Page 33 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

“Perceval was as well as he ever is,” Stephen said, rolling to his side and propping himself on one arm to watch her unpack. “The man is an ox. I have known him since I was at university and I have never known him to be ill.”

“He does give off the impression,” Elizabeth said, with a laugh. “He seems like a man that an illness would not dare to approach.”

“And I do not?” Stephen feigned reproach, which only made her laugh harder.

“My lord, you look as though you would give a cold a good thrashing, but the Marquess looks as though the cold would simply expire trying to encourage him to feel anything but well.”

Stephen gave a short, delighted laugh and stole one of the cakes she had unpacked, taking a large bite of it. “You are not wrong there. I was intending to speak with you, actually, about what we were discussing while I was at my club. Would it interest you to hear it?”

Elizabeth sat back a little and looked at him curiously. “Heartily so, sir. Please, do tell me all about it.” It was strange how greatly their relationship had changed over the last few weeks. She could still remember how she had disliked him to start with, how she had been sure he would be another jailor to her and how clearly suspicious of her he had been.

He reached for another cake so she continued with unpacking the small pigeon pies and the cheese and fruits and the bread and other things that Mrs. Cope had packed into the basket while he spoke.

“I don’t know about your sister, but I do know that your father and brother still mean me harm. We were discussing whether it might be a threat to our family if your sister were to make a match with my political rival Seymour, and we have decided to hold a hunting party here at the estate. I shall invite Seymour and I would like to invite your brother as well. He’s not a particularly careful gentleman and my hope is that he may slip and tell us if there is a plan in motion.”

Elizabeth leaned forwards and placed a hand on his arm. “He may not be careful, but he is cunning. You must promise me that no matter what you do, you are careful when he is around. I do not trust him and neither should you.”

Stephen raised his brows, his face serious. “Those are strong words about your own brother. I am not censoring you, but may I ask what drives you to say such things?”

“You do not know how glad I was to marry you,” Elizabeth burst out, biting her lip as he looked at her in clear surprise. “Oh not the arranged part of the marriage or walking into an arrangement where I knew you would all hate me for who I was, but to escape that house. My days were torture there. They despised me for not being legitimate and Dudley is the worst of them. He is cruel and he is merciless. He will do anything to spite you. I fear him.”

“You have no need to fear him any longer,” Stephen said, rising to his knees and drawing her closer to him with both hands. “Elizabeth, if you are at all uncomfortable with him being at the estate I will discard the plan at once.”

“No.” She tools a breath and leaned against his chest for support. “No. I can bear it if it will help uncover danger to you. I must. I shall.”

“My brave wife,” he murmured, tilting her head back with one finger and leaning in to kiss her, sweet and chaste on the lips. “You are more than I could ever had hoped for.”

“Could I be less than brave having married into this family?” she asked, smiling and he kissed her again in answer. The kisses deepened, her own lips surrendering to his as he cleared a portion of the blanket with one hand and pulled her down with him into a tangled embrace. His hands were trailing down herside, loosening the ties of her dress and then his mouth was kissing down her breasts and she was arching, hoping, praying - wanting for more, more more.

Would it be so wrong to ask for it? They were married, after all. There was nothing so shameful about needing her husband, about wanting him to lie with her.

She opened her mouth, the words on her lips when she glanced at Stephen and saw that his skin was pale and he was struggling for breath. He rolled away from her, off her and onto all fours, vomiting violently into the grass beyond the blanket. He heaved again and again before collapsing weakly, one arm wrapped around his stomach.

“Pain,” he muttered. “My stomach.”

When she had been little, Elizabeth had seen a rat just after taking some poisoned meat. It had died slowly and badly and she had cried for weeks, but it had looked a lot like what was happening now. With a lurch of fear in her chest she realized that she had eaten none of the food. Stephen had been poisoned.

There had been no way for Elizabeth to carry or even to support Stephen for the walk back to the house. He was nearly unconscious and even though he was making a valiant effort, the two times they had attempted it he had collapsed onto the ground immediately.

With no other recourse, Elizabeth had stripped off her shoes and run like the wind towards the main house. She had run barefoot before as a girl and the shoes that she had been wearing would only have slowed her fleet feet and her clever steps. When she arrived, bloodied and panting, her dress torn and her face deathly pale, all the servants had hurried to her.

“Go, call a physician this instant,” she shouted, her voice shrill and cracking in her ears. “Go at once. Fetch me several men and Lord Herbert, His Grace is very ill. Go now! Now and tell the physician that I fear he has been poisoned!”

Herbert ran out in time to hear the last and Elizabeth would gladly have lived her whole life without seeing the expression of devastation on his face. She would have rather not told all the servants such a thing, knowing as she did that the gossip would reach London before the day was over, but unless she had spoken of the matter she could not be sure that the doctor would bring what he needed and she would not risk Stephen’s life on propriety.

“Take us to him,” Herbert snapped, a few other servants joining them and Elizabeth turned back around and led them at as fast a pace as she could manage back to the site of the cursed picnic where Stephen was now lying pale and unconscious next to the fateful spread.

Everything after that was a blur as Elizabeth felt the last of her strength leave her. She was helped back to the house by those who weren’t needed for Stephen and then wrapped in a blanket by Sally, whose pleasant face was twisted in concern.The wait for the physician felt like an eternity, everyone running in and out of rooms, and shouts for different possible necessities coming from one end of the house to the other.

Finally the physician rode up with the valet who had rushed to fetch him in a carriage, and ran into the house. Elizabeth started into the room, into her husband’s room, but Herbert was there, in the doorway, looking at her.

Why was he looking at her like that?

Why was he so angry with her?

Elizabeth fought with herself, trying to gather her thoughts together, to bring herself back to reality enough to understand what was going on. “What -?”

“Do you think I will let the woman who nearly killed my brother to his sick bed?” Herbert snarled, the fury on his face so dark that it was nearly physical. “Get away from this door while we bring him back, and then I shall decide what to do with you.”

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