Mistress of Scandal (Greentree Sisters 3)

“Is that Pretty Polly?” She took a step, felt her knees buckling, and hastily sat down.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said. He looked sorry, too, but she wasn’t sure what he was sorry about: Polly being here with him, or the lies he had told her? Either way, Sebastian could wait, she thought, her gaze sliding to Maeve. There were more important matters to deal with.

“Was it really Maeve?” she asked Dobson. “Did she really poison my mother’s coffee?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Sebastian answered for him. He came over to where Maeve was huddled in Dobson’s arms, her face hidden against his red coat. “What did you give her, Maeve?” he said almost gently. “What was it? Help us.”

Maeve’s breathing grew louder. “They made me,” she said in a muffled voice. “My life has never been my own, not since I was nine years old. I was sold to her and she’s owned me ever since.” She shook violently, clinging to Dobson. “That’s why I was put to work here. So I could watch Madame, and then tell her what I heard and saw.”

“Who do you mean by ‘her,’ Maeve?”

Maeve gave a bitter laugh. “You already know,” she whispered. “It was her paid the apothecary’s boy to bring me the medicine, who told me what to do. I was to give her small doses, she said. To make it look natural.”

“Maeve, what did you give Aphrodite?” Dobson asked her, the urgency plain in his gruff voice. “What you’ve done is very wrong, but you can help us now. You can make up for it. Please, tell us.”

But Maeve heaved a deep sigh. “It’ll be too late anyway,” she said painfully. “You won’t believe me, but I tried to make it last as long as I could. I tried to keep her alive as long as I dared. But she knew, she always knows, and she sent me a message to say I was to get it over and done with.”

“Goddamn it, tell me!”

“Arsenic. I gave her arsenic.”

Dobson went still, shock wiping his face blank, and then he was gone, the door slamming hard behind him. Francesca could hear him shouting for someone to go and fetch the doctor at once, and to tell him that Madame had been poisoned with arsenic.

Without Dobson to support her, Maeve stumbled and fell against a chair, clutching at the back of it to keep herself upright.

“Who told you to do this?” Francesca stared up at her, wanting only a name so that she could find this woman and punish her for the tragedy she’d caused. “Tell me her name.”

“Don’t you know?” Maeve replied bitterly. “Didn’t he tell you?” with a nod at Sebastian.

“Was it Mrs. March?” she asked, but that didn’t seem right, and she could tell from Maeve’s expression that the housekeeper wasn’t the one.

“Mrs. March?” Sebastian repeated, puzzled.

“My uncle’s housekeeper in Wensted Square. I saw Maeve speaking to Mrs. March,” she went on. “They were together in one of the rooms, and it was obvious Mrs. March didn’t want me to see who it was she was with. I didn’t realize it was Maeve then, not really, but now I know it was she.”

“Why did you go to see Mrs. March?” he said, moving closer to Maeve, his voice threatening. “Was she owned by Mrs. Slater, too?”

Francesca felt the room begin to spin around her. Mrs. Slater. Oh dear God, was that what it was about?

Maeve made a choking noise, half laugh and half sob. “You’ll have to ask Mrs. March that, Mr. Thorne. I’ve said enough to get myself hanged and I’m not saying any more.”

“I need to know.”

“Why do you need to know?” Maeve shouted. “For Madame’s sake? Or for her?” pointing at Francesca.

His brows drew together.

“This is all your fault,” she wailed to Sebastian. “If you hadn’t come nosin’ around then I wouldn’t have had to…to…” Her voice failed her. She slid down onto the floor, and her sobbing was the only sound in the room.

“We need to pay Mrs. March a visit.”

Francesca saw that he was watching her. He’d lied to her, kept things from her, made her believe they were having an adventure when all the time he’d been twisting the truth. She thought she knew him, but now she realized she didn’t know him at all.

“You want me to explain,” he went on, “and I will. I’ll talk on the way to Wensted Square. Will you come with me?”

“I feel as if I’m dreaming,” she managed.

“I’m sorry, it isn’t a dream. Mrs. Slater is alive and as dangerous as ever.”