Chapter 27
He remembered speaking with Cassandra. Something about a promise she had made. Something about the doctor and clear water.
And then Annabelle. He recalled seeing her in the doorway. Her voice, high-pitched with fear, and then her lying next to him, curled into him, her breathing deep and peaceful as she slept.
After that, he remembered dreams.
In some of them, he was with Margaret. It was the day of his wedding, and she was staring up at him with disgust as he repeated his vows.
This was not a dream, though. He had really been there. That had really happened. He remembered it, but he also knew years had passed. She was gone. But in his dreams, he was trying to change the script, trying to change the ending.
Could he have done something to save her? Could he have warmed her heart to him? Did he even want to?
I will always love Christopher.
Those words, which she had told him when she was with child.
This may be your child, but it changes nothing about my heart.
The way that had ripped through him, how it had destroyed him.
And what had Christopher said? He had laughed, when Ewan had told him that Margaret was still in love with him.
You cannot be serious, he had said. She married you when she was still in love with me? What a madwoman! Did she think that would make me jealous?
That is exactly what she thought would happen, Ewan had said gravely, which only made his brother cackle with laughter more.
Foolish woman. To condemn herself to a man she does not love simply out of revenge. I am sorry, brother, but you married a simpleton.
Christopher had been cruel that day. Unthinkingly cruel.
But there were other memories of him that reached further back, into the deep recesses of his mind. Memories that still brought tears to Ewan’s eyes and filled him with a powerful feeling of love.
The two of them as children, playing together near the lochs. Christopher getting in trouble for stealing one of their father’s horses and riding into the village in order to visit the daughter of the vicar, with whom he had taken a fancy.
His father’s fury, when he had found out where Christopher had gone. How he and Ewan had ridden into the village, only to find Christopher being held at gunpoint by the vicar.
The old duke had roared with laughter then, told Christopher it was no more than he deserved, that he ought to let the man shoot him for trying to corrupt his daughter.
I only wanted to go for a walk with her, Christopher had whined, making all the men laugh even harder.
The memory flickered through Ewan’s mind. It still felt as if he were there, as if he were feeling all those same emotions again.
The way the three of them had gone for ale afterward in the local tavern, and the old duke, their father, had imparted to Christopher the importance of chivalric courtship.
You will have to watch out for him, the old duke had said, near the end of his life, apropos of nothing, as Ewan sat with him in his study, helping go over the ledgers.
He is not like you, Ewan. He is wild. Too wild.
The old duke had shaken his head. He will cause you nothing but heartache and worry.
But he is your brother, and you must always love him, even through all his mischief and mistakes.
I do love him, Ewan wanted to say now. He had not at the time. Instead, he had grimaced at his father.
He is not a good man, Father, he had said instead. He is toying with Margart’s heart.
I know you have always been fond of her, his father had murmured. But she must make her own choices.
I do not want to have to take care of him, Ewan had insisted. He needs to clean up his own messes.
Love sometimes kills us, his father said, patting his hand gently. But we do it anyway.
But then the old duke had died, and Ewan, in his grief, had sworn to himself that he would not let him down. That he would always take care of his brother, always forgive him, try to guide him, and always love him.
The dream changed again, and this time Ewan was watching his wife’s coffin being lowered into the ground. It was raining, the hard sleet of the Scottish Highlands slamming into his face. Or was he just weeping? He could not tell.
A child was screaming next to him. His daughter. Annabelle. The girl that Margaret had been so sure she would birth, about whose future she had been so concerned. A wet nurse was holding her in her arms, but the child’s screams only intensified.
She should not be out in this rain, Ewan had thought to himself, as the coffin strained against the ropes that were lowering it into the black earth. But she needs to see her mother’s funeral. Even if she will not remember it. Even if she is only a few days old.
It was after the child had been returned to the castle, and all the mourners had left, that Ewan had made his vow. The earth was freshly dug in a mound above where Margaret had been buried, the rain was still storming hard.
