Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“This way.” I opened the panel in the wall that revealed the narrow spiral steps up to the minstrels’ gallery. “I’m right behind you.”
The duchess ascended the staircase, and I quietly closed the door and followed. If luck was with us, our escape had gone unnoticed.
“Grandmama!” Leander rose from his knees, two vertical imprints on his cheeks from where he’d pressed his face to the railings. “Grandmama, you were right. The ballroom is like a magical tale. I want a flying carpet.”
“A flying dragon would be better.” Atticus stood more slowly. He sent me a puzzled glance, his instincts apparently in fine working order.
“The duchess and I will be in Mr. Bryson’s sitting room, Atticus. If you could fetch Miss West and bring her to the same location, I’d appreciate it. The captain’s quarters are across the corridor from my own. Leander, you are with your grandmama and me.”
“Mr. Bryson’s quarters?” Atticus was looking more like a dragon by the moment. “Whyn’t use your own rooms if you want peace and quiet?”
“Because my apartment is exactly where people are likely to look for me if they notice my absence. Away with you and lose that scowl. You are delivering a message between courting lovers, a happy errand. Leander, put on your best mischievous-lad expression and scout the corridor for us.”
Leander had apparently inherited his papa’s nose for adventure. He peeked into the corridor. “Not a soul in sight, Uncle.”
“Atticus, give us one minute, then down the steps and into the ballroom you go. Encourage Miss West to use the same steps to make her exit.”
“A minute means count to sixty,” Leander said. “Five minutes is three hundred, but I always lose track somewhere after a hundred.”
The duchess was looking two shades paler than fresh snow.
“Leander, we’re off. Your Grace, on your dignity. You keep the most presuming gossips at bay with your posture alone. Chin up for another few moments, then we’ll have you feeling better.”
The gavotte started up—thump, thump, thump, stomp—and the duchess gestured toward the door. She leaned on me more heavily than manners required, but to appearances, she was merely traversing the corridor for a breath of fresh air, her son and grandson keeping her company.
“Up we go,” I said as we reached the back staircase to the family wing.
“I am not a colicky infant, Julian.”
“I am an adult son worried half out of my wits, madam. Your patience would be appreciated.”
We traveled the rest of the distance on the strength of the duchess’s silent determination. By the time we reached Bryson’s apartment, even Leander seemed to grasp that serious business was afoot.
“Should I go back to the nursery, sir? Miss Hunter said I was to return after the footman showed us the ballroom.”
“Stay here for now.” I handed my mother into a wing chair facing the fire. “Mama, the next part is undignified.”
She nodded. “Take the boy into the corridor.”
First, I collected the empty porcelain basin from the washstand in Bryson’s bedroom and a white quill pen from his escritoire. I set these by the duchess’s feet, then I took Leander by the hand and led him across the corridor to an alcove.
“Is Grandmama ill?” He sounded once again like the uncertain little fellow he’d been when I’d first met him.
“Not ill with a cold or lung fever, but she ate or drank something that disagreed with her. She will feel better soon.”
“If her tummy is upset, why did we leave her alone?”
I settled on the chilly window bench and patted the place beside me. “Have you ever cast up your accounts?”
“Something awful, when I ate a goose pie that had turned. I didn’t think it tasted right, but I was hungry.”
“And you brought it back up, and then you felt better.”
“I felt awful first.” He tucked close, and I put an arm around his skinny shoulders. “My head wanted to explode, and I was all hot and weak and thirsty, but I was afraid to drink because my tummy hated me. Mama made me mint tea with honey, though, and that tasted good.”
“Excellent suggestion.”
We waited with a shared sense of manfully subdued anxiety while Leander quietly counted to sixty twice.
“What if Grandmama dies, Uncle Julian?”
“We will be terribly sad, but she would want us to remember her at her best.” To remember her love, which had been fierce, if not always easily expressed. “She isn’t about to die over a bite of ham tart, though. Her Grace is made of Toledo steel.”
“She’s pretty. She looks like a fairy godmother with all those purple diamonds.”
“Amethysts. Shall we brave the infirmary tent?” I rose and offered my hand.
Leander took it long enough to hop to his feet, then shrugged off my grip. “No yelling in the sickroom, Uncle Julian. No long faces, but no shouting either.”
Where had he learned sickroom deportment?
I tapped on the door, and my hand was on the latch when Her Grace gave me leave to enter. She sat in the wing chair. The basin near the door was discreetly covered by what appeared to be a shaving towel. A sour tang nonetheless hung in the air.
