasn’t sure who was, but he’d spoken about her inability to see herself as he saw her. She would find a way to help him see what she saw.
∫ ∫ ∫
5 6
* * *
They were playing Commerce the next evening.
The games should have been friendly, but there was a problem.
All the Childs men were extremely competitive.
Especially when they were drunk.
“If I win this hand, I get the castle for a month,” Leo slurred, his eyes half-closed.
“Not a chance,” Nick said. “Elisa likes it there.” Barely a sentence left his lips that didn’t contain her name. He was aware of it. His brothers were aware of it, but they did no more than grin whenever she came up.
She’d spent the night in Nick’s arm. She’d had Belle and a few of Belle’s older pupils over that morning. They’d written letters and drawn pictures. More would be drawn at the orphanage.
Nicholas hadn’t been invited to the meeting, but he’d burned a hole through the carpet near her private receiving room simply hoping to catch his wife’s eye.
He caught her gaze often and always it was warm.
But how did she truly feel about him? Did she feel imprisoned by their marriage? Would she take it all back?
Nick wished he could say he would. He wished he could say he would have kept his distance as he’d tried to do at the castle, but then he recalled how she’d come to him while in the tower.
A Knight of Vengeance: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book) Page 27
