The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

by Stephanie Laurens

  Nigel chuckled.

  Nolan circled the table to line up the last ball. “But I doubt we’ll need our fake ledgers—he’s not going to get that far. Trust me—once Lucilla goes home, Papa will lapse again.”

  Nigel watched the last ball roll into a corner pocket. “The way he’s been going, he can’t be all that much longer for this world.”

  Nolan straightened and met Nigel’s gaze. “Very likely not.”

  * * *

  Thomas was waiting with Lucilla in the drawing room when Ferguson came to tell her that Manachan was ready to receive her.

  Niniver had, again, excused herself and retired as soon as they had finished their tea. Once she had, Lucilla had asked for a more detailed account of what Thomas had discovered when he’d ridden out that afternoon; he’d obliged, and once again, her insightful questions had demonstrated her comprehension of how the local people thought. She understood what others from outside the area would not.

  Carrying a lamp to light their way, he walked by her side up the stairs and around the gallery to the door to Manachan’s room. He paused and met her eyes. “Ready?”

  She blinked. “Of course.” Before he could, she reached out and rapped on the panel.

  Several seconds later, Edgar opened the door, then stepped back and held it wide. The normally dour man almost smiled. “Thank you for coming, miss.” The words were barely a whisper. Edgar waved her into the sitting room to one side. “The laird is waiting for you through there.”

  “Thank you, Edgar.” Lucilla led the way into the room, but just over the threshold, she halted and looked back at Edgar. “I would appreciate it if you were present, too. Your past observations will be helpful.”

  Edgar inclined his head.

  Lucilla turned and swept into the room. She had no idea if Manachan was already regretting agreeing to let her treat him; he could turn crotchety and difficult, but she was determined to keep control of the examination and extract from him—and Edgar, too, if necessary—all she needed to know.

  She was somewhat reassured to see that Manachan had changed into his nightshirt; swathed in a multihued velvet dressing robe, he sat waiting in a large, ornately carved straight-backed chair.

  Fixing her most professionally reassuring smile on her lips, she inclined her head to him. “Excellent. This will do nicely.”

  He glowered at her. “I warn you—I haven’t let a doctor near me for decades, so if you think to poke and prod me, you’ll have to wait until I’m a great deal iller.”

  She managed not to smile too broadly. “I’ve no need to poke and prod. I just need to check your eyes, your hands and your feet, and then I’ll need you to answer my questions truthfully.”

  He snorted, but he allowed her to examine his eyes. She noted the paleness of his skin, but it was simply pale, not sickly; the areas around his eyes looked as healthy as they should, with no bruising or indication of current illness. She had Edgar hold a lamp just over her shoulder and studied the faded blue of Manachan’s irises at some length.

  “What can you see?” he mumbled.

  “Your age, for one,” she tartly replied. After a moment, she admitted, “I can also see that you had some serious illness, something to do with your digestion and blood, some months ago.” The striations were quite clear and sharp; whatever it had been, the attack had been intense.

  “Aye,” Edgar murmured. “That’d be right.”

  “Hush, you.” Manachan directed a sharp glance at Edgar as Lucilla stepped back. “Let’s see what she comes up with on her own.”

  She arched a brow at him, but after checking his pulse at both throat and wrist, she moved on to examining his hands and, lastly, his feet and ankles. There was no unnatural swelling, and the color of his nails and cuticles was, for a man of his age, quite good. But his pulse was weaker than she would have liked, and his skin tone, and the resilience of the flesh beneath, could definitely be improved.

  How much of his symptoms were due to the length of time he’d been weak and run down, rather than to any irreversible damage, she wasn’t yet sure.

  Rising, she sat in the second of the pair of straight-backed chairs. Thomas stood at her shoulder, while Edgar took up a similar position behind Manachan’s chair. She fixed her gaze on Manachan’s face. “Right, then—now I need some answers. First, it appears that you suffered a major gastric attack of some sorts, I would say not quite a year ago. Is that correct?”

