The Soldier's Poisoned Heart (True Love and Deception) (Victorian Historical Romance Book 1) (15 page)

“Of course,” answered the Colonel, putting his clothes back on.

He paid on the way out, cringing slightly. The number seemed a little high to him, but he had to admit he didn’t know what the proper amount was.

“Are you sure that man wasn’t a complete quack,” he said as he left, the prescription note in his pocket.

“Not at all, uncle,” Henry said. “Let’s get you to the pharmacy.”

John Paul lay in bed later that night. He had felt better, somewhat, when he’d come home. That, at least had been some consolation, and he was glad for it, even if he didn’t say anything to anyone. He had decided to put on a face as if recovery was what he’d expected entirely, as if he’d seen it coming.

The truth was, when he thought back, the hints were certainly there, but he hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t even come close to predicting anything like it. He had been weaker when he’d moved the furniture, but it had seemed like purely a result of growing older.

He had known men, though, several years his elder in the service. Men higher up the pay grade. And he knew that they didn’t fall down spontaneously because of short walks.

It couldn’t simply be old age, and he hadn’t been feeling exceptionally ill. The doctor had said that it could be any of those things, of course. He’d said he didn’t seem especially ill, so it wasn’t likely that it was influenza, and he had been eating fairly well the past few weeks, so it wasn’t a case of malnutrition.

The doctor, ignoring John Paul’s history, had suggested the possibility of it simply being old age deteriorating his body, his muscles. He had sounded dubious, though, even looking just at John Paul half-undressed.

There was little room for doubt, even now that he had started to lose his condition, that he had spent more than a few years developing his body into the peak of physical fitness. Suggesting that he was weak enough to stumble and fall on a simple walk in a park was ludicrous.

That left one simple conclusion, then, John Paul decided. He had been, and likely was still being, poisoned. It was the only thing that made any sense. He could think of no alternative.

Who, then? Who stood to gain from it?

It could be one of the servants, he supposed. They had no reason for it, but if they had perceived some slight… no, he thought. It wasn’t likely at all. He’d been naught but kind to them. They likely had no grudge against him at all, or if they had one, it was quite minor.

Besides that, the only one who had ready access to his food was Thomas. He dismissed the thought out of hand. He had been nothing but kind to the boy, and the boy just as kind in return.

He frowned. It must be, then, someone else with whom he’d spent time. It seemed all of a sudden that the walk he’d taken with his fiancée took on a meaner note. That had been a meeting of everyone he could put on the list.

Who would benefit? Simon had a large debt to be paid. John Paul knew, or at least guessed, that he would never be able to pay it all, but he had swallowed his pride for the sake of marriage.

Henry stood to inherit at least something, certainly. John Paul wondered for a moment if he knew it, but pushed the thought away. More than likely he knew. But his surprise and concern had seemed genuine. He had asked, quite worried, if he was going to be alright after his fall.

Could it be Lydia? He pondered the thought. She would inherit after they married. A short eleven months, now, and then his estate would fall to her. He pushed the thought away. It was quite impossible that it was Lydia, though, he told himself. She was far too kind, too gentle. She wouldn’t.

Only, he thought, that created quite the dilemma.

He had ruled Henry out without a second thought; it simply didn’t fit the facts. He had always been extremely concerned whenever anything had happened, anything that had set John Paul on edge.

He’d been worried for his uncle’s health when he’d fainted at the table; he’d been unaware when he discovered his waning strength the other day, John Paul hoped, though he had said nothing. On the walk, he had rushed over, concerned, and helped him home.

Which left Simon. Simon stood to gain quite a bit, compared to the others. While there was less money involved than the inheritance, John Paul guessed that there would be quite a bit more urgency attached to not having to pay off a debt of nearly a thousand pounds.

Yet, that didn’t fit neatly into the story, either. He simply hadn’t been around enough. John Paul had eaten with him thrice, and… he shuddered. Both of those times had been only a few days before his accidents. It was possible. He tried not to think about it. Though it was certainly possible, he couldn’t simply go around accusing people without evidence.

Still, he thought, it was better to avoid the Wakefield boy for a few days. Or perhaps he could waive the debt. Call it a wedding present, or what-have-you, he would be able to manage that much. It might stop the poisoning in its tracks.

