by Liz Carlyle
“That’s it,” said Nellie. “The asthma draught.”
Kemble held the brown bottle to the light. “Christ, that looks like the pure stuff,” he muttered. He unscrewed the lid, peered inside, then sniffed it.
“Does it smell wrong?” asked Nellie suspiciously.
“It has no smell at all—as it should.”
“So it’s just what it ought to be then?” Nellie sounded disappointed.
“Well, it is a dangerous chemical,” said Kemble. “Poisonous, even explosive, under the right circumstances.” He did not mention its many uses, though the possibilities were tumbling round in his head. He put the bottle back. “I see no dosing instructions,” he commented. “How much did he take?”
Nellie shrugged. “The duke dosed himself, most of the time,” she said. “You might ask Dr. Osborne.”
Kemble did not like the sound of that. “Did the duchess ever prepare his medication?”
Nellie crossed her arms over her chest. “Once or twice, per’aps—but only at first when he was abed with that cough. It was the Christian thing, don’t you think?”
“And her wifely duty, of course,” Kemble agreed. “Tell me, could any of the servants in the house have entered the duke’s room the night of his death?”
“Aye, with the right excuse, I daresay.”
“And who else had regular access to the house?”
Nellie considered it. “Well, the squire and Lady Ingham are here at least once a week,” she said. “The rector and his wife. The doctor is in and out—his mother used to come, too, but she passed on shortly after my lady and I came here—oh, and that night, the duke had guests. Two gents from Town. One was a barrister—Sir somebody-er-other. The other was his nephew—Lord something—kin through his first wife.”
“I am sure Coggins will know their names,” said Kemble. “Well! That’s that, then. Thank you, Mrs. Waters. Shall we finish our tea?”
Just then, there was a little scream further down the flagstone passage. Nellie scowled and yanked the door wide. “That would be Jane from the scullery,” she said darkly. “Poor child. Somebody ought to geld that devil.”
She moved as if to march down to the scullery, but Kemble laid a restraining hand on her arm. “Oh, no, Mrs. Waters,” he said sweetly. “Do permit me.”
They were eight to dinner that evening. Gareth tried not to stare down the table at Antonia, who had worn a dark purple gown cut just off her shoulders, which showed her elegant, swanlike throat to great advantage. He failed, of course, and barely attended Reverend Hamm’s long-winded discourse on the importance of philanthropy amongst the upper classes.
Mrs. Hamm was a pretty, vibrant brunette who did her best to offset her husband’s plodding demeanor with her ability to draw others into the conversation. Nonetheless, her status as a clergyman’s wife put her off limits for Rothewell’s more aggressive flirtations. The baron therefore fell into a bit of a funk from which no amount of cajoling could stir him.
As the meal was ending, Antonia ordered coffee be prepared for the large withdrawing room while the gentlemen enjoyed their port. As the ladies filed from the room, laughing amongst themselves, Gareth saw Antonia cast one last parting glance in his direction. It was a look which was both sweet and yet remarkably knowing. He felt his knees go a little weak. It was a very bad sign.
I am strong, Gabriel, she had said at Knollwood. Do not underestimate me.
He did not. In truth, he was beginning to fear she might have the strength to fell him. But it would be she who came away unsatisfied in the end, he feared. Whatever the truth about Antonia and Warneham, Gareth was beginning to care deeply for her. He had found himself telling her things he had never before shared with anyone—not since Luke Neville had saved his sorry hide and set him on the path toward making something of himself.
But sharing a few sad details of one’s life was not intimacy, and Gabriel was not foolish enough to think it was. Perhaps that was what he had liked about Xanthia. She’d never asked him anything about his past. Perhaps Luke had quietly told her all she had needed to know. And perhaps it had been that knowledge which had held her back from a real commitment to him. Or perhaps she simply had not cared about old history. Xanthia was that rare sort of woman—one who did not live and die by her emotions. She was cool-headed and—it had often seemed to him—cool-hearted.
