Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
N iall dropped what he was doing the moment Lissa came to find him, and followed her quickly to the room where she’d asked the servant to wait. It gave her just enough time to fill him in on the situation — including the fact that she’d stopped the girl before she could actually put any of the poison in the soup, something that clearly relieved him. They bumped into Lord Weatherby on their way back to the little room where the girl was waiting for them — without hesitation, Niall invited him to join them. Lissa wondered about the wisdom of that — she didn’t trust Lord Weatherby as much as she trusted the MacClarans, that was for sure — but she trusted Niall’s judgment. If he wanted Weatherby present, then she was willing to go along with it.
It did have the unfortunate effect of scaring the hell out of the girl, though. When the three of them joined her in the little sitting room where Lissa had left her, her face went white as a sheet, and she sat up so straight in her chair that she almost seemed to be hovering above it. Weatherby barely seemed to notice the effect his presence had, taking a seat on the low couch opposite where the girl was sitting and waiting for Niall to proceed. Lissa joined him, deciding in the moment it would be best to let Niall run the show. An interrogation always relied on power dynamics, and Lissa wasn’t quite sure how these ones worked — and her own position of authority would be muddied by the presence of her ‘husband’ and the Lord of the manor they were in, too.
Niall spoke to the girl softly, but that didn’t do much to change the look of terror in her eyes, the worried glances she kept shooting at Weatherby. “My name is Niall. It’s nice to meet you…?”
“Penny,” she choked out in a whisper.
“Penny. That’s a pretty name. You’re not in trouble, Penny, alright? I know you didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t,” she said tearfully, twisting at her apron in her lap. “I didn’t do anything at all, I promise, I only helped in the kitchen like a good girl, like Master Bell said.”
“It’s Bell who’s your master, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” she said fretfully. “He’s been good to me. I cook his meals and help with his things, and he says one day we might be married.”
Bell… Lissa cast her mind back to the somewhat stiff round of introductions that had taken place at afternoon tea. Nathan Bell had been one of the men who stuck closest to Codlington — she remembered his close-set black eyes boring a hole through her and Amelia before the English contingent had given up on intimidating them. It didn’t surprise her at all that he’d chosen a servant who was so fragile and doting — a sharp wave of pity for the girl washed over her. Even knowing as little as she did about English society, she knew there was no way a man of his station was going to marry a girl like her.
“And tell me what Master Bell told you about this.” Niall pulled the vial of powder out of his pocket — Lissa had made sure to get it from Penny before she’d come to fetch him, not wanting any further ‘accidents’ to take place. When Penny saw it, her face brightened immediately — which made Weatherby lean forward curiously.
“Oh, that! That’s the powder Master Bell gave me, for—” She shot an apologetic glance toward Lord Weatherby. “Oh, sir, I don’t quite know how to say it in such high company.”
“Just speak, girl,” Weatherby said impatiently.
Penny went pale. “It’s a prank, sir! It makes you — it makes a person — you sprinkle a little in their food and — oh, please don’t make me say it?—”
“It gives them gas, isn’t that right?” Lissa put in.
Niall flashed her a grateful smile and the girl stopped writhing.
“Yes,” she said helplessly. “Yes, it makes them — it’s a little prank, Master Bell said, he said it would give everyone a good laugh and help them be good friends.”
“You’ve been putting this in my food?” Weatherby demanded, but Niall turned to shoot him a warning look — which, to Lissa’s surprise, he responded to by sitting back in his seat, clearly working hard to keep the fury from his face.
“Penny, I’m afraid Bell lied to you,” Niall said gently. “This powder didn’t give anyone gas… it’s a poison, and it made Lord Weatherby very, very sick.”
The look of horror that passed in slow motion across Penny’s face was far too vivid to be anything but genuine. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, and she stared at Lord Weatherby, her mouth working as tears began to spill down her cheeks. “That — that’s why you got sick, my lord?” And before Weatherby could even answer, she burst into tears, collapsing in on herself and burying her face in her hands as her shoulders shook with sobs.
Even Weatherby couldn’t maintain his anger in the face of such obvious distress. He looked uneasily up at Niall, who had moved in close to the girl and put a reassuring hand on her shoulders. She was choking out incoherent half-sentences, clearly trying to say that she hadn’t known, that she was sorry — Niall waited with seemingly infinite patience for the gale of tears to subside, then patted her shoulder.
“It’s alright, Penny. We know you didn’t mean to do it. But we’re going to have to ask you to do as we say while we get to the bottom of what happened, alright?”