But he still wondered. What sort of poison would have such sudden effect, days later? He racked his brain. There had been courses on this sort of thing, in officer’s training. He had learned about poisons. Yet, nothing came to mind immediately.

Perhaps in a pill of some kind, which would dissolve over a matter of days and then disperse? Not likely, he thought. He would have noticed it while he chewed his food, and if he somehow had not, he wondered if a pill would stay in his system for three days.

It boggled his mind. No, it couldn’t be that. It had to be something else, but what?

There was another thing, though. Another possibility.

Lydia.

No, he thought. It couldn’t be her, not directly.

But perhaps, he thought, what if she were to have been tricked somehow? What if she were, say, given some poison to administer?

She had brought sweets, he thought, to the walk. What if poison had been injected into them? It didn’t have to be her doing directly. They could have been poisoned by her brother after having been cooked quite diligently by her. Some spice could have been replaced with poison, so that when she tried to adjust his food a bit when he wasn’t looking—quite innocently, of course, out of a desire that he might eat better-tasting food, she had in fact been spreading poison.

It would be easy, he thought, to convince her. She was pure, but that could come at a cost, as well. Often, the purest are equally naive, as well. They’ll believe simple, honest-seeming reasons, because they themselves have no need for complexity. No need to trick or fool anyone. Therefor, their defenses are easy to get through, because they see no reason to put any up in the first place.

Diligence, then. He would simply have to perform his due diligence in making sure that no alterations were made to his food by either Lydia or her brother, under any auspices at all. Then surely they would be proved quite innocent, he would get over this bout of illness, and all his fears would prove quite silly indeed.

Or at least, so he hoped. He didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Chapter 15

It seemed obvious what the answer was, of course. He smiled to himself the next morning. There was no reason to suspect Thomas, of course, but there was risk there. Maybe he was responsible, or complicit. Maybe he was completely innocent but the food had been tainted before he prepared it. There was always the chance that having the food cooked removed any sort of taint, but there was always the chance that it would not. John Paul decided that he wouldn’t rather take the risk.

He sat down in the front room. The answer was obvious.

Just don’t eat anything that Simon could have gotten to. Or Lydia, or Henry. Nothing from his house, nothing from the Wakefield home.

He set out a few minutes later. If he got better, that was all the proof he would need. Getting better on other foods. Then he could start looking into who was directly responsible, once his mind and body were in order. That was the only smart way, he decided.

He took a horse, swearing Mark to secrecy, and went into town for the day. The tavern was closed, and besides that he had no particular desire to drink. He would need to pass the time somehow, though. He started to walk aimlessly. There was, he understood, a library. He hadn’t seen it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, after all. Perhaps he’d try to find that.

He didn’t bother to ask anyone on the street. With an entire day to spend out and about, he really had no particular need to find it quickly. Rather, make a game out of it, he thought, and then he’d be able to keep himself amused as he walked.

He turned a corner and passed a large building. Perhaps that was the library? He came in sight of a large sign with block letters. “City Hall,” it read. He shook his head. Very well, then, it couldn’t be that one, but it coule be another, after all. He took another turn. He could see that just a little ways down the road, perhaps another block or two, it became residential; that was not the way, then, either. He frowned. Where, then?

He kept walking. His legs were beginning to tire, though it had only been a few kilometers. He sat down on a bench across from a book store. After a moment he decided that, having nothing to do, he should get a book of some sort. He stepped inside and asked after paperbacks. They turned him to a section of poorly-produced, shabby-looking books.

There were relatively few that seemed small enough to jam into his coat pocket without popping a seam. A few American westerns, a few penny-dreadfuls… He picked up a western. He hadn’t read one, but he had had a little bit of experience on the frontier in a certain sense. The outback was similar, wasn’t it?

He started reading as he walked out the door, dropping back onto the first bench he found. There were some marked differences, he noted. Not the least of which being that Australia wasn’t some lawless wasteland, and he hadn’t raised any cattle. It seemed appropriately American, though, so he slipped it back into his pocket after a chapter or so and started off again.

The walk proved to be going longer than he had expected as the chuchbells rang one. He stopped at a diner and placed his order with a waitress. She brought him out his food and he ate. It pleased him to think that he was quite untouchable here; whatever trouble might come, he wouldn’t be facing it here. Nobody would be poisoning this food.