I will never love again, he had whispered, as he stared into the darkness of the earth. I will not marry. I will not risk this ever again.
The pain in his chest was enormous. He remembered it from that day, the way he had felt that he might actually die from it.
But as he watched himself, as if from across the grave, the rain beating into him relentlessly, Ewan felt the pain beginning to recede, until at last, it was gone. Like the rain itself the next morning, when he awoke to a cold, clear dawn.
Sunlight warmed his eyes, and he opened them.
He was lying in his bedchamber at Calder Castle, and afternoon light was streaming in through an open window. The air was clear and fresh, the sweet smell of grass and summer flowers filling his nose.
The fog had lifted. He knew it at once as he breathed in deeply. Whatever had been hanging over his head for the past few days, making him delirious and unable to focus on anything anyone was saying, was gone.
And across from him, Cassandra was sitting in a rocking chair, a book in her hands. She was reading quietly, his expression soft and open as her eyes moved across the page.
At the sound of his covers rustling, she looked up. For a second, their eyes met, and she almost seemed to not recognize what was right in front of her. Then her eyes went wide, and she quickly pushed herself up from the chair.
“Ewan,” she murmured, rushing to his side. “You are awake! How are you feeling?”
“Better,” he said, testing out how it felt to speak, waiting for the familiar burn of his lungs that had haunted him of late.
But there was no burning. Whatever had been making it difficult for him to breathe seemed to have been cured.
He could hardly believe it. In the worst moments of his illness, he had feared that his lung would collapse and kill him.
But now, he sucked in a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, all without even the smallest twinge.
“Not fully recovered,” he said, trying to smileCassandra. “But at least the fog is gone. I feel clearheaded for the first time in… days?” He shook his head. “I do not even know how long it has been.”
“It has been four days,” Cassandra said, laying the back of her hand on his brow. Her eyes widened. “Oh! It is cooler! The fever has broken!”
She looked so thoroughly relieved that he wished he could have leapt from the bed just to prove how recovered he was. Seeing her smile like that was the best thing that had happened to him since he had fallen ill.
“It is not a miracle, though,” she said, as she pulled the rocking chair closer and sat down in it. “It is the treatment of Dr. Ludley, who has taken better care of you than I ever could have hoped for.”
Ewan nodded. “And did the doctor say what it was that was wrong with me?” He was not even sure he wanted to know, but he also knew it was better to hear it now, to know for sure, to no longer live in doubt.
His wife looked at him very seriously, and he tensed, waiting for the blow to fall.
“I do not know how to say this exactly,” she began, her eyes locked on his.
“But you were being poisoned. The doctor was able to identify the poison as arsenic. It has been given to you in small doses over the past week or so, which slowly brought on your symptoms. If you continued to consume it, you would have died within a few days. Fortunately, the doctor was able to ensure that all your most recent food and drink have been prepared without contamination. It is this that saved you.”
Arsenic.
So it was true.
Somehow, he had known.
He cleared his throat. “And do we know how it came to be that my food and drink has been poisoned?” he asked. He already knew, of course, but he needed to hear it out loud.
“We believe that…” her voice faltered, and then she tightened her jaw.
“It was Christopher. We have been able to identify the substance in the tonics that he has been giving us to aid in your recovery, and we can link this to the many drinks he prepared for you in the days preceding and during your illness.”
Ewan had to close his eyes to take in these words. Even though he had been expecting them, they still hit with the force of a cannonball. Disbelief gathered in his chest like a cloud over the castle. He knew it would pass, but for several long breaths, he could not believe it was true.
Christopher was his brother.
The brother he had always taken care of.
The brother he had promised his father to always love.
And this brother had orchestrated his death. And for what? Money? A title? A chance at the dukedom?
Ewan’s eyes flickered open, and for a moment, he thought he was going to be sick.
