In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) (23 page)

Chapter

29

L
ouisa was startled by an odd gurgle behind her. She turned, but Charles had disappeared.

“Max? This is no time to play hide-and-seek.” She turned off the tap, then bundled the roses into a damp towel and gently rolled them into loose brown paper, tying them up with the twine she used to stake her plants. “Are you ready to go?”

Sunlight streamed in through the roof, dust motes swirling. Charles was not sitting in any of the wicker chairs, nor was he examining the trays on the tables. “Max? Charles?”

Another wet noise, and then she heard him. “D-down here.”

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

“Floor. I’m d-dying.”

“You are not!” Louisa dropped the parcel and skirted around the first table. Beneath the table in the middle Charles lay near what looked and smelled suspiciously like a puddle of vomit. “Charles! You’re ill!”

She sank to her knees and was immediately sorry. Louisa had never been good with sickroom evidence or its aroma. She’d had to drench herself in scent so she could sniff her wrists and handkerchief all the way through the Continent to avoid the un-Englishness emanating from foreign bodies, too. Well, technically
she
was the foreign body, but her nose was very particular. She pinched it just now and thought of summer roses. Thought hard. Lots of roses in riotous color, perfuming the air, lush blossoms that in no way resembled the chunks of undigested sausage she quickly closed her eyes to.

“Can you get up?”

“N-not sure. Head. Stomach. Knives.”

“Oh, you poor man. But I did warn you against all that meat.”

“No lectures.”

“Shall I call for some footmen?”

“Maximillian Norwich would never be caught in this state.”

“Forget about Maximillian Norwich.” Charles’s face was the color of lamb’s ears, that peculiar gray green that was soothing in a plant but disconcerting on a human. Louisa really did have to move him before she joined him in his disgrace—the contents of his stomach were a vivid olfactory reminder of his gluttony. “If you cannot stand, suppose you move a little ways away from your current position.” She covered her face with a sleeve and desperately inhaled wool and violets.

He chuckled. “Just like maneuvers. Duck and cover. They won’t get me. They didn’t before, even when I wanted them to.” He made some shooting noises, which alarmed her.

“Whatever you can manage.”

Poor Charles crawled away as slow as a centipede. How did people deal with nursing? Of course, she had not blanched at the sight of his wound the other night, or last night when he had Hugh’s blood on him, for that matter. Louisa was not entirely fainthearted, she assured herself, trying hard not to gag. “Keep going if you can.” The next county was preferable.

She rose from her knees and went back to the sink, wetting a towel and washing her own face with it first. She ripped open the roses and breathed deeply, tucking one into her bodice for emergency relief. He had cleared himself away far enough down the aisle between the tables, then collapsed. She got down on the floor so she could wipe his face and feel his forehead. “No fever.”

“Small mercy. I do not feel well, Louisa. I think—I think I’ve been poisoned.”

Louisa almost let Charles’s head fall back to the brick floor. “What? Don’t be ridiculous! Kathleen promised no more tricks.”

“Maybe it wasn’t Kathleen this time. I’ve made no shortage of enemies. There they are, the devils.” He pointed in the general direction of a large
Schefflera arboricola
.

“It was just the sausages, Charles. How many did you eat? Six? Seven? Anyone would suffer for that.”

“Eight, but who is counting? I see two of you. Not clearly, I might add. Your edges are fuzzy. Everything’s moving. Look there—can’t you see that table leg? Won’t stay still. Watch for falling plants. Oh God.” Charles giggled, actually giggled, as if he’d already been hit in the head and lost his wits.

“This is not funny, Charles.”

He only laughed louder. “White light—so, so bright. Need some dark spectacles like that Evensong woman. To see you better. You are an angel, Louisa. No wings, though. But by Jove, your tits make up for their lack. Wings are no good in bed. Feathers tickle. Tits—now, they’re a different story. Soft and plump. Like peaches. Want to kiss you, my darling.”

