The Perfect Poison

by Amanda Quick

  THE SOUND OF LOW VOICES—A MAN’S MURMUR AND A woman’s soft, sultry laugh—brought Caleb out of the harmoniously ordered realm where he had been drifting. He listened intently for a few seconds, fixing the location of the couple. The pair was some distance off but headed toward the drying shed.

  He sat up, carefully untangling himself from Lucinda. The bed of dried herbs and flowers crunched and crackled beneath his coat. The fragrance mingled with the lingering scents of the lovemaking.

  Lucinda stirred and opened her eyes. In the moonlight he could see her bemused, unfocused expression. She smiled, looking remarkably pleased with herself, and raised her fingertips to his mouth.

  He caught her hand, kissed it quickly and then yanked his handkerchief out of his pocket. He cleaned her gently and hauled her to her feet and handed her the eyeglasses.

  “We must get you dressed,” he said into her ear.

  “Mmm.”

  She did not seem to be in any great hurry, he noticed. Bending down, he scooped up the gown and set about trying to get her back into it. He had undressed a few women in his time, but he had never tried to reverse the process. Now he discovered that it was more complicated than it appeared. His lack of experience showed immediately.

  “Why in blazes do women wear such damnably heavy clothes?” he grumbled, fastening the hooks.

  “Rest assured that this gown is considerably lighter than those many of the fashionable ladies are wearing back in that ballroom. And I’ll have you know that, in addition to the fact that I am not wearing a corset, my underclothing and petticoats meet the requirements of the Rational Dress Society. They weigh less than seven pounds.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

  He sensed that she was fighting not to laugh. She was still oblivious to the risk of discovery. It occurred to him that she was not yet aware of the other couple.

  “There are two people nearby,” he said, putting his mouth very close to her ear. “They are coming in our direction, no doubt intending to use this shed for the same purpose we just did. The door is secure but they will be able to hear voices quite clearly through it.”

  That got her attention.

  “Good heavens.” Hurriedly she leaned down, hiked up her skirts and adjusted her stockings.

  He concentrated on closing his trousers. Then he refastened his shirt and waistcoat and knotted his tie with the ease of long habit. No man in the Jones family had ever had the patience to employ a valet. He grabbed his coat off the heap of crushed flora and tugged it on quickly. He smiled a little to himself when he caught the rich, spicy scents of Lucinda’s body.

  “My hair,” she whispered, aghast. Frantically she struggled to pin up the long strands that had come loose from the complicated chignon. “There is no way I can repair it.”

  He could hear the voices outside very clearly now. He clamped a hand across Lucinda’s mouth. She stilled instantly.

  The doorknob rattled.

  “Bloody hell,” a man growled. “The damned shed appears to be locked. We’ll have to find our privacy elsewhere, my dear.”

  “Do not even think of suggesting that we repair to some distant corner of the gardens.” The lady’s voice sharpened. “I am not about to ruin this gown with grass stains.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find some suitable location,” the man said quickly.

  “Bah. We may as well return to the ballroom. I am out of the mood, in any event. I would much prefer another glass of champagne.”

  “But, my darling . . .”

  The voices faded quickly as the couple retreated in the direction of the big house.

  “I do not think that man’s evening is going to end as pleasantly as my own,” Caleb said.

  Lucinda ignored him. “I cannot go back into the ballroom looking like this. You must get me to my carriage. Lady Milden will have to see Patricia home.”

  “There is no need to panic, Lucinda.” Feeling supremely in command of the situation, he removed the chair from under the doorknob. “I will take care of everything.”

  Solving problems was what he did well, he thought, not without a degree of pride. He took her arm and guided her out of the drying shed.

  He had the advantage of knowing the grounds of the Ware mansion as well as he knew those of his own house. It was no trick at all to steer Lucinda around the side, past the kitchen and the tradesmen’s entrance and out into the drive.

  There were a number of carriages and several hansoms arrayed in front of the big house. Shute broke off a conversation with two other coachmen when he saw Caleb with Lucinda. He tipped his hat in greeting.

