Primrose and the Dreadful Duke_Garland Cousins 1

by Emily Larkin

  Oliver didn’t say anything, either. He was absolutely certain that Ninian’s accident had been deliberate.

  But why? Why on earth would Ninian do such a thing?

  Ninian righted his chair and sat down again. He was still red-faced. “I’m so sorry, Cousin. Have my glass, please. I don’t much like Madeira, anyway.”

  Ninian pushed his glass towards Oliver—and Oliver had the answer to his question. This was why Ninian had fallen off his chair: so that he could give his own Madeira to Oliver. The Madeira that had been sitting in front of Ninian while he fidgeted with his cuffs.

  The hair lifted along the nape of Oliver’s neck. He knew with absolute certainty that Ninian had slipped something into the glass.

  He suddenly wished that Rhodes was sitting next to him.

  “Thank you, Ninian,” he said, and reached for the Madeira—and knocked the glass over with one fingertip.

  Everyone leapt into action again, wielding handkerchiefs, scooping up the cards. Oliver said what was expected—apologies, a joke at his own expense—and accepted a new glass from Uncle Algy. A toast was made. They all drank. Cheevers and Warrington exclaimed over the Madeira, but Oliver barely noticed the flavor; most of his attention was occupied elsewhere.

  Rhodes had been correct.

  One of his relatives was trying to kill him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Primrose was in the blue salon, the better to keep an eye on Miss Middleton-Murray. She was listening to a discussion of the latest fashion in carriage dresses and thinking longingly of the yet-to-be explored library, when the door opened. Lords Cheevers and Warrington entered. Behind them was Oliver. Cheevers and Warrington were rosy-cheeked and merry. Oliver wasn’t. In fact, he looked uncharacteristically grim. He glanced around the room, met her eyes, and stroked his nose, a brusque gesture. Then he retreated and closed the door.

  After a moment, Primrose rose to her feet. “Excuse me. I’m going to check on my brother.”

  Lady Cheevers looked up, the plumes on her turban nodding. “Do let me know if there’s anything he requires, Lady Primrose.”

  “I shall, ma’am.”

  She trod briskly across the vestibule and along the corridor, pausing to glance over her shoulder before opening the heavy, gilded door to the State apartments.

  Oliver was waiting for her in the dressing room, pacing from one side to the other like a caged animal.

  “What is it?” Primrose asked. “I checked the stairs less than an hour ago—”

  “I think Rhodes is right,” Oliver said, coming to a halt in the middle of the room. “I think Ninian’s trying to kill me.”

  Primrose opened her mouth to say What? but no sound came out. She was too astonished.

  “I’m almost certain he tried to poison me just now. With a glass of Madeira.” Oliver frowned. “And he probably tried yesterday, too, with that damned snuff.” He rubbed his brow, as if the frown hurt, and crossed to the window and stared out at the waterlogged gardens. “I want to do that thing with the lake. As soon as possible.”

  “But . . . Ninian hero-worships you, Oliver! He’d no more try to kill you than he’d—”

  “He doesn’t hero-worship me,” Oliver said flatly, still staring out the rain-streaked window. “He wants me dead.”

  Primrose shook her head.

  Oliver didn’t see it, but perhaps he took her silence for dissent, for he said, “If you could have seen what he did, you wouldn’t doubt it. It was so fake, so obviously a ploy to get me to drink from his glass instead of my own.” The unfamiliar note in his voice wasn’t anger but something else entirely, something bewildered and hurt.

  Primrose crossed to where he stood. “Oliver . . .”

  Oliver turned to face her. The twist of his lips was more grimace than smile. “We need to talk with Rhodes.”

  “Yes. But first tell me exactly what happened.”

  Oliver did. When he was finished, he said, “I know it sounds fantastical, Prim, but I didn’t imagine it. On my word of honor!”

  “Of course you didn’t imagine it.”

  Oliver pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes for a moment, and then sighed and lowered his hands. Such a bleak sound, that sigh, and such a bleak expression on his face. So unlike Oliver.

  She wanted to hug him, but didn’t quite dare, so instead she placed her hand on his sleeve. “Oliver . . .”

  Oliver had no qualms about hugging. He folded her in his arms. It wasn’t a romantic embrace, though; it was the hug of a man who needed comfort.