He was troubled to realize that he had quite made up his mind that it must have been poisoning. He had thought of it, consciously, that he might be making it up, a result of some poor health and his mind making monsters out of the shadows, but he had been pleased that he had managed to keep the monsters, so to speak, at bay.

They were no longer; he had let them in. He tried not to imagine his soon-to-be brother-in-law trying to murder him, but he couldn’t quite push the thought away. Only Lydia still wore her halo in his mind. Even Henry was not perfectly above suspicion, though it seemed terribly unlikely. He had been putting forth such a great effort, after all, to save his uncle that it seemed downright improper to even consider that he might be doing it.

But consider it, ever so briefly, he did.

He ate dinner in the city, as well; then for lunch the next day, and dinner. He thought that his plan might work, after all. He hadn’t had a proper fainting spell since the walk with Lydia, and that alone seemed to be enough to convict in his mind.

He sat at dinner, waiting for a waitress, and saw walking by a pair of young men who seemed a little bit tipsy; it was only as they came quite close that he recognized Simon and his nephew, who immediately recognized him and walked up to his table.

“Uncle, I haven’t seen you for a few days,” exclaimed Henry Roche, a little bit too loudly.

“Please, don’t be quite so loud; feel free to come and sit down, but just be a little bit quieter,” John Paul whispered angrily.

“Why thank you,” said Simon, who pulled a seat out and sat down in it.

Perhaps, John Paul thought, regarding them, he had underestimated their drunkenness. Simon seemed to have a somewhat sober aspect to him that wasn’t immediately apparent. John Paul looked at him evenly, and he looked back, a dumbly contented look on his face.

“Are you eating here,” said his nephew. “Why not at home? We’ve plenty of food, you know.”

“I wanted a change,” answered the Colonel, though he thought it sounded weak. He certainly couldn’t voice any sort of suspicion, not on so little evidence. Not with his prime suspect sitting across from him, watching his every move.

“Ah, well,” his nephew answered. “If that’s all, I can have Thomas break out the duck. I know he’s been saving it, but it’s certainly different.”

“Hm,” John Paul answered, doing his best to maintain a degree of distance. “Perhaps that would be fine, then.”

“It’s a date, then,” he answered, giggling.

“I suppose so. Tomorrow night, then.”

“Tomorrow night!”

Henry stood up, but Simon stayed in his seat, not moving one bit.

“Are you going to come with me, Mister Wakefield?”

“What?” Said the eldest Wakefield. He looked up suddenly, as if out of a stupor. “Oh. Certainly.”

He pushed his chair back and stood.

“I’ll be seeing you as well, mister Foster. Do have a nice evening.”

“Thank you; I would say the same to the two of you, but you seem to be managing it quite well enough on your own!”

The pair of them laughed softly as they walked away. It was getting dark, and John Paul looked back to the food, half-eaten.

They were gone, now. He could finally get back to his food. He speared a bite of beef on his fork and ate it. Quite delicious, really. It wasn’t better than what Thomas was preparing most days, but he found that even after several months he had not grown used to having so much good food available. Things, it seemed, were continuing to look up.

He had been feeling better for the past few days, and with a few days’ rest he would begin searching for proof of who it might have been. He suspected Simon, he thought again. He’d kept quite a close watch on him, though, and he’d done little more than sit at the table, daring him to look away. His hands in his lap, no doubt hiding something that he could slip in under the nose of drunken Henry.

John Paul was quite sure, though. They hadn’t left his lap. Which made it a little bit surprising when he found himself retching later that night.

John Paul spent another day in town, but he knew instinctively; regardless of how much he tried to redouble his efforts to avoid anyone he knew, there would be no helping it. Either he was well and truly ill, and as he avoided everyone he was only worsening his condition by spending so much of his time in the cold, or the poisoner would find some way to reinsert themselves into his life.

More than once, he saw what he thought was Simon or Henry or Lydia out walking, and before he could confirm their identity he turned and tried to turn another way. He found, though, that more than that his nerves were being heavily frayed by the entire affair. He couldn't stomach much more of it. It was getting to be far too much for him, the hiding, the deceit.

He would need to figure out some other system. Who, he thought not for the first time, could he trust? He could still see no evidence to impeach Lydia. She was as safe as anyone could possibly be. Thomas, he suspected, had no real investment in murdering him.