  “Ready to leave, ma’am?” he asked. After one quick glance he studiously looked away from Lucinda’s hair.

  “Yes,” she said briskly. “Quickly, if you please.”

  He opened the door and lowered the steps. “What of Miss Patricia?”

  “Mr. Jones will request Lady Milden to convey her home. Won’t you, Mr. Jones?”

  “Certainly,” Caleb said, amused by her flustered air.

  “Oh, and please ask her to collect my cloak from the footman, too.”

  “I’ll do that,” Caleb promised

  Lucinda scooped up handfuls of her tiered skirts and flew up the steps into the shadows of the cab. Caleb gripped the edge of the door and leaned inside, enjoying one last dose of her scent and energy.

  “I will call on you tomorrow at the usual time,” he said.

  “What?” She sounded somewhat breathless. “Oh, right. Your daily report.”

  “And my breakfast. A very important meal, I’ve been told. Good night, Miss Bromley. Sleep well.”

  He closed the door and stepped back. Shute nodded at him, climbed up onto the box and picked up the reins.

  Caleb watched the vehicle until it disappeared into the light fog. When he could no longer make it out, he turned and went back into the house through a side entrance.

  He was en route to the flight of servants’ stairs that led to the balcony when a familiar voice in the hallway behind him brought him to a halt.

  “Can we interest you in a glass of port?” Gabe asked. “I’d suggest you join us for some billiards but I know how you feel about games of chance these days.”

  He turned and saw his cousin lounging in the doorway of the billiards room. Behind Gabe stood Thaddeus, a billiard cue in one hand. Both men had removed their evening coats, loosened their ties and rolled up their shirtsleeves.

  “What the devil are you two doing here?” Caleb asked. “I would have thought your presence was required in the ballroom.”

  “Leona and Venetia took pity on us and gave us leave to take a break while they entertain a flock of elderly matrons,” Thaddeus said.

  “A glass of port sounds like an excellent idea.” Caleb walked back toward them. “And so does a game of billiards. I assume the wager is an interesting one?”

  Thaddeus and Gabe exchanged unreadable looks.

  “You haven’t played billiards with us in months,” Gabe said.

  “I’ve been busy. There hasn’t been any time for billiards.” Caleb peeled off his coat and slung it over the back of a chair. “What is the amount of the wager?”

  Again, Gabe and Thaddeus looked at each other.

  “You never place wagers,” Gabe said. “Something about the inherent unpredictability of random chance, I believe.”

  “Billiards is not a game of random chance.” Caleb went to the rack on the wall and selected a cue. “I have no objection to the occasional wager when I can estimate the probabilities involved.”

  “Very well.” Thaddeus looked at Caleb across the width of the table. “Say a hundred pounds? It’s just a friendly game among us cousins, after all.”

  “Make it a thousand,” Caleb said. “It will be an even friendlier game that way.”

  Thaddeus grinned. “You’re that sure of winning?”

  “Tonight I cannot lose,” Caleb said.

  SOME TIME LATER Caleb replaced the cue
in the rack. “Thank you, cousins. That was an invigorating interlude. Now, if you don’t mind, I must go find Lady Milden and then I’m going home. I have to rise early these days.”

  “Because of your investigation?” Thaddeus asked.

  “No,” Caleb said. “Because of breakfast.”

  Gabe propped himself against the table. “You haven’t played billiards in months yet you managed to take a thousand pounds off each of us tonight. What made you so sure you would win?”

  Caleb collected his coat from the back of the chair and shrugged into it. “I was feeling lucky.” He started toward the door.

  “One thing before you leave, cousin,” Gabe said.

  Caleb paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. “What?”

  “You may want to brush the dried leaves off the back of your coat before you return to the ballroom,” Thaddeus said, straight-faced.

  “Are those crushed flowers in your hair?” Gabe added. “I’m almost certain they are not in fashion for gentlemen this season.”

