I paused, feeling flat and empty, as though the breath had been knocked quite solidly out of my lungs. “How stupid I was. Of course you would have made yourself acquainted with the collection. You had months, didn’t you? Long, cold winter months with nothing to do. You would have searched the books and found the catalogue easily. I daresay it was even in his desk, waiting for you. And then I came, blundering in as usual and you could not resist having fun at my expense, could you? Stupid Julia, let her play at being useful. How you must have laughed, knowing what I was doing each day, and what pains I took to make certain you did not find out.”
“If you did not want me to find out, you ought not to have worn your perfume. I did remind you the first night that you smelled of violets. Next time, leave it off,” he pointed out. That he chose to comment on that one matter, and said nothing of the rest, spoke volumes to me. I smoothed my skirts, and composed my expression.
“There will be no next time,” I told him, my voice calm and even. “I have had my fill of your mysteries and your secrets and your tricks. I will return to London tomorrow, and I will only say that I am sorry I have troubled you. I hope the amusement I provided has more than made up for the inconvenience.”
His expression did not change, except for the faintest flicker—of what?—behind his eyes. He merely inclined his head and folded his arms over the breadth of his chest, his knuckles white. I turned and took my leave of him, and it is to my credit that I did not shed a single tear, nor did I hasten my steps from the room. I walked slowly and with dignity, each footfall a death knell as I left him.
THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
Death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
—William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
I went directly to the maids’ room, opening the door without knocking. Minna was alone, knitting and talking to Grim and Florence. She looked up in alarm.
“Is there something amiss, my lady?” she asked, clearly alarmed.
“We are leaving. Pack your things and the animals and be prepared to leave first thing in the morning.”
Unlike Morag, who would have peppered me with questions, Minna merely laid aside her knitting and rose.
“Yes, my lady. I will begin at once.” She had gone quite pale, and I felt a surge of pity for her. It could not be an easy thing to live one’s life always at the mercy of another’s whims.
“I will pack for myself, Minna. See to yourself and the animals.”
She dipped a quick curtsey and said nothing.
I left her then and went to my chilly room, pausing to poke at the fire. I shoved viciously, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney until it was blazing. I opened my trunk and began to pitch things in, not troubling to fold anything. I was too angry to do the job properly. I knew that once I gave myself time to think about what had happened, I would be shattered, and it needed all my energy to get myself, a maid, an expectant dog, and a raven back to London.
I had just hurled a pair of boots into the trunk with a satisfying clatter when my door was thrown back on its hinges. Minna stood there, panting as if she had just taken the stairs two at a time. Her round little face was dead white, and she was wearing her cloak.
“Minna, whatever is the trouble?”
She put a hand to her side, pressing a stitch, I guessed. “My lady, oh, you must come! I think he’s dying!”
I blinked at her. “Who is dying? What on earth are you talking about?”
She tugged at my arm, dragging me toward the door. “I went downstairs to—oh, never mind! I heard him, at least, I heard a noise, as if something heavy had fallen. I went to his room to see if I could help, and I found him there. Please, my lady, you must come. He will die else!”
I realised then that she was talking about Brisbane. I jerked my arm out of her grasp and flew down the stairs, Minna hard on my heels. I found him in his bedchamber, collapsed on the floor between his bed and the hearth. He must have reached for something as he had fallen, for a stack of books was scattered over the floor, and the little bottle of red syrup was shattered over the hearthstones. He was lying on his side and he had been sick, comprehensively so. He was unaware of Minna, or of me, bending over him, calling his name. I pushed back his eyelids, but his eyes had rolled white, and as I watched, his muscles began to seize.
And as I looked down at him, suffering and broken, I knew that for the second time in my life, I was watching the death throes of a man who had been poisoned.
“My lady,” Minna sobbed, “what shall I do?”
The world stopped then, for I knew whatever choice I made would determine whether Brisbane lived or died. He had been poisoned—deliberately, I was certain. But by whom? He needed help, and if I applied to the wrong quarter, he would certainly die. I had to know whom to trust with a life more precious to me than my own.
