“Not a pinch,” the second maid agreed.
“All right, I believe you. But now, drink this down like good girls. I’ll look in on you later.”
After what he overheard, Griff turned around and went down to Dulcie’s room. He’d been gone too long, he thought, and was anxious to get back to her. He was still puzzled and had no idea how Dulcie could possibly been given the poison.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The same footmen the countess sicced on Griff earlier arrived with trays for Griff and Dulcie’s mid-day meal. When Griff answered the door and saw them with the food, he queried, “Why wasn’t I notified the meal was ready?”
Each footman glanced at the other. “We’re only doin’ what we was told.”
“And who gave you those orders? Was it the countess?” Griff asked curtly, more than a little bit suspicious.
“’Twere the housekeeper told us to bring them up here after cook fixed them,” the second man stated. “Are we supposed to take them back to the kitchen?”
One footman held a full tray of food with the exception of a beverage. The other footman held a tray containing a small bowl of egg pudding, a teapot, two cups and a sugar bowl.
“No, bring them in and leave them. Advise Cook and Mrs. Travis that I would like to speak with them later.”
Griff waved the servants out of Dulcie’s room.
To Griff’s sharp eyes, Dulcie hadn’t changed much since he saw her earlier, but, he surmised it probably was too early to notice a difference. Her complexion still looked pasty white, no vestige of healthy color in her cheeks or lips. As he watched, her lashes finally fluttered, and she opened her eyes and turned her head slowly to focus her gaze on him.
“Gri-ff?”
“I’m here, Dulcie. How are you?”
That is a stupid question, he thought. He could see she was still very sick.
Nevertheless, she answered, “B-better, I think.”
He knew she was simply placating him.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “May I tell you a short story, Dulcie?” he asked without waiting for a reply. He took one of her hands, cradled it between his the way he did before.
“When I was about seven or eight years old, I caught some sort of raging fever. I couldn’t tell you what, but I wouldn’t eat, and my Mama was very worried about me. Every time she brought food to me, I would push it away. And that went on for several days, you see.”
Dulcie watched his face.
“Finally, Mama came into my room with a tiny bowl. I was so hungry, but I still didn’t want to eat, because every time I did…well, I couldn’t keep food down. I had no idea what was in that bowl. Mama dipped out a spoonful and put it to my lips. At first, I clamped them shut. “Please,” she asked, “try one little taste.” So I did. It tasted so good, in no time I finished the entire bowl.”
Dulcie smiled weakly. “You said that to me earlier.”
“Um hum. Now, I’m going to sit you up, and I want you to try to eat some of the pudding. Cook made it especially for you.” He grinned. “Try one little taste, Dulcie.”
Griff fed it to her, spoonful by spoonful. She didn’t eat it all, but she managed to eat half of it. She lay back then and closed her eyes. “I’d like something to drink,” she said.
“Two spoonfuls?” he asked, holding up the spoon from the sugar bowl.
She barely nodded. “Yes.”
He poured the tea and dumped two heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar into the steaming cup, stirring so the grains dissolved completely. Dulcie’s fingers still trembled, but she was able to hold the cup to her lips. She drank the tea and asked for another cup. After that, she lay back on the pillows and watched Griff devour his meal.
Oh! He is truly alive, and sitting beside my bed.
Dulcie didn’t drag her gaze from him once. When he poured himself a cup of tea, she noticed that he used no sweetener. “No sugar for you?” she asked. “Then you must be sweet enough.” She had just enough strength to giggle.
Her girlish laughter reaching his ears, it did Griff a world of good.
“Where is Simon?” he asked, conversationally. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“I-I don’t know,” she blinked. “I’m afraid…oh, I can’t remember. Please, Griff, find him for me?”
“Yes, of course, I will, Dulcie.”
While he swallowed his tea, she asked him to tell her what went on while he was with Wellington. He related a few less bloody skirmishes in which he took part. Soon he saw Dulcie’s lids drooping. He tucked the coverlet under her chin and quietly eased out of the room, taking the trays with him.
