Chapter Sixteen

Robert came to with a start. The sun was just beginning to lighten the sky, and all was quiet. His eyes were heavy and his head pounded, as if someone used it as an anvil. His forehead felt hot and clammy, there was a churning roil in his stomach, and that insistent stabbing pain in his chest.

He took deep breaths, trying to tamp down the nausea and pain, but it didn’t help. Nor did the water he sipped from the glass on his nightstand. If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was hungover, but that wasn’t possible. He’d had only three rummers of brandy last night, and he’d drunk those on a full stomach. Although, he remembered now, the drink had tasted strange at first, as if it was corked. Could it have been off?

Really, what did that matter now? All that mattered at this moment was that he felt like death warmed over. The how and why of it was irrelevant.

Fresh air would help. A slow walk in the park would clear his head and help the nausea subside, at least enough that he could eat something to settle his stomach completely.

He dressed, making himself decent, if not exactly presentable, forgoing his cravat and stock, for the thought of those things around his throat made his stomach bubble in horror. It wasn’t as if anyone would see him, was it? Save for a gamekeeper, and perhaps a poacher.

There wasn’t a soul about as he crept out of the kitchen, through the gardens, and across the park to the lake. The pain in his chest subsided as he walked, and he wondered if he had strained his muscles, though he couldn’t think how he might have done. Nor did he care. He was simply glad the pain was fading.

A morning fog hovered, thick and white, just above the ground, and the deer seemed to float on it, their legs invisible. Above the fog, the air was crisp and clean and fresh. The first birds chirped their good mornings. In the woods, a fox barked. The lake was calm, wisps of mist floating on it, giving it an otherworldly feeling, so that he wouldn’t have been surprised if a hand had thrust through the surface, holding up a sword. He smiled at the image and breathed the damp air, listening to the soft plop and splashes of ducks diving for food, and the gentle buzz of early morning insects. The island in the center of the lake stood tall and proud, the summerhouse silhouetted against the pale sky like a castle on a cloud.

Robert stayed at the lakeside for a few minutes, savoring the peace and quiet, but it didn’t stop the headache, or the churning in his stomach, or the acid taste on his tongue. His muscles ached and the pain in his chest threatened to return. Since movement had helped earlier, he walked around the lake and into the woods, along the trails he had roamed as a child. Then, he had been hunting tigers in the jungles of India, or following robbers to secret dens to steal back their ill-gotten treasures. Now he chased nothing more than well-being and an end to his malaise.

The churning in his stomach grew worse. His throat shivered a moment before he leaned against a tree and cast up his accounts. He groaned and coughed and retched until his stomach was completely empty, and all he had left to expel was air. His stomach muscles cramped, and his chest felt tight, although thankfully the stabbing pain seemed to have disappeared. His throat hurt, and his mouth filled with a bitter, burning taste. The headache still pounded behind his eyes, and all he wanted to do was go back to the house, lie in his bed, and sleep it off.

He straightened, turned, and froze. There, on the path, watching him, eyes wide with horrified concern, was Janey Frobisher.

****

Jane woke early, even though sleep had not come easily to her last night. She had tossed and turned in the big comfortable bed, first covering herself with the blankets, then throwing them aside when she grew too warm. She lay on her back on one pillow but her neck ached, so she tried two. When that didn’t help, she tossed them away and lay on her front, then pulled the pillows back into use when she lay on her side. Nothing helped, and it was only through sheer exhaustion that she’d finally fallen asleep sometime after the grandfather clock in the hall had boomed twelve times.

Now it was morning, though still early if the light coming through her window was any indication. The house was quiet, just the small sounds of servants going about their duties. Jane kicked off her blankets and slid from the high bed, padded over to the window and looked outside.

It had the makings of a beautiful day. The sky was already a pastel blue and glowing brighter by the second. The sun was still low, almost resting on the horizon, pink and purple smudges surrounding its orange ball, and the few clouds were small and white and high. Dew glistened on the grass, looking exactly like the diamante lanterns of the Fairy Queen’s ball Mama had described so vividly in her stories, while cobwebs were silver lace against the dark leaves of the bushes. Deer grazed lazily in the park, beyond which, only just visible, was the shimmer of the lake.

Jane sighed. If she must lose Ben, she couldn’t ask for a more beautiful new home for him. Provided his true family loved him, and her first impressions were that they would, Ben would be very happy here.

She could be happy here too, she mused. She would love being able to walk in such a garden, enjoying the peace and solitude.

That wasn’t an option for the long term, of course, but she saw no reason not to enjoy the privilege while she could. After nearly a week cooped up in a coach, a walk in the fresh air would do her a power of good. She could explore the garden, clear her head of the tormenting thoughts that had kept her awake, and settle herself before she had to meet everyone at breakfast.