A thousand questions spun through my mind in the space of half a minute, a thousand pieces I had to fit together instantly. I thought of the bottled mushrooms, lovingly prepared by Lady Allenby. I saw the beautiful red syrup distilled by Rosalie in her little stillroom in the moor cottage. And I thought of Godwin, with his tins of arsenic for dipping sheep. Any one of them might have poisoned him, and any one of them might be waiting to make certain they finished the job. There was no hope, I thought desperately. Brisbane was going to die because I did not know whom to trust. The only possible action at that point was prayer, I decided hopelessly.
But before I could beg the Almighty’s intercession, I knew.
I rose and took Minna hard by the arms. “I dare not leave him, but you must go for help. Do you know the cottage at the crossroads on the moor? The one where the Gypsy lady lives?”
Minna nodded, her mouth trembling. She was trying desperately not to look at the ruined man on the floor. “I do.”
“Go and fetch her. Tell her that Brisbane had been poisoned, and to bring whatever remedies she has. Tell her it was either mushrooms or arsenic, I don’t know which—”
I broke off, thinking rapidly. I did know which. In our first investigation, Brisbane’s friend, Dr. Bent, had explained to me that a victim of arsenical poisoning would expel fluids that smelled heavily of garlic. No such smell hung in the air of Brisbane’s room.
“It was mushrooms, tell her it was toadstools and tell her if she wants to see him alive again, she must hurry. And if you make it there and back with her in quarter of an hour, I will give you a hundred pounds. Go!” I gave Minna a shove and she ran as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels.
She did not return in a quarter of an hour. It was nearer a half, and those thirty minutes were the darkest of my life. I held his head over the washbasin, but there was nothing to be done for him, nothing except hold his still hand in mine and watch him slip away. I did not speak. He would not have known me in any event. I simply sat, feeling his hand grow cold and then hot in mine, the fingers limp one moment, then so tightly grasped I thought he would break my bones. I welcomed the pain. It was the only thing tethering me to that moment. Were it not for the grinding of those little bones together, I think I might have gone quite mad, waiting for Minna to return with Rosalie, listening to the terrible sounds of the poison ravaging Brisbane’s body.
At last Rosalie appeared, swirling skirts and long plaits swinging as she slipped off a man’s greatcoat and pushed up her sleeves. She said nothing to me, merely bent over him and assessed him, as carefully and critically as any Harley Street physician.
“Mushrooms, eh?” she said at last. I nodded. “A nasty business. I will do all I can, and still he may not live. Will you help me, lady?”
I turned on her, angry as a cat. “Of course I will help you. Do you think I mean to sit idly by while he dies?”
She made no reply, merely turned to Minna and delivered a litany of orders. The fire must be stoked up, kettles of hot water must be brought, sheets and towels, and various other implements of nursing. Minna bobbed a curtsey and fled, gratef
ul, I think, to have something useful to do.
Together Rosalie and I manoeuvred him onto the bed, stripping his soiled shirt off of him and saying nothing.
When Minna returned, she folded back her cuffs and poked up the fire, heaping fuel upon it until the flames blazed up the chimney. She went to fetch the first of the hot water kettles and Rosalie turned to me. “You trust me, lady?”
Her eyes were on mine, black and fathomless, and I felt a little faint at the power in them. I nodded. “Yes.”
She gave one short, sharp nod. “As I said, I will do what I can to save him, but I make you no promises. We may fight like tigresses and still lose him, do you understand?”
“You will not lose him,” I told her fiercely. “I will not lose him.”
Rosalie gave another nod, then gestured for her basket. “If it was mushrooms, he must be made to vomit, as much as possible for a short period of time. It will not help the poison that has already settled in his system, and it will make him very weak, but it will prevent the rest from harming him.”
She took a packet of ground herbs from her basket, a little paper twist that smelled like something rotten and decayed. She mixed it with water and told me to hold his head. “This will not be easy,” she warned me. She was entirely correct.
