“It had to be done. Mother, you know that. How else was it supposed to happen? How else was I supposed to become the next Duchess of Frampington?” She cried out the words as a fox would squeal into the night, her body twisted, as if she was in agony, and her voice shrill.
“I do not understand…” The Countess of Elkins dropped her daughter’s arm and moved back a step.
“How did this happen?” Lord Herberton shook Lady Esther by the shoulders. “Tell me exactly what you did, for Timothy’s life may depend on it.”
Lady Esther seemed horrified at the idea.
“He cannot die!” she cried out. “How else will I be duchess?”
“She is fixated, obsessed.” Lord Hiddlington was back in the doorway to the house, earning Rebecca’s gaze. “Do you even wish to marry my nephew, lass? Or is it just the idea of being duchess that you wanted so badly?”
“They said it would happen.” She waved a wild hand in her mother’s direction and then the Dowager Duchess’. “That we would be wed, and I would be the next Duchess.”
“I do not remember saying at any cost.” The Dowager Duchess was shaking, tears already rolling down her cheeks. “She is mad, George.”
“I know. I can see it.” He nodded firmly. “Lord Herberton, we must send for a magistrate. The authorities must be told of this.”
“Yes, they must,” he said quickly. “But I still want to know how this happened.” He shook Lady Esther’s shoulders another time. “How did you do it!? Tell me now!”
“I-I paid the maid.” Lady Esther stammered, pointing toward a maid who had stood perfectly silently up until this moment on the other side of the table. She still had a teapot in her hands. “She was to put the berries in the tea and then pour it only for Lady Rebecca.”
“She didn’t say it was belladonna.” The maid shook her head. “She said it would simply make her sick.”
“Sick? Yes indeed!” Lord Herberton bellowed the words, releasing Lady Esther as he ran round the table and stole the teapot from the maid’s grasp. He flung open the lid, before a string of curses escaped him.
“How many?” Rebecca asked, finding her voice at last. “How many berries?”
“It is half full of them.” Lord Herberton looked sick himself. “It could be fatal.”
* * *
Timothy was still bent over the chamber pot when he heard his uncle come into the room. George clapped him on the back a couple of times, helping him to empty his stomach before he sat up again, down on his knees.
“How you doing, my boy?” George asked, his voice more strained than Timothy could ever remember hearing it.
Timothy wiped a towel across his face, trying to feel like some semblance of his old self.
“I have felt better.” Timothy felt himself swaying to the side. He had been quick to empty his stomach, but clearly there was enough in his system to cause problems, for he felt sick indeed, and light headed. “Why is it so bright in here?”
“Bright?” George’s brow furrowed in confusion as he looked around the room. “It’s not bright at all. The curtains are drawn.”
Timothy covered his eyes, trying to block out the light.
“There is a light. There is, over there.” He gestured in the corner of the room. “Like starbursts, and there’s a shape. Someone is there…”
“Good god,” George muttered in panic. “You’re hallucinating, Timothy.”
Timothy hung his head forward, not wanting to believe it. He knew such things were a symptom of this kind of poisoning, and Alexander had confirmed it to him just the day before.
He blinked and opened his eyes a few times, determined that his imagining would vanish, but it didn’t. The hallucination merely changed, so that the figure walked forward.
“He’s here,” Timothy whispered.
“Who, Timothy?” George asked, looking to the space where Timothy was staring, before back at Timothy’s face. He wiped the sweat of Timothy’s brow with another towel. “Who is here?”
Timothy couldn’t utter the words. He simply stared at the image of his father as it walked forward. He came further into the room before he sat down on the floor, on Timothy’s other side. He was smiling, far too great a smile for Timothy’s liking. He was just as Timothy pictured him from the paintings in his house.
“Timothy?” George asked impatiently, shaking him again.
