Page 49 of A Baron's Disguised Lady
Chapter 17
“His Lordship requests your company, Miss Stuart,” the butler said, and Lavinia looked up from her book in surprise.
She had been reading in the drawing room, sitting by the window to catch the fading evening light. She had not seen Archie since that morning—when he had left the drawing room abruptly during Wilhelmina’s visit. He had not been at luncheon, and she had presumed him to be busy with the affairs of the estate.
“Oh! Yes, certainly,” she said, rising to her feet, and glancing at her mother, who raised her eyebrows.
“Don’t go cavorting off into the gardens again, Lavinia,” she said, and Lavinia smiled.
“Oh, mother—don’t say you didn’t do such things when you were younger,” she replied, and her mother merely shook her head and sighed.
The dowager had gone up to change for dinner, and as Lavinia followed the butler into the hallway, she wondered what the baron wanted to see her about. She herself had changed earlier—out of the muddy dress she had being wearing until luncheon, and into a pretty dress her grandfather had chosen for her, orange with red trim at the sleeves. The baron’s study doorwas ajar, and Lavinia could hear the scratching of his quill as Hargreaves knocked lightly.
“Yes, come in,” Archie called out, and Lavinia pushed open the door, finding the baron sitting behind his desk.
He looked up at her with a grave expression on his face, and Lavinia wondered what was wrong—or ifshehad done something wrong.
“You wanted to see me,” she said, and he nodded.
“Yes, close the door,” he said, as Hargreaves retreated back into the hallway.
Lavinia did as she was told, closing the door, and crossing to the desk. Archie’s cheerful disposition of the morning was gone, replaced, it seemed, by a deep seriousness, as though something terrible had happened since last they had been in one another’s company.
Lavinia feared it was something to do with Wilhelmina, and she was fully expecting him to say something about blackmail, or even to bring up the scandalous rumors being spread about her by Lord Bath.
“What’s wrong? Have I done something to upset you?” she asked, but he shook his head, passing a piece of paper across the desk as he spoke.
“Look at this—Doctor Airdale and his assistant arrived with it earlier on,” he said, and Lavinia unfolded the piece of paper and began to read.
It was a set of results—the results of the tests on the vanity items in Gwendolene’s bedroom. Lavinia read over it three times, her eyes growing wide as she realized what it said.
“Poison!” she exclaimed, for she recognized the words “cherry laurel” as referring to hydrogen cyanide.
She had heard of it before—from the maid whom she had worked with in her previous life, and who delighted in reading from the scandal sheets and gruesome accounts of murder in the penny periodicals.
“That’s what they said—little and often. She was poisoning herself, Lavinia. It’s too awful to contemplate. I just… oh, if only I’d realized. Why was I such a fool?” he exclaimed, and he banged his fist down angrily on the desk.
An almost empty decanter stood next to him, and now he poured the last dregs into a brandy glass, drinking the contentsin one gulp and sighing. Lavinia handed him back the paper with the results. It was a horrible thought—that someone had purposefully set out to poison Gwendolene, not in a fit of passionate rage, but with the methodical calmness of a cunning assailant. And for what reason? Lavinia could not understand how a young woman, in the prime of her life, could be so hated as to ensure someone else wanted her dead—and was willing to poison her.
“You weren’t to know. How could anyone know? It’s… horrible,” Lavinia said, for she could think of nothing else to say, her mind filled with possibilities, each more terrible than the last.
“I haven’t told my mother. Not yet. It’ll be too much for her. She won’t want to hear it—she won’t believe it,” Archie said, and Lavinia nodded.
“I agree—as we really don’t know anything more at the moment. You were suspicious, and this confirms your suspicions. But as for knowing who’s responsible…” Lavinia voice trailed off as thoughts raced through her mind.
She shuddered to think who might have done this wicked thing. But the fact was made worse by the lack of an obvious suspect. Everyone at Sarum Lacy House was so… nice. It was not as though the house had been invaded by marauders intent on destruction.
There was no sinister shadow lurking with the intent of unleashing horror over them. Only normal people, those whoappeared entirely incapable of such wickedness, and that made it all the worse.
“We’re still no closer to discovering who the culprit might Be. I just don’t know. I keep thinking over the possibilities—this person, that person… everyone’s a suspect, and yet… I don’t want any of them to be,” Archie said, and he buried his head in his hands, despairing, it seemed, of ever discovering the truth.
Lavinia felt terribly sorry for him. She wanted to help, and yet she could think of no way in which to do so, other than to listen as she was now doing.
“No… but you must see beyond that. Is there something… anything that makes you suspicious of one person or another? It might seem totally innocent, but added to this new information, it might be the very clue you need,” Lavinia said.
Archie nodded.
“I keep trying to think of just that—who might be responsible, even the least likely suspect. But I draw a blank every time. There’s no one,” he said, and Lavinia sighed.