“Anything, sir,” she gasped. “I’ll do anything. Oh, Lord Weatherby —” Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked up at him. “You’ve been such a kind host and to think I — I — I?—”
“Yes, well, no harm done, in the end,” Weatherby said gruffly. “Niall, do you need me for the rest of this? Supper’s about to be served, and I rather think I ought to be there. Show of strength, and all that.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lissa said quickly. “I want to try something.” She paused in the doorway, looking back at Niall, who was still comforting the distraught Penny. He looked up and met her eyes — she mouthed a quick ‘good work’, and he smiled back at her.
They made their apologies for Niall’s absence when they reached the supper table, where most of the guests were already seated. Lissa took her place by Amelia, who looked at her curiously — she shot her a meaningful ‘we’ll talk later’ look, then turned her attention to the bowls of soup that were being carried in by the serving staff. She could see Lord Weatherby looking intently at Codlington and his men, and she sought out Bell, who wasn’t doing a very good job of concealing the fact that he was watching both Weatherby and Laird Donal closely. She waited until the servants had left the room, and as the assembled guests went to pick up their cutlery, she played her card.
“I must offer my strongest compliments to your head of staff, Lord Weatherby!” she said cheerfully. “She’s done so well to add five extra guests at short notice — you’d never know what a mix-up it was back there with all these bowls.”
Lord Weatherby looked nonplussed, but behind him she saw Sir Baldric’s eyes widen just a fraction — he’d clearly followed her plan more quickly than his Lord had. She ate a spoonful of soup, and watched closely as Lord Codlington and Bell, both pale in the face, pushed their bowls discretely away, opting instead to nibble on their bread rolls. She kept an eye on them for the rest of the meal — and sure enough, neither of them ate any of their soup. Bell, for his part, seemed reluctant even to touch the bowl for fear of what it might contain.
Later that evening, they met in one of the outer rooms of Lord Weatherby’s private chambers — one of the few places in the manor they could be certain the English contingent wouldn’t walk in or overhear their conversation. Lissa and Niall quickly filled in a curious Hamish, Amelia, and Laird Donal on the events of the afternoon, and Niall updated Weatherby and the others on what was going to happen with the hapless servant who’d been caught with the poison.
“We can conclude that Bell was behind the attempts to poison Lord Weatherby, then,” Sir Baldric said, giving his Lord a worried look.
“And Codlington knows about it, too,” Lissa put in. “He stopped eating at supper the moment I said that the bowls of soup had all been mixed up. The others finished their bowls, though, so I suppose we can assume the whole group isn’t in on the conspiracy.”
“Curious,” Lord Weatherby said, frowning. “If it’s just the inquest they want to control, I don’t see how killing me would help. Or Laird Donal, for that matter.”
“That was just vengeance, I’d imagine,” Donal said, his cheerful expression belying the seriousness of the situation. “He was quite unhappy to have a filthy Scotsman at his table, as you’ll recall.”
“We need more information,” Niall said, shaking his head. “Penny’s told me all she knows, which isn’t very much, bless her — she’s a well-meaning soul, if a simple one. I’d be unwilling to let her go back to Bell now she knows he’s been asking her to poison people.”
“You’re right, that will tip Codlington off that we’re aware of his plan,” Hamish said. “I think we’d best hide her away until all this can be resolved.”
“We could use it to our advantage,” Lissa suggested. “Like Niall said, we need more information — watching and waiting is our only option until the would-be assassins show their hand. But we can put pressure on them. What if we spread a rumor that Penny has run away to the village? Their reaction might give us a bit more evidence.”
“Meanwhile, we can hide her at the Keep,” Laird Donal suggested. “She’ll be safe there.”
“Very good,” Lord Weatherby said cheerfully. He seemed to be rather enjoying the show — the Lord had been in good spirits since dinner, where she’d noticed he’d eaten like a horse, including several servings of soup. Probably catching up on what he’d missed out on while he was sick… she could remember the hastily veiled look of shock on Bell and Codlington’s faces at the Lord’s appetite. They must think Lord Weatherby had the constitution of a horse, she thought with some amusement. “We happen to have an expert on the spreading of rumors in our midst this very moment — isn’t that right, Baldric?”
“I can see to it that the story spreads,” Baldric confirmed with a small inclination of his head.
And with that, they bid one another goodnight and turned in for the evening. Lissa was grateful to be sharing a bed with Niall. With the ironclad confirmation that day that there were genuine assassination attempts going on at the manor, she wouldn’t have felt comfortable sleeping alone. But with Niall’s strong arms wrapped around her, she was able to fall quickly into a deep, dreamless sleep.