Antonia was neither. Gareth could already sense that she was the sort of woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. When Antonia fell in love, it would be deeply, heedlessly so, and she would need to share every aspect of life with her lover. He only prayed she did not fall deeply in love with him. She would need the sort of intimacy which was beyond him, for there were too many things he could not bear to share with anyone. And the last thing Antonia needed was to be trapped in another empty marriage.
The door was closed now, and Gareth had lost his taste for port. Rothewell had lit an odiferous cheroot, and Dr. Osborne was chiding him for it. Rothewell’s eyes had gone dark, a clear sign he was in one of his bleak moods.
After the wine was brought out, they lingered but briefly, then Rothewell stubbed out his cheroot and they headed toward the withdrawing room. Halfway along the corridor, Gareth stopped and touched Rothewell lightly on the shoulder. “Are you all right, old fellow?”
“Well enough, I daresay.” The baron’s voice was flat.
“You are bored here in the country,” said Gareth. “And missing Xanthia. Admit it.”
Rothewell’s eyes darkened. “No, I am concerned about her,” he averred. “What do we know, really, of this Nash fellow, Gareth? Why must he take her all the way to the Adriatic?”
Gareth smiled. “We know Xanthia chose him,” he said. “And that her judgment has always been sound. Perhaps your moods of late have been more about yourself—about the emptiness in your life—rather than the change in hers?”
“You are quite the philosopher these days,” said Rothewell irritably. “I do not need it, damn you. Haven’t you troubles enough without poking into mine?”
Gareth grinned. “You have come to help me,” he returned. “So I feel obliged to return the favor.”
With one last dark look, Rothewell set off toward the drawing room. “There is nothing so thoroughly annoying, Gareth, as a man newly besotted,” he grumbled. “Careful it doesn’t become something worse.”
“I am not besotted,” Gareth said quietly. “I am merely—now, what was that word you just used?—yes, concerned.”
Rothewell gave a loud snort. “And I am queen of the Nile.”
“Look, Kieran,” said Gareth, relenting. “You were right to bring Kemble down here. And I thank you for coming—it has been damned good to see a friendly face, to be honest—but don’t suffer on my account, old fellow. Return to Town whenever it pleases you. You know I will send for you if I need you.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Rothewell equivocally.
Together they entered the drawing room mere moments after the other gentlemen. They found the ladies engaged in an animated conversation with Mr. Kemble, who had single-handedly carried in a silver tray large enough to hold a suckling pig.
Gareth motioned for the other gentlemen to be seated. “Where is Metcaff?” he quietly asked when everyone was arranged.
Kemble waved his hand and set the sugar tongs atop the bowl. “Oh, we had a little mishap in the scullery,” he answered. “I inadvertently broke one of his fingers—well, two or three, perhaps.”
Gareth dropped his voice. “You did what?”
“Oh, never mind!” said Kemble. “I shan’t bore you with the details just now. Will you have coffee, Your Grace?”
“Don’t we have servants to do that?”
Kemble smiled and patted the back of a vacant chair. “And what am I, Your Grace? Eel bait?”
Left with no recourse, Gareth awkwardly introduced him to the guests as his new secretary. Sir Percy and Reverend Hamm seemed a little thrown by being introduced to the person serving their coffee, but Kemb
le glossed it over. “A pleasure to meet you both, I’m sure,” he said, passing the cups around. “Of course, I have already made Dr. Osborne’s acquaintance.”
Osborne took his cup. “Yes, Mr. Kemble suffered some painful jolts on his trip down from London,” the doctor remarked. “I hope the Epsom soak gave some relief?”
“Oh, I feel infinitely better!” Kemble smiled. “Such a small village is fortunate to have so skilled a physician, Dr. Osborne. I wonder you aren’t tempted to remove to Harley Street and become fashionable.”
“Oh, you do not know our Dr. Osborne!” said Sir Percy. “He will never leave our little village.”
“Indeed, he won’t,” agreed Lady Ingham. “And therein lies a delightful tale.”
Rothewell was looking dead bored. “Indeed?” he said dryly. “Let us hear it, by all means.”
“Please, Lady Ingham,” the doctor protested. “I should think there are a thousand stories more interesting than mine.”