Louisa reared back from his breath. “Not until you chew a mint leaf.” Perhaps the whole plant. What had come over him? His symptoms were not like any stomach upset she’d ever had. He seemed almost . . . drunk. Silly. Certainly amorous when she least welcomed his attentions.

“Fuck you into next week. So, so hard.”

And clearly he didn’t know what he was saying. He’d resolved not to touch her again, and she felt sure he was a man of his word, no matter how much she didn’t want him to be. “Do you think you can stand up?”

His eyelid fluttered shut. “Not a chance. Your lap is so comfortable.”

“Be that as it may, I’m going to put you back on the floor and ring for some help.” She took off her riding jacket and wedged it under his head. Rising a bit unsteadily, she yanked the bellpull near the door and prayed for swift delivery.

An unfamiliar footman entered, one of Aunt Grace’s new hires. “Yes, Mrs. Norwich?”

“I have a problem. My husband is not well.” And not in possession of his faculties. “You’ll need to fetch William to help you carry him upstairs. Alert Mrs. Lang to send in some maids to clean the floor, and send Cook upstairs to our suite at her first opportunity.” No one else should eat any of the suspect sausages, else they would find themselves in Charles’s pickle. “I’ll need a pot of strong tea as well. Perhaps some paregoric.”

The footman took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “Yes, madam.”

Kathleen could help her undress Charles—if she was innocent of any mischief. Louisa would soon find out.

The next quarter of an hour was a busy one, with Charles quoting snippets of ribald poetry as the men carried him through the house. He insisted the footmen stop on the landing so he could examine the figured wallpaper, which he claimed was speaking to him.

Kathleen had been picking up her mistress’s room when they trooped in, and she swore she and Robertson had nothing to do with Charles’s bizarre behavior. She looked as worried as Louisa felt. Between all of them, they removed his riding clothes and put him in a pair of monogrammed silk pajamas. Once he was finally safe in her bed with a basin nearby, Louisa told William to fetch Dr. Fentress, who happened to be paying his daily visit to her aunt.

“What do you think about my arse now that you’ve seen it, Kathleen?” Charles mumbled.

“It’s prime, sir, and no mistake,” Kathleen replied, rolling her eyes. “Men. Even when they’re out of their heads they’re a vain lot, aren’t they?” she whispered.

“What can be wrong with him? He said he thought he was poisoned,” Louisa whispered back.

“That may be. If he were fevered, that might explain his delusions, but he’s almost cold to the touch. His eyes look funny.”

“My eye, you mean,” Charles said, sounding cheerful, his hearing still as acute as ever. “But I can’t look as funny as you girls. Did you know you have bugs in your hair? Little pink spiders, I think.”

Louisa restrained her impulse to run screaming to her mirror. He was seeing things that didn’t exist. Hearing things that made no noise. Saying things he wouldn’t ordinarily say.

“Wish I could vomit again. Should stick a finger down my throat—”

“No!” Louisa cried. “Dr. Fentress will be right here. I’ve ordered tea, too.”

“A girl like you probably thinks a cup of good English tea will cure the clap.”

“Charles!” My God, he wasn’t diseased, was he? She’d heard of people going mad from syphilis. But surely Mrs. Evensong would have discovered such a thing.

“Max,” he corrected. “You are forgetting our little play. I am but an actor, hired at your whim.”

Oh dear. What if he forgot in his present state of confusion? Dr. Fentress would run straight to Aunt Grace.

“Just try to be quiet, Max. Close your eyes so you don’t see things that trouble you.”

“Eye, you mean. And you are the only thing that troubles me,” he said, then laughed maniacally. But he did shut his blue eye.

He looked perfectly innocent. There was a tiny cut on his cheek where he cut himself shaving. Was the blade rusty and he had some form of blood poisoning? One didn’t lose one’s mind from eating too many sausages.

Dr. Fentress entered without knocking. “William says we have an emergency. But I see the patient is asleep.”

“Am not,” said Charles, not opening his eye.

“What seems to be the problem, Mr. Norwich?”

“Drugged, I should think. Mushrooms.”

Louisa’s mouth dropped open.