The next hours I cannot clearly remember. There are sounds and impressions, and fleeting, sharp memories. Brisbane was sick, over and again, because we made him so, and I found myself murmuring apologies under my breath as he heaved and groaned. In between, we rubbed his chest and arms with towels soaked in vinegar. Minna worked the fire until sweat ran freely from her brow. All of that terrible night she tended the fire, saying almost nothing, but every time I looked at her, her lips were moving in inaudible prayer. She left only to brew pots of strong tea. Mine grew stone cold, as did Rosalie’s. I could think of nothing but Brisbane, and even now, when I think of that terrible night, I remember Rosalie’s eyes, black and determined as she laboured to save his life.
When he had been fully purged, she administered a solution of milk thistle and watched him carefully. At last, he settled into an uneasy unconsciousness, and Rosalie turned to me.
“That is all I can do for him. Milk thistle now, and weak tea later if he will take it, and as much as he will take.”
Minna stretched, pushing her fists into her back and then went to the window, rattling back the draperies.
“Oh, look!” she cried. I turned to see the moor, purple-black and stretching to the ends of the earth, and just beyond, the first tinge of pink as the sun began to edge into the grey sky.
“It is morning,” I said, sagging in relief. “He has survived the night. Surely he will live.” I looked to Rosalie in appeal, but she shook her head. Her face was deeply lined and her eyes darkly shadowed, betraying all of her years. I knew I must look as worn. We had all of us lived a lifetime in that night. I opened my mouth to argue with Rosalie, but she held up a hand.
“This is the time of danger, lady, not the first hours. The poison may have settled too deeply, and we will not know until two, three days have passed. He is unconscious now, and he will either recover, or he will die. There is no way of knowing which, and there is nothing more to be done except to answer his thirst. We have done all that we could. It is in God’s hands now.”
I wanted to scream or rage or put my fist into her complacent face. But she was entirely correct. We had purged and dosed him, and there was nothing more to be done but wait.
I was surprised the rest of the household had not been raised during the night, but they had apparently slept on, peacefully unaware of our ordeal. At least, all but one of them had. Somewhere, a villainess must have lain awake, counting herself clever. I barred the door and gave Minna strict instructions that none of the household, particularly Lady Allenby, was to be admitted. Minna took it upon herself to prepare food for Rosalie and myself, although none of us ate much. That day stretched into another torturous night, and into the second day, the hours dragging past one and the same. I sat next to the bed, holding his hand, willing him to feel me there, to come back to me.
And as horrible as the entire ordeal had been, nothing was as black as the second night, when the witching hour came and went and I felt his skin growing cooler under my touch. Minna had dragged a thin mattress downstairs and was sleeping by the fire, curled like a child. Rosalie, exhausted by her efforts, was slumped in the chair, her head on the writing desk, pillowed in her arms.
Sometime in the smallest hours of the morning, I looked at Brisbane, and I saw something had changed. His features seemed different somehow, the features I had memorised, etched in my mind forever. I realised it would be easiest then to kiss him once and let him go. He was slipping away, it seemed, even as I watched. Or perhaps it was a fancy of mine, brought on by worry or exhaustion. I cannot say, even now. All I know is that I leaned close to him, whispering into his ear the things I ought to have said to him when he could hear me. I talked until my voice was hoarse, and even then I could not stop. I told him I could not imagine a world where he did not exist, and I told him how thoroughly I loved him, and even as I said the words, I realised it could be the only chance I would ever have to tell him so. The only chance, and it might well have come too late. I touched the lines of his face, his hands, every scar, every place where the world had been unkind to him and promised never to leave him if only he would come back to me.
I talked until I could talk no more. My head dropped against his shoulder and I slept, falling at last into an exhausted, fitful slumber, my head next to his, my hand tucked between his arm and his bare chest. I do not know how long I drowsed, only that it was dawn when Minna’s shriek woke me. I started, blinking and rubbing at my eyes. She was pointing to Brisbane, incapable of speech.
