A Momentary Marriage Read online

  But James was insistent on doing it, and Laura gave in. She was amazed to learn the extent of the fortune he was leaving her, but she had come to know him well enough that it didn’t surprise her that he had left a trust to provide for the rest of the family, much as his father had. She did, however, object to the fact that he named her as one of the trustees of that fund.

  “Why me? They are bound to resent it. They barely know me. You barely know me.”

  “I know you well enough. I need a third trustee in case of a deadlock. Graeme is far too soft, especially where my mother is concerned, and the other trustee, Caulfield, can be hard. Like me, he understands numbers better than emotions. You, however, can be firm and kind. I trust your good sense. Besides . . .” A trace of his wicked smile touched his lips. “You’re so skilled at managing everyone.”

  She brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Yes, well, I’m going to manage you now. You should sleep.”

  Laura stayed by James’s bed throughout the day. Whenever he opened his eyes, he looked for her. She didn’t want him to awaken alone. As she sat there, she went through a few of her father’s books, looking for answers, but she could find nothing to help her fight a brain tumor.

  The members of his family came to see him, all of them looking uneasy and, amazingly, a little shocked. Despite the strong evidence to the contrary, had they all believed that James would recover? She was prepared to move them out the door if they remained too long, but none seemed inclined to linger, nor did they come back frequently. To be fair, that might have had something to do with the fact that Demosthenes continued to lie directly across the doorway and growl whenever anyone approached.

  Late in the evening, Laura awoke to find she had fallen asleep in the chair beside his bed. She sat up, heart pounding, and turned to the bed. James lay quietly, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling shallowly, and she sagged in relief. Asleep, it was easy to see the ravages of James’s illness. His pale face was gaunt, weary grooves lining his mouth and eyes. He frowned and muttered in his sleep.

  Laura rubbed her temples, where a headache had formed. Her neck was stiff from the position she had fallen asleep in, and she rolled her head, trying to ease it. Laura went to the bed, straightening the covers as she searched his face.

  As she turned away from the bed, his hand wrapped around her wrist, startling her. “Stay.” Laura looked back at him in surprise. “Please.”

  “I will.” Laura had intended to stay with him through the night anyway. But it was most unlike James to ask for a favor. She laid her hand on his forehead to check for fever.

  “I’m not out of my head. I just . . .” His hand began to shake, and he pulled it back. His entire arm spasmed. “I hate this.”

  “I know.”

  He turned his head away, saying, “No. Never mind. You should go to your room and sleep. It’s foolish for you to stay here.”

  “Not as foolish as it is for you to pretend you need nothing and no one.” She smiled at him. “I’ll just go change into my dressing gown. I’ll be back soon.”

  When she returned, James’s eyes were still open, and his arm was once again still. Laura sat down on the side of his bed, taking up his hand even though she had no need to check for fever.

  “Don’t wear black for me,” he told her.

  “James, really, must you bring this up?”

  “Glad to see I can still annoy you.” He smiled, but the sight of it on his wasted face sent a chill through Laura.

  “If that is all it takes to please you, you should be a happy man indeed.” It was hard to maintain her crisp, cool front. But James would hate her growing “maudlin,” as he would term it.

  “And, please, I beg you, do not let Mother have a daguerreotype made of all of you artistically posed and weeping into your kerchiefs.”

  Laura couldn’t help but chuckle, having seen one or two such mourning mementos. “I promise I will dissuade her.”

  He fell silent, his thumb tracing a circle on her palm. “I’m sorry.”

  She glanced at him in surprise, but he kept his gaze on her hand, so that she could see nothing in his eyes. “For what?”

  “For . . .” He shrugged. “Ruining your life eleven years ago, I suppose.”

  “I think you acquired more of your mother’s love of drama than you’ll admit.” He looked at her then, startled, and she went on. “You didn’t ruin my life. You may have noticed I didn’t wither and die because I didn’t marry Graeme. In any case, you couldn’t have forced me to give up Graeme. I chose to do so. You were simply . . . the bearer of bad tidings.”

