He closed the drawer and left the library, turning to climb the stairs.
What he found in the corridor scared him bloodless. Here was the source of the thud.
Charlotte.
He dashed to her side.
"Charlotte." He gave her arm a gentle shake. "Charlotte. Are you well?"
No reply.
No response whatsoever. She was motionless.
As he turned and lifted her, her head lolled backward. Her lips had a bluish tinge.
A sick feeling rose in his gut.
"No." He shook her roughly, to no avail. "No, no, no."
This couldn't happen. Not this time. She would not be taken from him.
He pried open her eyelid to check her gaze, then turned his cheek to her pale lips.
She was breathing, at least. And when he pressed a hand to her throat, he found her heart to be beating--rapidly.
Maybe it wasn't too late.
Charlotte, Charlotte. Who did this to you?
"Ridley!" he called, suddenly hoarse. "Miss Highwood is ill."
Ridley joined him on the floor. "Shall I help you move her to the bed?"
"Don't touch her. No one else touches her."
He would be the only one to move her, to hold her. To gather her in his arms and carry her back to her bed. To smooth the hair from her mottled, feverish cheek.
"Find Sir Vernon," Piers said, barely restraining the edge in his voice. "Tell him to send for a doctor."
Ridley nodded. "At once, my lord."
Piers whipped the cravat from his neck and doused it with water from the washstand. Then he returned to her bedside and swabbed the cool cloth over her head and neck.
She stirred, and his heart leapt with hope.
"Stay with me, Charlotte."
He could almost hear her teasing him in return. I don't like being told what to do.
Wake, then. Wake up and tell me so.
If he needed to irritate her back to life, he would do it.
"Charlotte, stay with me. Do you hear? You can't leave me. I forbid it."
He held her, counting each of her shallow, precious breaths. When he dared glance away, he took a look about the room. Her breakfast tray sat on the table. It looked untouched, with the chocolate pot still steaming and the plate decorated with . . .
With a sprig of sinister greenery.
He knew it at once. Monkshood. One of the deadliest of nightshades. It didn't even need to be ingested. Mere contact on skin could prove fatal.
Charlotte hadn't merely fallen ill.
She'd been poisoned.
"Which hand?" he demanded. "Charlotte, you must wake. Tell me which hand you touched it with."
Her lashes fluttered, and she looked toward her right arm.
Piers turned her hand palm-side up. Christ. Her flesh still bore faint scrapes from where she'd clutched the reins on her wild ride the other day. An open door, and the poison had entered through it.
He reached for the ewer on her washstand and slowly poured the remaining contents over her right forearm, letting the water run down her palm, all the way to her fingertips before spilling onto the floor.
"Ridley!" he shouted.
Ridley appeared in the doorway, out of breath from his jog down and up the stairs. "The physician's been sent for."
"We can't wait that long. It's monkshood. Fetch the razor and basin from my washstand. I must bleed her to draw out the poison."
"Yes, my lord."
Piers tied his cravat about her upper right arm, cinching it firmly to serve as a tourniquet. She gave a faint moan of pain as he drew the knot tight. He ignored it. From this point forward, there was no time for emotion, no room for doubt.
His first objective was ensuring that Charlotte would live.
His second was learning who'd done this, and making him pay.
Chapter Nineteen
She drifted in and out of consciousness for days, it seemed.
No matter when she woke, full daylight or dark of night, Mama was beside her, without fail. Pressing damp cloths to her brow or spooning her sips of beef tea.
When she felt well enough to sit up, her mother helped her wash and change into a fresh chemise. Mama sat behind her on the bed to brush and plait her hair.
"Thank you, Mama. You really needn't do all these things for me. I could call in a maid."
"Pish," she said. "I'm still your mother, even though you're grown. And mothers never fall out of practice."
"I have the vaguest memory of being ill as a child. I must have been two. Or even three . . . ?"