She slipped out through a back door into an herb garden, where the scents of lavender and mint filled the air with hope and peacefulness. Delicate flowers flumed at one end, covering a trellis and splashing their colors all around. How fortunate Robert had been to grow up here, surrounded by all this beauty and peace. He must have had a very happy childhood, for who could not, in such a place?

Thinking of him made her wonder yet again at what Lady Barwell had said. You wouldn’t be the first young woman to have her heart broken by him.

Jane could not believe Robert was as heartless and careless of the feelings of others as his stepmother suggested. Yes, he had kissed her and touched her in ways she should not have allowed, but did that make him an out-and-out philanderer?

The countess had gone out of her way to warn Jane away from him. Why? Was it a kindness to a young woman she perceived as naive? Or was it, as Jane suspected now she’d had time to think about it, to rid herself and her stepson of an unsuitable woman, clearing the way for a better bride? If that was her plan, it was wasted, for Robert had no intentions of marrying Jane.

Which was just as well. “All these machinations and politics are too much for me,” she told the deer, who startled away as she crossed the park.

She skirted the lake, which was a great deal wider than it appeared in the view from her window. In the middle of the glittering water, an island held a summerhouse, surrounded by towering and overgrown rhododendron bushes. There was a boat jetty on the island, the sister of the jetty on the shore. Near to the shore’s jetty was a boat shed, and Jane imagined summer days spent languishing in a boat, parasol protecting her from the sun while Robert rowed to the island. He would take off his coat in the heat and, as he rowed, his muscles would pull against his shirt, his skin showing dark beneath the translucent white linen, calling for her to reach out and touch it…

“That is beyond enough!” she told herself. A gathering of ducks quacked and flapped their wings against the water, as if agreeing. One bobbed his head under the water, his tail end standing upright, in criticism of her. She resisted the urge to put out her tongue at the judgmental bird. Instead, she walked around the lake and into the woods beside it, where she followed a narrow footpath between silver birch trees surrounded by tall, green fern fronds, snaking tendrils of convolvulus and occasional tangles of bramble. Birds gossiped noisily in the branches overhead, and a squirrel jumped from one tree to another, making the wood creak and the leaves rattle.

Suddenly she became aware of another sound, the sound of someone coughing and retching terribly. The poor soul sounded as if they were dying.

Unsure what she might find but unable to leave an ill person to fend for themselves when she might be able to help, Jane hurried around a bend in the path, and stopped short at the sight of Robert, leaning against a tree trunk, purging everything from his stomach.

****

Robert straightened and adjusted his coat. He was mortified. He hadn’t expected anybody to be here but, if someone did have to see him in this state, why must it be Janey? He had no illusions about the way this would appear to her: bloodshot eyes, disheveled clothing, and retching—she would think he’d spent the night carousing, emptying the decanter and acting the indolent aristocrat. The moment he’d returned home, she would believe, he had taken up the worst habits of the idle rich. For reasons he could not explain, even to himself, it mattered to him that she did not think that.

He took a step toward her. “Janey…”

“You poor man,” she whispered, and she reached out to him. “Was it something you ate?” She took his hand and led him back along the path toward the lake.

Robert went with her, hardly aware of what he was doing. He stumbled on the uneven ground, and she tightened her grip, steadying him. Her fingers burned their imprints into his arm, warming his blood and calming the pounding in his head.

“You look terrible,” she said. “Your face is so gray, and your breath…” She wrinkled her nose.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be sorry.” She smiled. “You can’t help being ill. But you need to drink.”

He gave her a weak smile. He had a feeling it was drinking something which had caused this in the first place.

That made him think of his father. The earl had drunk as much of the tainted brandy as Robert had, and he was not a strong man. Robert prayed it hadn’t had so violent an effect on him, for he wasn’t sure the earl’s weakened constitution could stand up to it.

“I don’t suppose you carry a hip flask?” Janey continued, brisk and in control. “I suppose it’s not something you would carry in the grounds of your own home, is it? Is the water in the lake drinkable? At a pinch, it might help, although if you can wait until we return to the house where I can make you a cup of tea, I believe that would be better.”

“I can wait,” he said. His voice was low and raspy, and nothing like he normally sounded.

“All right.” She smiled, sympathetically. “Let me know if you need to stop and…well, let me know.” She colored and looked across the park to the house. To Robert, every muscle aching, it seemed a thousand miles away. He just wanted to crawl into bed and lie there until he died.

****

Jane didn’t think she had ever seen anyone look as sick as Robert did this morning and still remain on their feet. His face was gray, which made his swollen lips look redder than if he had worn rouge. His eyes had sunk into his head, and were surrounded by blue-black circles. His hair stood up; she suspected he hadn’t brushed it this morning. Hardly surprising if he felt as ill as he looked.

