by Emily Larkin
There was no answer. She strained to see him, but couldn’t. The quick crunch of his footsteps grew fainter, lost beneath the steady patter of rain.
Primrose stayed where she was for three quick panted breaths, then wished herself back to the library. Even though she was on hands and knees, the vertigo was so strong that she nearly toppled over. She squeezed her eyes shut.
The world settled into place around her. Primrose opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet. The library was exactly as she’d left it less than a minute ago: the candles, the chessboard, the two motionless figures in the armchairs.
She crossed to Rhodes quickly and bent to listen. Was he still breathing? Was Oliver?
Yes. They both were.
For some reason, that made her want to cry. From relief? Or from fear that the next time she strained to hear those faint breaths she’d hear nothing?
Her heart was beating fast. Water dripped from her hair. Primrose wiped her face, and discovered that she had pieces of gravel stuck to her palms. She flicked them away, and bent to check Rhodes again, to check Oliver again.
Running footsteps echoed in the corridor. Dasenby burst into the room, panting, Benoît at his heels.
“I think there may have been something in the punch,” Primrose told them breathlessly. “They both drank it.”
Benoît nodded, and crossed to the armchairs and crouched, listening to Rhodes’s breathing. Then he felt for his pulse.
Dasenby watched anxiously.
“Your father was just in here,” Primrose told him. “He tried to smother Oliver. I stopped him.”
Benoît glanced up. “Smother?”
Primrose nodded, and then realized what that might mean. “They haven’t been poisoned? Merely drugged?”
“Perhaps.” Benoît rose. “The punch? Where is it?”
Primrose showed him.
Benoît sniffed the punch, as she’d done. “Monsieur Dasenby,” he said. “Can you find one of the servants? We need to know who made this punch.”
Dasenby didn’t object to being given orders by a valet; he nodded, and departed hastily.
Benoît returned to the table. He opened Rhodes’s mouth, leaned close, and sniffed, then he peeled back one of Rhodes’s eyelids and examined the pupil.
Primrose watched, kneading her hands together, almost wringing them. Hope and fear made a tight, sickening knot in her stomach. Don’t let them die, she begged silently. Please, don’t let them die.
Benoît checked Oliver next.
“What do you think it is?” Primrose asked, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Not arsenic?”
“Their breathing is very shallow,” Benoît said. “And their pupils are constricted. I think . . . perhaps laudanum.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It depends how much they have drunk.” Benoît crossed to the mantelpiece and stirred the punch, then scooped some up in the silver ladle and cautiously tasted it.
Primrose watched him intently.
Benoît stood still for a long moment, his gaze abstracted, and she knew he was trying to analyze the flavors. “Well?” she asked, once he’d put the ladle back in the bowl.
“It’s sweet,” Benoît said. “But the aftertaste is bitter.”
“Laudanum’s bitter, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
They both started as Dasenby burst into the library again. He was even more out of breath than he’d been before. “The punch was mixed in the cardroom, by my father. He and Lord Cheevers each took a glass, and then one of the footmen brought the rest here for Thayne and my cousin. I’ve spoken to the man. He says the bowl was three-quarters full.”
Primrose and Benoît both looked at the punch bowl. She tried to estimate how much Rhodes and Oliver had drunk. Three glasses each? Four?
“Did Lord Cheevers drink the punch?” Benoît asked.
Dasenby nodded, gulping for breath. “Yes, and he fell asleep in the cardroom. But he woke when I shook him.”
“How is he?” Primrose asked.
“Drowsy. He thought he was foxed, apologized to me for it, and went upstairs to bed.”
“Bon,” Benoît said. “Then I think we can say it is laudanum. Lord Algernon would not poison his good friend, no?” He went back to the table and bent over Oliver.
“Should I have told Lord Cheevers there’s something wrong with the punch?” Dasenby asked. He was kneading his hands together anxiously, as Primrose had done earlier. “Oliver said he wanted to keep this quiet, so I didn’t, but . . . Should I have?”
Primrose glanced at Benoît.
