An Unlikely Alliance (12 page)

“Poor lamb,” she said, looking at Magda. “Why don’t you give her over to me and I’ll bundle her into a clean nightdress. Make her feel more the thing.”

There was sense in her words, for Magda’s gown was soaked through with sweat. But he didn’t want to let her go. He had the absurd feeling that if he left her something terrible would happen. “I think she’s sleeping,” he said.

“No,” Magda replied, lifting her head off his chest. “You should go. I am better now, really.”

It was a lie. She had stopped vomiting, but her eyes were sunken into her head and her fair complexion had been replaced by an unhealthy gray pallor.

“Please,” she said. He could not resist the appeal in her dark eyes. He freed his arm from under her shoulders, then gently eased her back against the pillows.

“I’ll be back to check on you in a while,” he promised. Turning to Annie, he said, “Be sure to send for me if she gets any worse.” He knew Magda would never call for help on her own.

“Yes, milord. We’ll do just fine,” Annie said, shooing him out the door.

He paused on the threshold as she turned her attention to Magda. “There now, you poor lamb,” she said. “Just sit up a moment and I’ll have you all set. Poor thing. Who would have thought all my girls would fall sick at once? But like I told the girls downstairs, that’s what they get for being above themselves. Fine chocolates aren’t for the likes of us, I said, and it only serves you right that they disagreed with you. Still, it was kind of you to send them down—”

“Chocolates?” Alexander strode back into the room. The two women turned to look at him. “What chocolates?”

“The ones you sent,” Magda whispered.

“I sent no chocolates.”

“But of course you did,” Annie said, as if he were a forgetful child. “And Miss Magda here sent them down to the girls in the servants’ hall.”

“When did they arrive?”

“After lunch, I think,” Magda said. “I had a few, but it was such a large box that I sent the rest downstairs.” It was clearly an effort for her to speak, and she paused for a moment to catch her breath. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” Alexander lied. He had to get downstairs to find those chocolates. Now. Before the evidence was destroyed.

Later that afternoon he told the story to Luke.

“Were you able to save a sample for me?” Luke asked.

“No, they were all gone before I got there. Apparently there’d been about a dozen pieces in the box. Magda had two and then gave the rest to the servants. Some of the maids had a whole piece and others had half-pieces. Some of them felt hardly ill at all, and no one was as sick as Magda.”

“But if she’d been a little greedier, or the poison a little stronger…” Luke’s voice trailed off.

The implications were frightening. It could easily have been a fatal dose. While he and his investigators had been off congratulating themselves on their cleverness, someone had tried to murder an innocent young woman under his protection. He was filled with a burning rage as he thought of how close he had come to failing her, to losing Magda forever.

“Any idea as to what poison was used? It could give us a clue to our villain,” Luke said.

“No. Dr. Finlay said it could have been arsenic, but it could easily have been something else. Without a sample of the chocolates, it’s impossible to be certain.”

“Pity.” Luke’s tone was one of a professional regarding a particularly challenging case. If he shared any of Alexander’s outrage, it was impossible to tell from his demeanor. “But how did he know she was here?”

Luke’s coolness and ability to see all sides was normally an asset, but for the first time Alexander found it an annoyance. Didn’t Luke care that Magda had almost died? “Whoever did this knew a great deal. The package was addressed to her by name. And the card was supposedly signed by me, indicating that they knew I was not at home.”

“Someone could have been watching the house and waiting for you to leave,” Luke surmised. “Yet I should have seen him. It isn’t like me to be so careless.”

“You’re not the only one who was careless. I learned Mademoiselle Magda left the house yesterday afternoon. She went out with a housemaid to buy thread and have a talk with a blasted shirtmaker on New Bond Street.” Alexander still couldn’t believe the extent of this folly. Dugan’s ears must still be ringing after the dressing-down that Alexander had given him. What matter that the butler saw no harm in such an errand? He never should have allowed Magda to leave the house without Alexander’s permission. Never.

“Anyone could have seen her there and followed her back here,” Alexander added.

“Anyone except the recently deceased John Blackwell, who, according to all accounts, spent yesterday afternoon drinking.”

