Page 28 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

While part of her felt slighted by her husband’s attitude, the events of the afternoon had also given her a fresh sense of perspective and purpose.

Rather than chasing Hugh, Catherine walked back outside and sought out Bellchurch, the head gamekeeper. “Does anyone hold cyanide on the estate, Bellchurch?”

“Not apart from me and my men, Your Grace. And we keep all that far away from the house. With the cats in the Hall, there’s no need to poison rats and mice around here. It’s for the vermin that might get the game bird chicks out in the coops by the woods.”

“Could you check that none is missing?”

“I’ll do that right now, Your Grace.” Bellchurch nodded. “I was going to, in any case. That business with the cat was bizarre, but I’m glad it was His Grace who said the word cyanide and not me. It’s not something to be bandied about lightly.”

“What did His Grace mean by that, though?” Mrs. Kaye asked. “Why does he think the cat ate poison?”

“Poison?” the distressed young maid echoed. “Who gave Tibby poison? Who would ever do such a thing?”

Catherine bit her tongue.

“Likely no one, Janey,” Mrs. Kaye said quickly. “Now, get back to your work. Least said, soonest mended, and you may go with Bellchurch to bury Tibby tomorrow morning if you finish loading the coal scuttles first. You can leave him in the top shed until then.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kaye,” the red-eyed young woman uttered and then hurried away with a grateful nod.

Now that the rest of the maids went back to their duties, the gamekeeper answered the housekeeper’s previous question. “It was the way the cat died that made me think of poison, Mrs. Kaye. Her Grace was right when she said its mouth was too red. Now, look again. You see, it’s going blue. That’s cyanide all right, red and then blue. But how did the cat ingest it?Thatis the question.”

“Dear me! I cannot think how!” Mrs. Kaye exclaimed, flustered by the idea of some poison circulating in the house. “I must consult Mr. Perkins immediately and check all the cupboards in the servants’ quarters. Please, let me know what you find in your stores in the huts, Mr. Bellchurch.”

The gamekeeper tipped his cap to Catherine and Mrs. Kaye and then departed.

The two women went back inside.

“I don’t know what to say, Your Grace,” Mrs. Kaye said, growing more agitated by thoughts of poisoning. “It goes without sayingthat all the food will be fresh at dinner. I’ll oversee everything myself.”

“Of course. I won’t keep you now,” Catherine told her. “Please, let me know if you find anything unusual.”

She thought again of Edwin bending over the tray and shivered.

The next morning, Catherine once again took her breakfast in the dining room alone and wondered where Hugh had gone. She had not seen him since the previous afternoon, although Perkins had assured her that he had seen him and that all was well.

When she had peeked into the library before going to bed, she saw the remains of a dinner tray but no sign of her husband. Catherine had then intended to stay awake long enough to hear Hugh go to his bedroom and try to speak to him there, but she fell asleep quickly, exhausted by the emotional demands of the day.

She heard nothing until a maid came to her room with a cup of tea, as she had requested, shortly after seven o’clock. No sound came from Hugh’s rooms, and as she passed them on her way downstairs, she saw that the door was open and presumed that her husband had already departed for his early morning exercise.

How long could this separation continue?

Now, Catherine sighed as she drained her coffee cup. The previous morning, she had worried about consummating her marriage. Now, she also had to contend with someone likely trying to poison her husband, and perhaps her, too. She couldn’t really write to Jemima for advice, and she had nobody else to turn to.

As Catherine stepped out of the dining room, she heard Perkins open the front door and speak respectfully to someone. She walked into the hallway to see who it might be, hoping that Edwin had not returned. Instead, she found the perfectly neat and bright but gimlet-eyed figure of the Dowager Duchess interrogating the helpless-looking butler.

“Duchess.” Catherine curtseyed to the older woman. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Duchess.” The Dowager Duchess curtsied in return but then looked directly into Catherine’s eyes. “Perhaps you can explain better than Perkins why my nephew appears to be conducting a cat funeral out there, with his gamekeeper as sexton and a sobbing maid as the sole mourner?”

Catherine peered out through the still open door to where she could indeed see her black-clad husband near the rosebushes, accompanied by Bellchurch, who was leaning on a spade, and young Janey, the maid sobbing into her handkerchief.

“The cat was likely poisoned,” Catherine said briefly, deciding that there was no point in trying to keep this fact from the discerning Dowager Duchess. “Janey was the servant wholooked after Tibby, and she said that he was the best mouser on the estate. I imagine Hugh had some questions for Bellchurch and just got caught up.”

Rebecca shook her head as though these words were largely incomprehensible to her. Maybe they were.

“But why on earth should anyone poison a cat? Especially a good mouser?” she demanded, handing Perkins her coat and hat and then dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “It makes no more sense than a duke conducting a cat’s funeral.”

“We don’t know yet,” Catherine replied. “Let us go to the drawing room, Madam. I’ll ring for tea.”

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