“If he drank only one glass he should be fine. Thayne and Westfell, though . . .” The valet grimaced. “Let’s get them upstairs.”
“You think they’re in danger of dying?” Primrose asked.
“Non,” the valet said. “I do not think so, but I should very much like to wake them and induce them to vomit. Monsieur Dasenby, help me get the duke to his room.”
Dasenby hurried forward. Together, he and Benoît hefted Oliver to his feet. Dasenby slung one of Oliver’s arms around his shoulders. Benoît did the same. Oliver sagged between them.
“Lady Primrose, stay with your brother,” the valet said. “We will be back very soon.”
* * *
Left in the library, Primrose had nothing to do but check Rhodes’s breathing, and feel anxious. She was so anxious that it took her several minutes to notice something white lying on the floor: the cloth Lord Algernon had tried to smother Oliver with. She picked it up. It was a neckcloth, the muslin soft and unstarched and folded over many times to make a thick pad.
Primrose laid it on the table and checked Rhodes’s breathing again. Was it shallower than it had been before?
She removed Rhodes’s neckcloth, crisp with starch, and placed it alongside Lord Algernon’s one. “You’re going to be fine,” she whispered, kneeling beside Rhodes, stroking his hair. “Just keep breathing.” And even though Benoît believed there was no danger, grief welled in her chest. If Rhodes died . . . If Oliver died . . .
She leapt to her feet in relief when Benoît and Dasenby returned, then hovered, feeling useless, while they hauled Rhodes from his chair, slung his arms over their shoulders, and staggered towards the door. Primrose grabbed up the two neckcloths and followed. “Which room are you putting him in?” she asked, when they reached the vestibule and the men paused to catch their breath.
“Same as Westfell,” Benoît said. “Easier to look after them together.”
Primrose nodded and ran up the stairs. She hurried along the corridor, knocked once on Oliver’s door, sharply, and opened it without waiting for an invitation to enter.
Oliver lay on the four-poster bed, out cold. His valet, Grimshaw, was struggling to strip him of his tailcoat.
Primrose cast aside the neckcloths and hurried to the bed. “Let me help.”
“Lady Primrose, you shouldn’t—”
“Now isn’t the time for propriety!”
The valet didn’t disagree. Together they wrestled Oliver out of his tailcoat. He was heavy, limp, unwieldy, and the tailcoat was very well tailored across his shoulders. The seams strained and the valet grunted with effort before the coat relinquished its grip.
Primrose left the valet unbuttoning Oliver’s waistcoat, ran back to the door, and peered down the corridor.
Benoît and Dasenby staggered into view.
She held the door wide for them.
Both men were panting heavily as they deposited Rhodes on the bed beside Oliver. Benoît began immediately to remove Rhodes’s tailcoat. Primrose sprang to help him.
When Oliver and Rhodes had been stripped down to shirtsleeves and breeches, Benoît turned to Primrose. “I am going to try to wake them now, and make them vomit. You do not need to see this, Lady Primrose.”
“Oh, but—”
“Give us half an hour, please. Monsieur Dasenby, it would be best if you went with her ladyship. Do not let her be alone.”
; His words made Primrose blink—and then understanding flooded in.
She was the only witness to Lord Algernon’s attempt to smother Oliver.
The valet bent over Rhodes, then glanced at her again. “The punch. Please make sure none of the servants drink what is left.”
“The servants?” Dasenby said. “Why would they do that?”
“Because that is what servants generally do,” Benoît said. He turned back to Rhodes, and lifted an eyelid to examine the pupil.
Dasenby and Primrose exchanged a glance. Benoît was a servant himself. He probably knew what he was talking about.
They left the bedroom and made their way down the stairs silently.
The library was as they had left it: chessboard laid out, candles burning, punch bowl on the mantelpiece.
Dasenby picked up the bowl, hesitated for a moment, as if uncertain what to do with it, then tipped the punch on the fire.
There was a loud hissss, a few spits and crackles, and then an unpleasant smell of burning sugar.