  He made a breathy noise that she thought was meant to be a laugh. “Now there’s an apt description of me. But I was harsh.”

  “You aren’t prone to softening blows. But maybe that makes it easier in the end, after . . .”

  “After the weeping?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Sometimes it’s better to be quick and sure than to be kind. I can tell you that if I had a splinter in my finger, I would go to you to pull it out.”

  “And I’d be happy to do it.” There was a twinkle in his eyes, quickly gone.

  After that he was quiet, and Laura took her seat in the chair again. The night wore on. Laura slept now and then, waking to check on him.

  Other than changing into a dress the next morning, there was little to distinguish the day from the night. James continued to grow worse. Laura acquired a headache. She was achingly tired. She wished she had someone to whom she could talk. But the truth was, at Grace Hill her closest friend was James’s dog.

  Late that night, James began a fit of coughing, and guiltily Laura realized she had overlooked his breathing treatment this evening. She was tired, but Owen had just taken Demosthenes out for his bedtime ramble, so it was up to her to help James with the vapor therapy.

  Taking out the brown bottle of medicine from the cabinet, she turned to carry it back to the bed. Her foot slipped on the edge of the rug, and she lurched into the dresser, hitting her elbow. The bottle shot from her grasp and crashed to the floor, spilling its contents over the wood floor.

  Laura let out a cry of horror and sank to her knees beside the mess. Tears spilled from her eyes. Silly to cry, of course; Walter would get more from the apothecary in the morning. But in her tired state, bombarded by her jumbled emotions, spilling his tonic seemed the last straw.

  The wink of something silvery caught her eye. The bottle was brown, as was the liquid inside. What could be silver—she leaned forward to peer at the pool of tonic. Bright amidst the brown medicine lay a silver blob.

  Quicksilver.

  chapter 15

  Laura had seen it before. The less dramatic-sounding name was liquid mercury. And it was poisonous. Carefully picking up two pieces of the glass, she scooped up the blob and wrapped a small towel around it. She felt strangely removed from herself, her movements slow, as if she walked through water. Her mind, on the other hand, flashed about, dancing around the horror at the center of it.

  Poison. There was poison in James’s medicine.

  Laura closed the bedroom door and locked it, as if that could keep them safe from danger. She felt icy at the core. Turning the light brighter, she examined her find again. There was no mistaking that it was mercury. Her father had used it in some of his experiments.

  Many years before, he had studied a case involving hatters suffering from mercury poisoning. Mercuric nitrate was used as a smoothing agent to treat the fur of small animals in order to make felt. The material, saturated with the chemical, continually released mercury vapor into the air as the workers made hats out of the felt. After years of breathing the toxic air, the hat makers often died. That was where the expression “mad as a hatter” came from; they acted strangely, said mad things. She thought of James telling her that her hair was on fire, the bizarre things she had heard him mumbling. He had said he’d seen his dead father beside his bed and another time a long-dead pet. His sudden and baffling inability to do common
math sums.

  There were some medicines that contained mercury, but she had never heard of it being used for lung inflammations. Frauds sold “cure-alls” that promised to take care of various illnesses and that had not only ineffective ingredients but even harmful ones. But James hardly seemed the sort to go to quacks or believe in fantastical remedies. Still, when one was dying, she supposed that even a cynic might fall prey to such things.

  Perhaps that was it. Otherwise . . . it meant someone was trying to murder James. No, someone was murdering him by slow degrees. She began to pace, all weariness having fled.

  James had started taking this medicine because he was already sick with headaches and coughing. The mercury in the steam he breathed couldn’t have given him the illness, only worsened it. Either he had suffered from an entirely different ailment, which the medicine had exacerbated, or he had already been exposed to mercury some other way, and the tonic had been used to continue or increase the exposure.

