“She tried to kill herself.” His heart fell at the thought.
“I don’t think so. What hand does she prefer to use?”
“Left to fence. But that could be just a learned advantage.”
“The direction of the cuts only makes sense if her arm were held down and someone else cut it.”
“They tried to kill her and make it appear a suicide.”
“But then they doctored her wounds. It doesn’t make sense. But the cuts have healed. In fact,” she said, “I found nothing that won’t or hasn’t healed . . . in her body at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“Until we determine what exactly she has been given, we can’t determine whether she will heal fully in mind or if there are some effects of body we cannot see. We need her to talk to us, tell us how the drug made her feel. If I know that, I can consult the Materia Medica and try to determine what substances would fit. But there’s some good news: whatever it is, she doesn’t seem to want it yet. If it were opium, she would be wanting more by now.”
“Tell Aidan,” he said. “I’ll try to get her to talk to me.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Walgrave stepped through the doorway.
Colin stiffened.
“But, first, the Home Office would like to make a formal apology to Colin.” He stretched out his hands, palms up, toward Seth, Sophia, and Aidan. “And to all of you. We had no indication that Lady Marietta was in any danger. No sign that she or her child was at risk.” He turned to face Colin directly. “Had we known, we would have sent you with appropriate reserves and support. You would never have been left without protection on a rural road.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Colin said gracelessly, but Walgrave ignored it.
“I am sure you have heard the latest scandal. After you left Marner’s ball, Barnes’s fiancée disappeared entirely. Apparently she has wandered off before, so Marner had footmen at every exterior door . . . to protect her of course.”
“Of course.” Colin spoke through clenched jaws.
“When he discovered she was gone, he called every one of the footman before him and the company for an interrogation, then after raging at every one of them, he fired the lot without references.”
“And . . .”
“One lad—you might have seen him—at the front door, fell at Marner’s feet weeping. Apparently, he is the only breadwinner in his family, five children, parents dead, begged not to be let go or at least to be released with a reference. But Marner was unmoved. He even kicked the lad down the front stairs.”
“Oh, that is terrible.” Judith stood up. “He was at the front door, you say? Aidan, we cannot allow the lad to suffer. We must find him. Certainly, you can find a place for him in your service.”
“Not necessary, your ladyship.” Walgrave stepped to the window and pulled back the curtains to the front yard. A thin boy about twelve stood waiting beside Walgrave’s carriage. “I hired the lad myself. Turns out he is great friends with Marner’s cook.”
“Stop the pretense, Walgrave. You know we helped Lucy escape, or you would not be here. And you would not have hired a cast-off servant just because he cried—though I am grateful for your foresight.” Colin looked out the window. “What does the lad know that we can use?”
Walgrave smiled. “Then I am forgiven?” He held out his arms to embrace Colin.
“It depends on what you know.” Colin knocked his arms aside to avoid the embrace, but held out his hand in conciliation. “If it helps, I will be in your debt.”
“Good enough.” Walgrave took Colin’s hand and pulled him into a brotherly embrace. “I would never have forgiven myself if you had died on that road, and from what I understand our missing heiress saved your skin. I owe her for saving your life as much as I owe your family for nearly costing you yours.” Walgrave turned to speak to the group. “When Lady Fairbourne was not meeting guests in the drawing room as Barnes’s fiancée, she remained locked in her room, and meals would be brought to her on a tray. The boy—Hallett—was often the one tasked with the job, because—despite the appearances at the ball—Marner actually employs few servants in town.”
“The point, Walgrave. Or I might forget we have said pax,” Colin growled.
“When there were not guests or engagements that required her attendance, Lady Fairbourne was often lucid, and Hallett grew to like her. That’s why he did not give the alarm when he realized you were helping her from the ball—and why he did not, even with the threat to his family, give away who had helped her.”
“Oh, god.” Colin sat down with dismay. “How did he know?”
“They had become friends, of a sort. Hallett knew her face . . . better than any of the other footmen who were hired just for specific events.”
“Back to her food, Walgrave,” Aidan interrupted. “Clearly someone tampered with it.”
“Whatever she was fed, we might have it in the carriage.”
“And you could not start with that?”
“Well, it is not as straightforward as you hope. And before we give you the baskets, Hallett has several requests.”
“Name them.” Aidan stepped forward.
“He fears what Marner will do if he learns Hallett helped you, so he wants your assurances that his siblings will be safe.”
“Do you have them in the carriage as well?” Judith stepped to the window and looked out. Hallett, looking stoic and brave, held the hands of two rail-thin girls with mops of curling blond hair. Two other faces—both boys—looked out of the carriage windows, then disappeared when they saw Judith watching them. “How many and how old?”
“Three sisters and three brothers. The twin boys are the youngest at five, the girls are nine, seven, and six. They have lost all the others.”
“I will take them.” Judith smoothed her skirts and turned to face her brothers, daring them to oppose her. “If the boy needs assurances that his family will be cared for, then he will have them from me.” The group parted as she strode to the door.
“Someday, that boy is going to regret this day,” Aidan murmured, and Sophia pushed a hand against his shoulder in jovial correction.