  Primrose hugged him back.

  Oliver sighed again. “I wish this wretched rain would stop.”

  “It will. And as soon as it does, we’ll set a trap for Ninian.” Part of her still couldn’t quite believe it. Not Ninian Dasenby. Not after she’d seen how much he admired Oliver. But Oliver believed it, and the tale he’d told was convincing.

  Oliver sighed a third time, and released her. He gave that grimace-smile again. “Let’s go tell Rhodes.”

  “He’ll refuse to leave tomorrow, you realize. Regardless of his health.”

  Oliver was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I want him to stay. I want him here, with me.”

  “Then we’d better find a way to fix his eyes, hadn’t we?” Primrose turned away from the window and headed for the door.

  Oliver matched his stride to hers. The carpet hushed their steps as they crossed the State sitting room. In the reception room he took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad you came to Cheevers Court, Prim.”

  Primrose felt herself blush. “I’m glad I came, too.”

  “I’m lucky to have you and Rhodes as friends.” Oliver dipped his head and placed a kiss on her cheek.

  Primrose felt her blush grow hotter. Her heartbeat sped up. She fumbled for something to say. “We’re the lucky ones.”

  Oliver’s mouth brushed her cheek again—and there was a pause in which the world seemed to hold its breath—and then the angle of his head shifted ever so slightly and his lips touched hers.

  It wasn’t a kiss like this morning’s one—wild and unrestrained. This kiss was unexpectedly sweet, unexpectedly tender. Their lips clung together, and she tasted Madeira on his tongue, and then he lifted his head and gazed down at her. He didn’t look bleak anymore. He looked . . . thoughtful.

  For a long moment Oliver didn’t say a word, just looked at her with his eyes slightly narrowed and the faintest of creases between his dark eyebrows, as if she was a question he was trying to answer.

  Primrose’s heart beat uncomfortably fast. She found herself holding her breath. Then Oliver’s inward-looking expression fell away. He grinned at her, and flicked her cheek with one fingertip. “You’re losing your prickles, Prim.”

  * * *

  As far as Primrose could tell, the cupping hadn’t helped Rhodes at all. His face was flushed, his voice husky, his eyelids swollen almost shut. She watched him while Oliver told his tale. Rhodes’s expression grew grimmer and grimmer. When Oliver had finished, he said, “That does it. I’m not staying in this bedroom a moment longer,” and he flung back the covers and climbed out of bed in his nightshirt.

  “Easy, old fellow,” Oliver said, grabbing Rhodes’s shoulder and trying to push him back into the bed. “We don’t need you yet. Have to wait for this dashed rain to stop—and for your eyes to get better.”

  Rhodes shrugged his hand off, swayed, caught his balance, and squinted around the room. “Where are my clothes?”

  Oliver took Rhodes’s shoulder more firmly. “Bed.”

  Rhodes was generally the most even-tempered of men. Primrose could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him lose his temper. He wasn’t even-tempered today. He scowled at Oliver. “If you think for one moment that I’m going to stay in bed while that little prick is trying to kill you, then you don’t know me at all!”

  Primrose opened her mouth to tell him that he really ought to be in bed, looked at his flushed, fierce face, and decided t
hat Rhodes would like his younger sister telling him what to do even less than he liked Oliver telling him. She retreated to the window, instead.

  The lake was visible from this angle, a gray blur among the trees. Primrose stared at it, and thought about her plan to prove that Oliver’s relatives weren’t trying to kill him.

  Except that one of them actually was.

  She still couldn’t quite believe it. Part of her wanted to cling to her own estimation of Ninian Dasenby—but there were three undeniable facts against him.

  First, that he was in love with Miss Cheevers.

  Second, that Lord Cheevers didn’t want a mere Mister for his daughter; he wanted a duke.

  And third, that if Oliver were to die, Dasenby wouldn’t be a Mister anymore. He’d be heir to the Westfell dukedom.

  Primrose stared at the distant lake, and listened to Rhodes and Oliver argue. She could still taste Oliver’s kiss in her mouth and the smoky, caramel flavor of the Madeira he’d drunk.

  She wished the rain would stop. She wished Rhodes’s eyes would heal. She wished this was all over—the business with Ninian Dasenby, the business with Miss Middleton-Murray.