It was a conclusion Alexander had reached hours before. If the trainer had seen Magda, surely he would not have spent his last hours drinking and boasting of his good fortune. Besides, poison was a very different method from the bungled attempt at kidnapping.

“It looks like this attack was entirely separate from the horse race, which means we’ve got not one villain here but two. And whoever sent the package today addressed it to Mademoiselle Magda.”

“It seems someone out there has a grudge against Gypsy fortune tellers. Have you told Magda that it was poison?”

“She was still sleeping when I last looked in on her.”

“But will you tell her?”

“She deserves to know.” He didn’t relish the idea of telling Magda that someone had just tried to kill her. Again. With the whole of London as potential suspects, he would have to use all his wits to keep her safe until he could find this new villain.

Magda spent the afternoon wracked by fits of cramps and nausea, comforted by the motherly Annie. A doctor had come to call but his questions had made her cross and she seemed to recall him saying that it was not a severe episode and would wear off soon enough. If she had been able to raise her head she would have told him exactly what she thought of his expert opinion.

Gradually, the attacks grew less severe and she was able to rest between them. Eventually, she fell asleep. Magda opened her eyes to find the room was dark, with only a single candlebranch providing illumination. She raised her head from the pillow cautiously, but the room stayed on an even keel and there was no return of the queasiness which had plagued her.

“I see you’ve finally decided to rejoin the living,” Lord Kerrigan said, rising from a chair in the shadows.

She was surprised at his presence and mortified when she remembered how he had witnessed the pathetic spectacle of her illness. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“I had to see for myself that you would be all right,” he explained. “Do you feel up to some tea or perhaps some broth?”

Magda considered the idea. Unlike earlier in the day, the thought of food did not bring an immediate protest from her stomach. “Perhaps some tea,” she said.

Lord Kerrigan stepped outside and spoke to someone in the hall. Then, returning to the room, he used a taper to light the rest of the candles, banishing the earlier darkness. Laying the taper down on the bureau, he came over to the bed. “Here, it will be easier if you sit up,” he said.

He lifted her as if she was a child and arranged the pillows behind her to prop her up. For such a strong man he was curiously gentle in his movements and she was reminded of how tenderly he had cared for her earlier that day.

“My lord, this is not proper,” she said, feeling that some protest was called for.

“After all we’ve been through, you can hardly call me Lord Kerrigan,” he said. “Call me Alexander, as Luke does.”

“If I am to follow Luke’s lead, then I should refer to you as the most excellent sahib.”

It was a feeble jest but it made him chuckle. “Now I know you are feeling better,” he said, smiling down at her. For the first time, Magda felt the devastating force of his charm.

A footman arrived, bearing a cup of tea on a silver tray. Alexander took the tray and then firmly shut the door. Placing the tray on the table next to her bed, he reached over to the dressing table and dragged the fragile chair over to the bedside. He perched on it, his massive frame looking as out of place as a grown man sitting on a child’s stool.

“Start with this,” he said. “If it settles, then you can try something more substantial.”

Picking up the cup, he prepared to raise it to her lips.

“I can do this myself,” she said. She hated being weak. He must think her a pathetic creature indeed, always in need of care. Alexander gave her the cup, but then watched her like a hawk, ready to take over if she proved unable to manage this simple task.

Holding the cup in both hands, she raised it to her lips and took a cautious sip. The tea was sweet and warm and slid down her throat like a soothing balm. She waited a moment, but the tea settled nicely and she ventured another sip.

He watched her patiently as she finished the tea and then solemnly accepted the empty cup that she handed him. The tea had warmed her, and tired as she was there were questions that she needed answered.

“It was the chocolates, wasn’t it?” she asked. “There was something in them.”

He nodded. “This can wait till tomorrow, when you feel stronger,” he said.

“There is nothing wrong with my mind,” she countered waspishly.

He smiled again, as if her display of temper amused him. “Very well,” he said, turning serious. “It was poison.”