“What else?” Colin demanded.
“Hallett wishes to stay with Lady Fairbourne until she is well. Apparently he made her some promise, but he will not tell me what it is.”
“He may stay,” Aidan promised.
“Then you might wish to call for some servants to unload what we have stolen from Marner’s house—he has left town and closed the house until his return. We did not know what to take, so we took whatever looked interesting.”
* * *
Within ten minutes, Forster’s servants had unloaded seven large baskets of various unguents and salves in small pots, dried herbs and flowers in jars and boxes, and other foodstuffs—as well as tonic waters and other consumables found in Marner’s study and the room in which Lucy had been kept. Under the direction of Aidan’s valet-cum-butler, Barlow, the baskets had been removed to the kitchen.
“What is this?” Colin lifted a small brown crockery pot. He removed the oil cloth tied around the pot’s neck and held it up, so that Aidan could see inside.
“Green marmalade? Butter?” Aidan peered into the jar. “With raisins? Or are those figs? Never seen such a thing.” Aidan stuck his finger in and removing some on the tip of his finger sniffed it, then started to taste the slightest bit.
“Wait!” Sophia crossed the room and wiped the green jam from his fingers. She held the towel to her nose, but pulled it away, shaking her head. “Colin, would you fetch your sister?”
“What is it?” Colin growled. “Has she been poisoned? Will she recover?”
“Colin.” Sophia spoke firmly, tilting her head toward the door. “Get Judith.”
Colin started to argue, then ran through the open door.
“Did you send him away because the news is bad?” Aidan leaned in, speaking low.
“He needs to do something, and I need Judith.” Soph
ia turned back to the concoction. “If this is what I think it is, then it explains Lucy’s symptoms, her waking dreams, her pervasive fear. . . .”
She took a butter knife and removed a portion of the jam, then spread it out onto a plate, revealing both nuts and fruits. “What does the label on the pot say?”
“Label?”
“Yes, no herbalist would leave such a decoction unmarked.”
“Decoction?”
She waved her hand impatiently. “This . . . some plant boiled down for its essential qualities, then the plant parts strained out. But then all these other elements were added. Is there a label?”
“There is a word, written in wax pencil . . . ‘Beautiful Lady’?” Aidan shrugged his shoulders.
“Bella Donna,” Judith translated, entering the room with Colin at her heels. “I assume you need me to smell something dreadful and tell you what it is, though—luckily for me—belladonna is largely scentless.”
Sophia held out the plate with the green decoction on it.
“I wish I had never confessed my talent for this.” Judith leaned forward. “Green—sweet, cloying, but I don’t recognize whatever the plant is at the base—hints of orange water . . . and some spice. Not cinnamon.” She sniffed again. “Cardamom. The wildflowers smell vaguely of poppies, so if this is a drug, then opium. The fruits are figs, and honey is part of the butter mixture holding it together.” Judith pulled back grimacing. “It must taste dreadful, and the other bits are to make it edible.”
“Thank you, Judith. That helps a great deal.” Sophia turned back to the towel, spreading out the decoction to see its larger ingredients.
“What is it, Sophia?” Colin’s words were clipped and hard.
“I have never seen it—what I think it is—but I have read about it. I believe it is a cooked form of hashish called dawamesk, but laced with opium and—from the label—belladonna.”
“Sophia,” Colin growled. “Tell me. Will she recover?”
“She has not craved it. That was my confusion. Some of her behaviors pointed to opium, but not all.” Sophia looked at the ceiling, talking through the various options. “I think Judith is right: this is a mixture of various drugs, along with fruits and spices to make it palatable. But how much of each drug and how much she has consumed over the last month and what other drugs might be present in it . . .”
“Sophia, darling.” Aidan placed his hand on her shoulder. “He knows you will be making a guess, but he needs an answer.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Sophia straightened and looked directly into Colin’s eyes. “All of the drugs we mentioned in small enough doses work their way out of the body over time. She has been without this mess for several days, and we see no ill effects, or at least not in her body. As for her mind . . . I cannot say. I am sorry.”
Colin’s body slumped into the news.
“If she shows no improvement in the next week, I will find a home where she will be cared for,” Aidan offered gently. “And of course her maintenance will come from the ducal accounts. She will not be abandoned.”
“No.” Colin straightened. “I will find another way.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Each morning, he sat beside her bed, asking her to speak again, but each day, she simply clung to his hand.
At a knock at the door, she held his hand more tightly. He might not be real, but if she let go, this particular sweet dream might escape her. The door opened and closed behind him, and she heard a whisper.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Your cousins are very convincing, but I would have come for her in any case.”
“She’s been sleeping heavily for several days, but before that, she’d been drugged. We don’t know for how long, but months likely. She doesn’t trust us—I don’t think she trusts anyone right now.”
“Perhaps she’ll trust me.”
Another face moved into her view. Nell.
Lucy began to cry, tears streaming silently down her face. Now she knew she was mad: everyone who’d cared for her after her great-aunt’s death was in the same room. That could only happen in a dream.
