“Your mother…” Frederick opened his mouth but the remaining words refused to fall.
He’d bent over to adjust the chair’s footrest. Alex reached up to touch the valet’s shoulders. They were shaking.
Alex frowned. “Frederick? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Lady Laurent…She…I’m afraid to tell you…she’s dead.”
“Dead?” Alex and I gasped, responding at the same time.
“What do you mean?” he continued.
“That’s not possible,” I said, speaking over him. “I was with her…just hours ago. She was fine.”
Not fine.
Not exactly.
But not…
Dead.
My mind reeled, trying to remember the last moment I saw her. Everything was so hazy. She’d drank more than I had—had she slipped going up the stairs, as Alex had as a boy?
Frederick started to say something but then shook his head, mind changed. “Lord Laurent needs to see you.”
Alex nodded, his face unreadable, even to me. “There must be some sort of mistake. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Thank you, Frederick.”
“I think…，” the giant murmured, grief etched sharply into his face, “I think the duke would prefer if it were only you, sir.”
Our eyes met and fear spiked through my middle. I didn’t want Alex facing Gerard by himself. What if Dauphine had told him of my questions at the tavern before she’d…
I could see it playing out with painful clarity.
The wine would have loosened her inhibitions, freeing the thoughts she normally kept in check. What if she’d told him she’d poisoned all those women?
The glint of gardening shears stabbed into Constance’s chest flickered in my mind.
Had he killed Dauphine too?
She’s not dead, hope insisted fiercely within me. It’s a mistake. It must be.
Alex shook his head. “Verity is part of this family now. He will see us both.”
The hallways felt longer than usual, the floorboards sprawling out over miles as we made our way to the north wing. We seemed to pass by a thousand windows. Each sparkled so brightly I knew Frederick was wrong. Chauntilalie couldn’t continue in such splendor without the lady of the house here, orchestrating it all.
Dauphine was not dead.
But every footman we passed had red-rimmed eyes. They bowed their heads respectfully as we raced by. Some had already changed into darker versions of their uniform. Seeing the inky wool brought back visceral memories I’d long forgotten, growing up as a little girl in black bombazine dresses and jet jewelry, mourning a mother I never knew and sisters who had died far too young.
“Alex,” I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder, trying to stop him, trying to stall him before this awful moment came crashing down.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, taking on the role of comforter, as if it weren’t his own mother in questionable peril.
I tried to see that as a good sign.
If Dauphine really was dead, Alex would have to feel it somehow.
His disbelief spurred my heart toward optimism.
Alex came to a stop, facing the door of Gerard’s study. He glanced at me, his expression apprehensive.
“It’s going to be all right,” I murmured, trying to offer solace against the unknown. “She can’t be…” I trailed off, never wanting to finish that sentence.
“Do you think he knows?” Alex asked, his voice measured and hushed. “That we know? Do you think…”
I heard the words he did not say.
Do you think he killed her?
“I…I’m not sure,” I whispered.
Alex swallowed, looking slightly green, then stretched out to tap on the door. “Father?”
“Yes. Come in.” The door muffled Gerard’s voice too much to be certain of his tone.
I pulled it open for Alex, allowing him to enter first.
My eyes instinctively looked toward the bookcase holding the specimen jars. The false front was rolled in place, hiding away all traces of Gerard’s experiments.
Gerard sat behind the desk, his palms spread across its surface. His eyes were dry but his lips had settled in a grim line. A roaring fire crackled behind him, filling the air with a heat so powerful it was hard to breathe.
He glanced up. “Verity.”
I held my breath, listening to the grandfather clock tick, counting the seconds of silence that went by, wondering how he was going to handle this, waiting for it to all break loose, like a summer storm, pure madness and fury.
Gerard’s face remained a placid mask, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. The longer the silence went on, the greater my desire to let out a scream and demand answers became.
He sighed, as if the awkwardness of the situation pained him. “I need some time alone with my son, Verity. I think perhaps it best if—”
“I want her here,” Alex said, his hand clasping mine with resolution.
Despite the firm confidence of his voice, his fingers trembled and I folded my other hand over his, aching to offer support however I might.
Gerard’s eyes flickered from his son, to me, and back to Alex again. “Very well.” His voice was brisk and businesslike. “There is no easy to way to say this, but Dauphine is…dead.”
Hearing it a second time was no less a shock. I wanted to ask questions, but the sudden absence at my side stalled me.
Alex’s hand had dropped free of mine.
I knelt beside the wheelchair, pulling him into a swift embrace. I tried to remember condolences given out after Papa’s passing. Though Kosamaras had unlocked that missing section of my life, allowing me to recall everything in crystalline detail, there were none. None that mattered. Grief so terrible can’t be soothed away by words whispered in haste.
Alex stifled back a sob, covering his mouth as tears spilled down his face like rain. “No.”
“I…I’m sad to say it’s true.” Though Gerard seemed determined to keep a stiff upper lip for Alex’s sake, his lower one trembled. For one awful, sympathetic moment, I didn’t see the monster I knew he was. I only saw the man, small and alone. For all his faults—and there were many—he had truly loved Dauphine, in his way.
I sat back on my heels, unsure of what to do. “Gerard,” I began. “I’m so sorry. This is shocking news. I was with Dauphine only hours ago. She seemed fine and happy and…” I remembered the bottles shattering in the tavern’s fireplace with a wince. “What happened?”
His lips twisted, as if he was sucking at a piece of food wedged tight in the corner of his teeth. “She was poisoned.”
My gasp was loud enough to break through Alex’s misery, stirring his attention.
“What? That can’t be right. Who would want to poison Mother?”
Gerard traced a whorl on the desk with his thumb. “Apparently, while in Bloem, the girls visited a tavern.”
My mouth fell open.
I felt Alex’s eyes fall on me, rounded wide with concern.
Gerard glanced up, studying his son first, then me. “Someone tampered with the wine you were served.”
Trying to recall the afternoon was like wading through a thick sludge. The acidic taste of the alcohol still lingered in my mouth, coating everything with a tart sharpness.