She sank to the bed, clutching the note, her mind sorting through the possibilities of how it came to be there in her room. The last time she received a message from Matthew it was put into her hands by Reynaux. On that occasion the Frenchman had made it seem as if he merely encountered Matthew Bourne in the street and knew nothing about him, but perhaps they were better acquainted than he had revealed to her. This second time could not be a coincidence.
What could the two of them possibly have in common? It was an alliance that made her uneasy, and she worried for Matty. They were, after all, friends— as she kept telling everybody— and she did not turn her back on a friend in need. His acquaintance with Reynaux did not bode well for anybody.
And as she thought of her mother's French gentleman, Raven realized he had not shown his face despite all the noise of coming and going. Even Hale's aunts and Lady Newcombe had peeped out to see what was amiss, although once they heard it was only her mother, they immediately returned to their beds with no further concern. But Reynaux had not appeared. She'd assumed him to be a heavy sleeper, but apparently he had been wandering the halls after all, if he was responsible for leaving the message in her room.
She certainly could not let Hale see it. There had already been a physical confrontation outside Deverells that resulted in a blackened eye— not suitable attire at all for an Earl. She knew that when Matthew Bourne was drinking, his mood could become very dark and despondent. At such times he felt the entire world working against him and he required comforting until he saw a brighter horizon. Now, with the matter of his broken engagement, she could only imagine the state he was in.
Once dressed with Rose's help, she returned to her mother's room and showed Mary the note.
"It is not your responsibility to worry about Matthew Bourne," her friend whispered crossly. "That boy should manage his own troubles and stop blaming everybody else for them."
"But who else can help him now, Mary? He has defied his family to make this impulsive run for freedom. Who else can he turn to, but an old friend?"
Mary considered for a moment and then said, "You must tell Hale about this letter."
"Good lord, no! He would insist upon seeing Matthew himself and that will help nobody. If I tell Hale about this there could be another violent encounter. He has already warned me that if he sees Matthew again it will not be pleasant. I am capable of handling this without running for help from any man."
"Hale is not just any man, Raven. He cares about you. Deeply."
"Yes." She slid the folded letter away in her sleeve, for heavy footsteps now approached her mother's room. "I believe he does." Her pulse was uneven as she heard his voice in the corridor, giving orders to one of the footmen. "And I care about him. I...I love him."
Mary's eyes grew round and watery.
"Do not look at me that way," Raven protested. "It just happened. I don't know why."
"Then you absolutely must tell him about Bourne."
"And have him ride to the inn with a blunderbuss? You know how men are, Mary. Reasoned discussion is beyond them when their blood is up. Even Hale." She lowered her voice. "Matthew and I have known each other too long, and he would never harm me. No, I must go and speak to him and tell him face to face. I should not have relied upon a letter. I alone can curb him of any ideas he might have to come here and cause trouble."
"Then let me go with you."
She could see that Mary was going to be stubborn about it, so she agreed. They would both go in the morning, after breakfast, once the doctor had been to see Lady Charlotte and declared her merely "under the weather" due to an excess of Bordeaux.
"I still say you should tell Hale."
"Do not make me wish I never told you," Raven replied sharply, just as the man himself entered.
"Told her what?" he said, looking from one to the other, stopping with his feet apart, hands at his sides.
"Nothing."
He glared, giving her that stern jaw again. But somehow she could not take it seriously anymore. "Is the doctor coming?" she asked brightly, trying not to think of how he had groaned into her hair and shuddered with wild passion each time they—
"Peter has gone to fetch him. Shouldn't be too long."
"Thank you." She breathed hard, sincerely relieved to be brought back from her naughty day dream. Her mother was ill, for pity's sake! Must she think of all that every time she looked at the man?
They stood around her mother's bed, and Hale became very grim. "I don't like this," he muttered. "Her breathing is very slow."
And Raven had begun to notice an odor coming from her mother's skin, as well as the reappearance of a thin sliver of drool in the corner of her mouth, which she had already wiped away twice. When she gently lifted her mother's eyelids, the pupils were dilated, making her eyes too dark, velvety black, instead of their usual vibrant green.
Her fear multiplied, but Hale's composure, along with Mary's steadiness, helped keep her calm.
* * * *
The doctor arrived shortly after and, following a thorough examination, confirmed privately to Hale something he had already suspected.
Lady Charlotte had been poisoned.
"It could be any one of a number of causes, your lordship," the young doctor explained. "But at a guess I would say hemlock. I've seen the symptoms before when the plant was accidentally ingested. And the odor is distinctive."
He gave the lady an emetic to induce vomiting, but he was grim about the likelihood of her recovery.
"Had we caught it within an hour of her swallowing the poison, we would have a better chance," he told Hale. "Now we can only hope the amount was not too great, and that the lady has a strong constitution."
Hale insisted that no one but he must be told about the poison. He did not want to scare the ladies in the house, and his aunts were already convinced someone was out to kill him. This incident would make them worry even more.
Raven would not leave the sick bed. She sent Mary off to get some sleep, while she remained by her mother's side, cooling the lady's face with a wet cloth and holding the washbasin in readiness.