Dasenby put the punch bowl on the table, alongside the chessboard. “Now what?”
“Let’s check the cardroom.”
They found two glasses of punch in the cardroom. One was empty, the other full. Dasenby carried the full glass to the fireplace, and upended it. There was another hisss, and the same unpleasant smell.
Dasenby placed the glass on the mantelpiece and looked at Primrose. His expression was sober.
The door opened, and they both started as a footman entered. The footman started, too. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize anyone was in here.” He began to back out the door.
“Oh, no, we’ve finished,” Primrose said.
They retreated to the corridor, leaving the footman to pick up the glasses and snuff the candles.
Primrose exchanged a glance with Dasenby. Was he wondering whether the footman would have drunk that glass of punch? She certainly was.
A chilly draft curled around her ankles. She shivered, and realized that her hair was wet, and her gown was, too. She wondered where on earth she’d left her shawl.
It was in the drawing room, along with the one hundred and twenty swatches of fabric. A maid was in there, too, tidying cushions and snuffing candles.
Primrose gathered up the eight colors Dasenby had chosen for her. They went back out to the corridor again. Primrose huddled into her shawl, aware of how large the house was, how silent.
Where was Lord Algernon? What was he planning next?
“Lady Primrose . . . I hope you don’t think it presumptuous of me, but I think you ought to have your maid sleep in your room with you tonight.”
Primrose glanced at Dasenby.
“My father,” he said, and then halted.
“He ran outside.”
“Even so.” Dasenby swallowed, and looked at her with diffident entreaty. “Lady Primrose, I do think it would be for the best.”
Primrose thought of all the ways inside the house—dozens of doors, hundreds of windows. She thought of the empty wing in which she slept—the Carterises gone, the Warringtons gone, the Middleton-Murrays gone. “Perhaps you’re right.”
They asked a footman to set up a truckle bed in her room. Dasenby accompanied her upstairs to oversee its placement.
“Has half an hour passed yet?” Primrose asked Dasenby, when the footman had finished struggling with the truckle bed.
He checked his watch. “Yes.”
They hastened back to Oliver’s room and rapped on the door.
“Who is it?” a voice asked. Three words only, but unmistakably Monsieur Benoît.
“It’s us,” Primrose said.
A key scraped in the lock and the door opened. Benoît stood back to let them enter, then relocked the door.
Rhodes and Oliver lay side by side in the bed, fast asleep, the covers drawn up to their chins.
“Weren’t you able to wake them?” Primrose asked, feeling a chill of foreboding that had nothing to do with her damp gown.
“We woke them,” Benoît said. “Both of them.” He looked rather disheveled. He’d shed his coat, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “It was not easy.”
“Did they vomit?” She crossed to the bed and bent to stroke Rhodes’s hair back from his face.
“They did.”
Now that she noticed it, the room did have an unpleasant odor, but she didn’t care about smells; she cared about Rhodes and Oliver. “They’ll be all right?” she asked, laying her hand on Rhodes’s brow. His skin was neither too cool nor too warm, but precisely as it should be.
“I believe so, yes.”
Relief brought stinging tears to her eyes. She blinked them back and went around to the other side of the bed and bent over Oliver, stroked his hair, too, and felt the same teary relief.
“Monsieur Grimshaw and I will take turns watching over them tonight.”
Primrose looked around for Oliver’s valet. He wasn’t in the room.
“He is taking away le vomi,” Benoît said. “He will be back soon.”
Primrose nodded, and stroked Oliver’s hair again.
Oliver’s eyelids drowsily lifted. He blinked several times, and focused on her face. “Prim.” He fumbled one hand free of the covers and held it out to her.
Primrose took it, wrapping both of her hands around it. “How do you feel?” She looked into his eyes, examining his pupils. They were small and tight, almost lost in those green and brown and gold irises.
Oliver didn’t answer her question, he merely smiled at her, slowly and sleepily.
That smile affected her more than any smile she’d ever received in her life. Her throat tightened and her heart squeezed and more tears stung her eyes, not relief this time but another emotion, something strong and painful.
