Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 (8 page)

“Could I be of assistance?” a deep and familiar voice said behind her.

She stiffened.
No
, she thought,
I’ll not make a show of temper. If he wants to apologize, I shall accept it graciously
. “My lord, what brings you to the cabal?”

“I wanted to see how things were coming.”

“Well, I’m cleaning the herbs now.”

“I thought you were cleaning the pot.”

“Humm.” She gave the cauldron a last swipe and righted it on the counter. There was not an ounce of contrition in his looks. What she saw was raw hunger and heavily guarded composure. Recalling his reaction to the smell of valerian, she took a fistful and began pinching stems off the root. As hoped, he backed away.

“Awful stuff. Can anyone actually drink it?”

“Persuading Abella is your job. Brewing the concoction is mine.”

“Can you sweeten it at all?”

“You’ve plenty of sugar in this house. She may use some of that.”

Silence prevailed. Had he left? What a relief if he had. If she never looked into his coco-colored eyes again, her joy would be boundless. She slapped another wad of valerian on the counter and yanked at the stems.

“How are you fixing it?” he said.

She turned on him, unable to contain herself a moment longer. “Fixing it? I’m fixing it in the usual way. By letting it dry out and die.”

He gave her a steady look. “I thought St. John’s wort went fresh into a tea.”

Hands on her hips, she glared back at him. “Valerian root needs to be prepared. In fact, it needs months of preparation. It was foolish of us to go hunting for it in the first place.”

“What shall we do about Abella?”

“You’ve got a quill and ink — order something better.”

• • •

He watched her hurl a clod of dirt-covered roots into the pot. Even cross, she looked as tempting as a pear tart. He shouldn’t have kissed her in the meadow. But how could he help himself if she was going to peck him on the lips first?

Still, he shouldn’t have. She was angry, and she had every right to be. Apron strings hung straight down her back, accentuating the cleft between her … His pulse quickened, so he tore his eyes away and pinched his thigh to distract himself. There was no justification in dragging a magnificent woman like Claire into the impossibility of his life. She would find better than he in London.

Should he mention that she’d just torn some straw from the basket and dumped it in with the herbs? “Did you want that in your potion?”

Her shoulders drooped and she leaned against the wooden counter. After a few breaths, she picked the straw out and threw it on the floor. “Well, silly me.” Then with a whack, she brought the knife down on some valerian stems and sawed through. “We’re going to wash and then dry the valerian so when I’m gone, you’ll have something to feed Abella. In the meanwhile, I’ll make her St. John’s
wort tea.”

As she spoke, the knife drew closer to her fingers. He caught her wrist just as the blade grazed her knuckle. “Careful.”

A thin red line formed on the side of her index finger. She looked at the wound with such sorrow that the dagger end of guilt pierced him. “Too late,” she said, “care should have been taken long before.”

• • •

Conspirators
, Claire thought as they assembled for breakfast a few mornings later. That must be how Abella viewed them. Little did the girl know.

Somehow Flavian obtained dried valerian root. Probably from a local healer, she assumed. Fine. Perhaps he would find the supplier as effective as he’d found her. She poured a valerian and St. John’s wort brew into a teacup and handed it to Abella.

The girl stared at the cup. Flavian lowered himself into a chair across from her. “A little sip that’s all, my Bella,” he said encouragingly.

Abella lowered her tongue into the liquid. The squinched look on her face testified that no amount of honey could dampen the bitterness of the brew. She coughed, and Flavian went around the table to her. “Poor thing,” he said, patting her back. “Just have a little more and you’ll be done.”

“If I drink whole cup, you let me go to London with Lady Claire?”

“We’ll have to see what effect the medicine has on you,” he told her.

“And what you look for, Vav?”

Claire extended her arm on the tablecloth and tapped near the cup. “These herbs are calming.”

“What if I no can sing when I drink this medicine?”

“Your voice will be fine,” he assured her.

“But my performance — I be sleepy?”

Flavian bit his lip and looked to Claire. Those rugged cheeks, the cut of his jaw and worst of all, the need in his eyes, made her realize that the hurt at his rejection was incidental. “Abella, this remedy will do nothing but good for you.”

