The Prince of Pleasure (Notorious 5)

"Will she die?" Dare forced himself to ask.

"I doubt she drank enough to kill her, but the poison must be purged from her body, else her heart will slow too much."

Dare stared down at Julienne as she lay there so weak and helpless. His own heart had stopped beating the moment she sank to the floor, but the possibility that she might have been poisoned sent fear and rage pulsing through his veins.

"Someone fetch me some vinegar, if you have it," the doctor urged. "Or some soap and a glass of water, if vinegar cannot be found."

The manager hastened to do his bidding, returning shortly with a half-full bottle of vinegar. While the doctor made preparations, Dare drove all the onlookers but Arnold from the room so as to give the patient privacy.

The doctor forced Julienne to drink, then turned her onto her stomach. With her head hanging over the side of the chaise, he pumped on the small of her back until she emptied the contents of her stomach into a chamber pot.

"I think that should do the trick," the doctor said, his tone grave but satisfied.

After a moment he gave way to Dare, who sat beside Julienne on the chaise and gently sponged her face and lips with a moist cloth.

At length her eyes fluttered open, and she raised a hand weakly to her temple. "What… happened?"

He brushed a tendril from her damp forehead. "Something you drank disagreed with you," he said with a warning glance toward the doctor, not wanting to alarm her. "We'll talk later, love. I will have my carriage summoned and take you home to your lodgings. For now just try to rest."

A puzzled frown etched her brow, but Julienne nodded trustingly and shut her eyes.

Dare covered her with a blanket, then ushered the other men from the room, leaving Julienne in peace for the moment.

The doctor could have been mistaken about the poison, Dare knew, but he didn't believe in coincidences. He suspected, rather, that Caliban was worried he was getting too close in his investigation and that this was an attempt to warn him off.

Dare's mouth thinned with determination. He would take the warning to heart, of course. If Julienne were to die because of him… It didn't bear thinking on.

He had no intention of abandoning his search, though. But he would have to change tactics if he hoped to win the battle against a determined killer.

Dare took Julienne home and arranged for her landlady to watch over her for the night. To his relief, when he called at her rooms the next morning, she had recovered enough to sit up in bed and question him about what had happened.

Dare told her about the suspected poisoning and how the manager's inquiries after the play had lead nowhere. No one in the theater company had any notion how poison could have come to be in her wineglass. No one had seen anything suspicious.

"Do you honestly think Caliban meant to kill me?" Julienne asked.

"No," Dare answered. "I think he merely meant it as a warning for me. But I'm taking no chances. I've arranged for a footman to escort you to and from the theater and to be with you wherever else you go."

"Surely you are exaggerating the threat," she protested.

"Perhaps, but I don't want your demise on my conscience," Dare replied emphatically.

What worried him, though, was that if Caliban truly wanted Julienne dead, there might be no way to stop him.

He sent a report to Lucian in Devonshire about the attack and conferred with Lucian's assistant, Philip Barton. But they uncovered no clues of any sort during the next two weeks. Once again the treacherous Caliban had eluded any efforts to trace him.

There were no further threatening incidents in the interval, at least. Dare considered canceling the trip to Newmarket, but decided that having Julienne out of town was preferable to letting her remain in London as a target. And by leaving town, he could give the appearance that he'd abandoned the investigation, even if he had no intention of doing anything of the kind.

Caliban's taunts, however, had affected Dare more than he cared to admit. He could go nowhere without looking over his shoulder, searching the shadows for further threats. And he knew he would spend the entire time at the race meet doing the same thing.

It was late afternoon when they arrived in Newmarket. Dare had again urged Julienne and her friend to stay with him at his lodge, but Solange declined, saying that it was one thing to enjoy a house party with dozens of other guests but quite another to be quartered with a notorious bachelor with no one but servants to play chaperone, and that surely wha

tever madman had poisoned Julienne in London would not follow them here.

Dare reluctantly agreed. He didn't believe Caliban would pursue them here, but he would take the added precaution of arranging with the innkeeper to keep a sharp eye out for the ladies' protection.

All the inns were packed, as Dare had predicted, but for the eminent Lord Wolverton, waters parted. The Harriford Arms managed to provide two very elegant rooms for Miss Laurent and Madame Brogard and maid during the week of the race.

Solange professed to be weary after the fifty-mile drive, even with Dare's well-sprung traveling chaise, so he proposed they remain at the inn to rest before his coach returned for them at seven, when they would dine with him at his lodge.