Page 109 of The Scottish Duke
“Where’s Lorna?” he asked.
His mother glanced up at him only for a second before her attention returned to the unconscious woman on the floor.
“At the cottage,” she said.
He raced back down the stairs, wishing his staff weren’t so responsive. Samson had already been turned over to a footman and was halfway to the stables. He grabbed the reins out of the man’s hands, said something he hoped was halfway coherent, mounted, and raced down the road.
Halfway there, he saw her. Lorna hadn’t even grabbed a shawl in her haste to help Nan.
“Give me your hands,” he said when he reached her.
Her face was white, her mouth pursed. He’d only seen the fear in her eyes once before, when she was being verbally assaulted by Reverend McGill.
“Give me your hands,” he repeated.
When she did, he pulled her up to sit in front of him on the saddle.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, putting his arms around her.
“Nan had some tea before the final fittings. She had a seizure only minutes later.”
Something in her voice disturbed him.
“What is it, Lorna?”
“The tea smelled of monkwood. It has a distinct odor.”
“It’s poison?” he asked.
“Deadly poison,” she said.
They exchanged a look. “Did you drink any of it?”
“No,” she said. “But I might have. I had to go check on Robbie.”
“What’s in the cottage?” he asked when they reached their destination. He lowered her to the ground, tied the reins to the door latch, and followed her inside. “Your herbs were all destroyed.”
“Not all of them,” she said. “There were some in a special place.”
“Do you think you can help Nan?”
Lorna turned and faced him. In the last few minutes, anger had replaced the fear in her eyes.
“My father wrote about monkwood poisoning. There’s a cure for it. I think I still have what I need.”
She walked into the bedroom, pulled open the armoire and withdrew a small chest that she put on the bed. Beneath the bed there was another chest, which she also retrieved. Opening both, she selected three cork-stoppered bottles and put them into a cloth bag.
He followed her as she left the cottage and waited beside his horse. He mounted, then pulled her up beside him once more, tightening his arms around her as he gave Samson his head.
They didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. What if Nan didn’t survive? What words could possibly ease the moment?
When they were back at the castle and in the sitting room, Lorna unpacked the bag and put the bottles on the table. Two contained leaves of some kind, the third a white powder.
In their absence his mother had retrieved Robbie from the bedroom and now stood with him in her arms, rocking from one foot to the other. Peter had placed Nan on the settee and was standing behind it, biting his lip. Jason stood with him, along with the other woman.
Alex didn’t know whether to dismiss all of them or allow them to remain there in the room in what might be Nan’s last moments.
“What can I do?”