Flavian wrapped his arms around the girl’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Please try it, Bella. If you’re well enough, London shall be at your feet by autumn.”

A spike of jealousy rose in Claire. If only his arms encircled
her
that way. For the thousandth time she wondered why he had pulled away and if her brash behavior had anything to do with it. What had she done to earn his change of heart? Yet, he’d told her so little about himself. She had a niggling notion that he was afraid and that his fear had nothing to do with his feelings toward her, but afraid of what?

Abella put the cup down. The clank of china against china broke Claire’s reverie. “You remember horses at pond this winter?” the girl asked.

“That was a terrible accident.”

Abella’s eyelids reddened. “In winter seven horses went to pond. No wind was there. So, they stood on ice together. They touch each other in the cold. And then ice crack. It must have happened quick — maybe like sky went under their hooves. Seven horses — they scream in the water — fighting. And then there nothing but broken ice. I feel like those horses, Vav. Sometimes I be screaming in the ice.”

Flavian stroked the girl’s hair. “Take a sip and maybe the horses will go away.”

Shame wrapped around Claire’s jealousy like a thick wool blanket. This girl suffered horrible mental agony while she wallowed in hurt feelings.
Abella is my patient. I’ll try every herbal combination and seek every medical remedy to help her
.

Abella picked up the cup, held her nose, and downed the bitter liquid. When she placed the draught back in its saucer, she sat very still with her eyes closed, gagging a little on the brew.

“I’m sorry it’s got such an unpleasant taste,” Claire said. “I’ll try to make the next batch more palatable.”

“The next batch … ?” the girl whispered.

“I’m so proud of you,” Flavian said. “You’ll get used to the taste.”

Abella gripped his hands. A tear dripped down her cheek, though her eyes were still shut. “Maybe you think there only six horses on the pond at first?” she said. “That a seventh join them, and it too much. Too much, and the ice shatter?”

“I don’t know, Bella,” he said.

“What I done to God that He take my Hernando and leave me with seven horses?” The girl put her face in her hands, and her shoulders convulsed with a sob. “Why God give me a voice of angels and make me weep alone?”

Stricken, Flavian turned to Claire, and her throat tightened.
Please let the remedy work
, she prayed.

• • •

Flavian sneaked into the tower for the third night in a row. Lantern in hand, he studied the piles carefully. If anything new had been added, he didn’t see it. A lump formed in his throat. Claire brought this miracle about.

How drawn she’d looked after he’d stuffed her back into the role of healer. He’d behaved like a scoundrel, yet she’d brewed the remedy, administered it, and in fact, behaved with the patience and charm of a … of a … nothing. No one matched her graciousness.

As he descended the twisting staircase, he contemplated sending Claire on to London. That was the fair thing to do. She certainly didn’t deserve to sink lower into his pit of shame. Yet what was it exactly that he’d done wrong?

Valencia’s cinnamon skin and her black and hungry eyes flashed in his mind. The image shifted to the dull sheen in those eyes when he found her at the end of a rope. He forced the vision from his mind. Tomorrow he would send Claire away. It was the right thing to do. The resolution filled his gut with stone.

Weeks of the
Season
had already passed. It may already be too late for Claire to find a suitable husband, he thought. With her beauty, charm, intelligence, and gentle nature, surely a good fellow would take her to his breast the following year. She was still young. But somehow, before her departure he had to find a way to make it up to her, if for no other reason than to express his undying gratitude. He’d wandered into the gallery, where he came upon the portrait of Hernando. From the pocket of the man’s black coat dangled a pearl watch fob on a heavy gold chain. “She shall have it.”

“I sing the
Marriage of Figaro
,
si
?”

Flavian snapped from his reverie. Abella drifted listlessly toward him down the great gallery.

Collecting his thoughts, he said, “I remember a few years ago you practiced Susanna’s aria.”

“But I no find the music.”

“You looked in the bottom shelves of the cabinet?”

“Why you stand here?”

“I was just asking Hernando a question. For everything she’s done for us, I’d like to give Lady Claire a pair of ear bobs made from his watch fob.”