But Lady Ingham waved him off. “Mrs. Osborne told me that when her son was a very young man, and quite new to the village, he chanced to meet the duke leading his favorite bay mare,” she said. “The duke doted upon this horse—oh, dear, what was her name, Dr. Osborne?”
“Annabelle, perhaps,” he said reluctantly.
“Yes, it might have been—in any case, she kept coming up lame.” Lady Ingham was nodding vigorously now, causing a purple plume on her turban to bounce vigorously. “He and young Osborne fell into a conversation about why he was leading his mount home, and Osborne suggested a paste made of linseed oil and…bless me, I never can recall?—”
“White willow,” supplied the doctor almost grudgingly. “And some comfrey, perhaps.”
“And it saved the horse!” said Lady Ingham. “She never took lame again, and after considering Osborne’s scientific mind, and the fact that the village had no doctor, the duke offered to educate Osborne for just such a career.”
“What a charming story,” declared Lord Rothewell, whose cynicism was becoming too obvious.
The doctor shrugged. “I had a love of botany and the natural sciences,” he explained. “And I was simply at the right place, and the right time. His Grace was very generous to underwrite my training at Oxford.”
Lady Ingham was fanning herself now, the exertion of the story apparently having been too exciting. “Well, the duke was always a generous man,” she declared. “Why, just think of that fine brick workhouse he had built in West Widding!”
“A workhouse?” said Rothewell. “How perfectly delightful.”
“The poor were delighted, I am sure,” said her ladyship with a sniff.
“He replaced the church roof in just such a way,” declared Reverend Hamm. “A general plea for funds was made one June—it was the Feast of St. Alban, you see—and after the services, he came to me and offered to pay for it in its entirety.”
“I recall it,” said Lady Ingham. “It was your first year at St. Alban’s.”
Gareth noticed that Mrs. Hamm had begun to shift uncomfortably in her chair. Kemble, who was still puttering about the drawing room, was carefully but discreetly observing her every move.
Throughout this happy interchange, Antonia said nothing. But when the line of conversation regarding her dead husband at last fell away, she promptly suggested whist. Two teams were made up, but for the most part, Rothewell spent the rest of his evening staring at Mrs. Hamm and drinking Gareth’s cognac.
Soon enough, however, the ordeal was over and all the guests had been sent out the door or up the stairs. “Well,” said Gareth when Kemble came upstairs to undress him. “I feel cleansed, having worshiped in the Church of St. Warneham tonight. Don’t you?”
“You are going to perish of boredom here, Your Grace, if you don’t soon get your way with Lady Lovely,” Kemble warned, drawing off Gareth’s coat. “If your luck does not improve by Michaelmas, I suggest you make a fast retreat back to Town and leave that brute of an estate manager in charge.”
It was on the tip of Gareth’s tongue to tell the impertinent devil that his luck with Lady Lovely was already running high, but he was far from sure his relationship with Antonia could be described as good fortune. Tonight, watching her as they’d played cards, it had felt a little as if his heart were being gored out with a dull penknife. She had looked so…pretty. Almost effervescent. There had been a decided glow to her cheeks, and until the talk of her late husband had come up, she had been fully engaged with everything around her. For the first time in Gareth’s experience, Antonia had given every indication of being a happy woman.
“Monday night dinner,” he muttered a little wincingly. “Is this what the lord of the manor must do to be seen as interested in the welfare of his neighbors?”
“Oh, is that what this is?”
Gareth shrugged. “How the hell should I know? It was my cousin’s tradition, not mine.”
Kemble took the coat into the dressing room. “I have many clients and friends amongst the aristocracy, Your Grace, and none of them bother to dine with their parish priest once a week,” he said. “Let alone the local squire. Osborne, at least, is witty and interesting, but—”
“But what?” Gareth followed him into the dressing room, untying his cravat as he went. “It is a dashed dull business, these dinners, so if you have a scheme to get me out of it, let’s hear it by all means.”
“No, it is not that,” said Kemble pensively. “I was thinking of Osborne.”