“Are you well?” Cassandra murmured, and he shook his head. She put out a hand, touching his shoulder, bracing him, really. “I know,” she muttered. “I know, I know. It is more terrible than one can even imagine. I myself did not want to believe it was true. I fought it for as long as I could.”
“Was Annabelle ever in danger?” he asked. “Were you?”
“I think not,” Cassandra said. “Annabelle does not pose a threat to him. She is a girl and cannot inherit the dukedom. As for me, I did fear that I might be in danger if he thought I was with child. But I made it clear that there is no possibility of that.”
Ewan looked at her sharply. “You did not tell him about our arrangement, did you?”
There was still a possibility that Christopher could try to use that information to force Cassandra to ask for an annulment. But when she shook her head, relief settled over him.
“No, of course not,” she said gently. “I told my mother to let slip that my courses had come recently, while you were ill, and how much of a shame it would be if you died without our ever producing an heir.”
“Good,” Ewan said, settling back on the pillow. “Your mother? She is here?”
“Yes, she has been helping,” Cassandra said, a small smile tilting up the side of her mouth. “She has been distracting Christopher for us while we search for evidence and try to gather everything we can against him, proving his crimes.”
Ewan nodded, but already, a new feeling was blooming in his chest, one that was so powerful that he felt that if he released it, it could have burned down all of the Scottish Highlands.
Anger.
He was furious at his brother.
“I cannot believe he would do this,” he said, not looking at Cassandra.
He did not want her to see the full extent of his anger.
It was an ugly emotion, and not one he was prone to.
“After everything I have done for him over the years, all the ways that I have helped him out of tight corners and scrapes. Even now—” his eyes went to her, no longer able to look away, “—I offered him a great sum of money to settle all his debts, to help him get back onto his feet. It is unthinkable, Cassandra. Unthinkable that he would resort to this.”
“I know,” she said again, her hand tightening on his shoulder. “I think it will take a long time for either of us to believe it.”
He grit his teeth and nodded. Anger was coming off of him in waves,. However, when he looked back at his wife, her expression was soft.
“It is okay if you are angry,” she sighed. “I am as well. For the past few days, my fear for your life has been so great that fury has not been the primary emotion, but now, I feel it acutely. And scared. I almost married him! I could have spent a lifetime married to someone capable of such evil…”
She trailed off, and the shake in her voice ignited another, more familiar emotion: protectiveness.
Ewan leaned forward, taking her hands and pressing both to his lips. She looked up in surprise.
“I am sorry I did not discover this side of him sooner,” he muttered. “If I had, I never would have allowed him to marry anyone. I would have protected you.”
“It is not your fault,” she said at once. “And I do not want you to take that on.”
“Perhaps it is not,” Ewan said heavily. “I think he fooled us all. Disguised himself very well. And maybe he is simply desperate. If it is true that he is involved with the Ferguson family, and if they are threatening his life, he may have gone to extreme lengths to get the title and have enough money and power to save himself.”
“There is no excuse for this,” Cassandra said swiftly, and Ewan shook his head.
“I know, and I am not trying to justify it. Only trying to understand. Because I think it will help me, in the end, if I can understand why my own brother would do this to me.”
They were both quiet for a long time. Ewan was lost in thought, memories of his brother as he had been as a child filling his head, running through his imagination. Every time he thought of his brother as a little boy, he felt as if someone was carving out his heart.
At least he only targeted me. It was not much, but at least there was that. At least he did not go after Annabelle and Cassandra.
…Yet.
At last, he forced himself to speak.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
Cassandra blinked slowly. “I know it is difficult to do, but we need you to not confront him. Not yet. For now, you need to play along. Pretend to be sick still. Pretend that you have not recovered. That way, Christopher will think that the tonics and broths he has been sending are still working. As long as he thinks that, he will not change course, and we will be able to get the evidence we need.” She looked at him levelly. “Do you think you can do that?”
Ewan nodded. “I will do whatever it takes to catch him,” he said, “and to keep you safe.”