“Are you better?” Leander asked. “Did you cast up your accounts and make peace with your tummy?”
“Yes to the first two questions. I remain in negotiations with my digestive organs.”
Her Grace looked a little improved too. My heart ceased thudding against my ribs, and I took the first free breath I’d enjoyed since she’d asked to leave the ballroom.
“Leander suggested mint tea with honey to aid the peace talks. Leander, please keep your grandmama company while I tend to the housekeeping.” I retrieved the basin, listened at the door, then peered into the gloomy corridor.
I took the basin four doors down, to Algernon’s suite, set it outside his door, and returned to the patient.
“Grandmama says the punch disagreed with her.” Leander reported his findings with a huge smile. “The punch is gone, so she’ll be fine. Grandmama tossed the feather into the fire.”
Destroying even minor evidence of her affliction. Toledo steel was but a reed in the wind compared to my mother’s fortitude.
“Let’s hold off on further discussion until Miss West arrives, shall we? Two heads are better than one.”
Leander began counting on his fingers, putting me in mind of Algernon indulging in the same habit.
“Uncle Julian, if Miss West and Atticus come, we will be five heads. That’s a lot more than one or two.”
“My grandson is very bright. Just like his papa, aunties, and uncles.”
“My mama is bright too,” Leander retorted, and I wanted to hug him.
“Your mother is very intelligent,” I said. “She knew to offer you mint tea with honey when that nasty goose pie almost had the better of you.”
Her Grace glanced at the clock. “I am to dance the supper waltz with Mr. Quiggan.”
“Not for another hour or more.”
Before we could fall to arguing, Hyperia and Atticus joined us. Through some miracle of foresight, Hyperia had conjured a tea tray along the way.
“Gunpowder with lemon,” she said, setting the tray down, “and ginger biscuits. Atticus thought of them. Apparently, Cook prepares an enormous batch in anticipation of tomorrow’s ailments.”
“I could not possibly,” Her Grace said, eyeing the tray dubiously.
“Just a sip.” Hyperia passed over a cup, and with all four of us looking anxiously on, Mama had no choice but to take a small, dutiful taste.
She tried to hand the cup back, but Hyperia shook her head. “Like every other lady in the shire, Your Grace ate and drank little all day in anticipation of tonight’s feasting. You need to keep sipping.”
The duchess sent me a look that clearly referenced headstrong personalities. She took a ginger biscuit from the dish on the tray.
“I am the guest of honor. You must allow, you lot, that I should return to the ballroom as soon as may be. I will not have it said that my digestion has grown tentative with age.”
“I would rather you suffer that charge, madam, than have it bruited about that you were poisoned.”
“Who else would like a ginger biscuit?” Her Grace held out the plate in the direction of the two boys, who’d been occupying the sofa with a notable lack of fidgeting.
“One apiece,” I said, taking my allotted one as well. “The buffet will be enormous, and rapscallions that you are, you will pilfer from the dessert leftovers without ceasing.”
Each boy took a single biscuit and returned to the sofa. Hyperia helped herself to a biscuit too.
“I can have the traveling coach ready at first light.” I put the offer before my mother without consideration for appearances, Bryson’s predicament, or Hyperia’s opinion on the matter.
Somebody had poisoned a duchess—bad enough—but that duchess also happened to be my only surviving parent, the lady who had welcomed me home when all of Mayfair was pointing at me and whispering behind my back.
Her Grace had, by including Leander on this jaunt to Hampshire, already begun smoothing his way into polite company, despite the bar sinister across his figurative escutcheon.
Her Grace of Waltham was a force to be reckoned with. Wellington himself would have words with me if further harm befell my mother.
“I cannot lose you.” I did not care who heard me state the obvious. “Please, Mama. It’s my fault you came to this pass, and my lapse in vigilance cannot be allowed to place you in harm’s—”
She shoved a biscuit at my mouth. “Young people are so dramatic these days. Miss West is correct: I have all but fasted for most of the day. The only food or drink to pass my lips in hours was that vile punch. My serving was brought to me by a footman. Our interaction lasted less than two seconds. I would not recognize him, so don’t bother asking.
The single glass on the tray was offered to me with the compliments of a gentleman.
I suspected Dunsford was being gallant and thought nothing of it. ”
“We can conclude you were poisoned.” Hyperia spoke calmly and took the other wing chair.