  Manachan grimaced. “Aye.” He nodded. “You’re right. That’s when this”—he waved at himself, indicating his weakened state—“all started.”

  “Near to midsummer, it was,” Edgar offered.

  She nodded. “Very well. Let’s start from then.” She proceeded to interrogate Manachan as to his symptoms at the time of the attack. Some of her questions made him squirm, but under the combined weight of Thomas’s and Edgar’s gazes, he grumbled and mumbled his way through the answers. As she had hoped, if Manachan attempted to slide past anything, or not mention something, Edgar was close enough, and assured enough of his position and his place in Manachan’s life, to fill in the gap.

  By the time her interrogation had advanced to the present day, she had a fairly firm notion of what was ailing the old tyrant.

  When he finally rapped out a “Well, what is it? What have I got?” she smiled and rose.

  “I’m pleased to say you haven’t anything at the moment. You did catch something fairly serious last year, but after this time I can’t even begin to guess what it was. You appear to have had a relapse or two in the following months, but you’re not ill now, and although you might feel weak and lacking in strength, the only reason for that is that you were, indeed, so dragged down by that recurrent illness that your body simply hasn’t bounced back.” She held his gaze. “You need a tonic to push your body back onto the road to health again, and then keep it moving forward. Rebuilding your strength won’t happen overnight, and I can’t promise that you will ever regain the strength you once had, but in time, if you continue to take the medicine I prescribe, you will be much stronger and more able than you are now.”

  Manachan looked at her, and in his eyes, she could see the hope he tried to hide. “If I can manage to walk up the stairs under my own steam again, I’ll be happy.”

  She tipped her head. “I think that’s quite possible.”

  Manachan grunted. “All right—what do I have to do? No eye of newt, mind.”

  She laughed. “I can assure you that nothing I give you comes from anything but plants.”

  He waved at her to get on with her prescription.

  “I’ll make up what I call a boosting tonic for tonight. You can take it and go to sleep. Tomorrow, when you wake, I expect you will be feeling considerably better.” She looked at Edgar. “Don’t wake him but let him sleep until he wakes of his own accord.”

  “And then?” Manachan demanded.

  She looked back at him. “Then I’ll examine you again, and depending on how well you’ve responded to the boosting tonic, I’ll make up a restorative to leave with you. That’s a syrup that will last much longer—at least several weeks. You’ll take doses every mealtime, and it should keep you moving forward into improving health, improving strength.”

  Manachan studied her for several moments, then he inclined his head. “Thank you.”

  She held his gaze. “And you promise to take the restorative as prescribed?”

  He humphed. “If you had any idea of how much I want and need my strength back, you wouldn’t even ask.”

  Satisfied, she glanced at Thomas; he’d remained all but silent throughout. “I need to get into the still room, but I just realized that Alice has the key.”

  Thomas nodded to Manachan and waved her to the door. “Ferguson will fetch it for us.”

  Us, because he wasn’t leaving her in the still room alone.

  Lucilla looked at Manachan. “I’ll wish you a good night. I’ll bring the boosting tonic—Edgar can help you take it. Then I’ll see yo
u in the morning when you wake. I won’t need to see you immediately. Have Ferguson fetch me once you’re up and ready for the day.”

  Manachan nodded. “I will—and if I don’t feel much better, be prepared to hear a lot of complaints.”

  Both Thomas and Lucilla were grinning when they left. But once he drew Manachan’s door closed behind them, Thomas sobered. He met Lucilla’s green gaze. “Will he be much better?”

  She looked into his eyes, then, lips curving, she shook her head. “Oh, ye of little faith.” She started for the stairs. “I can tell you that he will definitely be better. How much better, just overnight? That’s in the lap of the Lady.”

  * * *

  Thomas sat on a stool in the still room and watched Lucilla work. The soft lamplight laid a gilt sheen over her flame-colored hair and warmed her alabaster skin, leaving her lips a lush rose.

