Chapter 16
The next morning when Gillian woke, Nicholas was gone. So was the phantom Aileen. On the table, Gillian’s ring rested atop a folded napkin with her breakfast. She slipped it on, and it fit perfectly.
She had much to tell Rose. After eating and dressing, she went to her sister’s chamber but found it empty. Sir Evan passed as Gillian emerged from her sister’s chamber.
“Have you seen my sister?”
“Aye. She was going to the cripple’s chambers. I think something’s wrong with him.”
Gillian hurried to Stephen’s chamber. Her knock met with silence, so she knocked harder. “Stephen? Rose?”
She heard a muffled noise inside and pressed her ear to the door. Someone was moaning within.
She pushed the door open. The dim room stank of sickness. It had only one window, and though it was open, it was but a narrow arrow slit and let in little light. She could barely make out the form huddled in the bed, moaning miserably.
She hurried to the bed. “Stephen? What ails you?”
He curled on his side, eyes closed tight, body shaking. Gillian pushed sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. His skin was clammy. “Stephen, tell me what’s wrong?”
“Rose,” he gasped, not even opening his eyes.
Panic thrummed through her. Where was Rose? “No, it’s Gillian. Has she been here?”
His mouth grew pinched, and he doubled over. “Oh God.”
She searched frantically around the room until she located the chamber pot, already half full of vomit, and brought it to him.
He was violently ill. Gillian held him up while he vomited, terrified.
The only people she’d ever seen so ill had all died.
He collapsed against her, his breath heaving in his chest. Gillian set the chamber pot aside.
Tremors shook his body. His face was a ghastly color, like sour custard, the night’s growth of blond whiskers vivid against his pale skin.
She placed a hand on his forehead, then his cheeks. He was not feverish. She heard rapid footsteps approaching the open door and looked up quickly.
Rose rushed in, muttering under her breath, shaking a bottle, her thumb over the mouth to keep it stoppered.
“She’s here, Stephen,” Gillian whispered, relief flooding her. But he was oblivious, trembling violently against Gillian’s side.
“Rose, oh my God, what’s—”
Rose cut her off with a look. “Has he vomited recently?” Her tone was brisk, efficient. She still vigorously shook the bottle in her hand.
Gillian nodded.
“Good.” She poured the liquid from the bottle into a cup. “Sit him up.”
Gillian slid her arm behind his back and tried to maneuver him into an upright position. “He’s too big!”
“That’s good enough.” Rose’s hand bracketed Stephen’s mouth, and she forced the beverage down his throat with the other hand. He tried to pull away, coughing and sputtering, but Rose held his face in a solid grip. “Drink it Stephen or you’ll die.”
Gillian’s eyes widened. Die?
His lids raised halfway to regard Rose warily. “I’m not already dead?” His voice was a weak croak.
“Drink it.”
Stephen’s eyes drifted shut again, and he swallowed everything in the cup before sliding down onto his side and folding into a shivering ball.
Rose stood over the bed, breathing hard, hands on hips. Then she sighed heavily and rubbed the side of her hand across her forehead. Her hand shook.
“I put a bit of laudanum in it. He should sleep a while.”
“Will he live now?” Gillian leaned over to peer anxiously at his face. His closed eyelids moved rapidly.
“I know not. Gillian, someone poisoned him.”
Gillian jerked back around to her sister. “What? Who? How?”
Rose shook her head wearily. “It’s hard to know. He’s such a God damned sot, you cannot ken. He’ll drink anything—privy water, if he’s far enough gone. I don’t know how much poison he ingested, so I may be chasing my tail. He could die no matter what I do.”
Gillian looked back at the huddled figure on the bed. Her throat tightened. “Why is he like this? Is it the pain?”
Rose shrugged. “Aye, the pain. The cane. The fact he can barely sit a horse. He insisted on coming with me, and the journey took twice as long because of it. He was sore vexed with himself.” Rose glanced cautiously at the bed, then motioned with her chin for Gillian to follow her a few paces away.
When she spoke again her voice was low. “My mind’s not set that he didn’t do this to himself. ”
Gillian’s jaw dropped. “What?”
Rose nodded. “Sometimes when he’s really sotted, he says things—”
“What things?”
Rose sighed. “That we should have let him die. When I found him this morning, he swore he didn’t do this to himself. I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to spend his last moments getting his ears blistered by me.”
Gillian pressed her palm to her forehead, struck by the coincidence of this situation. She glanced back at Stephen, then to Rose, who watched her with interest.
