Free Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 by Elf Ahearn Page A

formed in his throat. Claire brought this miracle about.
    How drawn she’d looked after he’d stuffed her back into the role of healer. He’d behaved like a scoundrel, yet she’d brewed the remedy, administered it, and in fact, behaved with the patience and charm of a … of a … nothing. No one matched her graciousness.
    As he descended the twisting staircase, he contemplated sending Claire on to London. That was the fair thing to do. She certainly didn’t deserve to sink lower into his pit of shame. Yet what was it exactly that he’d done wrong?
    Valencia’s cinnamon skin and her black and hungry eyes flashed in his mind. The image shifted to the dull sheen in those eyes when he found her at the end of a rope. He forced the vision from his mind. Tomorrow he would send Claire away. It was the right thing to do. The resolution filled his gut with stone.
    Weeks of the
Season
had already passed. It may already be too late for Claire to find a suitable husband, he thought. With her beauty, charm, intelligence, and gentle nature, surely a good fellow would take her to his breast the following year. She was still young. But somehow, before her departure he had to find a way to make it up to her, if for no other reason than to express his undying gratitude. He’d wandered into the gallery, where he came upon the portrait of Hernando. From the pocket of the man’s black coat dangled a pearl watch fob on a heavy gold chain. “She shall have it.”
    “I sing the
Marriage of Figaro
,
si
?”
    Flavian snapped from his reverie. Abella drifted listlessly toward him down the great gallery.
    Collecting his thoughts, he said, “I remember a few years ago you practiced Susanna’s aria.”
    “But I no find the music.”
    “You looked in the bottom shelves of the cabinet?”
    “Why you stand here?”
    “I was just asking Hernando a question. For everything she’s done for us, I’d like to give Lady Claire a pair of ear bobs made from his watch fob.”
    Abella went still. She studied the portrait and her mouth went taut. “Then you buy another pearl to match?”
    “They’d take the chain in exchange for another jewel, and it would cover the cost of the setting.”
    “So she stay until is made.”
    Flavian hadn’t thought of that, but the idea made him feel suddenly lighter, though he sensed Abella’s rising temper. “It would be best to have Lady Claire here awhile. We need to make sure you’re getting the proper dose of your tonic.”
    The girl turned on her heal and marched past him. “
Si
,” she said, without turning around.
    • • •
    Later that night, the bedroom was black as pitch when Claire woke, her body in a violent cramp. With only seconds to spare, she found the chamber pot beneath the bed. A sudden bout of retching had her yanking off a pillowcase into which she poured the contents of her stomach.
    When the nausea subsided, she crawled to a bureau on the far side of the room upon which rested the basin and pitcher. Dragging herself to her feet, she prepared for the next wave of sickness. Panting, crying, she doubled over in agony, her stomach contracting again and again, as if it could never rid itself of enough fluid.
    As the sickness abated, Claire took her robe and left her reeking bedroom, stumbling down the stairs and out the front door.
    On the lawn, another spasm brought her to her knees. When the pain subsided, she lay trembling in the cool grass. Nearby she heard the sound of someone else vomiting and of another person further away. Sitting up, she saw candlelight moving swiftly in the servant’s quarters, in the master suite, and in Mrs. Gower’s room. Had plague come upon them? The grippe?
    Collapsing back in the grass, Claire put a hand to her forehead. It was clammy and beaded with sweat, but it didn’t have the heat of an infectious fever. “Poison,” she moaned, “we’ve all been poisoned.”
    Another bout passed, consuming her mind and every ounce of strength in her body. Once