  She was totally focused on what she was doing; he might not have been there at all.

  And it was intriguing to realize that she allowed him to see her thus—as she was, without any chance of screen or veil, uncaring of—or was it unbothered by?—what he might see as she concentrated on mixing her tonic.

  She measured and weighed, and muttered as she did. “Two drops of the hawthorn oil should be enough. Just a hint of betony. And a dash of poppy juice to balance it all out.”

  He sat and listened to her voice, to its cadence and tone. Regardless of the actual words, her monologue fell on his ears like a soothing litany.

  And he realized how comfortable he was, there in what was essentially her domain. He’d never really been inside the still room before; as a child, he’d been sent to the door to ask for an ointment for this or that, but he hadn’t dared set foot inside.

  Now he sat and breathed deeply, and let the peace of the place—and a strange sense of security and belonging—seep into his bones.

  Eventually, Lucilla gave the greeny-yellow concoction she’d mixed in a beaker a final stir, then poured the liquid into a waiting bottle and stoppered it. Setting the bottle aside, she quickly cleared away the various elixirs she’d used, then she glanced around to make sure all was tidy, turned down the still-room lamps, picked up the bottle, and turned to him.

  He rose from the stool and lifted the lamp he’d brought with them from the counter. His gaze fixing on the bottle, he murmured, “Let’s pray he takes it.” So much rode on Manachan’s strength returning.

  “He will.” Lucilla led the way into the corridor. She waited while he closed the door and locked it, then handed her the key. Accepting it, she smiled. “Your curmudgeon of an uncle will never back away from a challenge, and although it’s me he challenged, not obeying my instructions will mean he backed away, so he won’t do that.” As they walked toward the steps to the ground floor, she added, “Besides, he wants to get better—everything I saw and heard screams that.”

  Starting up the steps beside her, Thomas nodded. “He’s still the laird, and now that he knows his people need him, he’ll do everything he can not to let them down.”

  They walked into the front hall and made for the main stairs. They climbed, the light from the lamp swinging from his hand creating shifting shadows on the dark paneling.

  As they reached the landing, Lucilla murmured, “I’ve heard Manachan called many unflattering names over the years, but I’ve never heard anyone ever suggest that he hasn’t, always, acted in the best interests of your clan.”

  Thomas inclined his head. They reached Manachan’s door and he tapped on the panel.

  Edgar appeared and Lucilla handed over the stoppered bottle. “He has to drink the entire dose, every last drop, and then he can sleep. Send for me when he’s ready to see me in the morning.”

  Edgar had been examining the bottle. He looked at Lucilla and bowed. “Thank you, miss. I’ll make sure he drinks it all.”

  With a nod to Thomas, Edgar shut the door.

  Lucilla turned and, with Thomas pacing beside her and the lamp in his hand lighting their way, walked around the gallery toward the visitors’ wing and their respective rooms. A sense of anticipation, of pending satisfaction, coursed through her; she was keen to see how much of an improvement her tonic wrought in Manachan by the morning. She had every expectation that the improvement would be significant, and that would rank as a true accomplishment, one she had every intention of building on with the subsequent restorative. On that front, she was eminently pleased with her progress.

  But as for progress on the Thomas front, while she hadn’t lost ground, neither had she gained enough to feel secure. She had a long way yet to go before she convinced him that his path was entwined with hers—that his future was already defined, and that it lay in the Vale with her.

  They walked under the ornately carved archway and into the corridor that ran down the center of the visitors’ wing. Despite having stood for several centuries, Carrick Manor was a much younger structure than her home in the Vale. Casphairn Manor was built around the keep of a very old castle, and over the centuries had grown and spread out on all sides; the resulting shape was roughly circular, with the old Great Hall still very much the center of the place, its structural and emotional lynchpin.

