Page 63 of A Virgin to Tame the Duke
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Charlotte slumped on the chair beside the bed. Lady Henley had offered them the use of her spare room as Aaron was too ill to be moved, a fact later corroborated by the physician when he arrived.
She had been there through the worst of it. Through the vomiting and the blood and the physician’s grim face as he had given his diagnosis: poison. Someone had attempted to give the Duke a poison, and they had administered what would for most people be a lethal amount. However, the Duke was larger than the average man, and the physician had hope that Aaron would survive.
Charlotte clung to that hope as she had never clung to anything before.
Constance, her face equally pale, sat on Aaron’s other side, her mouth opened unbecomingly as she slept. Once Aaron’s condition had stabilized, Charlotte had allowed Constance in. Aaron’s aunt, Lady Brighton, had opted to stay in the rooms provided her by Lady Henley.
Charlotte rubbed her aching brow. Without Constance’s support, she didn’t know if she would have been allowed to remain here at all, but Constance had been steadfast in reiterating her story that the engagement had never been ended and that she was still Aaron’s fiancée.
The door opened, and her mother entered the room. Charlotte pressed a finger to her lips and pointed at Constance’s sleeping form.
“How is he?” Anastasia whispered. She, too, had been by Charlotte’s side through everything and had elected to stay with her daughter, checking in at various moments in the night.
“Sleeping peacefully. The physician said he hopes the Duke will wake soon and we can see how he fares.”
Anastasia looked at Aaron’s prone form with her lips pursed. “He looks to be resting well. Any fever?”
Charlotte laid another hand on Aaron’s brow. It remained gently warm, but with nothing of the feverish heat that it had had previously. “Not now.”
“These are good signs.” Anastasia clasped her hands behind her back and looked at Charlotte with an unfamiliarly cautious expression. “My love, have you given any thought to the poisoner?”
Charlotte hadn’t even been able to consider who might hate Aaron enough they would try to kill him. Every time she recalled the physician mentioning thelethal dose, she shivered. “Who could be so cruel, Mama?”
“I must tell you something, but until we know more, it must remain in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course.”
Her mother perched on the edge of the bed. “Traces of the poison were found in the glass His Grace drank from moments before following you and Sebastian.”
Charlotte’s expression tightened at the very mention of her cousin. No matter how she had tried, she couldn’t get the memory of that kiss from her mind. “And?”
“That particular glass, as I can recall myself, came from Lady Brighton.”
“Your friend? His aunt?”
“The very same. I can hardly believe it myself—I would not believe it—but moments before, I thought I saw… I thought I saw her hiding something in her hand.”
“Lady Brighton.” Charlotte pressed a hand to her brow. “I would have thought Sebastian a more likely candidate—or perhaps Marcella, but—”
“There is something more. I cannot know this for certain, but there were rumors when Constance was born that she was not the daughter of the late Duke’s wife but of Octavia.” Anastasia rose and wrung her hands before her. “Such things are not uncommon, my love, but if that’s true, there may yet be more things we don’t know.”
“What should we do?”
“I think, perhaps, you should tell me the whole,” a voice said from behind her. She twisted to see Aaron awake and pushing himself into a sitting position. Although his face was a little too pale, he appeared to have all his faculties as he looked around the room.
“Aaron.” Charlotte’s voice was more of a sob as she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. His arms came up around her, and she almost sagged with relief. She hadn’t imagined it; he had recanted his rejection of her. “I thought you were—that you might not—oh Aaron!”
“It will take a little more than a dose of poison to finish me off,” he said grimly, and with one arm locked firmly around Charlotte’s waist, he looked directly at her mother. “Tell me all you know.”
The more details Anastasia revealed, the worse the unfolding picture became, and the darker it seemed for Octavia. Anastasia knew of nothing specific; she spoke of Octavia’s resentment for the late Duke for reasons unstated—ones she suspected had to do with Constance—and the mysterious way in which the late Duke passed away.
“At the time, you know, we suspected nothing. He was taken suddenly ill and passed away in the middle of the night.”
“I remember,” Aaron said.
“She made some small effort at grieving, but I never believed her to be sad. That was never a surprise, of course, but the similarities between your case and his and having seen her conceal something before handing your drink to you.”