I may as well take them to the kitchen, he thought, like a housemaid. I’m not a guest here, after all. I’m surprised I didn’t need to battle with the countess again.
“She ate my pudding?” The cook asked.
“She did,” Griff replied. “And drank two saucers of tea. I’m pleased with her progress.”
“Aye, that’s good,” said the housekeeper. “Now, if we can only keep it up. I pray she will be on her feet and right as rain like my housemaids. Lady Dulcina always was a feisty young lady.”
Griff silently agreed.
“Mrs. Travis, I have a question.” He was there to ask the two women concerning the use of rat poison in the storeroom. “I spoke with Denny Wall this morning. He tells me you asked his father for some rat poison about a month ago. Do you remember that?”
“Of course. The little buggers got into my storeroom and caused havoc with the foodstuffs. Later, we found five or six of them dead, on the floor, we did.” She chuckled and glanced over at the cook. “That white powder did the trick right well. The beasties didn’t come back, neither. Not since Cook used most of what the gardener gave us.”
“How did you do that, Cook?” Griff inquired, turning his head in her direction.
“Well, I sprinkled it on the stone floor, I did, and threw down some dried corn. Didn’t want to put it anywheres else, you see. Might make a person sick.”
“Do you know what is in that powder, Cook?”
“Why, I don’t rightly know.” She turned to the housekeeper, her expression puzzled.
“I’m not sure either,” Mrs Travis replied. “But I believe there is arsenic in it. We’ve always been careful about that kind of thing, Mr. Spencer. If it got into the stores, why that would be terrible. I’m sure Cook sprinkled it only on the storeroom floor.”
Vehemently, the Cook nodded.
“I see,” he replied. Suspicion took hold of him almost immediately. “Thank you, ladies.”
Griff rolled what he had learned around in his mind as he strolled back toward Dulcie’s room. He hesitated at the foot of the staircase then changed direction toward the earl’s study. He closed the door behind him.
He still hadn’t seen any sign of the countess and wondered if she were hiding from him. He also reminded himself he had not seen Simon.
Inside, he pulled a sheaf of plain paper out of the earl’s desk, and sharpened a quill. He wrote a short note to Dr. Johnson and one to Rand Titus. He asked the butler to post them for him.
“Mr. Spencer, I am about to send a groom to deliver an urgent message for the countess, but I will give yours to the lad as well since he is riding to London.”
An urgent message from the countess? Griff wondered what she was up to now.
“That will be fine,” Griff nodded and asked Sommers the whereabouts of the dog. Sommers advised him the countess wouldn’t allow the dog inside the manor any longer. He now slept in the stables with the grooms.
When Griff returned to Dulcie’s room, he noticed she had used the chamber pot. She vomited up the pudding and what else had made it to her stomach.
Now, he was more worried.
* * * *
“Spencer has made a nuisance of himself,” the countess said to Trent, “just like his father did. Blackmail me, will he? Well, we’ll see about that.”
Trent, who was brushing her lady’s long, go
lden tresses, halted and laid a warning hand against the countess’s shoulder. “We may have lost the battle, love…and the war,” she said, squeezing her lover’s soft skin. “The earl’s daughter will be twenty-one in three days. I don’t believe she will be well enough to wed Spencer.”
“Did you put that final bit of rat poison into her sugar bowl?”
“Of course. Don’t I always do what you ask?” She bent low and brushed lips against the countess’s cheek.
“There’s no time for that now, Trent,” Agina snapped, brushing away the maid’s tender caress. “I found a way we can still get it done. I’ve written my solicitor to follow my instructions. I shall make certain the pair will marry.”
* * * *
The young groom from Bonne Vista was handed three written messages by Sommers and told to reach London as soon as possible. The first letter from the Countess was to be delivered to the Trayhern solicitor’s law offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Another was for Dr. Henry Johnson at the Veteran’s Hospital on King Street, and the last one went to Viscount Randolph Titus in Mayfair.
Griff went to the stables to bring Simon back to the manor. After the introductions were made between Griff and a grizzled groom, the man brought Simon out. The dog gazed around the stable yard, his nose in the air, sniffing as if he expected to find his mistress. When Simon didn’t see Dulcie, he sounded despondent, whining softly.
