Page 80 of Mending the Baron's Sins
“What do you mean?” Orla asked. “I know Lord De Rees and he have had problems, but the baron always insisted they were friends.”
“Strange friends, in my opinion.” Adam looked away from the view beyond the window, turning to gaze at her with fierce eyes that showed how angry he was at what he was witnessing. “I have known Walter for years. Yes, he and Horace are friends, but it has never been a friendship I have particularly liked. You ask me, and I think Walter became friends with Horace all those years ago to take advantage of Horace’s position and money. Who was it who started their business with an initial investment? Horace. Whose name and title was it that opened doors to get them started? Horace. All the way, Horace had the advantage in the relationship. Now Horace was considering selling up all his shares, giving them either to Patterson or Walter? Who has benefitted more out of that relationship, I wonder?”
Orla had no words. As Adam had said, the conclusion was a plain one.
“I need to answer these letters.” He picked up the papers again. “Get some food and some rest, Orla. Please, for Horace’s sake.”
She nodded, watching as he walked away. In the silence that remained, her eyes prickled with tears, but she fought the feeling.
You will live, Horace. Come what may, I’ll make sure that you do.
***
Orla woke with a start. The sun was only just beginning to rise, filling the sky with a gray light that filtered through her window. Rubbing her tired eyes, Orla sat up in bed and dressed numbly. She had cried herself to sleep the night before from worrying about Horace so much. This morning, she had to return to his side.
As she picked up her leather case, ready to ready, something fell out of the bag. She peered down at the book, realizing that it was not her own medical journal, where she had made notes on Horace’s health over the last few months, but it was Colm’s journal.
With sudden renewed energy, she snapped it up and took it to the window. She opened his book and her own diary of what had passed, turning them to the same dates to see if Colm had noticed the same things she had noted. Maybe he had even recognized symptoms she hadn’t seen? It was possible bypooling their knowledge together collectively, it would offer a great insight.
At first, she noticed patterns which were of use. Sometimes Colm had recorded times when Horace had explained he was feeling dizzy. She didn’t have some of these incidences in her own diary, so added them in. Yet as she turned between the pages, another pattern began to emerge.
This one was more subtle than the last. Next to each bout of increased nausea or dizziness, her uncle had placed a small ‘L’ in the margin of his book. Turning to the relevant pages of her own diary, she saw that she had marked the same date with the times that her uncle had given him laudanum.
“A bad reaction, a dependency. I knew it.” She turned the pages angrily, but that didn’t explain what had happened now. She turned to the day before he had fallen desperately ill, seeing that her uncle hadn’t put an ‘L’ in the margin, so Horace’s worsened condition could not be a relapse to returning to the chemical.
On the morning of when Horace had fallen ill, she found her uncle’s journey completely empty. Staring at the blank page for a second or two, she turned it back and forth, wondering if her uncle had simply written up the visit on a separate page, but he had not. That morning was completely unaccounted for.
“He came that day,” she whispered. “Adam told me he did.”
She stood from the windowsill, taking the books with her back to the bag when she saw that her uncle’s book was not the only thing to have been placed in there by mistake. There was another one of the tiny glass vials that she had spied loose in Horace’s chamber one day. She turned it upside down, but it was empty, and not a drip came out onto her finger. She held it to her nose and sniffed.
Unlike the other one, which had no smell, this one was pungent. It smelled chemical and tart and was so strong that she immediately recoiled from it.
“That’s not laudanum,” she murmured to herself. Stuffing the vial and the books into her bag, she raced from the room, hurrying toward Horace’s chamber. She did not know what she was thinking in truth. All she knew was that Colm was hiding something from her. He had not once mentioned these vials or what was in them, and it was very strange indeed he hadn’t mentioned in his writing his last visit to Horace.
When she reached Horace’s chamber, she halted outside the door. She could hear Colm moving about inside. Taking the door, she silently turned the handle and opened it just an inch so she could peer into the room.
Colm was frantic once again. He turned on the spot, looking at Horace on the bed, then back at his bag behind him. He started stuffing things inside the bag. All of his apparatus, he hid away.There was another one of those small vials that he managed to uncork with some difficulty before throwing the contents out of the window and stuffing the empty glass back into his bag.
He's not packing. He’s hiding things.
With sudden urgency, Orla kicked the door open.
Out of the corner of her eye, she was somehow aware that there was movement on the bed at this loud sound, but she couldn’t look toward Horace, not now. She was incandescent with rage, and all of that anger was centered on her uncle who had whipped around to face her so suddenly in surprise, he nearly dropped that vial in his grasp.
“Give it to me.” Orla stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind her.
“Orla, no,” he murmured, his voice barely audible at all. “Don’t–”
“Give it to me.” She cut across him, her voice as harsh as she could make it. She tossed her bag onto the table, waving her hand toward him.
Her uncle still didn’t hand over the vial. Instead, he cradled it to his chest, like it was the tiniest baby in the world, so precious and delicate.
“I know,” she whispered.
“Orla, no–”
“Every time you gave him laudanum, his condition worsened. It’s all in here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out their two diaries, dropping them side by side on the table with two loud thuds. “Did you give him that much to worsen him? Or…” she eyed the vial he hid from her. “Did you put something else in the laudanum?”