He couldn't have been related to any of the men in the unit from back in Australia, that was for sure. He was safe, as well, though he might be convinced to turn against his employer with only a little difficulty. There was no reason to suspect that he was any more morally unimpeachable than John Paul himself.

John Paul knew from experience that he was capable of compromising his morals for enough money. He pushed the thought away. He'd spent the last year avoiding thinking about that night when he could, and there was no reason to bring it up now.

He stood up from the table he'd sat himself at. It was getting late; any more hesitation and it would be too late, but for now he could still justify it, if only just. Lydia would still be awake, and it was hardly unusual for a suitor to call on his betrothed past dinner time.

But as August passed the sun was going down earlier and earlier, and it would be black as pitch before he knew it, so it was now or never. He walked to the Wakefield home, and was greeted as usual by a young man in a jacket who informed him that he would only be a moment in fetching Lydia. True to his word, the door reopened only a few minutes later, Lydia following the boy closely.

"Yes," she asked. She looked as lovely now as she ever had, he thought, though she was a bit more undone, her hair clearly having been down before she had been called to him. She pulled a coat around her tightly and shivered in the doorway.

"I'd like it," he said softly. "If you could see fit to join me for dinner for a few days this week?"

"Just dinner," she asked.

"You're free to come earlier, if you would prefer, my dear. I know that I enjoy all of our time together."

"No," she agreed. "If it's to be every day or so, then dinner is sufficient time together, I suppose."

"I thought similarly," John Paul answered.

"Okay," she said. "How shall I get to the house, then? I don't think I should hire a cab for each and every trip, that seems a bit wasteful."

"No," John Paul agreed. "You probably shouldn't buy a cab for each day. I could have one of my boys take the carriage out and fetch you, if you would like."

Lydia thought about this for a moment. "If that's what you think is best."

"What time would be best?"

"Ah," Lydia thought aloud. "Three? Half past?"

"Three o'clock it is, then. I'll have him on the way to get you, and of course he'll take you home as well, my dear."

"Very good," she answered, smiling. "Do you mind terribly if I go back inside? It's a bit chilly out here."

John Paul pulled at his coat and sniffed. "Yes, it is a bit cold, isn't it? Well, I'm sorry to have kept you. Do enjoy the rest of your evening. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."

Lydia smiled at him as she stepped back inside the doorway. "And I you, darling."

She shut the door and he went off to fetch his horse back from the stables. He sniffed loudly and rubbed at his nose, which was feeling perhaps more of the chill than it might normally.

He sent out the carriage at one, with plenty of time to take a leisurely pace into town and still make it on time and waited. She arrived promptly at five fifty, and he took her on a second tour of the house, making sure to show her the new flooring, which she acted suitably impressed with.

"It certainly does look quite a bit nicer, all of it," she added hopefully.

"That's very nice of you to say, miss Wakefield."

"Why thank you," she exclaimed.

They ate, talking happily about anything and everything he could imagine. He let her lead the conversation. He was happy to hear her talking; the subject didn't matter so much as that it was her, and that she was speaking to him.

The faces she made as she spoke—she lit up the room like a bright bulb, and he was not surprised to find that he was looking more and more forward to her visits as the week went on. She developed a habit of walking the house, while he sat in the dining room.

He made apologetic motions, but he was simply far too tired, far too fatigued and indeed far too weak to accommodate such a habit, but he found it quite admirable. Had he been in better condition, not feeling ill, he would have done more to encourage it. Instead he simply accommodated it as best he could.

Perhaps more worryingly, though, was that he wasn't feeling better. He had had a brief couple of days in Derby where he had started to feel better, but now he tossed and turned and found himself quite unable to sleep regardless of his best efforts; he had little appetite, especially when he considered his fears of being poisoned through his food, which he was almost certain was the cause of it.

Though it must have been a coincidence, having gotten sick after eating in town, at a privately-owned restaurant in which Simon could have no influence, it shook him badly. If Simon had gotten to him there, then no place seemed safe.

He had no evidence, though. Combined with the engagement to his sister, which would be put quite on hold by the arrest of the head of their house, John Paul found it difficult, if not perfectly impossible, to level any sort of accusation against the man.