"I wish you would get some rest yourself," Hale told her gently. "The doctor has offered to stay and watch your mother."
"No. I will stay with her." She looked up at him, her eyes large and shadowed with sadness. "I always look after her when she's like this. When she wakes I want her to know I am here."
His heart ached. Raven seemed very young suddenly and afraid as he'd never seen her. This event had knocked the wind out of her sails.
No, he could not tell her it was poison. Better she think it simply the effects of too much wine and rich food.
While the doctor looked away, packing his bag, Hale pecked a soft kiss to her brow and left her to those nursing duties.
He went to his library intent on pouring a brandy, but the glass Alphonse Reynaux had poured for him earlier was still on the tray where he had left it, untouched. There too was Reynaux's cigar stub and his empty brandy snifter. How eager that man had been to share a toast with Hale. And he'd grown sullen when his host would not share a brandy.
Cautious he sniffed the glass he had earlier rejected. Was there a slight mouse-like odor he detected? Something similar to that which he had just smelled on Lady Charlotte's breath?
Raven's mother had not drunk brandy that night, but she had accidently drunk from his wine glass at dinner.
The pieces began to form a picture in his mind, uncertain but possible.
There was something odd about that Frenchman. He was sly, oily. But was he also a poisoner? Why would he put hemlock in Hale's wine and, when that failed, his brandy?
And how was it done?
He had thought it strange that his guest took it upon himself to pour the brandy when they retired to his library, but then supposed it was some sort of French tradition. Too distracted by thoughts of Raven and how quickly he could return to her, he had not paid that much attention to anything the man did or said.
> But now, as he thought back over the evening, he remembered the dented silver snuff box constantly visible in Reynaux's hand, always being opened and closed. Nobody would have thought twice about it, if they saw him hovering near the table before dinner with his tarnished snuff box.
Turning swiftly he found a footman waiting to let him know that Lady Charlotte had just vomited and opened her eyes. A good sign.
Vastly relieved, he nodded. "Please wake my guest Alphonse Reynaux and ask him to come to the library."
"Yes, my lord."
Twenty minutes later the young man returned alone however, unable to rouse the Frenchman from his bed. Hale went up himself, rapped on the door sternly and then used a skeleton key to enter the room.
It was empty.
A later search would reveal that several candlesticks, a silver hairbrush and a small Limoges porcelain dish had vanished from the bedroom with him. Again Hale decided to keep this information to himself rather than give his aunts more material to use against Raven and her mother.
It seemed likely the man fled during the night, once he realized that Lady Charlotte had accidently drunk the hemlock-laced wine. In which case, they were well rid of him in the house.
But until he knew for sure what had happened here and who was responsible, he would be wary. He sent a quiet word out to the grooms and ground staff, asking that they discretely keep their eyes open for the stray Frenchman. Meanwhile he sent a message via the doctor to the local police sergeant.
* * * *
Her mother's condition steadily improved as daylight crept across the sky. The doctor said she must not have ingested too much rich food and perhaps irritated an old stomach complaint. Fortunately Lady Charlotte was far stronger than she liked to imagine and much too robust to fade away like a dainty, pedigree blue-blood— even if she would have preferred that. As birdsong trickled in through the open window, she was able to sit up and sip milk.
"I will never drink wine again," she assured her daughter, shuddering at the memory of those burning stomach cramps with which she'd been seized the night before. "I thought I was dead, Raven. I thought it was the end. Not surprisingly all the demons of hell were at my door."
"I'm sure you have many years left, but you must take better care of yourself, mama."
"I believe it was poison," she exclaimed, clutching her throat.
"Mama!" Raven rolled her eyes as she retied the silk ribbon on the end of her mother's braid to make it neater and more jaunty. "Who on earth would want to poison you?"
"Your father, no doubt."
"Now why would my father do that?"
"To avoid paying my allowance every month."
This was nonsense, of course. True Deverell did not have to pay his former wife anything and only did so because he was generous— some might even say that he was careless with his fortune. But Raven merely smiled and shook her head, not wishing to argue with her mother today, thankful to have her conscious and moving again.
"That young doctor was rather handsome," Lady Charlotte exclaimed thoughtfully, snatching a hand mirror from her bedside table to examine that ribbon and her daughter's handiwork.
"A little young for you though, mama."
"Not for me, foolish girl. I was thinking of your plain, but helpful friend Miss Ashford. He would do for her very nicely."
Now she knew her mother was on the mend if she was matchmaking again. And thankfully, this time it was for someone other than Raven.
Indeed, it was good to know her mother was finally looking out for someone else and, perhaps— dare she think it— recognizing Mary's worth at last.
* * * *
She joined the others for breakfast and there suffered the lukewarm inquiries into her mother's health from the aunts and Lady Newcombe. They had all, it seemed, slept very well. Only Mary looked tired and sounded genuine when she asked after Lady Charlotte's recovery. Hale was apparently still talking to the doctor in his library and nobody knew where Monsieur Reynaux might be. Probably still asleep.
