Page 91 of Death at the Dower House
I folded my arms across my chest. It’s a defensive mechanism, and I recognized it as such, although I can’t tell you what I was defending myself against. He wasn’t even baiting me at this point. “How much time are we talking about?”
“Hard to say,” Crispin said. “A regular dose wears off after eight or ten hours. This came close to killing him, so I think it could take several days. But I’m hardly an authority on Veronal. Francis is the one you should ask.”
Or perhaps Lady Laetitia.
I had my mouth open to say as much when Crispin glanced up at me again. “I guess I did my job a little too well last night. I’m sorry I almost got you killed.”
“You didn’t almost get me killed,” I said, dropping my arms so I could curl my hands into fists. “Christopher’sthe one who almost died. I wasfine.”
“But if you’d finished the drink the way you were supposed to, you would have been the one who was dead. It’s not as if Laetitia planned for Peckham to mix a disgusting cocktail you couldn’t stomach. Veronal is tasteless, you know. If the drink had tasted good, you would have finished it. And we’d be sending you off to the mortuary right now.”
His hands were fisted too, I noticed, clenched on top of his thighs.
“But it didn’t happen,” I said. “And you said it yourself: Christopher’s going to be fine.”
“IthinkChristopher’s going to be fine. I don’t actually know that he is. We should have a doctor look at him, at the very least.”
“We will,” I told him soothingly, “as soon as the sun’s up. To be honest, I don’t think you and I have to worry about it. I think Tom will make sure the doctor’s here at first light. He does seem to care about Christopher’s wellbeing, you know.”
Crispin shrugged, and glanced down at Christopher’s face. “I’d like to kill her,” he said, so seriously that it took me a moment to come up with anything to say.
“I don’t like it any better than you do, you know, but wasn’t her fault. You heard her. She only gave Gilbert a few grains, so I would be sleepy and wouldn’t get in the way of her seducing you.”
“That’s what she says,” Crispin said bitterly.
I squinted at him. “What does that mean? Didn’t you believe her?”
He shot me a look. “I don’t know whyyou’reso quick to believe her, Darling. You seem perfectly willing to accept that she’d give Gilbert dope to put in your drink. Why do you quibble at the amount? If she wanted you out of the way for the evening, what makes you think she wouldn’t want you out of the way permanently?”
Well, because that would be crazy, wouldn’t it?
I opened my mouth, and then I closed it again because I had to admit that he had a point. “I suppose I thought she sounded sincere?” I said, uncertainly. “There’s a significant difference between getting someone out of the way for a few hours, and killing them. Do you really think she’s a murderess?”
“I thought you thought so?” Crispin retorted. “Wasn’t that why we created the big deception in the first place, because you thought she might have killed Johanna?”
Well, yes. It had been.
“If you think she’d kill Johanna because of me,” Crispin said, “what makes you think she wouldn’t killyoubecause of me?”
“Well, because no one in their right mind would actually believe—”
Except someone in her right mind, if that was an accurate description of Laetitia, had in fact believed that something was going on between me and Crispin. Enough of it that, if she hadn’t actually wanted to silence me permanently, she’d at least taken steps to keep me away from him in the short term.
“Gilbert’s the one who ran away,” I said, a bit desperately. “Not Laetitia. Surely that means he’s the killer. Doesn’t it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Why ask me, Darling? I’m just not quite as ready to forgive her as you seem to be. Shedopedyou. I don’t understand why you seem ready to put it behind you, just like that.”
“I suppose it’s because I don’t think she intended—” I glanced at Christopher, so still and pale, “—this.”
“But even if she didn’t intend this, she intended something. You were in her way, and she wanted you gone. It’s no better than hitting you over the head and leaving you in a corner, is it?”
Perhaps it wasn’t. Even if it felt quite a bit better without the headache.
“I would have thought you’d take it as a compliment, St George,” I said, in an effort to get back on comfortable ground. The sort of ground where we poked at each other for fun and he wasn’t looking at me like he cared that someone had tried to harm me.
He grimaced. “You would, would you?”
“Well, she wants you badly enough that she’ll literally take out the competition to keep you. Surely that must be a boost to your self-esteem?”