“Yes? What of him?”
“Tonight over coffee, I thought he looked a little too long and lingeringly at Lady Lovely,” he remarked. “And she looked…well, almost radiant. Is the game afoot, do you think?”
Gareth felt his blood surge. “Osborne? With Antonia?”
Kemble shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I just got here.”
But the truth was, Gareth, too, had wondered at it. He remembered the scene in the withdrawing room his first night at Selsdon. The doctor had been holding her hands and—Gareth had thought—gazing into Antonia’s eyes. But since then, there had been nothing. “I think you are mistaken,” he said. “He is her doctor, and she is—”
“—mad, or so they say downstairs,” said Kemble, relieving Gareth of his waistcoat.
Gareth glared at him. “I won’t have that said in my hearing,” he gritted. “And I shall sack the next person who does so—and that includes you, Kemble.”
Kemble looked at him for a long moment, then burst into staccato laughter. “What, and force me back to the dreary drudgery of Town?”
Gareth had forgotten Kemble was likely here under duress. “Well, she isn’t mad,” he snapped. “What? Did Osborne tell you that today? What else did you pry out of the poor devil?”
“Now that you mention it, it was an interesting visit,” Kemble said pensively. “I cannot tell if he believes the duchess innocent or if he is protecting her by taking some of the blame upon himself.”
“Both, perhaps,” Gareth grumbled.
He felt suddenly and inordinately weary. With every passing day, he cared less and less about who had killed Warneham and more about Antonia. Osborne had said she was sometimes out of touch with her surroundings—her “disturbed states” he had termed them.
In the last few days, however, Antonia had seemed somewhat more focused. When Gareth had chanced to run into her inside the house, she’d been more apt to be actively doing something—writing letters or arranging flowers—rather than simply daydreaming. But on one occasion, when he had been unable to sleep, he had gone down to the library to find Antonia sitting there in her nightclothes and looking rather dazed, with her maid bent solicitously over her. Mrs. Waters had seen him, and lifted a finger to her lips. Gareth had gone back upstairs. Antonia had been sleepwalking again.
“Osborne says the duchess is improving, he believes,” Kemble said, cutting into Gareth’s musing. “She requires less medication than she once did. Which reminds me—when I went round to see him this morning, I was seated in a pre
tty little parlor.”
“Yes, a blue one, at the front of the house?” Gareth handed him the wrinkled cravat.
Kemble appeared not to notice the outstretched hand. “I saw a portrait there,” he went on. “A quite striking young woman with very dark hair and eyes. She looked familiar.”
“I recall it vaguely. Who is she?”
“Osborne’s mother, he said,” Kemble replied. “Mrs. Waters mentioned her, too—but that was later. This morning I thought the portrait looked familiar, but I could not have put a name to it at the time.”
“I should have supposed it was Mrs. Osborne,” said Gareth.
Kemble did not note the sarcasm. “When I knew her she was Mrs. de la Croix,” he said. “Celeste de la Croix. Yes, I really do think I am right.”
“Who was Celeste de la Croix?” asked Gareth.
“Lord, you have been stuck in the West Indies!” said Kemble. “But then, you are very young, too. Celeste de la Croix was a high-flyer—and the toast of London, very briefly.”
“A courtesan?”
“Indeed, and quite sought after,” said Kemble. “She must have retired here to live out her last days in rural domesticity.”
“How would you know?” asked Gareth suspiciously. “You would have been but a child yourself.”
Kemble’s introspection faded, and his brisk efficiency returned. “My mother was a courtesan,” he said, snatching the neckcloth from Gareth’s hand. “Perhaps the most famous of her time.”
“Your mother knew this Celeste?”
“Mother had a retinue of scandalous friends,” Kemble said, going back into the dressing room. “And yes, for a time, la belle Celeste was amongst them. But she was very beautiful, and Mother never suffered that sort of comparison for long.”
“So Osborne is not the doctor’s real name?” said Gareth, propping his shoulder on the dressing room door.
“Oh, it probably is,” said Kemble. “Celeste was about as French as you are.”
