Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (16 page)

“If an unconventional one,” Lizzie said, laughing.

“All the more charming,” he insisted.

Carier closed the door quietly and glanced at Nichols. That one look told me we had trouble ahead of us. I braced myself for whatever was to come.

“Only you partook of the lemon cream at table, my lady?” Carier asked.

“Yes.”

“I would have had some, but I was full from the dishes I had before,” Lizzie confessed.

Without realising what I was doing, I stretched my hand across the bed to Richard’s side. Immediately he was there. He sat down and took my hand. “Carier said he had something of import to tell us, but he needed privacy. I’ve set one of our footmen outside to ensure it.”

Carier nodded, and his already thin lips thinned still more in a small demonstration that the news he was about to impart wasn’t trivial. “Unfortunately, when the dish returned to the kitchen, the cook deemed that it had to be eaten right away due to the unseasonably hot weather. Three maids partook of the treat, and all fell ill. Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to tell you that one has died.”

Cold shock arced through me, and Richard’s hand tightened in mine. “There is little room for error,” Carier continued steadily. “I believe that dish was poisoned.”

An appalled silence fell. I dared a glance at Richard, and as I feared, his face was set and steady. He was concealing what he felt. Whether it was because of Lizzie’s presence I wasn’t sure, but I hoped that was the case. Otherwise he might be trying to hide his emotions from me again. I would not allow it. I counted it an advance that he’d not tried to shield me from this information.

He made an effort to release my hand, but I wouldn’t let him. “So my falling ill had nothing to do with my recent health,” I said. At least I had that.

“Nothing at all, my lady.”

My sister found her voice. She cleared her throat. “Who died?”

“A housemaid by the name of Micaela Botelho.”

Her lovely face clouded over with incipient anger. “Why wasn’t I told immediately?” Typical of my sister, to be in touch with her household and ensure it was efficiently run. It would be unusual for her not to be aware that the girl wasn’t at her work.

A flicker of a smile threatened to break Carier’s composure. If I didn’t know him well by now, I would never have noticed. Lizzie certainly didn’t. Her belligerent blue stare met the steely gaze of Richard’s principal supporter. “Because, my lady, she has been late for work twice this year and the housekeeper had threatened her with dismissal if she did it again.” Lizzie nodded. She knew. “One of the other servants did her duties for her, trying to cover the girl’s absence. She is—was—a popular member of the staff because of her cheerful nature.”

“And her never-ending stream of off-colour stories,” Lizzie added. “They think I know nothing because I had to learn the language when I first arrived. So they assumed she was still abed?”

“Indeed, my lady, until a maid went to investigate her absence after she had finished her morning duties. They found her ill, and ordered her to rest. The maid she usually shares her room with is away at present, so she was left alone to recover and someone brought her gruel and tea. She was discovered dead a matter of ten minutes ago. I have ordered discretion, but more than that is not my place.”

“A pity,” Richard commented. He had given up trying to release my hand and instead kicked off his shoes, moved my breakfast tray and swung his legs up on the bed to sit closer to me. Perhaps he thought I needed comfort. Or perhaps he did.

I was made of stronger stuff than that. My body might still reveal some weakness, but my mind was as resilient as ever.

Richard sighed. “May we trust your servants, Lizzie?”

“They’re an ordinary household,” she replied waspishly. “Not like yours.”

“But we have brought some of ours with us,” Richard assured her smoothly. “What makes you think it’s poison, Carier, rather than a simple matter of the sweet going off?” Milk poisoning carried off a number of people every year.

Carier glanced at Nichols, who stood silently by the door to the powder room, but at his cue, she stepped forwards. “My lord, I’ve seen cases of food poisoning before, and there were a few things about my lady’s illness that didn’t appear quite right. It was why I insisted on purging her completely.”

“I didn’t know that.” From the smooth, silky tone to his words, I knew Richard was angry. “I prefer to be informed of these things immediately.”

“I had no proof, sir.” Nichols lifted her chin. “It was merely a thought, and I did the right thing and ensured her ladyship was free of the problem. I confided in Mr. Carier, and he agreed with me that best be safe than sorry. The symptoms weren’t enough to be sure, just to be alert. He promised to inform you if he discovered anything.”

“So matters got ahead of us.” Richard frowned. “You should still have told me at once.” His tone softened when he addressed me directly. “I will not have you in danger. I take it most of your domestics are resident here?” Lizzie nodded in answer to Richard’s question. “In any case, we may be too hasty to assume the worst. I’d rather wait until we know for sure. It could be a simple matter of cream going off.”

“We will know, my lord. I appropriated the remains of the dish. There wasn’t a great deal. However, the rat catcher for the estate caught a particularly fine specimen last night in the gardens, and I persuaded him to leave the creature in the trap instead of killing it.”

“How did you manage that?” I said.

He shrugged when I raised my brows. “I was in the military long enough to pick up a smattering of Spanish. Although it isn’t the same as Portuguese, I made myself understood. I will give the creature a portion of the dish and watch its reaction carefully. I’ll know from that what to do next.”

Richard glanced at me. “He knows his poisons.” I already knew that.

Lizzie got to her feet. “I must see to the household. I’ll put it about that the dish was bad, if you please, and I’ll reprimand the cook and the dairymaids. But since you say it might not be their faults, I won’t dismiss them. Not yet, anyway.” She kissed my cheek and bustled away, closing the door quietly behind her.

Richard glanced at Carier. “We will go through the possibilities methodically, if you please. You had the servants here investigated before our arrival?”