If she didn’t know better, she would have suspected he was hungover, but she had seen him the night before and he had been sober. All he’d drunk after he came into the drawing room was tea, and she didn’t believe he would then have gone on to drink his father’s cellar dry when everyone else went to bed. But if he wasn’t over-imbibing, it must have been something he’d eaten.

She thought of all they’d had at dinner. A beef consommé. It couldn’t be that. That’s what they fed to invalids to aid their recovery, so it wasn’t likely to cause illness. The fish had been succulent and fresh, and the meat course had been cooked to perfection. Syllabub, fruits, the cheese and bread, all had been exactly as they ought to be. The wine had been fresh and fruity, not heavy. And none of it had had any adverse effect upon her. Since she was not as used to rich foods as he was, she would have expected it to be herself who reacted to anything bad, not Robert. It had to have been something he’d had that Jane had not.

The only thing she could think of that fit that criteria was the brandy. A memory came: Ben sitting in the drawing room, his face scrunched into a very expressive grimace. “Not like brandy,” he’d said. “Like when you eat something from the garden and not wash soil off first.” Last night, she’d been amused by his description. Now, she pondered it carefully.

“Ben said the brandy tasted strange,” she told Robert,

“He did?” Robert stopped and stared at her. “He said so in the dining room, too. I thought he just didn’t like it.”

“Well, that’s true. He didn’t.” But now she thought about it, that didn’t ring true. Jane remembered one Christmas when her father had given Ben a drink of brandy, much to Mama’s consternation. “He’s a young man,” Papa had excused. “And it’s Christmas.” As Jane recalled, Ben had liked the taste well enough then. But last night… “He described the taste,” she said, “and he knew it shouldn’t taste that way, because it wasn’t his first time drinking it.”

“Did he say it tasted muddy?” asked Robert, staring toward the house, his expression thoughtful. “Bitter?”

Clearly Robert had thought the same as Ben—there was something wrong with it. Which begged another question, which she voiced before she could stop herself. “Why did you go on to drink more of it, then?”

His grin was sheepish, and Jane realized she had used her Scolding Mother tone on him, the one she normally reserved for Lucy’s minor transgressions. Horror filled her. She had no right to talk to him in that way, even if his actions were foolhardy. Still, his grin indicated he had taken no offense, for which she was relieved.

“In my defense,” he said, “after the first few sips, the strange taste disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” That made no sense at all. “How could it disappear?”

“I don’t know. It just did. One minute the brandy was strong and bitter, and the next…” he frowned, moaned at the way the movement pulled at his forehead, and massaged his temple. “The next moment it was mellow to the point of tastelessness and…” He stopped, his eyes clouded with anxiety. “The tea we drank in the drawing room. How strong was it?”

She blinked at the strange question. Just when she thought this conversation couldn’t become any more bizarre. “The tea?” she asked when he continued to watch her, clearly waiting for an answer. “It was…it tasted as tea normally tastes. Why?” What on earth did that have to do with spoiled brandy?

“It didn’t taste bland? Watery?”

She shook her head. He rubbed his hand across his jaw. She heard the soft rasp of his gloves on his morning beard and wondered what it would feel like to stroke her own fingers over the stubble. Would it be rough and prickly, the way it looked, or soft and cool like the hair on his head?

Questions she should not be contemplating at any time, but especially not now, when he was clearly ill. The taste of the tea clearly worried him, though Jane could not begin to understand why it would.

“I couldn’t taste it,” he said, softly, bringing her back to the conversation with a jolt.

“The tea?”

He nodded. “Nor the sugar biscuits. They tasted like dust.” He thought for a moment. “I think somehow, the brandy destroyed my sense of taste.”

“And then made you ill? Is that possible?” Jane knew little about brandy, or any other spirits, except that they could take away a person’s power of reasoning. But then, if they could take away a man’s ability to control his actions, his speech and the power to remain upright, perhaps they could also take his ability to taste. But after just one mouthful?

“Thank goodness Ben didn’t drink any more of it, then,” she said, shuddering at the thought of Ben being as ill as Robert. “He is the world’s worst patient,” she explained with a smile.

Robert did not smile back. “Ben didn’t,” he said, his lips pressed together and his face grim. A feeling of dread crawled through Jane’s chest at the way he now looked. “But my father did. And he was unwell to begin with.”

He hurried across the park to the house with an energy Jane would not have believed he possessed scant moments ago. She had to run to catch him up.

“Robert?” she called to him. He was frightening her.

“I need to make sure my father isn’t suffering the way I am,” he replied. “He’s weak from his illness. I don’t know how this would affect him.” He quickened his pace.

Jane picked up her skirts and hurried after him.