"Three. You had scarlet fever. Minerva, as well."
"Really? I don't recall being feverish. All I remember is that I was irritated at being kept indoors for so long afterward, and that you let me sip lemon and honey from a twisted handkerchief. Though I suppose you must have been worried."
She harrumphed. "My nerves have never been the same. Imagine it. I was recently widowed. We'd been cast out of our home when your father's cousin inherited, allotted only a paltry income. I was alone for the first time in my life, with three young daughters to raise, and two of you burning up with fever."
"What about Diana?"
"I had to send her away to the curate's wife. We didn't see her for a month." She paused. "Or was it two months? I remember she was still away on my twenty-fifth birthday."
"Lord." Charlotte knew Mama had been widowed young, but she'd never stopped to think about what that meant in such practical terms.
Her mother tugged on her hair. "Language."
"Sorry. I just can't imagine how you made it through."
"The same way every woman does, Charlotte. We aren't given the power or bodily strength that men have. We have to draw on the store of it within ourselves."
She divided Charlotte's hair into sections and began to weave it into a tight plait. "Once all three of you were healthy and under one roof, I vowed that you would never find yourselves in such straits. You would marry well, to men who could offer you true security. I never wanted you to spend sleepless nights fretting over the butcher accounts."
Charlotte felt small for ever complaining about Mama's matchmaking attempts. No question, those attempts were ridiculous and mortifying--but hardship had a way of shaping people, the way boulders and wind could twist a growing tree.
Besides, she was fortunate to have a mother at all. So many children grew up without them. Piers, for one, and the poor man was the worse for it--walled off from the world, a stranger to his own emotions. At least Charlotte had always known she was loved.
She reached under her pillow and found her little bit of stitched flannel, rubbing its softness between her fingertips. "Why didn't you remarry?"
"I thought about it," Mama said. "And I did have offers. But I couldn't reconcile myself to the notion for many years, and by then it was too late. I'd lost my youth."
"You must have loved Father very much."
Mama didn't reply. She tied off the plait with a ribbon and came around the bed to sit beside her. Her blue eyes were moist as she searched Charlotte's face.
"Oh, Charlotte." She sighed.
A lump formed in her throat. "Yes, Mama?"
"You look like death. For goodness' sake, put some color into your complexion." She seized Charlotte's cheeks with her thumbs and forefingers, squeezing them hard.
"Mama!" Charlotte tried to wriggle away from her pinches. "Ouch."
"Oh, hush. When Lord Granville looks in on you, we don't want him to find you a disheveled horror. He might break off the engagement."
The mention of Piers made her heart twinge. She would endure a thousand pinches if it meant she could see him and be held by him again.
"Lord Granville wouldn't break off the engagement." She'd given him ample opportunity, and he'd refused.
I chose you, Charlotte. I'm not looking back.
"You say he won't, but don't grow complacent. You are a lively girl and tolerably bright, but your looks are your best advantage."<
br />
Charlotte fell back against the pillows. It was hopeless.
"Mama, I do love you." She said it aloud to remind herself, as much as anything. "Even though you are absurd and embarrassing, and you drive me utterly mad."
"And I, you. Despite the fact that you are ungrateful and headstrong, and have no respect whatsoever for my nerves. I suppose you want Delia to come up and read to you."
"No. Not right now. I want to see Piers."
"Lord Granville isn't here."
She sat back up. "He isn't here? Where did he go? And if he's not in the house, why on earth did you subject my cheeks to medieval torture?"
Mama shrugged. "He had some business to attend to. Great men often do, Charlotte. I know he is not quite a duke, but you must accustom yourself to the idea that your husband-to-be is an important man."
She sent up a prayer for patience. "Do you happen to know when my important husband-to-be will be returning?"
"I overhead him telling Sir Vernon that he expects to return tonight, but that it may be quite late. Just as well. By tomorrow, you'll be recovered enough to get out of bed."