  Laura looked over at James in his bed. She wished she had the aid of his cool, incisive mind now. He coughed, and somehow that made Laura cough, too. She stiffened. She had coughed a few times today, but had thought nothing of it. Her head ached. She had attributed it to the strain of her situation, the stiff neck from sleeping in the chair.

  But what if those symptoms came from something else? She had been closed in this room with James for two days. She hadn’t handled the breathing treatment before now; Owen or Walter had helped James. So the treatment couldn’t have affected her. She could be only imagining that her mild symptoms were like James’s. But if she was not, it would mean that there was something in this room that caused it. Something that had originally made James ill. If she remembered correctly, simply breathing in the vapors was hazardous.

  Laura glanced around the room. It wouldn’t be in plain sight. Otherwise James would have seen it, or certainly one of the servants would have noticed it when they were cleaning. She opened the wardrobe and each of the drawers in the dresser even though enclosed spaces didn’t seem the likeliest place for it. She lay flat on the floor and checked under the highboy and the nightstands. Last, she turned to the bed, aware of a curious reluctance to search under it even though the high bed would be the best place to hide something. She didn’t really want to find out.

  Irritated by her cowardice, she lay down beside the bed. She could see nothing on the floor underneath the bed, but near the head of it, a shallow square object hung from the frame. The bed was so high off the ground that Laura had no problem sliding beneath it. The object she had seen turned out to be a cast-iron pan hanging from wires fastened to the bed.

  Laura’s heart hammered. It was too dark to see the contents of the pan, and she had to slide out and set the lamp on the floor beside the bed, then crawl beneath the bed again. It took some contortions to not block the light as she lifted her head to peer into the container. The bottom of the pan was covered with silver liquid.

  Laura shot back out as if she had seen a snake. She would have jumped to her feet except her legs were trembling too much. There could be no doubt. Someone had put the mercury there. He had carefully, intentionally fastened it beneath the upper part of James’s bed, where he would breathe it in all night long.

  She shuddered with revulsion at the thought of James lying here ill the last few days, all the while breathing in the fatal poison. How could anyone be so cold-blooded?

  Even worse, the would-be murderer must be here in the house. A stranger sneaking into James’s bedroom with a pan and a bottle of mercury would have been noticed. Of course, it could have been done by an earlier visitor to Grace Hill. One of Tessa’s admirers, for instance. Laura had several times seen Mr. Netherly pacing up and down the entire length of the hall, apparently lost in communion with his muse. He could easily have slipped in and out of James’s room. But why would he—or any of Tessa’s swains—want to kill James? It would hardly endear them to Tessa.

  No, the obvious killer was someone in the family.

  What was she to do? How could she fight this? Laura was alone. James was too ill to be of any help, and she had no idea whom she could turn to. However awful the idea was, any of the people around her could be the very person trying to kill James. Not his mother, of course, but Tessa would be of no help in a crisis. Graeme’s home was not far away, but Tessa had said that Graeme was still in London.

  No, it was up to her to protect James. Laura shivered. The house seemed dark and cavernous, looming all around her. She had never felt so small and cold. So alone.

  James stirred on the bed, muttering. She pushed herself to her feet and leaned over him. He moved his head restlessly on the pillow. His black hair was damp with sweat from his intermittent fevers, and it clung to his skull, making him appear even more gaunt. A saving anger rose up in her. She was not going to let James die.

  “James.” When he didn’t respond, she shook his shoulder, saying his name again. Finally his eyes opened. He blinked at her uncomprehendingly.

  “James. Listen to me.”

  “Laura?” The word was a mere whisper.

  “Yes, it’s me. This is very important. I don’t think you have a tumor or brain fever or any of those things.”

  He frowned, watching her intently, but in a puzzled way.

  “Someone is trying to kill you. You have to help me.” She took one of his hands between hers. “You understand? You have to hang on. Don’t give in, no matter how hard it is. Because I’m not going to let them have you.”