“Let him go, girl.” Nell brushed her hand across Lucy’s forehead, smoothing her hair. “We have a bath ready to be brought in. Let us wash your hair and get you some clean clothes. Then we’ll take a walk around the room.”
“I’ll be right outside the door,” he promised.
She let go of his hand, reluctantly.
* * *
When Colin returned, the shades had been drawn back to let in the sunlight. Nell sat at the side of the bed, talking of the events at the inn since Lucy had been gone.
“I swear my Mark has grown four inches since you were last with us. He’s all arms and legs that one. Not a shirt reaches his wrists or trousers his ankles.” Nell smiled at Colin and reached out her hand. “Your man is back, Lucy.”
Nell stood, smoothing her skirts, then she picked up the tray. “I’ll take this down to the kitchen, and look in on you a bit later.”
As Nell passed, he whispered, “Thank you.”
Lucy was pale, wearing a shift of laced cotton with sleeves that extended only to her elbows. Her fingers kept rubbing the scar at her wrist as if it hurt and she wished to comfort it. When she saw him looking at her bruises, she tucked her arm under the coverlet.
“No, don’t hide it.” He took her hand in his. She watched him with wide eyes. And he kissed each finger then turned her wrist upward and kissed the scars.
“Have the effects of the drug receded?”
She nodded, but tentatively, as if any answer might be wrong. What could have happened to make a woman who’d lived through the camps so cautious?
“Can you tell me where you have been? I looked for you, down every street and road, stopped at every inn and wasn’t satisfied until I’d seen all the scullery maids. For weeks, Seth and I looked, until Seth had to return to Sophia’s estate. But you had vanished, disappeared.” He kissed her hand again and put the back of it to his cheek. “I had only just returned to London when Sophia insisted I go to Marner’s ball. But I almost didn’t go. I would have missed you.”
She lifted her hand and brushed his hair back from his forehead, but did not speak.
“You stayed with me when I was wounded, sat beside my bed, and I’ll be here for you, Lucy . . . until you wish to speak again.”
* * *
Lucy was sitting in the sunshine, her chair close enough to the open balcony that she could feel the warmth, but far enough back that no one could see her from the garden. The dream hadn’t ended yet: she was still with him, with those who loved her, and she was very careful not to do anything that would make her wake up.
She heard sounds behind her, then a biggish black dog, still a puppy, but bigger, ran to her and nuzzled her legs. She reached down to pet its head, but it pulled back, and sat looking at her, its tail wagging back and forth on the floor.
She held her hand out, and the pup came to her and nuzzled her hand. She began to pet it again, and it wriggled its body until her hand was between his shoulder blades. She scratched the spot, and the dog’s tail wagged some more.
Then, without warning, he jumped up, put his paws on her knees, and licked her face.
She felt the wetness, the uncomfortable wetness, a sticky sensation she had only felt one other time before—when Boatswain had licked her face. But Boatswain was a puppy. This animal was almost a dog.
If she were mad, Boatswain would surely be still a puppy, or perhaps she would imagine him like Bess. She couldn’t have imagined this, this nipping, growling, barking, tail-wagging half-grown ball of fur.
The dog must be real. But if Boatswain were real, then Colin would be real.
She stood and tried to catch the dog, but he kept jumping close by then away from her, forcing her to chase him around the room.
She tripped and fell, and her hand burned with pain. And she felt it. Not the cushioned, tempered ache of the drugs but real pain. And
suddenly the dog was crawling on her, and she felt real dog kisses. And she began to laugh. Then cry, then laugh again.
And then Colin was there, and Em, and Nell, until all of Colin’s family had gathered in her room.
And she knew she was not mad.
* * *
In the safety of the ducal mansion, protected by Colin and his brothers, Lucy began the slow path back to herself. Sophia had researched each of the drugs they suspected Lucy had been given, then explained to her the effects of each one, and how long it might take for each drug’s influence to dissipate. Sophia had also insisted that her susceptibility to the drugs had been aided by her lack of healthful food, and that to recover she would have to eat again, but slowly, her stomach having adjusted to the small portions she’d been allowed to eat.
Each day, then, Cook made small portions of her favorite foods, and Colin sat with her while she ate, fulfilling his promise not to leave her side until she was well again. She realized that one of the ways that the matron had asserted her oppressive rule was by limiting her lodgers’ food. Hard work, little food, inadequate sleep, and the threat of punishment—all contributed to keep her lodgers submissive and afraid. Unfortunately, Lucy could not tell Aidan or Walgrave anything about the location of the private asylum. The only accents that could provide any help—the cook’s, Smith’s, and Matron’s—had all come from different parts of England.
She finally felt more observant, more resilient, more capable, more like her old self. But the irony of the situation did not escape her. Hiding from her cousin and his men, she had moved from one confinement to another: she could not venture from the ducal estate, or even walk in the garden without an escort. But she was not confined in any other sense, and she was not denied any need or desire. If she had said she wished to see the lion at the Royal Menagerie, she was certain that the lion tamer would have been paid handsomely to allow a private audience or would have put his lion in a cage and brought it to her. She was free to remain in her room or not, to play with Boatswain, to draw, or embroider, or do none of those things.
Chasing the Heiress Page 29