  NINETEEN

  MRS. SHUTE OPENED THE DOOR TO THE TOWN HOUSE before Shute had brought the carriage to a complete halt. She hurried down the steps garbed in her nightcap and wrapper, the black leather satchel in one hand. In the glow of the nearby gas lamp Lucinda could see the anxiety on her face.

  “Here you are at last, Miss Bromley,” Mrs. Shute said. “I thought you’d be home much earlier. I would have sent a message but there was no one to deliver it at this late hour.”

  “What is the matter?” Lucinda asked quickly.

  “It’s my niece in Guppy Lane,” Mrs. Shute said. “She sent word an hour ago that the neighbor’s boy, little Harry, is very feverish and having difficulty breathing. She says his mother is frightened half out of her wits.”

  “I’ll go at once,” Lucinda said soothingly. “Give me the satchel.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Looking greatly relieved, Mrs. Shute handed her the satchel and stepped back. She paused, frowning a little. “Your hair, ma’am. Whatever happened to it?”

  “Accident,” Lucinda said crisply.

  Shute snapped the reins. The carriage barreled off into the foggy night. Lucinda turned up the lamp, opened the satchel and quickly inventoried the contents. All of the usual vials and packets were there, including the ingredients she used to make the vapor that eased congestion of the lungs in children. If she required anything more exotic, Shute would be dispatched to the town house to fetch it.

  Satisfied that she was prepared, she sat back and watched the eerie landscape through the windows. Buildings and other carriages loomed briefly in the fog before disappearing back into the mist. The swirling gray stuff muffled the clatter of hooves and wheels.

  The summons to Guppy Lane had shattered the sense of unreality that had descended on her during the drive home from the ball. She could scarcely believe that she had engaged in an act of the most astonishing passion with Caleb Jones. In a drying shed, no less. She had read a great many sensation novels but she could not recall any scenes in which the hero and heroine had employed a drying shed for an illicit tryst.

  Illicit tryst. She’d actually had one of those. The realization threatened to make her a little giddy.

  But she knew that it was not the physical encounter among the dried herbs and flowers, exciting and exhilarating as it had been, that had played havoc with her senses. Her body had recovered from the delicious shock of her first sexual experience but she still felt disoriented and oddly dazzled. Her senses hummed at a pitch that seemed a little too high. It was as if a few currents from the storm of psychical energy that she and Caleb had unleashed still whispered through her. She sensed intuitively that they would remain, linking her somehow to Caleb. She wondered if he now felt the same strange resonance of a connection.

  Shute brought the carriage to a stop in front of a small house. It was the only house in the lane in which a window was illuminated. All the other homes were dark, the occupants long abed. In another hour or two, at about the same time that the denizens of the social world were on their way home to bed after leaving their parties and clubs, the people in this neighborhood would be rising. They would eat a simple breakfast and set off to London’s shops, factories and the large, wealthy households where they worked. The lucky ones, that is, Lucinda reflected. Work of any kind that paid a living wage was always in short supply.

  Shute got the door open. “I’ll wait out here with the horse as usual, Miss Bromley.”

  “Thank you.” She picked up the satchel and gave him a wan smile. “It does not appear that either of us will be getting any sleep tonight.”

  “Won’t be the first time, now, will it?”

  The door to the small house flew open. Alice Ross, dressed in a cap and a faded wrapper, hovered anxiously in the opening.

  “Thank God, it’s you, Miss Bromley,” she said. “I’m so sorry to bring you out at this hour but I haven’t been this frightened since Annie took sick at Christmas.”

  “Please don’t concern yourself about the time, Mrs. Ross. I regret that I am late. I was out when your message arrived.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I can see that.” Alice gave the cobalt blue gown a shyly admiring look. “You look lovely, ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” Lucinda said absently. She brushed past Alice and went toward the small figure on the cot in front of the fire. “There you are, Harry. How are you feeling?”

  The boy looked up at her, face flushed with fever. “Been better, Miss Bromley.”

  His breathing was hoarse and labored in a way she had often encountered in children.

