Axel (36 page)

“Priscilla might trade her uncle a story for a sketch,” Abby said, spotting a possible angle. “Or a story in exchange for naming a rose after her.” Abby drew aim, as Axel had shown her to do, then had to straighten and yawn behind her hand.

“Matthew let you wear yourself out,” Axel groused, taking her cue stick from her. “I cannot trust my own brother to provide a responsible escort to a lady in delicate health. Some hero he is.”

“You’re the one who traveled to Oxford and back,” Abby retorted, though the effect was spoiled by another yawn. “And you brought a snowstorm on your heels.”

How she longed to lean into his embrace, to cup his cheek and invite him to rest against her.

That arduous trip to and from Oxford had revealed that Gregory’s pipes had been more significant than she’d known, possibly accounting for his increasingly rotten temper. A small answer, but better than no answer at all.

“I will concede a draw,” Matthew said, replacing his cue stick on the rack opposite the sideboard. “Abigail is yawning, and my own fatigue has caught up with me. I don’t know that a single hunt scene—a single painting—remains on the walls at Stoneleigh Manor, though nobody warns a fellow that art can be heavy.”

Heartache weighed more, but Abby had rejoiced to see those damned paintings coming down, one by one.

“I’ll bid you good night, Matthew,” Axel said, putting the other two cue sticks on the rack. “My thanks for accompanying Abigail on her errand today.”

“Mine too,” Abby said. “I felt safer with you along.”

“While I felt useful. Good night to you both.”

Matthew kissed Abby’s cheek and took himself off. Abby waited until the sound of his boot steps in the corridor had faded to slip her arms around Axel’s waist.

“I worried for you so when the snow started coming down in earnest.”

Axel’s embrace was snug and already dear. His scent was familiar, as were his lean, muscular contours, and even the small silences preceding much of his speech. Abby mentally pictured him behind a podium, arranging note-cards before embarking on the spoken word.

“You told me to leave town at the first sign of snow.”

Which he must have done. “You wanted to kill Handstreet, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” No hesitation there. “Abigail, I didn’t come straight home after leaving the tobacconist’s.”

“I won’t like this, will I?” She loved holding him and being held by him, though.

“You would like this less if I kept it to myself. Across the street from the tobacconist’s is an apothecary. On the first Wednesday morning of the month, without fail, the apothecary sent goods across the street to Farleyer’s for inclusion in the colonel’s regular order. The apothecary’s inventory was extensive, and I was assured he has connections to London, as well as several port cities.”

“I can’t hate Gregory any more than I do. What was he procuring at the apothecary?”

Axel’s hand settled on Abby’s nape, and the upset stirring to life inside her calmed. In the course of one shared night, he’d learned how to soothe her with the sweetest, unhurried caress to the back of her neck.

“The colonel bought a number of items, such as I might buy if I wanted to create the illusion that my wife enjoyed dithering over her toilette. Powders, salves, a bottle of scent, cosmetics.”

“I have one bottle of scent,” Abby said. “Lavinia sent it to me almost a year ago. Was there a mistress after all?”

A sigh breezed past her cheek. “I doubt, given recent developments, that Gregory was able to entertain a mistress.”

Abby’s mind groped for connections and found only dread. “Tell me.”

“The goods Gregory ordered from the apothecary varied from month to month, and many I know to be harmless. Decoys perhaps. Others contained substances, arsenic, for example, that are considered safe in moderation, but not when used in quantity or for long periods. The result is that somewhere, likely in the second safe at Stoneleigh Manor, is a supply of sundries from a well-stocked apothecary, and Stoneleigh was using them to poison you.”

Axel was not lecturing her. Each word was a labored admission, part confession, part curse. She’d accepted that Gregory had been poisoning her, but further proof only made the reality upsetting all over again.

“I don’t use cosmetics.”

“We suspect the demented fiend stirred the poison into your tea, my dear, at least. What remains might be in a sugar bowl, mixed into a jar of your bath soap, sprinkled into the drawer that holds your favorite tea, anywhere. You could poison yourself inadvertently, to say nothing of what might befall your staff. I have no way of knowing where on the premises the poison might be, but a cache of deadly mischief secreted where you live is the stuff of my worst nightmares, Abigail.”