  And she wished that Oliver would kiss her again.

  She turned her head and looked at him, standing with his hands on his hips and his chin jutting stubbornly, arguing with Rhodes.

  It seemed impossible that he’d kissed her only a few minutes ago, impossible that he’d hugged her so close to him.

  Oliver flung up his hands in exasperation and turned to her. “Prim, tell your brother he’s being a damned fool.”

  Primrose looked from one scowling face to the other. Whoever she sided with was going to become even more frustrated and annoyed than he now was.

  She considered this for a moment, gave an internal shrug, and said, “I think you should both stay here.”

  “What?” two voices said, identical in their indignation.

  “You need to get back into bed,” Primrose told her brother, pointing imperatively at the four-poster. “And put that wet cloth back on your eyes, and you—” she turned her finger in Oliver’s direction, “—should stay here, out of Ninian’s way.”

  Both men gaped at her.

  A book lay on the windowsill, a ribbon marking the place. Primrose picked it up and poked Oliver in the chest with it. “Read to him.”

  Oliver took the book automatically. “But—”

  “Dash it, Prim, I’m not an invalid,” Rhodes said hotly.

  “Bed,” Primrose said, pointing. “Wet cloth. Now.”

  Rhodes muttered under his breath.

  Primrose stepped around them both and headed for the door. “I’m going to check the stairs.”

  “Stairs?” Rhodes said. “Which stairs? Why?”

  Primrose glanced back over her shoulder. “Oliver, why don’t you tell him about Miss Middleton-Murray and her nasty little trick?”

  “What?” Rhodes said.

  “But only once he’s in bed and has that cloth over his eyes.” Primrose smiled sweetly at them both and let herself out the door.

  In the corridor she almost collided with Monsieur Benoît. He was carrying several clean, folded cloths and a ewer of water. He must have come from the kitchen, up the servants’ stairs.

  Servants’ stairs . . .

  Primrose thought about servants’ stairs while she made her way to the South wing. She climbed the four steps that Miss Carteris had fallen down, checked that no string was tied around the newel post, then went in search of the servants’ stairs.

  She found them almost opposite her own room, behind a discreet door.

  The stairs were steep and narrow and uncarpeted, descending not just the four steps from the South wing to the main body of the house, but turning and plunging down towards the ground floor and the servants’ domain: kitchen, scullery, cellars.

  Primrose eyed the staircase thoughtfully. Miss Middleton-Murray was Lord Cheevers’s goddaughter. She’d presumably visited Cheevers Court from time to time, knew the house well, was aware that these stairs existed.

  She glanced back along the wide, carpeted corridor, towards the spot where Miss Carteris had tripped, and the shadowy alcove beyond where someone could have hidden—and then examined the narrow servants’ stairs again. She’d wager all her books that Miss Middleton-Murray had gone down this staircase at least once. She could see it in her mind’s eye: Miss Carteris falling; Miss Middleton-Murray swiftly cutting off the string and slinking down the servants’ stairs, slipping into either the blue or the yellow salon, falling into conversation with the other ladies—and looking so surprised when someone brought news of Miss Carteris’s accident.

  Perhaps Miss Middleton-Murray had even come up these stairs to lay her trap?

  Primrose nibbled on her lower lip. Really, it behooved her to explore these stairs.

  She glanced along the corridor again, and then stepped into the stairwell and closed the door behind her. She tiptoed down one half-flight of stairs, then another. Above her, a door opened and closed. Footsteps began to descend briskly.

  Primrose began to tiptoe faster, down another half-flight.

  Below her, a door opened and closed. Someone started climbing the stairs.

  Primrose froze.

  Footsteps crossed the half-landing above her head.

  Primrose felt a burst of panic. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished herself behind the lacquered screen in the State dressing room.

  There was a moment of vertigo, when the world reeled around her—and then everything steadied.

  She stood behind a screen in a cool, shadowy room. She heard rain against windowpanes, smelled stale lavender.

  Primrose cautiously peeked out from behind the screen. Holland-covered furniture loomed like ghosts in the dim light.