“What is it, Gilly? You’ve thought of something.”
“This is what she was trying to tell me,” Gillian murmured.
Rose raised her brows expectantly.
“Remember I told you about the woman I saw cleaning my fireplace and drinking my wine—”
“Aye, the phantom maid. I remember.”
“Your counter curse worked, Rose. I saw her last night with no pain.”
“That’s good.” Rose smiled faintly.
Neither of them could muster much enthusiasm for the success of the counter curse, with Stephen dying across the room.
“I recognized her last night. She was my first maid, Aileen. She killed herself. With poison.”
Rose raised an auburn brow, unsurprised by this information, and nodded for Gillian to continue.
“The wine she keeps drinking over and over again is the same wine Stephen drank last night.”
Rose’s eyes closed and her lashes fluttered. Her hand covered her mouth. “Thank God, thank God. He only took a few drinks. He might live yet.” Her eyes snapped open. “Gillian. That wine was meant for you.”
Gillian’s shoulders slumped. “I know. This makes three attempts on my life. I must tell Nicholas.”
“No!” Rose shook her head vigorously, eyes intense. “You cannot.”
Gillian was taken aback by her sister’s vehemence. She frowned in annoyance. “Of course I can. He’s my husband. He’ll find out who’s doing this and protect me.”
Rose gripped Gillian’s hands tightly. “Listen to me for a moment. When I was in the kitchens I overheard the servants talking about Aileen. This has happened before.”
“What?”
“When Kincreag’s first wife was alive, several servants committed suicide with poison. So did a few of her alleged lovers. Then she falls from the cliff and the suicides stop. Kincreag marries, and they start up again.”
“And what do the servants think is going on?” Gillian asked incredulously. “What does marriage have to do with poisonings?”
“They say he’s madly jealous—that he’s jealous of anyone who even speaks to his wives, so he kills them.”
“If that’s true, then why isn’t my other maid dead? What about Sir Evan?”
Rose nodded wisely. “They probably realize. They’re probably very careful about anything they eat or drink.”
Gillian let out an exasperated breath. “Da said something about this before I left Lochlaire. He thinks the countess did it.”
Rose put her hands on her hips and raised her brows. “Aye? Well if that’s true, who’s doing it now?”
What Rose thought was impossible. Rose couldn’t know that, because all she knew of Nicholas were the rumors and his unpleasant behavior since her arrival. But Gillian knew him. He would never do anything like this. She didn’t know who was responsible, but she had an idea how she might find out.
Nicholas and Gillian dined alone that night.
Stephen Ross was still very ill, and Rose continued to tend him.
Nicholas was in a state of shock from what Gillian had told him.
The wine in her room had been poisoned? There was no way to verify that, of course, since he’d spilled the remainder of it last night.
Nevertheless, he’d had a servant taste every plate and beverage before either of them consumed a single bite.
He watched her now in the candlelight. She was a world away from him, deep in her thoughts, large gray eyes gazing off into the distance.
It still didn’t quite make sense to Nicholas.
How did she know her late maid had drunk the wine?
When Aileen’s body was discovered, there had been poison beside her cot in plain sight.
He wasn’t discounting murder; then it would make sense for someone to plant poison to make it appear as a suicide.
But if the maid drank the poison accidentally and then died .
. . why the poison beside her bed? It didn’t add up.
As for Stephen . . . the lad was a drunkard.
Nicholas had seen more than a few men succumb to their love for drink, and as much as the lad had consumed last night, it was no wonder he’d vomited up his innards.
He set down his knife and frowned at his wife. “Gillian.”
She blinked, and the clouds cleared from her eyes as she focused on him.
“I still don’t understand how you know Aileen drank the wine.”
She directed her attention to her dinner and commenced pushing her food around. “I just do.”
“Did you see her?”
Gillian thought for a moment, then nodded, shredding a piece of roast chicken with her fingers.
“So one of my servants was imbibing the countess’s wine right in front of her.” It was too fantastic to contemplate.
Again Gillian pondered this and nodded.
Nicholas leaned forward. “Then I’m more certain than ever it was a suicide. What deranged servant would steal wine right in front of their employer? She must have been insane.”
Gillian didn’t reply. She pushed her food around on her plate, gaze fixed on the mess she’d made of her dinner. As he watched her his frustration increased. She was never this uncommunicative. Something was amiss.
“What is wrong with you?”
She met his gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me about the servants who were poisoned when your wife was alive?”