“The animal’s been pinin’ fer his mistress, Mr. Spencer,” the man stated. “Hasn’t touched his food in a coupla’ days. I’m glad he’s to be let inside the manor again.”
“I’m taking him back to Lady Dulcina’s room. She needs to know that he is close by.”
“Aye. Milady raised him from a pup. The two are inseparable.” The groom hesitated, then asked, “And how is milady, Mr. Spencer?”
“Not as well as she might be, I’m afraid,” Griff replied. “I’m hoping the sight of the dog will do her some good.”
The older man chomped down hard on the stump of a pipestem. “I see he’s taken to you, sir.”
“I had a dog much like him as a boy. I’m fond of Simon as well.”
Griff sat in Dulcie’s room for most of the afternoon with Simon lying at his side. It seemed to him that Dulcie slept the sleep of the dead, unmoving, except when she tossed and turned from side to side now and again, tiny mewling sounds escaping from her. He couldn’t tell if she were in pain or simply dreaming.
The enormous ache in his chest grew bigger by leaps and bounds. His gaze kept turning to her, lying so weak and vulnerable in the big bed. He remembered how hot the passion flared between them the night he had debauched her on the countess’s orders—with the aid of a love potion. Their second time making love was even better. He’d awakened with sweat pouring out of him more than once while in Spain—with a need for her so vital burning inside him that he couldn’t go back to sleep. His cock had risen in answer to his vivid imaginings and grew painfully hard. He had to help himself to get over it. He kept thinking about Dulcie’s slick warmth engulfing him when he pushed into her, the hot, tight channel of her pusy as he stroked its walls, her excited moans racketing around his room at Eberley House when she finally came.
And then, there was her mischievous grin, the softness of her skin, the beauty of her eyes, and the warmth of her greetings with which to contend. She might not consider herself beautiful, but in his eyes, she was. And now, she might very well die—today, tonight, or…
He heard a sob and realized it came from deep and low in his soul. Griff sat in a wingback chair facing Dulcie and covered his face with his hands, rocking his shoulders back and forth, embarrassed in spite of himself that he was bawling like a child. Tears wet his palms. Never before had he felt this way—even when his mother died. There had been very little love or tenderness in his paltry libertine existence after she passed away. Now he desperately needed Lady Dulcie. He adored her. She would make up for his debauched years—be the best half of his life—if only she lived long enough to love him.
Oh God! Please help me to find what is doing this to her!
Hearing Griff, Simon rose to his feet and rested his muzzle, wet with his cold nose on Griff’s thigh. Griff wiped his palm, salty with tears, and stroked the dog’s shiny head as the two commiserated together.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Griff received an answering message from Dr. Johnson when the groom returned from London. The note was not encouraging. The erudite physician was of the opinion that edibles in the storeroom might very well been contaminated by rat poison, but who would want to test it to find out? The symptoms were not conclusive, but people behave differently when ingesting something new or strange, even poison. If the powder flew around in the air while Cook sprinkled it on the floor, it could have gotten into anything in the storeroom that wasn’t closed up tight or covered. Johnson suggested that Griff interrogate the kitchen staff.
He was bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. He lingered beside the bed for a long time watching Dulcie breathe before he left her. He hadn’t shaved for two days, nor had he brought a change of clothes. He knew he looked disheveled and felt worse, but he went to the kitchen very early the next morning while Dulcie still slept.
Heads snapped up when Griff entered the kitchen. Some of the servants started to rise, but he waved them back to the benches they occupied. The Bonne Vista staff gathered about the large table in the kitchen eating scones, slices of ham, cut rounds of hard cheese, hot porridge, and fresh bread. The female housemaids sipped cups of tea, and the men slurped coffee. To Griff it seemed the servants ate very well. Knowing the countess’s penurious nature and of a mind to tighten her purse strings, Griff was surprised the witch allowed servants to finish leftovers. Of course, no one had eaten supper in the dining room last eve.
“Am I correct? Are you are eating stores from the pantry?” Griff asked.