  Here, there were two separate wings attached to opposite sides of the main wing, which was essentially the original block-shaped manor. Instead of the stone walls of her home, here the walls were plastered and paneled with dark-stained wood. Ceilings were coffered with the same wood, and relatively low compared to those she was accustomed to.

  This house had a very different feel. Despite the predominance of pale gray stone, her home was filled with light and warmth, with energy and laughter and the heartbeats and footsteps of many people; it was very much alive. In contrast, Carrick Manor, although inhabited, struck her as sleeping, as somehow dormant, in a form of stasis.

  The knowledge swept over her and she suppressed a shiver. Whether it had started with Manachan’s illness, or perhaps long before when his wife had died, she didn’t know, but the house had drawn back, drawn in, shut down, and was now waiting…although for what, she couldn’t say. But unless something happened to breathe life into it again, this house would ultimately die.

  Pulling her mind from the thought—she might not know what would bring this house alive again, but she did know it wasn’t anything to do with Thomas or herself—she refocused on the long corridor down which they were walking. She still hadn’t decided how to advance her cause with Thomas, what her next step should be, yet the doors to the rooms they’d been given lay just ahead, opposite each other toward the end of the wing. That fact alone spoke volumes regarding the lack of proper direction in the household. Unmarried male and female visitors should have been accommodated in separate areas of the house, and despite the disused wing being disused, it was there…

  Halting outside the door to her room, she looked at Thomas. “I just remembered—I found Faith Burns’s candle. It was what caused me to trip in that corridor.” Briefly, she described what she’d found, and where the candle and candleholder had lain.

  Even in the poor light, she saw the change in Thomas’s expression. Knew that he, too, was struggling to make sense of Faith somehow tripping down the stairs, but the candle landing that far back along the corridor.

  She sighed and met his eyes. “I know coincidence is being stretched thin, but…there’s one reasonable possibility that might account for the Burns sisters’ deaths.” He frowned, and she went on, “What if Faith and Joy ate something while they were together and chatting in the kitchen—something poisonous? If Faith ate more of it than Joy, it would have started affecting her first. She could well have become disoriented, taken the wrong turning in the gallery and ended in the disused wing, dropped the candle, then lurched along the corridor, and stumbled and fallen down the stairs. Joy didn’t eat as much, so she reached the Bradshaws’ farm, spoke with the Forresters, and started work there—but then the poison took hold, and she died, too.”

  He studied her eyes, thinking, as
sessing. “Wouldn’t you have known if Faith had died from poison, too?”

  She considered, then shook her head. “I doubt it, because Faith died of a broken neck, not the poison, and her body lay for so long, by the time I saw it, there was no visible trace of poison. But I doubt there would have been any to find, not unless her body had been discovered immediately and someone had known what to look for.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then softly said, “That still leaves us with the question of whether it was poison by intent, or by accident.”

  “Given we have no evidence of any kind that anyone wanted the sisters murdered, it’s hard to argue intent. And as I understand it, anyone in the clan has access to this house, day and night, so even if we harbor suspicions that the deaths weren’t accidental, proving who the murderer was will be well-nigh impossible.”

  He held her gaze. “You’ve been thinking of this as much as I have.”

  She raised her chin. “I live in the area. I’m presently sharing the running of the Vale with Marcus. I’m equally responsible, and part of that responsibility is bringing any potential crime to the attention of the magistrate.” She paused, then went on, “I have to weigh everything and decide what path is the correct one for the people here. While you and I might speculate and imagine how murder was done, we can prove nothing, not even that it was murder, and we have absolutely no notion of who might be responsible for such a crime.”

  After a moment, his lips tightened, and he inclined his head. “You’re right. As much as we might suspect, we have no proof that Joy’s and Faith’s deaths were anything but terrible accidents.”

  She waited, watching him—knowing that he was trying to convince himself, to make himself accept that, as matters stood, the correct thing to do for the Carrick clan was to let their suspicions lie, and allow Joy’s and Faith’s deaths to remain as accidents.

  Coincidental accidents. Possibly connected accidents.