Poison. She had hesitated to voice the thought aloud, yet what else could it have been? But realizing that it was poison also meant accepting that someone had intended for her to die. The package had been addressed to her. This was different from the kidnap attempt of the other night. There the danger to her life had been implied but not certain. But now it was clear. Someone wanted to kill her.

“But who could have done such a thing? Was it the trainer? The man who was killed yesterday?” A poisoned box of chocolates was such an evil weapon. The box was addressed to her but it could have killed anyone who sampled the chocolates. Even Alexander, for all his great strength, could be brought down by poison.

“We don’t think so,” Alexander said slowly. “There wasn’t time. And we don’t think he knew you were here.”

“Then who? How did they find me?”

Alexander’s gaze was accusatory. She felt guilty already, without even knowing what he would say next. “You left the house yesterday,” he said.

“Oh no,” she said.

“Oh yes,” he contradicted. “According to Dugan, you and Sally walked down to the dry goods store and then over to New Bond Street. What could have possessed you to take such a foolish risk?”

It hadn’t seemed a great risk at the time. Cooped up in the house for over a week, she had been bored, and welcomed the chance to accompany Sally on her errands. Dressed in her ordinary garb, she had felt no risk that anyone would mistake her for the colorful Mademoiselle Magda. “It was careless,” she said. “But I didn’t think anyone would recognize me.”

“Apparently someone did,” Alexander said drily. “May I ask what errand was of such importance?”

“We went to see Teller’s. Your shirtmakers,” she elaborated, seeing his look of incomprehension. “When I was doing the mending I noticed the shoddy quality of their work. I brought one with me and told them that they should be ashamed to have made such an item, and it would serve them right if you withdrew your custom immediately.”

“My shirts. You risked your life for my shirts?” he said. It was not quite a shout.

“Well,” she said, “it seemed important at the time.” She could see he was working himself into a temper, so she quickly changed the topic. “But if it wasn’t the trainer, then who was it that saw me?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.

“The chocolates were addressed to Mademoiselle Magda. Yet it must be someone who knows me well enough to recognize me without my costume,” she mused aloud.

“And someone who has a grudge against you. Someone who has a reason for wanting to see you dead.”

Magda shivered. She wanted to wrap herself in the security of her blankets and beg Alexander to keep the evil away from her. She had the feeling that if she asked, he would promise to keep her safe. But she did not want to be kept safe, if safety meant being kept in a cage forever. She was not about to give up control of her life, not to Alexander or to this villain.

Running and hiding had brought nothing but frustration and danger. Now it was time to try a new tack. “If he fears Mademoiselle Magda, then it is time we gave him something to really be afraid of.”

“What do you mean?” Alexander asked.

“If this enemy has found me here, then it means here is not safe. So there is no point in hiding away. Instead, let me be Mademoiselle Magda. Let me appear in public where he will be forced to confront me.”

“I don’t know,” Alexander said. But he did not immediately dismiss the idea.

She wracked her brains for ways to convince him. An image from the theater sprang to mind. “Your townhouse is like a castle,” she said. “Whoever is after me knows where I am and can lay siege to us at any time. Yet we have no idea who he is. But if we leave the castle and force him to fight on our terms…”

“It will be dangerous,” Alexander warned her.

“Life is dangerous,” Magda countered. “But I would rather risk everything then go on living in fear, wondering when he will strike next.”

“My dear boy, you will not believe the rumors that are flying about London. Last night Mrs. Grimes related how a Rajah had come to England and tried to assassinate you, while Lady Charles would have it that your cook had run mad and poisoned your entire household.” Lady Stanthorpe shook her head in apparent amazement. “Naturally, I told them both that there was no truth at all to the rumors. But I thought I should pay a call on you, to let you know what was being said.”

“Naturally,” Alexander said. He noticed that for all Lady Stanthorpe’s professed disbelief in the rumors, she was examining him quite closely as if to determine his state of health. “Please have a seat,” he offered. “Let me ring for refreshments.”

The rumors must have been spectacular indeed. Mindful of his frequent business engagements, Lady Stanthorpe usually sent a note around requesting his presence whenever she wished to see him. He could not remember the last time she had called on him at his residence. Yet here she was, and at an hour that was much too early for a casual social call.