“Can’t be sure. Sausages may have been tampered with as well. Tasted different. But the hallucinations are consistent with ingesting a certain type of mushroom. Went to visit my grandmother once in the country when I was a boy. Brothers and I picked mushrooms and got sick. Can’t remember much about it except Fred laughed himself hoarse, and Fred is not one to laugh a lot.”

Heavens. Charles was unexpectedly eloquent about his condition. Dr. Fentress nodded. “I remember a case like that written up in an old issue of the
London Medical and Physical Journal
. Ask Cook to come up, Louisa.”

“I already have. What can we do?”

“Make him flush his system. Kathleen, get someone to run down to the beach and fetch a good quantity of seawater. That should do the trick. And then he must be watched so he doesn’t harm himself or anyone else. The effects should wear off by this afternoon.”

“This afternoon!”

Charles grinned up at her. “What’s the matter, wife? Afraid to spend the day in bed with me? I don’t want some damned footman. I want you, pink spiders and all.”

“I’ll help you, Miss Louisa, uh, Mrs. Norwich,” Kathleen offered. “William can wait in the hall if we need him.” She hurried out of the room.

Both Cook and Mrs. Lang entered as the maid left. Cook’s usually rosy face was as white as her apron.

“Oh, Mrs. Norwich! I can’t believe there’s poison in my kitchen.”

“We think he ate some bad mushrooms at breakfast. Where did you get them?” the doctor asked.

“My girls picked them from the woods, where they always do. I’m so, so sorry!”

“I don’t blame you,” Louisa assured her, though she supposed Cook might be just as treacherous as Kathleen and Robertson. “But if there are any left, throw them away. I wondered about the sausages, too.”

“The sausages?”

“Just because Ch-Max ate so many of them. But they’re probably all right.”

“I should think so. They’re made to my special recipe and I’ve never had one complaint.”

“Hush, Miriam. No one is casting aspersions on your cooking,” Mrs. Lang said. “Mrs. Norwich, I suppose after this little upset you will want to leave Rosemont and return to France.”

“Well, not right this minute,” Louisa snapped. Poor Charles was in no condition to travel anywhere.

“What can we do to help?” Cook asked.

“I don’t know. What besides seawater should he have?” Louisa turned to Dr. Fentress.

“Nothing else until he’s emptied his stomach. I doubt he’ll be hungry again for a while, and when he does eat, make it the simplest of nursery food. Just make him as comfortable as you can, and don’t be alarmed if he sees and says odd things. As you know, he’s delusional—he’s invented brothers when you said he was an only child. Like the imaginary playmate you used to have—isn’t that right, my dear? What was his name . . . Melvin? Malvern? My goodness, I believe it was Maxwell! What an odd coincidence that you’ve married a man with almost the very same name! I’ll stay the day to keep an eye on him. Call me from your aunt’s quarters if you need me.”

Louisa hadn’t thought about her invented friend in a long while, and she hoped Dr. Fentress would not give any more thought to him, either. Damn. Trust him to have paid attention to her when she was a little girl when no one else in the household did. He was a good-hearted man, save for the fact he was under Grace’s thumb. The doctor seemed more than delighted to have an excuse to spend more time at Rosemont today with her aunt.

Louisa sent everyone away, stationing William in the hallway. Charles did not appear violent, but she might need help to escort him to the bathroom. She placed a hand across his brow, and his eye whipped open.

“I want you naked, right next to me where you belong.”

She’d thought he was sleeping, he’d been so quiet. “Not now, Charles. When you’re better,” Louisa lied. She wouldn’t hold him to things he didn’t mean when he was under the influence of some toadstool.

“Promise?”

“You might change your mind. When you’re better.”

He clasped her hand and held it over his erratic heart. “I’ve been a fool, Lulu. Marry me. Please.”

It was just the toadstool talking. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. If I live.”

“Of course you’re going to live. Oh, where is Kathleen?”

“I don’t want her. I want you. Do you know I’ve never really wanted anyone before? And who should I fall in love with but an heiress who’s miles above me? Come down to earth, Lulu. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy.”