Abella went still. She studied the portrait and her mouth went taut. “Then you buy another pearl to match?”

“They’d take the chain in exchange for another jewel, and it would cover the cost of the setting.”

“So she stay until is made.”

Flavian hadn’t thought of that, but the idea made him feel suddenly lighter, though he sensed Abella’s rising temper. “It would be best to have Lady Claire here awhile. We need to make sure you’re getting the proper dose of your tonic.”

The girl turned on her heal and marched past him. “
Si
,” she said, without turning around.

• • •

Later that night, the bedroom was black as pitch when Claire woke, her body in a violent cramp. With only seconds to spare, she found the chamber pot beneath the bed. A sudden bout of retching had her yanking off a pillowcase into which she poured the contents of her stomach.

When the nausea subsided, she crawled to a bureau on the far side of the room upon which rested the basin and pitcher. Dragging herself to her feet, she prepared for the next wave of sickness. Panting, crying, she doubled over in agony, her stomach contracting again and again, as if it could never rid itself of enough fluid.

As the sickness abated, Claire took her robe and left her reeking bedroom, stumbling down the stairs and out the front door.

On the lawn, another spasm brought her to her knees. When the pain subsided, she lay trembling in the cool grass. Nearby she heard the sound of someone else vomiting and of another person further away. Sitting up, she saw candlelight moving swiftly in the servant’s quarters, in the master suite, and in Mrs. Gower’s room. Had plague come upon them? The grippe?

Collapsing back in the grass, Claire put a hand to her forehead. It was clammy and beaded with sweat, but it didn’t have the heat of an infectious fever. “Poison,” she moaned, “we’ve all been poisoned.”

Another bout passed, consuming her mind and every ounce of strength in her body. Once it had gone, she tried to rise.
I have to help the others
, she thought.
Get up now!

Struggling to her knees, Claire inched toward the mournful cries of other sufferers. Then her arms gave out and she lay still, panting and watching her pain like a shower of meteors beneath her lids.

She woke, what she guessed, was hours later. The horizon wore a thin bracelet of silver — enough to illuminate the white mounds of human misery, lying like battlefield casualties on the lawn. A bone chilling cold shook her from the gut outward, and her teeth chattered.

Only dimly aware of movement, she realized Flavian was nearby and that he’d pushed himself onto his elbows. His face was pale and his eyes, red rimmed. As if unable to focus, he gazed at her blankly until recognition seeped through his pain. “Are you all right, my love?” he said, at last.

My love,
he’d called her
, my love.
The words burned a path of joy through her body. “I’ll be fine,” she told him.

He started to crawl towards her, and she towards him. When they met, his comforting arms wrapped about her shoulders. They both shook with chills, but her body drank the heat of his nearness. She put her cheek against the thin fabric of his nightshirt, and the powerful thud of his heart calmed the tremors that rattled her frame.

“You’re all right,” he whispered, “Thank God.”

A piercing scream split the morning. “Vav,” Abella shrieked, “Help me!”

Claire scanned the field. Not far from where Flavian had been lay Abella, her face green with sickness. She dragged herself toward them, clawing the sod, inching forward as she tore the tender roots. Her hair was matted, her eyes wild and desperate, her nightgown soaked with filth, and when she looked at Claire, her face contorted with fury.

Flavian let Claire go, struggled to his feet, and stumbled toward Abella.

Where his arms had been, cold now soaked to her core. Wanting to help, Claire started to rise then froze at the sight of Abella. If the girl had screamed in her ear, the message in her look could not have been clearer:
You have been warned
.

• • •

A few hours later, Claire stood bedside in the ruined tower. Upset over the illness of the household, Flavian had permitted Abella to recuperate where she pleased. Claire couldn’t help thinking the girl exploited Flavian’s emotional state to bend him to her will.
That’s uncharitable
, she chastised herself.

“I will not drink,” Abella exclaimed when Claire handed her a mug of salted chicken broth.

“But why not?”

“You and your poisons … why I trust you again?”

A lady’s maid straightening piles of Abella’s things in the tower bedroom turned a wide-eyed look at Claire.