I lifted my head and looked at him. His eyes were open and clear and he was staring at me.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words did not come. Instead I crumpled slowly onto the spinning bed and slid gratefully into blackness as I fell to the floor.
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
Blood will have blood.
—William Shakespeare
Macbeth
I woke much later in my own bed, blinking against the flicker of the candle at the bedside. From his cage in the corner, Grim quorked worriedly, flapping a dark wing in my direction. I stirred, feeling a warm hand over mine, a hand I knew as well as my own.
“Portia?” My voice was a mere croak, but it was enough to rouse her. She lay next to me, fully dressed and on top of the coverlet, ready to rise at a moment’s notice. She smiled sleepily, but the smile did not erase the new marks of fatigue upon her lovely features.
“It is quite time you woke, slugabed,” she chided. She put a hand to my brow, her expression anxious. After a moment she relaxed. “No fever then. You gave us a bit of a scare, you know.” Her tone was light, but there was a thread of unmistakable emotion. She had been afraid, afraid enough to return from London.
I moved to rise, but she pushed me firmly back against the pillow. “He is resting now. You have not lost him,” she told me, her voice thick with emotion.
I felt something tight and painful in my chest ease. “What of Jane?” I asked.
A shadow passed over her face, and she said shortly, “She is gone. I do not wish to speak of it.”
I nodded, my head feeling thick and woolly. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days, more or less,” she told me.
“Two days!” I made to rise again, but Portia’s arm and a wave of giddiness thwarted me.
“You fainted when Brisbane came around, and Rosalie thought it best to force you to rest. She dosed you with one of her potions and Brisbane sent Godwin into Howlett Magna to telegraph me. Valerius and I came at once, Morag as well, of course.”
I sank back against the pillows. I felt boneless, weightless, and I wondered if my head would ever be entirely clear again.
“Brisbane?” I murmured.
&n
bsp; “Mending quite nicely, according to Rosalie. Valerius has taken over the care of him, and said Rosalie could not have done better were she a proper doctor. She and Morag have been veritable dragons at keeping away visitors until he is fully recovered, and this morning he threw his soup plate at the wall.”
“A very promising sign,” I commented sleepily.
“It is indeed. Rosalie is plying him with all manner of tonics, and he is eating, although he says he is heartily sick of soups and blancmanges. Apparently that is what precipitated his temper this morning.”
I struggled against the weight of sleep, forcing my eyes open. “Food. Who is preparing his food?” I clutched at Portia’s arm, but she soothed me.
“Minna is preparing it herself, and Morag is tasting everything before she will permit Brisbane to so much as lift his spoon. Valerius thought it a sensible precaution under the circumstances.”
I would have laughed at the notion of Morag serving as taster to Brisbane were the situation not so horrifying.
Grim quorked again and I waved a hand at him. “Good morning, Grim.”
“Good morning,” he returned politely. “Sweetie.”
I motioned to the box beneath his cage. “Toss a few of those violet creams in the cage for him, will you, dearest?”
Portia obeyed, but with an expression of distaste. Grim’s manners were impeccable, save when it came to enjoying his food. He tore at the little sweetmeats savagely, and Portia pulled a face.
“I always think he’d prefer a nice, juicy mouse,” she commented.
“By all means, go catch him one. What of Lady Allenby?” I asked finally.
“Withdrawn to her room. She confessed the deed at once, and took to her chamber. She will see no one, and when Brisbane is recovered, he will take the matter in hand. Hilda is hiding out with her chickens and will not speak to any of us, she is so horrified. Ailith has apologised perhaps a hundred times, and Godwin says he can manage the estate perfectly until Brisbane is fully himself again. They have all been quite human about the whole thing, really. I do rather feel sorry for Hilda. She is quite changed. All her old arrogance is gone. Even Valerius cannot make her talk. He plans to build her a nice new henhouse to make her feel better when Brisbane is recovered.”
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