The Tempting of Thomas Carrick (7 page)

This might not be anything like the reunion she’d hoped for, but in the circumstances, she would take whatever situation the Lady handed her. And once she’d done her duty for those the Lady held within her care, she would turn the opportunity to her own purpose—to fulfilling her own very real need.

Thomas was waiting, every bit as impatient as she. Without further words, they set out, riding as fast as safety allowed for the Bradshaws’ farm.

* * *

They rode up to the Bradshaws’ farmhouse as the last glimmer of daylight was fading from the western sky.

Lucilla reined in before the farmhouse door, kicked free of her stirrups, and slid to the ground; she didn’t need the distraction of feeling Thomas’s hands close about her waist at that moment. Untying her saddlebag, she glanced at him.

Already dismounted, he reached for the mare’s reins. “I’ll stable the horses. Joy’s on the sofa in the main room.”

Lucilla nodded. Her saddlebag in one hand, she headed for the front door. Opening it, she paused, waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness, then walked in.

The Carrick healer was still lying on the sofa. There was no fire, no light, no warmth in the house. After setting her saddlebag on the table, Lucilla went into the kitchen, but the lamp she found was empty. The stove was cold, the fire in the kitchen hearth long gone to ashes. No candles lay in sight. Walking back into the main room, she scanned the furniture, the mantel—and saw a candle in a holder sitting beside a tinderbox.

She made quick work of lighting the candle, then carried it to the sofa.

Two minutes were enough for her to confirm that Joy Burns had passed beyond her ability to help. The healer was still alive, but barely, and she wasn’t long for the world.

Lucilla straightened; she looked up as Thomas came inside and shut the door.

“How is she?” He crossed to stand behind the sofa and looked down at Joy. His face hardened. “She hasn’t moved since I laid her there.”

Lucilla hated to say the words, but she’d had to often enough to know the importance of simply saying them. “You thought she was dying, and you were right. There’s nothing I can do to help her. I’m sorry.” After a moment, she added, “As she hasn’t moved, I don’t think you could have done anything for her, even when you first found her.”

His face had set, the lines harsh and unyielding; for a moment he said nothing, then he glanced up and met her eyes. Briefly, grimly, he nodded. “The Bradshaws?”

“Pray they’re in better straits.” She lifted the candleholder from the small table beside the sofa and turned to the archway she assumed led to the bedrooms. “I’ll check on the youngest first—the little girl, isn’t it? Which room is she in?”

He came around the sofa and pointed to an open door to the right of the corridor. “The three girls share that room. The two boys are in the end room, and Bradshaw and Mrs. Bradshaw are in the room to the left.”

“I’ll examine them all—children, then the parents.” She walked into the corridor.

Behind her, he said, “The lamps had burned down. I’ll see if I can find more lamp oil.”

Without looking back, she nodded. “And if not that, see if you can find more candles. I—we—will need better light.”

Pushing open the door to the girls’ room, she went inside.

To her relief, the youngest girl, about seven years old, seemed to be recovering; she roused from what appeared to have been normal sleep when Lucilla laid a hand on her brow.

Quickly reassuring the child, Lucilla checked on the older girls, about thirteen and fourteen. Both also roused, but were weaker, groggier, than their younger sister.

But all would live; Lucilla was certain of that.

It seemed odd that the youngest, and most lightweight, should be recovering fastest, but assuming the same would hold true for the others afflicted, Lucilla returned to the youngest girl and encouraged her to describe what had happened, what she’d felt and when. The child’s report was clear enough; all the family had started to feel ill from about noon the day before. One by one, they’d started vomiting, then had taken to their beds, but the cramps hadn’t stopped. The girl complained that her stomach—by which Lucilla confirmed she meant her abdominal muscles—still hurt dreadfully.

By the time the Forresters had arrived late in the afternoon, the entire family had been laid low. The Forresters had said they would send for the healer, but the girl knew no more; she’d fallen asleep.

She’d woken again that morning, but she hadn’t felt well enough to do anything at all, and had continued to lie in her bed, drifting in and out of sleep.