  In the light of the lamp his eyes flashed with silver, and his hand tightened on hers.

  chapter 16

  “We need to get you out of here.” Even if she removed the pan from the bed, the fumes might linger. Opening the windows to air out the room wasn’t an option in a sick man’s room. It was spring, but the nights were still cool.

  James nodded and pushed himself up and out of the bed. He had to grasp the bedpost to keep from wobbling, but his face was set in an expression Laura was coming to know well. All he said was, “Where?”

  “My room. It’ll be easiest.” She slipped an arm around his waist and they started forward.

  Demosthenes jumped up when she opened the door. Seeing James, his tail began to wag and he pressed against him. With the mastiff on one side and Laura on the other, they walked down the hall to Laura’s bedchamber. Their progress was slow and slightly weaving, but they made it to her door without running into anything along the way.

  Laura left James on the chair just inside her door, Demosthenes beside him, while she returned to his bedroom to set up the scene. She intended to keep her discovery of the poison secret. If the would-be killer realized his trick had been discovered, he might try something else or get rid of evidence. But if he thought this was a temporary move and James would return, he would simply wait. He might even be complacent enough to give himself away.

  She removed the evidence of the shattered bottle, wiping up the liquid and wrapping the broken glass in the towel with the mercury, but she left the pan hanging beneath the bed. She had a moment’s pause, concerned that others might be exposed to the fumes. But if James was no longer there, no one would go to his room except for the brief time maids might come in to dust.

  Next she poured a cup of water from the jug and tossed the contents onto the bed, artfully leaving the cup on its side on the covers. It would be perfectly reasonable to move James if she had clumsily spilled a drink, soaking the mattress.

  Casting a last glance around the room, she repacked her medical bag and carried it and the towel containing the ruined bottle back to her own room. Dog and man were waiting patiently by the door, James leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, and Dem sitting with his great head resting on James’s lap.

  James levered himself up, and they made their halting way to the bed. As she reached out with one hand to whisk down the bedcovers, James said, “Dear Laura, if you wanted me in your bed, you had only to ask.”

  She grimaced at him.
“No doubt you’ll go to your maker with a smirk on your face. But I don’t intend for that to happen anytime soon.”

  He eased down onto the bed and closed his eyes. Laura could see the effort the move had cost him in every line of his wan face. Demosthenes, who had followed them to the bed, whined softly.

  “I know,” Laura told him as she sank down into the nearest chair, her urgency-fueled strength draining out of her. “It’s upsetting to you.” Dem sat down, putting one paw on her lap, and gazed earnestly into her face. “I’m so scared, Dem,” Laura whispered, laying her cheek against the top of his massive head and curling her arm around his shoulders. Tears spilled from her eyes and melted into his coat. “Thank God I have you with me. What if he’s already too far gone? What if I can’t handle it? I don’t know what to do.”

  Dem gave her arm a reassuring lick, and somehow that lightened her spirits. With a last pat, she stood up and wiped away her tears. She couldn’t afford weakness. She needed to find out how to combat this poison.

  She wasn’t sure what could be done beyond waiting for the mercury to leave his system and hoping she had caught it in time. But she knew that it could be done. Two of the men her father had treated had lived. And if anyone was stubborn and contrary enough to fight off the poison, it would be James.

  The place to start was her father’s old medical journals. Thank goodness she had already had them brought up here to her room. Picking up a lamp, she went into the large dressing room. Her few clothes took up little space, leaving ample room for the trunks and boxes from her house.

  It didn’t take her long to find the trunk containing her father’s journals. Fortunately, each was dated. But since she wasn’t sure when her father had healed the men, only that it had been before her mother’s death, there were several years to be explored.

  She started with the year her mother died and worked backward. It turned out to be the year Laura was four that held her answers. No wonder she couldn’t remember the events, only her father talking about it years later. Flipping through the pages, her eyes fell on the word mercury, and she paged more carefully through it to find the beginning of the case.