Ecstasy Wears Emeralds (27 page)

Gayle handed him his stethoscope, and Rowan listened with alarm at the rapid pace of her heartbeat and the shallowness of her breathing.
She'll hyperventilate at this rate—or she's going into shock.

“Gayle, stay here with her. Just do what you can to comfort her. I need to talk to Ashe.”

Gayle changed places with him to sit at Caroline's side, capturing one of her hands, and with her free hand smoothing her fingers against Caroline's cheek and forehead.

“Come, let's talk in the hall.” Rowan gestured back to the door.

“I'm not stepping one foot outside of this room and leaving her, West. Talk.”

Rowan wasted no time in arguing but walked over to the sitting area in the corner of the room. “Fine, we'll stay in the room.”

The terror in Ashe's ice blue eyes was unquestionable, and as a friend, he knew that Ashe had to be there with his beloved bride—no matter what was coming. Rowan kept his voice low. “Was she ill earlier? Did she show any symptoms of discomfort?”

“No! We enjoyed . . . a lovely morning.” Ashe had to take a deep breath. “She was perfectly fine.”

“When did it change?”

“Just a while after lunch, I think. She ate alone in the library—I can barely pry her out of there on some days, Rowan.” His words sped up as fear caught up with him. “I went to the sports club this morning with Michael. I should have stayed home! It's Sunday! Threatening letters and I'm off like an idiot playing swords with Rutherford!”

“We all expected the danger to come at us directly, not our loved ones, Ashe! This isn't helping Caroline. Ring for Godwin. I need to know what she ate. I need to see anything that remains of that meal and to know everything we can of its source.”

“Poison! Dear God, you think she's been poisoned!”

“Ashe! Ring for Godwin.”

Ashe transformed with his mission, a fierce juggernaut who wasted no time in storming down to the kitchens to personally discover the answers and bring Rowan what he'd asked. Godwin and Mrs. Clark trailed after him, each wringing their hands.

“It should have been cleaned and gone by now,” Mrs. Clark offered, “but that new scullery maid is as slow as a turtle, and then when Mrs. Blackwell fell—we all dropped what we were doing, sir!”

“A good thing, Mrs. Clark. A good thing.” Rowan tried to take it from Ashe's viselike grip. “Ashe, let go.”

Ashe came out of the trance he'd been in—clearly his thoughts were elsewhere with Caroline or in a spiral of rage for whoever had done this thing—and let go of the tray's handles.

Rowan walked over to the sideboard and set it down, picking up a knife to poke through the food that had been left. Everything looked innocuous enough, but Rowan spotted the small, pretty box under the napkin, and his heart sank. Two of the three confections had been eaten, and he picked up the chocolate-covered square to break it in half and reveal a white creamy center. “Where did the chocolates come from?”

“I don't know, Dr. West!” Godwin said, then turned to Mrs. Clark. “Did you put them there?”

Mrs. Clark burst into tears. “They c-came this morning without a note. I thought . . . it was a gift . . . from Mr. Blackwell for her! You're always so kind to l-leave little prizes throughout the h-house for her! I told Cook to put them on her tray!”

Rowan held up a hand, trying to think as quickly as he could.
It's gastric fever. It's too sudden and the symptoms are unmistakable. It would be easy enough to hide in the filling. But if I'm wrong and it's something else—and it could be a dozen other things . . . I could waste valuable time or do more harm than good.

“Rowan,” Ashe interrupted, his patience too strained for silence. “Was it the chocolates? Was it poison?”

Gayle looked up at him from across the room as Caroline convulsed on the bed, clutching at Gayle's hand and biting off a muffled cry. Violet eyes met his and an understanding flowed between them.

Chapter
21

“I think it's arsenic, Ashe. By the looks of it, a potentially fatal dose. But I'm here and I'm going to do everything I can.”

Ashe looked like he'd been punched in the midsection, but he held his ground. “You save her, Rowan. You. Save. My. Wife.”

Rowan transformed into a general commanding his troops with the firm resolve of a man who could a sense the sea at his back. “Mrs. Clark, I need milk. Fresh, cold milk for your mistress. Godwin, please ask your cook to boil water and then send it up with some cloths. Also, we'll need clean bedding and more bowls.

“Ashe, send a runner to Michael and the others. If there have been any other unmarked deliveries of foodstuffs, we'll need to know. Any sign of the sender will be lost quickly, so the faster we can react, the better our chances of catching them.”

Rowan knelt next to the bed and felt Caroline's pulse. “I'm willing to hazard that this wasn't the lovely day you had planned, Mrs. Blackwell.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she tried to smile. “N-not . . . exactly.”

“Ashe said you'd do anything to get out of shopping for new clothes, but this is taking it much too far.” In one smooth motion, he put a damp cloth on her forehead and handed Gayle the bowl that had been used so that she could fetch an empty one. “As your doctor, I'm going to recommend begging off with a headache next time.”

“Easy for you . . . to say,” Caroline said.

Gayle smiled as she brought a clean bowl, and anticipating Rowan's next request, brought a clean cloth as well. “Especially since I think Dr. West hates shopping as well.”

Caroline doubled over as Ashe returned. It was a few moments before the spell had passed, but Caroline, even in a crisis, was very spirited. “I never . . . thought to have . . . so many people . . . in my bedroom.”

Ashe kissed her on her forehead, unabashedly affectionate. “Nor I. You must get better so that we can banish this crowd, my darling. Then we can bar the door and I shall never require you to shop again.”

“Now . . . I know . . . it's serious.” Caroline gripped his hands before abandoning her efforts to appear courageous. Her suffering was acute, and Rowan knew he would have to add to her misery if he had any hope of curing her.