A
xel’s concern was precious to Abby, his love would have been… Well. Abby had his affection, his protectiveness, and for the moment, his company. His very worried, weary company.

“We are both too tired to think this through, and Matthew will want to add his observations. Nobody on my staff is sickening, nor have they since I started to feel poorly over the summer.”

Axel peered down at her, and Abby could almost see the gears of his mind whirring to life, and worry ebbing as logic seized hold of him.

“An interesting point. You also enjoyed better health when Gregory was not on the premises. Nobody has sickened? Not a chambermaid or an underfootman?”

A clock struck eleven, the hour at which Gregory had been killed. Abby bundled closer, and Axel likely knew exactly why.

“Mrs. Jensen would have told me if anybody’s health was fading,” Abby said. “Now that they know I’m coming back, the staff has been busy putting the place to rights. Every tweenie, footman, and scullery maid is putting in long hours.”

Axel turned her under his arm and began walking with her toward the door. “Apparently there was great effort today. You’ve started removing the paintings?”

“Every one of those blasted hunt scenes. The only paintings remaining are the ones I colluded with Lavinia to procure. Two in my sitting room, one is in my office, one is immediately outside Gregory’s apartments. I’m particularly proud of that one—a cat napping in the sun—because he admired it enough to hang it where he’d see it every day.”

“What comes next?”

Abby allowed Axel to steer the conversation from poison and murder to domestic renovations, lists, and schedules, though she well knew he was distracting her on purpose.

“Gregory’s apartment still bears the scent of his habits,” Abby said. “I’ve directed that the windows be kept open indefinitely. The snow can ruin his carpets for all I care. I want the stink of him out of my house.”

They wandered down the corridor toward the family wing, arm in arm, as any couple might have. The sheer comfort of that, the casual familiarity that had sprung up where loneliness and awkwardness had been… stole Abby’s heart all over.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Abby asked as Axel opened her door and ushered her into the warmth of the bedroom.

“If you’re sure, Abigail, but only if—”

Abby plastered herself to him. “I don’t want to go back to Stoneleigh Manor, do you understand that? I don’t
want
to go. I don’t want to set foot on that property, but part of me needs to go. I don’t want to introduce myself ever again as Abigail
Stoneleigh
, when by rights I ought to be Abigail Pennington.”

“Or Abigail Pettiflower?”

She stepped back and locked the door. “Don’t be daft. Help me with my dress hooks, please.”

Axel slipped his arms around her from behind and pulled her back against his chest. He wasn’t aroused, and that made his embrace all the more dear.

“Tell me again why are you returning to Stoneleigh Manor?”

“I’m changing the name of the place. I don’t know to what, but every hint of a mention that Gregory Stoneleigh once dwelled there will be eradicated. That’s part of why I’m going back—to kick him out, of the house, of my life, of the lives of my staff. He was a pestilence of a human being, and in many regards, that house requires fumigation.”

Axel kissed the side of her neck. “So fierce, and I’ve every faith you’ll accomplish this task in short order. What’s the other part?”

The other part was because imposing on the hospitality of a man who’d become friend and lover, champion and companion, was not… not honorable. Abby could eke out a few more weeks at Candlewick, convalescing in one sense, malingering in another, but that simply delayed the inevitable.

Leaving Axel would be awful. Terrifying, heart-wrenching, difficult… but she was his friend too, his lover, his champion. The way forward required fortitude and courage, but what was love, if not fortitude and courage in service to one’s beloved?

She turned in his embrace, so they were face-to-face. “I want you to promise me something.”

“Anything reasonable. I gave the staff direction to move a daybed out to the glass house tomorrow if the weather permits.”

A daybed, upon which Abby might sketch the master cultivator of roses and impossible dreams.

“I want you to promise me, Axel Belmont, that when you create that thornless rose, that perfect specimen of fragrance and beauty without any nasty prickles, that I’ll be the first person you share it with. I don’t care if it’s five years from now, and you are the most celebrated botanist ever to grace the halls of Oxford. I don’t care how many empresses and royal gardeners are currying your favor. I want to be the first to congratulate you on making that dream come true.”