This couldn't wait until tomorrow. She needed to see Piers. She had a memory of his arms about her in the corridor, and his grim face as he'd worked to find the cause.
She touched the bandaged incision on her arm. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been unconscious and weak. That was hardly the impression she'd hoped to create, when she vowed to convince him she could make a competent partner.
She'd begged for a chance to prove herself, and then she hadn't even made it through breakfast. At this point, she would be lucky if he trusted her to pour a cup of tea.
Piers pounded down the rutted dirt road like the Devil was breathing down his neck.
At times like these, he envied his brother. Prizefighting seemed the ideal career for beating back one's demons. When Rafe wanted to hit something--or someone--he didn't need an excuse.
Piers didn't have that luxury. The violence in his line of work was sporadic, at best.
Tonight, the best he could do was push his horse into a gallop as he turned down the drive, and hope the rush of cooling wind shook loose some of his rage.
He was angry with Sir Vernon and this genteel madhouse he seemed to be running. Furious with whoever had poisoned Charlotte. But most of all, he was livid with himself.
He dismounted his horse and handed the reins to a groom before striding through the doors of Parkhurst Manor. He didn't look for his host or make any effort at polite greetings, but blazed a path straight up the stairs.
He was tempted to head down the corridor to see Charlotte, but he resisted the urge. He'd failed to protect her from being poisoned. The least he could do was leave her to her rest.
Once he'd conferred with Ridley and been assured of her continued recovery, Piers retired to his bedchamber and turned the key in the lock. He stripped off his waistcoat and pulled off his boots. His cravat unknotted, he cast it aside before yanking the hem of his shirt from his breeches and lifting it over his head. Then he went to the washstand and filled the basin, scrubbing himself clean and splashing water over his face.
"Are you going to leave this on the floor?"
He lifted his head and turned.
Charlotte was leaning on this side of his locked bedchamber door, dangling his cravat from one hand. A sly smile curved her lips. She looked like the beautiful assistant in a conjurer's act, poised for wild applause.
Voila!
He wiped his face with a towel and stared at her in disbelief. "How did you . . ."
From behind her back, she produced a hairpin. "I've been practicing. You were right, it's not very difficult once you have the trick of it down."
"You should be resting."
"I've been resting for two days. I feel fine." She let his cravat slither to the floor and approached him, running her hands over his bared chest. "And I'm improving by the moment."
He closed his eyes, trying to shield himself from the temptation of her body wrapped in a silky dressing gown, with that thick braid of golden hair just grazing her breast.
But his attempt at distance failed. With his eyes closed, the intimacy of the moment only multiplied. He found himself reaching for her, lost in the pleasure of her soft touch. Her fingertips wandered over his bare skin, tracing the contours of his collarbones and tracing the furrow of hair that bisected his chest.
And then, when he couldn't have survived a moment longer without them, her lips touched his.
God, what this woman did to him. His lungs were emptied of breath. His heart pounded like mad.
Damn it, his knees almost buckled.
Buckling knees were a fiction of novels and penny dramas. It wasn't supposed to happen in real life, but here he was, weak with yearning.
His hands found her waist. Or perhaps her waist found his hands. It didn't matter. She wasn't getting away. He made fists in the silky, slippery fabric, tugging her close as he deepened the kiss.
How easy it would be, to carry her to his bed and lose himself in her sweetness.
She was fragile. But he could be gentle.
Perhaps. Somewhat.
Then she laced her arms around his neck, and he felt a light scrape. The bandage encircling her forearm.
It jolted him back to his senses.
His eyes snapped open, and he pulled her hands from his neck.
He couldn't allow this to happen. Not again. He could not let desire and emotion cloud his thinking. Not when her safety depended on his instincts remaining sharp.
"Who brought that breakfast tray to your room?" he asked.
She blinked, looking disoriented by his sudden change of subject. "What?"