Oliver’s eyelids drooped shut. His hand was large and warm and relaxed in hers. He’d drifted off to sleep again.
Primrose had to swallow several times to find her voice. “Did you explain to him what had happened?” she asked the valet. “Did he understand?”
“Yes. But whether he will remember in the morning . . .” Benoît gave one of his Gallic shrugs.
Primrose became aware that Mr. Dasenby was hovering anxiously behind her. She yielded her place to him and watched him bend over Oliver. He blinked half a dozen times and swallowed twice. A muscle worked in his cheek. Primrose felt a strong pang of sympathy for him. Poor Dasenby. How dreadful this situation was for him.
She turned to the valet. “Thank you for your help tonight, Monsieur Benoît. We are truly grateful.”
“It was my pleasure, Lady Primrose.”
Primrose would have liked to have kept watch over Rhodes and Oliver, but she trusted Benoît. The valet was young and strong and clever. Moreover, this was Oliver’s bedroom and she shouldn’t be in it at all. So, reluctantly, after another five minutes of watching the men sleep, she left.
Dasenby escorted her to her bedroom in the South wing. He waited until she’d opened her door, then said, “Good night, Lady Primrose,” and turned away.
Primrose touched his arm, halting him.
He glanced back at her.
“Don’t look for your father tonight, Mr. Dasenby. Please. Wait until Oliver and Rhodes are on their feet again.”
Dasenby hesitated, and then nodded.
“And lock your door.”
He hesitated for longer, and then nodded a second time.
“Good night, Mr. Dasenby.”
She watched him walk down the corridor. The candles in the sconces flickered as he passed them, sending shadows skittering. Poor boy. His life was falling down around his ears.
Primrose sighed, and stepped into her bedchamber, where her maid, Fitchett, waited, and locked the door.
Chapter Thirty-One
Primrose woke to the sound of Fitchett opening the curtains. Sunshine streamed into the room. Her thoughts slowly shook themselves awake—and then she remembered the events of last night. She sat up suddenly. “What’s the time?
”
“Eight o’clock, ma’am.”
Primrose flung back the bedclothes and scrambled out of bed. She attended to her morning ablutions hastily and dressed as swiftly as she could. The only sign that Lord Algernon had tossed her down the terrace steps was a small bruise on her hip.
She fastened the acorn pendant around her throat, snatched up a shawl, and hurried from the room, along the corridor, down the four steps, through the short gallery, through the long gallery, along another corridor, and arrived out of breath at the door to Oliver’s bedchamber.
She rapped on the wooden panels. After a moment, Monsieur Benoît opened it.
“How are they?” she asked anxiously.
“Awake and in perfect health,” the valet replied. “But it is not convenable for you to see them, I am afraid, Lady Primrose. They are still dressing.”
“Oh,” Primrose said. “Well. In that case . . .” She bit her lip, hesitated, and said, “Have you seen anything of Lord Algernon?”
“Non.” Benoît shook his head. “But Monsieur Dasenby looked in ten minutes ago. I believe he has gone down to breakfast.”
“Oh,” she said again. “Well . . . Will you please tell my brother I’ll see him in the breakfast parlor?”
“Naturellement,” the valet said, with a courteous bow. He closed the door.
Primrose went downstairs, eager to speak with Mr. Dasenby, but he wasn’t the only occupant of the breakfast parlor. Lord and Lady Cheevers were there, too, and their daughter.
They exchanged morning greetings. Primrose chose food at random and sat alongside Mr. Dasenby. “How are you?” she asked politely. “I trust you slept well?”
“I did, ma’am,” Dasenby answered, equally politely. “And you?”
“Yes.” Primrose was telling the truth, but she didn’t think Dasenby was. His eyes were shadowed with tiredness.
There was so much she wanted to speak with him about, but the Cheevers were present, so she confined herself to an innocuous, “Have you seen your father this morning?”
Dasenby glanced at her. “No.” Then he looked down at her plate. “You have an appetite this morning, Lady Primrose.”