“Gayle, hand me the oil. We need her to empty her stomach.”

Ashe lifted his head, instantly wary. “You can't be serious. She's just stopped vomiting!”

“Ashe, this is why husbands wait downstairs, pacing in libraries and drinking until they can't see straight.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Then stay out of the way.” He took the bottle from Gayle, unwilling to voice the medical argument that any other doctor would have a tube down her throat to pump her stomach, but with Ashe hovering, Rowan knew better and had opted for the “gentler” treatment of using rancid oil to purge the poison from her stomach.

“I have to make sure it's out of her system, as quickly and as extensively as possible.” Rowan took the bottle from Gayle, sparing a few seconds to gauge how his apprentice was faring. She was like the calm in the center of the storm, and he fell in love with her for it all over again.

Then he squared his shoulders and proceeded to administer the oil to Caroline. The effect was immediate and dramatic. It was the launch to a miserable journey. After a while, he had to almost fight off Ashe when the treatment took on a life of its own and she couldn't seem to stop.

“She's vomiting up blood, Rowan. You're killing her!”

“
I'm
doing my best to save her. Back up, Ashe, and give me some room, damn it! I'll have you wrestled out of here if I have to! Don't think Godwin won't get every footman and stable boy within two blocks of the house to help me if I tell him to! Now, go stand over there!”

“I swear, I could strangle you, Rowan,” Ashe threatened, but took a single step back.

“Later. Kill me, later, Ashe.” When Ashe took two more reluctant steps back, Rowan turned his attention back to the crisis at hand. “Gayle, get the crystallized ginger out of my bag and make an infusion.”

The infusion helped slightly, along with a mint treatment, and Rowan wasted no time. “Where's the milk?”

Mrs. Clark brought over the tray with a glass of fresh milk. “Here, doctor.”

“Gayle, have her drink all of it. Every last drop, do you understand?”

“Every drop,” she repeated dutifully, and settled in next to the bedside. “Mrs. Blackwell? You must drink this.”

Caroline weakly shook her head, trying to push the glass away. “No.” She spotted her husband and began to cry. “I can't, Ashe.”

Gayle looked at him, determined to rally his support. “She must, Mr. Blackwell.”

“There you have it, darling. You
must.
” He returned to take the glass from Gayle's hand and positioned himself to lift Caroline so that she could drink more comfortably. “Rowan's new assistant is, as you see, quite the tyrant and destined to be your dearest friend from what the good doctor has said of her. Now, drink this, my contrary little Quaker, or I'll pinch your nose and force you to do it.”

She dutifully choked it down, and two more glasses afterward, even as she struggled to stay awake. Her skin was cold and clammy, and the pain was so intense that it was all she could do to cling to Ashe and cry.

Long hours passed, with Rowan and Gayle working continuously to try to keep her comfortable and warm, reassuring Ashe as best they could, and anxiously fighting each new symptom as it appeared.

As night fell, Ashe pulled Rowan out into the hallway. “She needs something for the pain.”

Rowan shook his head. “I'm afraid that would be a mistake. Anything I give her to suppress the pain also slows her heart and breathing and may weaken her ability to fight through this. I don't want to frighten you, Ashe, but—”

“Are you joking? I've never been more terrified in my life, and I'm including the black hell we sat through and that time they took us out one by one and beat us until I was sure it was over. Go ahead, Rowan. Tell me everything.”

“Even if I did give her something for the pain, laudanum or morphine, I'm not sure what her system can absorb. The arsenic attacks the stomach and internal organs. If there's too much damage, she could go into shock, suffer paralysis, or worse. Damn it, Ashe! I don't know for certain, but my instincts tell me that the longer she's alive, the better her chances. If we can make it to morning, I think the worst will be over and then it's just a matter of rest and healing.”

“Till morning,” Ashe echoed the phrase, seizing on the promise. He returned to his wife's side and resumed his vigil, assisting in whatever he could and tending to Caroline with a ferocious devotion that defied death.

Even so, by midnight, Caroline had suffered a miscarriage of the baby that they'd not yet had a chance to anticipate—a blow that nearly unmanned Ashe. A quiet decision was made to wait to tell Caroline since she was so weak, and Rowan did his best to control the unspeakable sorrow he felt as he watched Ashe kissing his slumbering wife and whispering endless assurances that she was his life, and that so long as he drew breath, he would love her.

“You must live, darling,” Ashe spoke softly as he caressed her cheeks, “if not for me, then for your college. Grandfather Walker is going to give you Bellewood, dearest, so you can turn that creaking monolith into the school of your dreams. It was going to be a Christmas present. You can't . . . leave now, Caroline.”

Rowan walked away to give Ashe privacy as he implored his wife to live.

Gayle came up behind him. “Here. Mrs. Clark made some hot coffee for us.”

He turned, a little surprised. He could tell by the color that it was exactly the way he liked it. “Thank you. That's just what I needed.”

Finally, a few minutes after two in the morning, Caroline's pulse was stronger and Rowan was able to look his friend squarely in the eyes and tell him that they'd turned the corner.

Caroline would survive.

Rowan stayed at her side while Ashe went to inform Godwin and the others of the good news, and Gayle sat next to him, watching his face. “You don't look as celebratory as one would expect, Dr. West.” She kept her voice low so as not to wake Caroline, covering one of his hands with hers. “Are you all right?”

“It's . . . harder when it's someone you know. And if she'd slipped away, I don't think he would ever have forgiven me.” He gave her a dry look. “Yet another in that column, I suppose.”