"The breakfast tray with the monkshood." He led her to a chair so she could sit down, then sat on the footstool across from her. He propped his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. "Who brought it to your room?"
"A maid."
"Which maid?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I barely saw her. She had ginger hair."
"None of the maids have ginger hair."
"Perhaps I was mistaken, then."
Piers doubted it. Memories weren't perfect things. They always had holes. But ginger hair wasn't the sort of detail someone's imagination tended to fill in the gap.
"Why don't you just ask?" she said.
"We have asked. Every member of the staff denied knowing anything about it."
"Well, naturally they would deny it. They're probably afraid of being sacked. Lady Parkhurst collects unusual plants. I'm certain it was only an honest mistake."
"Deadly monkshood does not end up on a breakfast tray by mistake."
She smiled a little. "Not in your line of work, perhaps. But this isn't a scene of international intrigue. It's a house party in the country."
"Don't be naive," he said, his tone a bit more biting than he meant it to be. "You've been asking questions, pursuing your little investigation. Perhaps you've stumbled too close to a secret someone would do anything to hide."
"Piers, really. You must stop seeing conspiracies where there are none to find." She touched his brow, as though trying to iron the creases straight. "This is just another illustration of the differences between us. I'm an optimist. You always think the worst. I keep everything jumbled out in the open; you file it all neatly away. I see the glass half full. You see it riddled with poison."
"You would, too, if you were in my line of work. Which is precisely why I'll never allow you to be in my line of work."
"You said you'd consider it."
He had considered it.
Despite his better judgment, he'd been intrigued by the idea of bringing her into the service. She wouldn't be skulking along any ledges or smuggling documents, of course. But Charlotte was perceptive and quickly gained people's confidence. He could see the two of them returning home at the end of a ball or dinner party to sort through their observations, share any bits of gossip or overheard wo
rds.
And then, make passionate love.
But when she collapsed in the corridor, all his plans had changed. Everything had changed.
"I can do it, Piers. I already have the temperament. When I return from traveling, I'll be more worldly, more polished. A capable partner to you, and able to fend for myself."
"I will do the fending. And you're not traveling anywhere."
Her gaze was wounded. "You promised to give me a chance to prove myself."
"That was before you nearly died in my arms. When I found you there, on the floor . . ."
He swore, more blasphemously than he'd ever cursed in the company of a lady.
"I know." She moved to the edge of the chair, curling her hands over his trembling fingers and squeezing tight. "I know you were frightened."
No, she didn't know.
She could have no idea how deeply that sight had shaken him, and she never would. That secret--that crushing weight of shame--was his alone to carry. He'd borne up under it for decades, and he would shoulder it for decades more.
"I need to say something." She clung to his hands, though her gaze slanted to the carpet. "I've been wanting to tell you. Not that it will come as a surprise. You're certainly intelligent enough to have guessed by now. I mean . . . the meadow . . . you likely concluded it on your own."
He regarded her, perplexed.
"It's not something you'll be happy to hear, I'm afraid. You'll want argue against it, but it won't do any good. You're not the only one who can make an irreversible decision, and you know how I only dig in my heels when someone attempts to dissuade me."
Dear God. She wanted to leave him. He'd been a stupid braggart the other night, boasting of all the alternative ways he might have solved their little predicament. Now she was going to call him on it, ask to be released from the engagement.
And what was worse--he knew what his response should be. He ought to be decent enough to let her go.
But Piers would be damned if he'd do that now.
"Oliveview," she blurted out.
He blinked at her. "What?"
What the devil was Oliveview? A village? A person? An estate? Someplace she wanted to go on holiday?
"Goodness," she said, after a few silent moments. "I knew you were opposed to the notion, but I expected a bit more reaction than this."
"Charlotte, you're going to have to explain this to me. I am utterly lost. Where--or what--is Oliveview?"
She looked to the ceiling and sighed. "Not 'Oliveview,' you silly man. I said I love you."