Anxious about Matthew Bourne's proximity to Greyledge and eager to get that meeting over with, as soon as she could slip away with the minimum of notice, Raven dashed back to her room for a coat and hat. Then she met Mary, as planned, in the flagged stone passage to the kitchen.
"Are you sure about this?" Mary demanded, her eyes worried. "I still think we should—"
"Bringing you with me is a compromise, Mary, and I shall make no other. Now do not be difficult, or I shall let my mama match you with that doctor. Now she's feeling better and imbued with a new lease on life, I would stay away from her if I were you."
So the two women hurried out, looking as innocent as they could.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"My lord," the groom found him on the way to the stables, "I thought you should know that those two young ladies took the dog cart down to the village this morning. Miss Deverell and Miss Ashford. You asked us to keep an eye out for anything strange, and I thought it odd that they were unescorted and in a bit of a hurry like. She said you wouldn't mind, my lord— the noisy one, that is— but she wouldn't stop and wait while I came to find you."
"I see." The air went out of his lungs. "Thank you, Joe."
Damn her! What was she up to now? Could she not behave herself and follow his rules for one day? She knew he would never approve of two young ladies dashing off the estate without mentioning it to him first. And what was the need for that secrecy?
Furious, he ordered Bowsprit saddled.
* * * *
The village inn was a small, rustic, very old building with low timbered ceilings and a slanting floor. Like most of the local structures it was charming and picturesque, but very far from the sort of place in which Matthew Bourne might usually be found. He had taken a room overlooking the village square and so he saw them arrive in the dog cart and sent word down to the landlord that only Miss Deverell may come up. Mary must wait below with the horse and cart.
In the past, Raven would have gone up to his room without a thought, but she was cognizant now of how that might appear and she did not want Hale to give her another of those disapproving, exasperated frowns. Besides she had to think of his reputation. So she told the landlord that she would wait in the dining room of the inn and if Mr. Bourne cared to see her he could come down himself. She was not going to play games with him and nothing would take place behind closed doors.
Feeling mature and confident, she took a seat by the window and waited patiently, hands in her lap, until he appeared.
He wore only riding boots, a shirt and breeches, all grimy and worse for wear— like him. She had never seen Matthew so untidy, even on his worst days after a rough night.
"I thought you would come last night," he said, falling to a chair across the table from her. "Or were you too busy with your new friends?" he sneered.
"What are you doing here, Matty?" she asked gently. "You should not have come."
"I came to rescue you, of course. You surely don't want to stay here? And now, as you must have heard, my engagement is called off. You and I can be together. Wherever we want to go."
Raven sighed. "That is just foolishness. You ought to go back to London and to Lady Louisa Winstanley. You have broken her heart."
"As you broke mine!"
Sunlight trickled in through the small, crooked window and dripped across his face making it look very pale. He squinted angrily and shouted for a tankard of cider and some bacon for his breakfast.
"What do you want, Matty? How can I persuade you to go home and make amends to that poor girl? I have a little money in my possession, but not a great deal."
"I don't want money! You must come with me, Raven. You and I are meant to be together. We have had fun, as you said yourself. Why should that end now?"
"We had fun, but we can have no more. You and I are traveling in different directions and that is as it should be, I think. I will always care about you as a friend, but that is all. You did receive my note in res
ponse to yours?"
"Oh, yes. That prim creature brought it. Taking delight in the service, no doubt."
"Then you should know that I cannot—"
"You will run away with me, Raven. You will. I won't be made a fool. I left my life behind to come here after you. If you turn me down now you are a cruel, callous woman. I thought, if I proved my devotion to you by throwing Louisa over, you would run into my arms." He scowled. "This is far from the greeting I expected. Now you mean to leave me ruined!"
"Matty, you are not ruined. You have made a mess of things, but it is not too late to put them straight." She paused while the landlord brought him a tankard and set it down on the table gingerly, alongside a plate of greasy bacon and a lump of bread. Once the man had gone again, she said, "Your parents are devoted to you, and I know they will forgive you. If you go back now and show you are contrite, all this can be set aside."
He glowered into the cider. "As you set me aside?"
"We are different people now than we were six months ago." Well, she was, anyway. She thought of last night, lying in Hale's arms, surrounded by his strength, learning to trust.
Perhaps she had been wrong not to tell him that she was coming here to see Matthew, but he would have argued. Since he could be just as hardheaded as she, he might have come here to confront Bourne and make a scene. She did not want that. Truly she thought she could persuade Matthew to go home. He was not usually difficult to sway and surely by now he was tired of living without all the luxuries to which he was accustomed: the servants at his beck and call; the grand, warm houses; clean clothes whenever he needed them, and fine dinners of rich food.
Yes, she knew Matty very well and this idea of running away was nothing more than a boyish fantasy. The glow ought to have worn off by now. It looked as if he had not been shaved in days, and now he yelled at the landlord because the cider was hot and spiced with cloves, which he did not like. He reminded her of a little boy having a tantrum at the table, flinging his food at the hard-worked nanny.
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