  She released the breath she was holding, and emerged from her hiding place. “Idiot,” she told herself. It had been ridiculous to panic. The two people in the stairwell had merely been servants, not villains in a melodrama. They wouldn’t have done anything to her, except stare.

  Although, one of them might have been Miss Middleton-Murray’s maid. Would she have told her mistress about it? The nosy duke’s daughter found snooping on the servants’ stairs.

  Would Miss Middleton-Murray have realized why Primrose was in the stairwell?

  Primrose turned this over in her head for a moment, and decided that she’d done the right thing, even though her motive had been wrong. Panic was never a good reason to do anything.

  She let herself out of the State apartments and went back upstairs to Rhodes’s bedroom. The valet let her in. Not only was Rhodes in bed with a wet cloth over his eyes, but Oliver was still there. They both turned their heads as she entered. “Well?” Rhodes demanded, lifting one corner of the cloth and looking at her with a bloodshot eye. “Has she rigged her trap on the stairs?”

  Primrose glanced at the valet, and then back at Rhodes.

  “Benoît’s not going to tell anyone, are you, man?”

  “Of course not, sir,” the valet said. He went to the bedside table and dipped a fresh cloth in one of the bowls of water standing there.

  Primrose watched him for a moment.

  Benoît was young, but he was also intelligent. And discreet.

  “No,” she said. “She hasn’t set up her trap yet. I’m going downstairs to keep an eye on her. Will you stay here, Oliver?”

  Oliver hesitated, and then nodded.

  Primrose stepped out into the corridor and closed the door. She went down to the blue salon again. Miss Middleton-Murray wasn’t there. Nor was she in the yellow salon, or the library, or the music room.

  Fiddlesticks.

  Primrose blew out her breath, and climbed all the way back to the corridor in the South wing where she, Miss Warrington, and Miss Middleton-Murray had their rooms. Everything was just as she’d left it. No string tied around the newel post, no Miss Middleton-Murray lurking in the alcove.

  Primrose retraced her steps to
the blue salon. This time, Miss Middleton-Murray was there.

  Primrose eyed her balefully, and picked up a copy of the Ladies’ Monthly Museum and pretended to be absorbed in the fashion plates. She had only turned two pages before Miss Middleton-Murray slipped from the room.

  When she hadn’t returned after ten minutes, Primrose put down the magazine and went looking for her: yellow salon, library, music room, and then all the way up to the corridor in the South wing again.

  Miss Middleton-Murray was nowhere to be seen.

  Primrose wished the Cheevers had a smaller home. She wished there weren’t quite so many stairs. She wished it wasn’t going to take her ten minutes to get back to the blue salon.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The corridor was utterly empty.

  Primrose stepped into the alcove. She pictured the lacquered screen in the State dressing room. A second later, she was behind it.

  She emerged cautiously, conscious of two conflicting emotions. One, relief that she’d avoided all those stairs again. The other, an emotion she hadn’t felt since childhood: an uncomfortable feeling that she’d done something naughty and her parents would scold her if they knew.

  She let herself out of the State apartments and headed back to the blue salon. Miss Middleton-Murray wasn’t there. Nor was she in the yellow salon or the library or the music room.

  Primrose gritted her teeth and prepared to climb up all those stairs again—or dare she translocate to her bedchamber?

  No, not when her maid might be there.

  “Fiddlesticks,” she said, under her breath, and turned towards the vestibule and the main staircase—and then halted at the sound of feminine voices.

  Miss Warrington and Miss Middleton-Murray came along the corridor, arm in arm.

  “Where have you been?” Primrose asked, trying not to sound too peremptory.

  “The conservatory. It’s so atmospheric in this rain.” Miss Warrington gave a theatrical shiver. “You really should take a look, Lady Primrose.”

  “Perhaps later,” Primrose said.

  Miss Warrington and Miss Middleton-Murray looked into the library, the blue salon, the yellow salon, and the music room. When they found Oliver in none of those places, they decided to settle in the blue salon, with Lady and Miss Cheevers. Soon they were deep in discussion over the latest fashions in bonnets. Primrose picked up the magazine she’d abandoned half an hour ago, and went back to pretending to read it. She was looking at a fashion plate of a lady wearing a turban rather like Lady Cheevers’s when Miss Middleton-Murray rose to her feet. “Pray excuse me for a moment,” she said.