“Abigail…”

Abigail,
what
? Axel was tired, clearly, and much in need of sleep. Abby needed to feel his arms around her, to listen to his breathing change as he succumbed to slumber, to reach out her foot in the middle of the night and trace the contour of his muscular calf.

She also needed this one, small connection to him, saved for her and her alone.

“Please, Axel. Oxford gets you and your brilliant science for the rest of your days. I have a handful of nights left with you, but I want to share that special rose with you too.”

He kissed her forehead. “Such faith you have in me… of course you have my promise. You ask far too little, though, for a woman from whom much has been taken. Should I succeed in cultivating a thornless rose, I will tell no other until I have told you.”

A promise from Axel Belmont was no small boon, and he would succeed where so many others had failed. He’d keep his promise, and Abby would be proud of him, even if it killed her.

Loving Abigail Stoneleigh was killing him.

While Matthew obligingly lolled about the library, practicing his piano, penning letters to family in Sussex, and eating nearly incessantly, Axel hid in the attics with Abigail, sorting through paintings and sketches he could lend her until she’d bought out the shops in London or Oxford.

Or Paris, or Lisbon, may God have mercy on his soul.

He played the violin for her before luncheon, and when the snow stopped, had the footmen shovel a path to the glass house. He took up a shovel himself in defense of his sanity, while Matthew waved and smirked from the library window.

When the way was clear to the glass house—and a daybed had been moved out and somehow wedged through the door—Axel endured the pleasure of modeling for his beloved such parts of himself as she was pleased to sketch.

Abigail was pleased to sketch
all
of him. She was pleased to model all of herself, the fiend, and had she not been a fascinating subject, Axel might have tossed his sketchbook into the fire. He wanted these sketches though, wanted to have them for the rest of his days, like a rare, preserved blossom pressed in an ancient tome.

“Let’s visit the hopes and dreams,” Abigail said, when Axel had, by virtue of superhuman self-restraint, buttoned her back into her dress. “You’ve doubtless neglected them in the past few days.”

Oddly enough, Axel had. He’d been nagged by a longing for the glass house, but not the grinding impatience he usually suffered after a day or two away from his roses.

“Wouldn’t you rather return to the house, Abigail? I can’t imagine your lists are complete, or that you don’t have letters of condolence to reply to.”

Axel had a letter to re-copy, one to the committee at Oxford.

“The condolences have finally slowed down,” she said, slipping her arm through his and tugging him toward the first row of roses. “This is a cross, as I recall. You will explain what you’re trying to achieve with it.”

Axel obliged with botanical blather until they reached the end of the table. Desire was a constant ache low in his gut, and getting through dinner would be a forced march indeed.

Then he spotted the young specimen in the plain green crockery pot.

“What have we here?” He hunkered beside the pot, which held an afterthought of an experiment, two crosses subsequently crossed with each other. The result had as much chance of being a prickly, stinking, weakling as it did of being something else entirely.

“An experiment bearing fruit?” Abigail asked.

“Something.” The pale green stem emerging from the soil was… vigorous, and a leaf shoot or two would soon bear its tiny reddish foliage. “No prickles yet, but they sometimes wait for more height before they reveal themselves.”

“Such patience.” Abby sniffed a bright red neighbor who had no business blooming at this time of year.

The roses did that. Had minds of their own, a sense of humor even, about when they would and would not conform to expectations. Children did too.

“I miss my boys,” Axel said, though what wayward paternal sentiment had sprouted that admission, he could not say. He was soon to miss his brother too. He was already missing Abigail. “I have more sympathy for Matthew, who has two sons nearly a hundred miles away when they’re off at university, while my children will simply be a short way from home when they matriculate.”

Abby kissed his cheek. “You will be there with them, Professor. Have you forgotten your fellowships? Truly, Matthew will need his wife, daughter, and newborn to console him, because every other Belmont will be at Oxford by autumn.”