‘Who did you think it was?’ His voice was teasing but his eyes were dark and heavy with desire.
‘I mean, Oh, Cal!’ Somehow it was possible to joke, just a little.
‘Look at me, Sophie.’ Her eyelids were drifting down but she managed to drag them open to hold his gaze as he shifted a little until she felt him pressing against her. It had hurt when Jonathan had done that, urgent and fast, and there was a little quiver of anxiety as Cal entered her.
And then it was all right, and all right became incredible and intimate and tender and fierce and the world became the sensation of Cal within her, Cal above her, until the now-familiar tightness began to ravel to impossible, almost painful heights and then shattered and she cried out Cal’s name as she broke and heard him shout hers and everything swirled down into soft velvet darkness and the security of his arms.
Someone was hammering on a big drum and shouting, which was unfair because she was so sleepy and comfortable and warm.
‘Stay there,’ a voice… Cal… said sharply, then there was cool air on her body for a moment as the covers lifted and Sophie was wide awake.
She was in Cal’s bed and there was the very faintest dawn light through the gap in the curtains and the drum beat settled down to someone knocking on the door and the shouting became Hunt’s voice, low and urgent.
Cal was pulling on his robe as he strode to open the door and Sophie dived under the covers as it all came back. She was naked, in Cal’s bed, and they had made love last night and it had been perfect and now…
‘He’s dead,’ Jared Hunt said as the door closed.
‘Who?’ Cal demanded sharply.
‘Ransome.’ That was Flynn. ‘He was complaining last night. Stomach ache, head ache. I thought he was bluffing, trying to get my guard down. I gave him plenty of water because he said he was thirsty, but not hungry. Then he still kept moaning, so I gave him laudanum to help him sleep. That quietened him down, but he was still restless when I locked him in and left him. When I went in just now he was quiet, so I went to look and he was cold and dead. He’d been sick. Very sick.’
‘And he ate nothing?’ Cal asked.
‘Nothing,’ Flynn said. ‘He hadn’t even got some pills or sweetmeats in his pockets because I checked him over when I put him in the room in case he’d got a knife. It looks like whatever you were ill with.’
Sophie wriggled up from under the covers, clutching them to her chest. ‘Where did the laudanum come from? And the water?’
All three men turned to look at her. Flynn promptly developed an interest in the fireplace and Hunt raised one eyebrow and shifted so he was at an angle to her.
‘Cal’s… His Grace’s dressing room, both of them,’ Flynn said. ‘We haven’t needed the laudanum since Hunt broke his toe in Calcutta. The water was from the big carafe the maid brought up yesterday afternoon.’
‘I did not drink from the carafe in my room before I was ill,’ Cal said slowly. ‘I don’t think I drank anything but coffee, ale, wine and brandy that day. Oh, and a cup of tea after dinner when we joined the ladies.’
‘But you drank water from the carafe after you became sick,’ Flynn said. ‘A lot of it. You emptied it. And you aren’t dead, in fact you recovered fairly quickly.’
‘But it would be the easiest way to poison someone.’ Sophie almost let the covers slip as she wriggled into a more comfortable sitting position.
‘Gentlemen, my sitting room.’ Cal ushered them out and followed on their heels. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he said over his shoulder.
Sophie wrapped her arms around her bent legs and shivered. Jonathan dead. Jonathan… poisoned? She had feared him and disliked him, but once, however misguidedly, she had loved him and no-one deserved to die alone and in distress.
The water from Cal’s bedchamber. If he had drunk it last night, would he be dead now? She burrowed down into the bed again, down into the still-warm hollow Cal’s body had left. He had thrust most of his pillows aside, some to the floor, some pushed up against the headboard. As she disturbed them the sweet hay-scent of ladies’ bedstraw drifted to her nostrils. Bedstraw and thyme and some herb she did not recognise. This must be the sleep-pillow that Mrs Fairfax had spoken of, part of the traditions the household were adopting now their duke was back in residence.
Traditions…
‘Here are your nightgown and robe and slippers.’ Cal was standing right by the bed. ‘What is it?’ He dropped the clothing and sat beside her. ‘Sophie? I know it is
a shock, a dreadful thing to happen, however much of a swine he was, but – ’
‘No.’ She scrambled out of bed, pulled on her clothes and bent to jam her feet into the slippers. ‘Cal, there is this.’ She thrust the pillow into his hands. ‘And ivy from the castle tower around the coat of arms in the hall and your flag flying over this house. Traditions.’
He stared at her and she could almost see the thoughts chasing through his brain, the calculation and memories. ‘The Duke’s Spring. It has to be. Come on.’ He almost pulled her into the sitting room. Flynn and Hunt stood, but Cal waved them back down to their seats. ‘Jared, do you remember the Duke’s Spring?’ Hunt nodded. ‘Michael, who brought the water for the carafe? Did they say anything particular about it?’
‘No.’ Flynn frowned in thought. ‘Come to think of it, I didn’t notice it being brought up, or I would have checked it out, had a sip or two. Could have been the maid who brought the pillow with all the herbs in. She said something about how good it was to have all the old traditions again, but she was in here when I arrived. She might have had both the carafe and the pillow. I had the stuffing out of that and made sure it was safe, but its all ordinary herbs.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘I slipped up, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have missed the water. I was too busy thinking about Ransome.’
Cal shrugged. ‘We all had other things on our minds.’
‘I’ll get hold of the girl, find out who gave it to her to bring up.’