The girl’s eyes looked sunken. Lucilla had noticed that the child had been moistening her lips in between speaking; she had glanced around, but the water jug on the dresser was empty, as were the glasses each girl had on her nightstand.

Then the girl blinked up at her and in a thready voice asked for water.

Lucilla patted her hand and rose. “I’ll bring some. Just close your eyes and rest, and I’ll bring you some water and perhaps something else to drink soon. But first I want to check on your brothers and parents.”

Her eyes already closing, the girl nodded.

In the boys’ room, Lucilla found much the same situation—the ten-year-old was recovering more quickly than the sixteen-year-old. As in the girls’ room, each boy had been provided with a bucket, and although the smell was dreadful, the evidence led Lucilla to conclude that whatever they’d eaten since breakfast the day before hadn’t stayed down, which explained the prevailing weakness.

She reassured both boys and moved on to their parents’ room.

There, she found further confirmation that what was principally ailing the Bradshaws now was lack of nourishment, lack of water, and overall exhaustion brought about through the pain of their earlier violent spasms.

But the spasms themselves seemed to have passed.

Mrs. Bradshaw seemed the most dragged down; Lucilla theorized that as a working farmer’s wife with a large family, of said family, Mrs. Bradshaw very likely had the lowest reserves.

Lucilla had to climb up on the bed to examine Bradshaw himself. A bear of a man, he roused as she was leaning over him. His eyes opened, then flared wide.

Having been told that she resembled some people’s idea of an angel, she was quick to reassure him. “Mr. Thomas brought me to help.” Bradshaw knew her by sight, and the mention of Thomas’s name helped recognition flow.

Bradshaw tensed to sit up, but she pressed him back. “No. Just rest. You’re too weak to help yet, and you need to get better if you’re to help your family—all of whom are recovering, too.” Shifting back off the bed, she looked around the room, confirming that here, too, there was no water. “Just wait and I’ll bring you something to drink. Your wife is still sleeping deeply, and there’s no need to disturb her. At this point, it’s best she sleeps.”

She left the bedroom and walked back into the main room. A quick glance at the sofa showed that Joy hadn’t stirred. Lucilla checked the healer’s pulse; it was barely there, and slowing, fading. The glow of lamplight spilled out from the kitchen. Carrying her single candle, she headed that way.

Thomas was working at the kitchen table, filling a second lamp. He looked up as she appeared.

She answered the question in his eyes. “The Bradshaws are already recovering. Whatever it was, they vomited it up, and now that’s done, they’ll recover well enough.”

“So it was something they ate?”

“That’s what it looks like. Something that caused a violent stomach reaction. Something like a poison, but one that doesn’t stay down, and once it’s out, it no longer affects them. They’re still in some pain, but it’s from muscles strained through prolonged retching, not from any continuing ailment. I’ll make a tisane that will ease that, but first they need some water.” She’d been looking around for whatever the Bradshaws used to fetch water, but hadn’t spotted anything useful.

Thomas pointed, and she turned to see a large metal ewer sitting in the shadows close by the back door. “It had rolled and spilled. I tipped what little was left into that glass on the sideboard. Joy must have had the ewer in her hand when she had her seizure.”

Lucilla paused, then, without looking again at Thomas, walked over and picked up the ewer.

“What?”

The demand—more like a poorly worded command—had her glancing his way. She hesitated, but he was probably the right person to tell. “You asked about poison. I don’t know what it was the Bradshaws ate, although I suspect they ate it at breakfast yesterday. But Joy was poisoned, and by something quite different. Something she most likely ate either while here, or when she was close to here.” She paused, calculating, then shook her head. “I don’t think she could have eaten it before she left the manor. She wouldn’t have made it this far, let alone been in any state to reassure the Forresters enough for them to leave the Bradshaws in her care.”

Thomas’s hands had stilled, the lamp half filled. He searched her face, then said, “Our healer was poisoned?”

She grimaced. “I know it sounds unlikely, but I’m prepared to swear that Joy is dying of poison, one of the more potent ones. But how she came to take it in”—she raised her free hand, palm up—“that’s impossible to say. She could have eaten a mushroom she thought was safe, but that was actually another species. Although it sounds far-fetched, it happens often enough, even to people who think they know what they’re doing.”

