Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

E lizabeth touched her hair lightly, checking that it was in place before knocking on the door of Stephen’s office. It was the first time she had come to him like this and she had wanted very badly to be dressed well and to make a good impression on him.

“Come,” he called.

She pushed the door open and got her first glimpse of his working environment, a large study piled with books. It wasn’t neat, but it was ordered chaos, books piled in small groups of similar topics, papers stacked on the large dark wood desk, shelves that burst with folios and newspapers alongside leatherbound books.

Stephen was bent over his desk and glanced up briefly, before seeing it was her and standing. “Elizabeth?”

She curtseyed, her cheeks flushing. She was wearing one of the light dresses she had received recently, a sprigged poplin that she knew she looked very well in, and she had picked out one of the jewelry pieces that he had purchased her in that first flurry of gifts, a brooch that was a dazzling sapphire, pinned to her bodice. “I wanted to speak with you, Stephen,” she said carefully. “I have a request.”

“Of course,” he said, businesslike, striding around his desk to take her hand and lead her to a chair. His eyes lit on the jewelry and she knew that he had noticed that she was wearing his gifts and that he was pleased if she could read him right. “What do you need. Is there a problem?”

“No, no, there is no problem. I simply wanted to take you on an outing, husband and wife. Do you have time to accompany me on a picnic, Your Grace?” Elizabeth smiled up at him and saw the pleased surprise in his face before he hid it again.

He was always so careful with what he showed the world.

“Do you have a time and day picked out?” he asked. “I shall clear my appointments for that day.”

“I would like to take the time tomorrow, if it would please you. It has been lovely weather lately, and the air is not yet so cold it will be unpleasant.”

“Of course,” he said immediately, barely bothering to look at his diary. “I shall be at your service, Your Grace. What time shall we set out?”

“I was thinking of leaving here at just before noon, and then walking to the hill that is half an hour from the house, the one that you have told me about. I shall have Mrs. Cope put a basket together.”

Elizabeth stood, ready to go and begin her preparations but found herself stopped with Stephen taking her hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss that set her nerves aflame. His eyes were fixed on hers.

“I am looking forwards to being alone with you, wife.”

She blushed, feeling tingly all over in a deliciously tempting way. “You are incorrigible, husband.”

With his laughter in her ears, she left the office and headed to the kitchen to discuss her wishes with Mrs. Cope.

“Here, pin it down with this,” Stephen passed her a book and Elizabeth darted to put it over the last corner of the blanket. They had spent a pleasant time walking out to the hill and Stephen had even told her some stories about his experiences growing up in these surroundings, but now they were trying to put out all the things that had been so carefully packed for them the wind was trying to sabotage her plans.

“Ah, that’s done it,” she cried, sitting down on the picnic blanket in delight now it was no longer flapping or threatening to blow away. “Please, join me. I will dish up.”

Stephen laughed and flung himself down next to her, his long strong form drawing her attention away from the basket long enough that she had to clear her throat and grope for a distraction.

“How was your friend, the Marquess, the other day?” she asked, ducking her head to keep her eyes on what she was doing and away from how diverting Stephen was in his shirtsleeves.

“Perceval was as well as he ever is,” Stephen said, rolling to his side and propping himself on one arm to watch her unpack. “The man is an ox. I have known him since I was at university and I have never known him to be ill.”

“He does give off the impression,” Elizabeth said, with a laugh. “He seems like a man that an illness would not dare to approach.”

“And I do not?” Stephen feigned reproach, which only made her laugh harder.

“My lord, you look as though you would give a cold a good thrashing, but the Marquess looks as though the cold would simply expire trying to encourage him to feel anything but well.”

Stephen gave a short, delighted laugh and stole one of the cakes she had unpacked, taking a large bite of it. “You are not wrong there. I was intending to speak with you, actually, about what we were discussing while I was at my club. Would it interest you to hear it?”

Elizabeth sat back a little and looked at him curiously. “Heartily so, sir. Please, do tell me all about it.” It was strange how greatly their relationship had changed over the last few weeks. She could still remember how she had disliked him to start with, how she had been sure he would be another jailor to her and how clearly suspicious of her he had been.

He reached for another cake so she continued with unpacking the small pigeon pies and the cheese and fruits and the bread and other things that Mrs. Cope had packed into the basket while he spoke.

“I don’t know about your sister, but I do know that your father and brother still mean me harm. We were discussing whether it might be a threat to our family if your sister were to make a match with my political rival Seymour, and we have decided to hold a hunting party here at the estate. I shall invite Seymour and I would like to invite your brother as well. He’s not a particularly careful gentleman and my hope is that he may slip and tell us if there is a plan in motion.”

Elizabeth leaned forwards and placed a hand on his arm. “He may not be careful, but he is cunning. You must promise me that no matter what you do, you are careful when he is around. I do not trust him and neither should you.”

Stephen raised his brows, his face serious. “Those are strong words about your own brother. I am not censoring you, but may I ask what drives you to say such things?”