  “And you soon will be again,” she said. She set the satchel on the hearth, opened it and took out a packet. “Now then, Mrs. Ross, if you will boil some water for me, we shall very quickly have Harry breathing more easily.”

  Harry squinted up at her. “Ye look really pretty, Miss Bromley.”

  “Thank you, Harry.”

  “What happened to your hair?”

  CALEB STRIPPED OFF his coat, waistcoat and tie and then paused, looking at the big four-poster bed. The lovemaking had left him feeling more cheerful and more relaxed than he had been in months. He had intended to take advantage of the rare sensation and go straight to bed in the bedroom he rarely used.

  Now he found himself hesitating. He wanted and needed sleep but the aftereffects of the physical release and the unfamiliar psychical lift of the buoyant spirits that had accompanied it were already fading.

  Another sensation was stealing in to rob him of the all too brief respite from the omnipresent sense of urgency that gripped him these days. It was still faint and the feeling was very different from his usual nighttime spells of melancholia but he knew that if he did go to bed he would not sleep.

  He left the bedroom and went down the hall to the library-laboratory. Inside he turned up one of the lamps and made his way through the maze of bookshelves to the vault. He worked the complicated combination and opened the door. Reaching into the dark opening, he took out the journal of Erasmus Jones and the notebook.

  He sat down in front of the cold hearth, removed the onyx-and-gold cuff links and rolled his shirtsleeves partway up his forearms. For a while he sat there, looking at the two volumes. He had read each of them several times from beginning to end. Small slips of paper marked passages that might or might not be important.

  At first he had approached the task with a sense of keen anticipation, the way he always did when he confronted a complex problem or puzzle. There would be a pattern, he had told himself. There was always a pattern.

  It had taken him a month to decipher the complex code that his great-grandfather had invented for the journal. It had required almost as long to work out the encryption of Sylvester’s notebook. The code in that book proved unlike any that the old bastard had used in his other journals and papers.

  But in the wake of those hopeful breakthroughs he had found little to encourage him. Erasmus’s journal described a steady descent in
to eccentricity, obsession and madness. As for Sylvester’s notebook, it had become increasingly incomprehensible. It seemed composed entirely of mysteries within mysteries, an endless maze with no exit. To his dying day Erasmus had remained convinced, however, that it held the secret to curing his insanity.

  He chose a page of the notebook at random and translated a short passage in his head.

  . . . The transmutation of the four physical elements cannot be accomplished unless the secrets of the fifth, that which was known as ether to the ancients, are first unraveled. Only fire can reveal the mysteries . . .

  Typical alchemical nonsense, he thought. The notebook appeared to be full of it. But he could not escape the feeling that he was missing something. What was it about the damned book that had so fascinated Erasmus?

  The unpleasant restlessness was building fast within him, metamorphosing into a compelling sense of urgency. No longer able to concentrate, he closed the notebook and got to his feet.

  He stood there for a moment, trying to focus his mind on the Hulsey investigation. When that did not work to settle his thoughts, he started toward the brandy decanter, the distraction of last resort and one which he had been resorting to rather frequently of late.

  Halfway across the room he stopped. Maybe he would brew some of the tisane that Lucinda had given him for what she claimed was the tension in his aura. He was certainly tense tonight, he reflected. He was not entirely certain of her diagnoses but there was no question but that he always felt better for a time after he drank the stuff.

  Lucinda. Memories of their time together in the drying shed no longer heated his blood. Instead he felt as if he had ice flowing in his veins.

  Lucinda.

  And suddenly he knew, in a way that his psychical nature never questioned, that she was in grave danger.

  TWENTY

  THE INHALED VAPORS WORKED QUICKLY, EASING HARRY’S congestion in a matter of minutes.

  “That should do it.” Lucinda got to her feet, struggling a little against the awkward weight of her skirts. She smiled at Alice Ross. “I’ll leave you a sufficient supply to see him through the crisis. But I believe he will recover quickly.”