Eyes turned toward the butler, the servants’ countenances looking uncomfortable where they sat around the table.
“Of course, we are,” Sommers replied in his sonorous voice. “Lady Dulcina has always treated her staff with the utmost kindness.”
“I’m sure you speak the truth, Sommers,” Griff said. “I’m simply asking if any of you, except Dolly, and…the other housemaid, were too sick to work a few days ago.”
He got no reply. His gaze jumped from one face to the next. “No one experienced painful twinges of the stomach? Loose bowels? Or felt ill enough to cast up their accounts?”
His eyes halted upon Mrs. Travis.
“Only the housemaids, then? Well, that eliminates everyone except those two.”
There was deadly silence until Mrs. Travis spoke up. “I’ve already asked Dolly and Liz, Mr. Spencer. My girls do not need to steal food, since they are well fed.”
“Yes, well, I can only suppose they ingested something harmful that made them sick. No one else ate or swallowed anything that upset their stomachs—only, it seems, the housemaids—and Lady Dulcina.” He turned to the two recuperated housemaids, his eyes piercing them. “Can you think back that far, ladies?”
The maids glanced at one another, embarrassed, and slightly wary.
“Well,” Dolly finally said, “We finished up a spot of milady’s tea once or twice.” Griff saw the girl’s knuckles whiten in her lap. “Ye see,” she explained, haltingly, “the countess said th-that we was to make sure Lady Dulcina drank all her tea—every day.”
The second maid piped up to aid her friend. “But we was so scared, sir, when Miss Dulcina wouldn’t take a drop, that we each swallowed a few cups and took the pot down to the kitchen almost empty.”
“Is the tea special?”
“Oh, yes,” Cook responded quickly. “’Twas to be brewed only for the countess and her lady’s maid.” Then added, “And of course, Lady Dulcina. Our young lady certainly has a sweet tooth. We kept the sugar bowl full for her.”
Something tickled Griff’s subconscious. “Who here uses sweetener in their tea?”
“Well, of course, we all do,” the housekeeper said, “but sugar is quite expensive with the war with the Colonies and on the Continent, and all. I asked the staff to use honey instead, save the sugar for our betters.”
Again, Griff’s sharp gaze turned to the housemaids. “Dolly and Liz, did you use sugar from Lady Dulcina’s bowl when you drank the tea so you wouldn’t be scolded by the countess?”
The maids both looked down at their laps for a moment without answering him. Dolly looked up first. “Yessir. We both did, but…”
Griff raised an open palm. He his heartbeat accelerated.
It has to be the sugar! The damn stuff is white powder and the sugar is laced with arsenic! And I sprinkled it on her porridge and in her tea and made her drink it! Two heaping teaspoonfuls in every cup! Oh God!
He swallowed hard, his breath coming too fast. “Mrs. Travis, I suggest you get rid of any sugar you have left in your storeroom, no matter the expense. Dispose of it where it won’t hurt anyone or cause them to become ill. Perhaps, you should scrub down the storeroom completely also. I’ve a mind that the sugar is the culprit poisoning Lady Dulcina.”
“Poisoning milady! Oh Lawdy, help us!”
By the horrified looks on faces seated around the large worktable, Griff was substantially certain no member of the household staff tampered with the food stores. “Is anyone else allowed in the storeroom, Mrs. Travis?”
“Why, no.” Then she countermanded herself. “No one but Miss Trent, the countess’s lady’s maid. She filled both the sugar bowls on occasion, theirs and Lady Dulcina’s, but…”
“I expect you couldn’t stop her from doing that,” he said. “The countess gives orders and you must obey them.”
Next, Griff turned to Sommers. “I want a small sample of the sugar from Lady Dulcina’s sugar bowl saved for me in a leather pouch. The rest, get rid of it, where it can do no damage.”
“As you wish.”
“Now, if you please, bring Lady Dulcina a tray with a bowl of porridge, a few scones, fresh butter and a pot of your regular tea sent up to her room. No sugar for any of us, of any kind. Do you hear me?” His expression was stern with command. “Bring along a jar of honey instead.”
Carnal Pleasures Page 27
