The duke swallowed, his stare severe. “And Dauphine?”
“The rest of the bottle…and another,” I admitted, cringing. “Maybe more?”
He let out a sharp sigh, shaking his head.
“We never ordered it,” I remembered suddenly. “The serving girl just brought it to us. She said it was from your special stock.”
Gerard froze.
“This was at the Adler’s Crown?” Alex guessed. He shifted toward his father. “You keep a room there. Everyone in Bloem knows that. Anyone could have slipped something into your vintages. It would have been so easy. But who would want to hurt Mother? Or Verity?”
Gerard’s gaze landed upon me, swift and terrible. I could see a lie forming on his lips.
Alex, lost in thought, didn’t notice. “You don’t think…” He ducked his head close to mine, his voice hushed. “Could it have beenthem?”
“Them?” Gerard repeated, catching his son’s words, his ears as sharp as a bat.
I started to shake my head, denying it. Julien wouldn’t have, I was almost certain. He was so set on righting wrongs and going through proper channels. He was protocol and reason, meticulously rational and by the book.
But Viktor…His anger, once sparked, could blaze out of control. And he was so very angry. The unexpected speed withwhich he reacted made him terrifying, but also an unlikely choice for a poisoner.
Poisoning took time and skill. It was methodical. It required so many steps.
It was not a process I could see Viktor undertaking, he who flared hot and bright and fast.
“No,” I decided. “Not them.”
Alex looked unconvinced.
“Alexander,” Gerard said, poised at the edge of his chair. “Who are you talking about? If you know someone who might have hurt your mother…who might have hurt Verity,” he added after a slight hesitation, “you must tell me.”
“Must I?” A dangerous current rippled beneath the two short words, and when Alex glanced at his father, his eyes were dark. “Must I tell you things, Father?”
Gerard looked taken aback. In all my time at Chauntilalie, even at his angriest, I’d never seen Alex so hostile.
“There are all sorts of things you’ve never told me.”
He licked his lips. “What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you start with my brothers?”
Gerard had the audacity to feign confusion. “You…you don’t have any brothers, Alexander. You know that.”
“Viktor and Julien’s presence suggests otherwise,” I said, ready for his game to be at an end.
As their names were said, Gerard paled, sinking back into his seat as if I’d physically struck him. “They’re here?”
I nodded.
“I should have known they’d make their way to Chauntilalie after that fire. Arina’s heart!” Gerard struck the table in self-reproach. “It’s not safe for you here, Alex. It’s not safe for any ofus.” He shifted his attention to me. “You need to get Frederick to order the three of you a carriage and get away from here. I will deal with the pair of them as I should have years ago.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Alex said, bucking his father’s plans. “Mother is dead. We have to”—he swallowed—“send out an announcement, call in the Sisters of the Ardor. We need to prepare her body with seeds, return it to the earth. We have to—”
“I know the order of mourning,” Gerard snapped. He raked his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends with a growl of frustration. “None of that matters now.”
“Because of them?” Alex questioned, his voice sharp as a blade.
Gerard nodded.
