Page 77 of His Haunted Duchess
One small comfort she clung to like a cat to a morsel in the street: at least, now, he was safe. Far from her, distanced as he was, the blight of her malady could not touch him. Now, he would heal. Tears leaked out of her eyes and down to the coverlet where she was seated. One of them, at least, could heal.
“Oh, good! You’re awake! I’ll never go away again!”
Frederic blinked in confusion. Philip? He turned his head. His brother sat next to him in a large, carved chair. Next to him rested a large pile of untouched tea things, including a prodigious pile of hand pies. The aroma tickled his nose, and he coughed.
His muscles—especially in his chest—ached with acrid tension and his throat burned with the vestige of bile. Frederic groaned.
“Move slowly.” Philip stood, hovering over him like a midwife. “Or better yet, don’t move at all. They told me to keep watch, so they could get some rest. The physician said you would require a few days to fully heal.”
Frederic fell back onto the pillow. He was in his room, in his own large four-poster bed, bright with fresh linen. The sun, yet wan with morning brightness, spilled onto the red, Turkish rug where Caroline’s scruffy cat lay, curled in the light. Its chest rose and fell like a bellows.
Caroline. It all came rushing back to him. The tea?—
He had to find her. Was she— His heart lurched. If the tea had so affected him, then?—
“Philip, where’s Caroline?”
He tried to throw off the blankets and succeeded only in further tangling himself in the bed clothing. Blasted sheets, interfering at a time like this. The cat raised its head, blinking blearily. Philip threw himself forward over Frederic’s legs.
“If you stay in bed, I’ll tell you. If not, I’ll fetch Carlyle, and he and I will sit on you and make you get better.”
Frederic raised his eyebrows. Philip stared defiantly back. Frederic settled back with a sigh. On any other day, he would have tossed both of them aside. Today, strained as he was physically, it was difficult logic to argue with. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Tell me, then. I’ll stay, at least until I hear you out. Where is Caroline? What—what happened?”
“You drank hemlock—the flower of it. It’s small and white and looks like a little bush. The gardeners say it’s terribly common—like wild carrots or parsnips. It’s not a difficult plant to grow but very bad for horses—and people as I suppose you’d know.”
Frederic nodded. He remembered the flower that Caroline had dropped into the pot. Philip shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Some suggested—some thought that the Lady Caroline?—”
“The duchess,” Frederic said firmly. “What did they think?”
“Well, they thought that she—she might have?—”
Ah. He understood now. Of course, their minds would jump to conclusions. No one else had been there to see the facts.
“They thought that she might have been the one to poison me?”
“I told them it was ridiculous,” Philip said, throwing up his hands. “It couldn’t have been her.”
Frederic nodded in agreement.
“What makes you so sure? She might have, after all.”
Philip frowned, and for a moment Frederic saw the severity of his own face reflected back at him.
“Caroline wouldn’t. She just—she wouldn’t. It’s not her way. Besides, she practically dangles after you and thinks you’re very handsome to look at. I’m handsome, too, but not quite so much as you yet, and it’s only because she thinks she’s cursed that?—”
He clapped his fingers over his mouth.
“Oh dear. Was I supposed to tell you that?”
Frederic, if the shock hadn’t shaken his already sore chest, would have been tempted to laugh. He wheezed a few times, coughing into the blankets.
“I have become aware of Caroline’s belief in curses,” he said, a little wryly, when he had recovered, “but not, it would seem, before you did.”
Philip blushed, a little self-consciously.