“You do not know how glad I was to marry you,” Elizabeth burst out, biting her lip as he looked at her in clear surprise. “Oh not the arranged part of the marriage or walking into an arrangement where I knew you would all hate me for who I was, but to escape that house. My days were torture there. They despised me for not being legitimate and Dudley is the worst of them. He is cruel and he is merciless. He will do anything to spite you. I fear him.”

“You have no need to fear him any longer,” Stephen said, rising to his knees and drawing her closer to him with both hands. “Elizabeth, if you are at all uncomfortable with him being at the estate I will discard the plan at once.”

“No.” She tools a breath and leaned against his chest for support. “No. I can bear it if it will help uncover danger to you. I must. I shall.”

“My brave wife,” he murmured, tilting her head back with one finger and leaning in to kiss her, sweet and chaste on the lips. “You are more than I could ever had hoped for.”

“Could I be less than brave having married into this family?” she asked, smiling and he kissed her again in answer. The kisses deepened, her own lips surrendering to his as he cleared a portion of the blanket with one hand and pulled her down with him into a tangled embrace. His hands were trailing down her side, loosening the ties of her dress and then his mouth was kissing down her breasts and she was arching, hoping, praying - wanting for more, more more.

Would it be so wrong to ask for it? They were married, after all. There was nothing so shameful about needing her husband, about wanting him to lie with her.

She opened her mouth, the words on her lips when she glanced at Stephen and saw that his skin was pale and he was struggling for breath. He rolled away from her, off her and onto all fours, vomiting violently into the grass beyond the blanket. He heaved again and again before collapsing weakly, one arm wrapped around his stomach.

“ Pain ,” he muttered. “ My stomach. ”

When she had been little, Elizabeth had seen a rat just after taking some poisoned meat. It had died slowly and badly and she had cried for weeks, but it had looked a lot like what was happening now. With a lurch of fear in her chest she realized that she had eaten none of the food. Stephen had been poisoned.

There had been no way for Elizabeth to carry or even to support Stephen for the walk back to the house. He was nearly unconscious and even though he was making a valiant effort, the two times they had attempted it he had collapsed onto the ground immediately.

With no other recourse, Elizabeth had stripped off her shoes and run like the wind towards the main house. She had run barefoot before as a girl and the shoes that she had been wearing would only have slowed her fleet feet and her clever steps. When she arrived, bloodied and panting, her dress torn and her face deathly pale, all the servants had hurried to her.

“Go, call a physician this instant,” she shouted, her voice shrill and cracking in her ears. “Go at once. Fetch me several men and Lord Herbert, His Grace is very ill. Go now! Now and tell the physician that I fear he has been poisoned!”

Herbert ran out in time to hear the last and Elizabeth would gladly have lived her whole life without seeing the expression of devastation on his face. She would have rather not told all the servants such a thing, knowing as she did that the gossip would reach London before the day was over, but unless she had spoken of the matter she could not be sure that the doctor would bring what he needed and she would not risk Stephen’s life on propriety.

“Take us to him,” Herbert snapped, a few other servants joining them and Elizabeth turned back around and led them at as fast a pace as she could manage back to the site of the cursed picnic where Stephen was now lying pale and unconscious next to the fateful spread.

Everything after that was a blur as Elizabeth felt the last of her strength leave her. She was helped back to the house by those who weren’t needed for Stephen and then wrapped in a blanket by Sally, whose pleasant face was twisted in concern. The wait for the physician felt like an eternity, everyone running in and out of rooms, and shouts for different possible necessities coming from one end of the house to the other.

Finally the physician rode up with the valet who had rushed to fetch him in a carriage, and ran into the house. Elizabeth started into the room, into her husband’s room, but Herbert was there, in the doorway, looking at her.

Why was he looking at her like that?

Why was he so angry with her?

Elizabeth fought with herself, trying to gather her thoughts together, to bring herself back to reality enough to understand what was going on. “What -?”

“Do you think I will let the woman who nearly killed my brother to his sick bed?” Herbert snarled, the fury on his face so dark that it was nearly physical. “Get away from this door while we bring him back, and then I shall decide what to do with you.”

The door slammed in her face, leaving her numb and cold all the way to her bones. She could not even feel angry. She had taken Stephen out and he had nearly died for it. What else was Herbert to think? And what else was she to think except the horrible little thought that was planning roots in her mind that she could not tear out fast enough?

Shortly afterwards the door reopened and Selina and Diana emerged, each taking one of her arms and leading her to the drawing room where they could wait together.

“We know you had nothing to do with it,” Selina said firmly. “Herbert is worried about Stephen. He will come around.”

“Of course he will and of course you did not,” Diana said, pressing against Elizabeth’s side and bringing some much-needed warmth to her. “You are our dear sister, you are not to be suspected in such a manner.”

“If anyone says anything bad against you they will have me to deal with,” Selina added and the two girls nodded at each other over Elizabeth’s head.

Elizabeth could not speak. Her words had been stolen from her, like the joy she had dared to feel on a windy, sunny day with her husband by her side.

Now there was just fear and horror and barely daring to hope.