He held her gaze, then quietly said, “So the Bradshaws are severely ill because of one sort of poison, and our healer sent to aid them is dying of another sort of poison.”

She sighed. “Yes, I know. What are the odds? But I can only report what I know, and I know Joy is dying of poison. No seizure, or heart failure, or any other cause of death looks quite the same.” She raised the ewer. “I’m going to fill this.”

She turned and opened the door.

“The well is to the right, toward the barn.”

She went out, drawing the door closed behind her. The twilight was deepening and the air had grown chill, but she wasn’t planning on being outside for long. The rear yard was paved, and the well stood in pride of place in the center of the expanse; there was light enough to see her way.

The stone well was open, but shaded by a small pitched roof. The bucket had been left down and was already full; she bent to the task of hauling it back up. Swinging the sloshing bucket to the side of the well, she unhooked the handle. Steadying the ewer between her feet, she was about to lift the bucket from the well wall and pour the water into the ewer when three cats and five kittens came running from the barn, mewing plaintively.

The cats made straight for a gray enamel bowl on the ground beside the well. The bowl was empty.

The cats twined about the bowl and Lucilla’s skirts.

“You poor things.” She bent and picked up the bowl, tipped the bucket enough to splash water into it, then carefully set it down beside the well.

The cats had backed off. She stepped away and watched as the three older cats crept forward. Noses extended, whiskers twitching, they approached the water.

They got to within a few inches, then pulled up and, lips curling, backed away.

Two of the kittens made a dash for the bowl. One of the larger cats hissed and batted them away.

Casting what she could only describe as dark looks at the gray bowl of water—and, incidentally, at her—the cats grumbled and slunk away, back toward the barn.

Lucilla looked at the bucket of water, and a chill slid down her spine.

A second’s thought was enough to transform suspicion into certainty.

Jaw setting, she gripped the bucket and tipped the water back into the well. She left the empty bucket by the side of the well, tipped the water out of the gray bowl, swiped up the empty ewer—and remembered the glass of water on the sideboard and someone who might well be thirsty.

She burst into the kitchen just as Thomas lifted the glass from the sideboard. “No!” She flung out her free hand. “Don’t drink that.”

Thomas looked from her to the glass, then looked back at her, at the ewer dangling, obviously empty, from her other hand. “The
water
?”

His tone was both horrified and incredulous.

She slumped back against the door and nodded. “It’s tainted. Even though they’re desperate, the barn cats won’t touch it.”

Catching her breath, she pushed away from the door, walked to the table, and set the empty ewer down. She studied it for a moment, then quietly said, “Something—somehow—got into the well water two nights ago. The Bradshaws drew water in the morning and drank it with their breakfast.”

“And fell ill.”

She nodded. “But, of course, when people are ill like that, the first thing anyone does is give them water. More water.”

“So the illness—the retching and pain—continued.”

Raising her gaze, she met Thomas’s eyes. “Whoever did this—and I can’t think of any alternative but that someone put something in that well—it was a dastardly thing to do. The children—” She broke off; fighting to quell a shiver, she wrapped her arms around herself. “If it had continued, they would all eventually have died. There would have been no end to the pain.”

Thomas swore beneath his breath. He looked at the glass in his hand, then stalked to the door, opened it, and flung the contents outside.

Lucilla continued to stare at the ewer on the table. Eventually, she said, “What a twist of fate. The Bradshaws are recovering because they haven’t had any water for the last day. If Joy hadn’t fallen ill herself—”

“She would have continued to give the Bradshaws water, not realizing she was poisoning them with it.” Thomas’s jaw felt like stone; inside, he was raging. But there was no one on whom he could vent his anger, no one on whom he could avenge his clansmen. Not yet.

He forced himself to draw in a huge breath and refocus on what was important here and now. “The Bradshaws. They need water—water they can safely drink.”

Lucilla shook herself, as if shaking free of similarly vengeful thoughts. “Yes. And they need it urgently. I can’t give them any tisanes to ease them, not without water to brew those tisanes.” She looked at him. “Which farm is closest?”