“I did, my lord. They were all trustworthy, and none are particularly new. Most of them come from local families.” Servants would sometimes work for a single family their whole lives, particularly in the country, but higher domestics moved from post to post to advance their situations. A lady’s maid might move from a baroness to a countess, for example, and advance her status considerably. But that only accounted for upper servants.

“I will discover what I can,” Carier said. “I may have some success asking in the kitchen.” Craggy-faced Carier had considerable success with maids and wasn’t above using his attraction to gain answers when we had no luck above stairs. Perhaps that would work this time.

“We have discounted all but the one we must look at more deeply,” Richard said. “Barber, the merchant.”

Carier sighted. “He is not there, my lord. I went to investigate his room this morning, and found him gone. At the time I assumed he had business to see to, but I thought it bad form that he had not left a note, but I did not then know about the maids and I had not yet connected my lady’s illness with a possible poisoning. I only retrieved the remains of the lemon cream after I heard of the maid’s death.”

“Then it’s probably the merchant.”

I’d already come to the same conclusion as my husband. One of the advantages in living in the country was that strangers coming and going were noticed, and Carier would have told us if that had been so. We needed that merchant, and our priority would be to discover him.

Carier nodded. “I fear so, my lord. He has, of course, left no trace. He took nothing with him that he didn’t arrive with.”

I voiced what they were thinking. “His object wasn’t burglary, or to tell us about the boy Crantock. It was to gain ingress to the house for long enough to administer the poison.”

Richard frowned. “We must be discreet. I don’t want it known that it was poison rather than bad food. I don’t want anyone alerted to the fact that we know. Let them believe we still think it was accidental food poisoning.”

A picture was forming, one that became increasingly sinister. I summed up, ticking the events off on my fingers. “Someone attacks the boy on the ship because he did something, or knew something, or could recognise someone. When the attempt to kill him by throwing him off the rigging fails, they follow it up and strangle him. Then Barber arrives here. He excuses himself from dinner, pleading a mild illness, but one he knows Richard won’t wish transmitted to me. That also gave him the opportunity to poison the lemon cream. So either Barber, or someone he is working with, wants to harm us.”

A name lurked behind my mind, but it was far too early to try to drag someone half a world away into the picture. After all, Richard had assisted the Fieldings of Bow Street on more than one occasion. Among them, we might have made more enemies than we knew.

“I want the children guarded day and night,” Richard said. “Our best men. And Rose and myself, although I will be with her as much as I can. When I am not, I want a footman with her.”

Carier nodded. “I will search for the man, sir. If he returns to Lisbon, we know where to find him. If we can catch him, we will. In the meantime, I will go and observe the rodent. My lord, my lady.” Carier bowed to us, and at a nod from Richard, he left the room, Nichols following him. Utterly trustworthy, she would form my main bodyguard. I would ensure I was armed from now on until we got to the bottom of the problem.

It said a great deal that Richard didn’t immediately get off the bed, putting himself out of temptation. Although last night hadn’t been the unqualified success that I’d hoped, it was a step in the right direction, and I was confident we’d progress even further, given time and patience. He was already more relaxed around me.

I loved that he didn’t move away from me. Every time he had done that in the last few months he’d sent a shard of pain through my heart. What was worse, he’d known it. I could tell from his expression and his tightly controlled movements, the way he’d avoided me. It made both of us unhappy.

Now I reached out and took his hand, unwilling to push him any further, but to my delight he leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on my mouth. “You promise to stay here?”

Reluctantly, because I didn’t want to spoil the mood, I shook my head. “Richard, when you’ve spent as much time in bed as I have recently, spending further time here is the last thing I want to do.”

The lace of his sleeve ruffle scraped against my hand as he moved, but only back a little so he could see my face. As always, the sight of those clear blue eyes close up took my breath away. So much beauty, soul and power were encapsulated in their depths, I could never understand how he managed to hide it all in public. But he did.

He could turn those depths into mirrors, surfaces that reflected only what the onlooker wanted to see. He had never hesitated, but dropped the curtain for me from the first day we’d met. I loved him for his bravery, for his recklessness and for his care of me. And for everything else.

“Then promise me you’ll listen to your body. You’ll rest when you need to; you’ll demand food when you need it. And you won’t mind the two footmen who will accompany you.”

I had a duty to take care of myself, if not for me, then for him. “I promise. I may be impatient sometimes, but I try very hard not to be stupid.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “And you’re extraordinarily successful at that.”

I gave him a deliberately enticing smile. “Sometimes it’s good to appear stupid.”

“True enough. Or so obsessed with clothes and fashion that there’s no room for anything else.”

We laughed, and the sound born of impulse, untrammelled and unconfined, rang around the room.

I enjoyed our visit to the gardens later that day. The babies lay in the straw cradles that my sister had acquired for them, and my daughter was adorable in chinchilla and blue velvet. I wore the shawl Richard had given to me over a summery gown of lemon silk. I successfully ignored the two burly footmen who stood close to us, ostensibly waiting for orders, but in reality were there to protect us. My sister brought out her son, and although he could barely toddle, being a few months younger than Helen, our daughter played very carefully with him.

“I shall not,” I murmured to Lizzie, “be arranging any future matches between my daughter and your son. I would have hated such an obligation when I was younger. Though they do look sweet together.”

“Their temperaments complement each other.” Lizzie smiled and leaned forwards to unclasp her son’s hand from her arm. He had a tendency to cling, but most children did at that age. “But I agree. Far too early to think of matches. You have done very well indeed, though. Four children, and three at once. Is your mother-in-law pleased?”

I laughed. “Yes and no. Yes, she’s delighted that I succeeded in giving birth to an heir and two spares, as well as a daughter. Helen is useful currency for future business negotiations, as she sees it. But I think she was put out that I had the temerity to live.”