Free The Body in the Boudoir by Katherine Hall Page

the same substances. She wasn’t on any medication, was she? The punch was alcoholic, so there could have been an interaction there.”
    Hope answered the question. “My sister is as healthy as a horse. All she takes is a multivitamin in the morning.”
    â€œNothing for anxiety, depression?”
    â€œShe’s getting married! This was a bridal shower. Of course not!” Hope exclaimed.
    One of the EMTs—he was wearing a wedding band—looked slightly amused at Hope’s declaration. “No jitters? It’s been known to happen.”
    Hope didn’t answer him.
    In the end, Faith was moved to one of the Morrises’ guest rooms, her mother by her side and Dr. Ginsburg on call should the symptoms worsen rather than abate as they were doing now. Emma had given the guests the favors Poppy had bought—pear-shaped kitchen timers nestled in small wooden boxes with clear covers that said THE PERFECT PAIR on the front—and sent everyone politely away, as only she could.
    Faith woke up at eight o’clock, startled to find herself in an unfamiliar bed with her mother at her side reading the latest issue of Architectural Digest. It was dark out. The events of the afternoon came flooding back and she sat up abruptly. Too abruptly. She sank back onto Poppy’s eiderdown European squares.
    â€œHow are you feeling?” Jane took her daughter’s hand. Tom’s engagement ring, a simple diamond solitaire from Tiffany they’d picked out along with their wedding bands on another of his flying visits, sparkled even in the dim light from the bedside lamp.
    â€œBetter. What on earth do you suppose was wrong with me? I’ve never been sick like that before.”
    Her mother shook her head. “Poppy had the cook write down everything that went into the food and punch, no matter how small the amount, and showed it to Dr. Ginsburg. No exotic ingredients of any kind. The doctor said she’d come by to check on you when you woke up.”
    â€œI don’t think she needs to do that. I just want to go home.”
    â€œYou can, if you’re sure you feel up to leaving here, but you’re staying at your home on this side of the city.”
    Faith felt like a child again, and it felt lovely.
    Later that night, tucked into her own bed in her childhood room, which had been transformed from Laura Ashley posies growing up to a more sophisticated Brunschwig & Fils stripe in her teens, Faith could once more scarcely keep her eyes open. All her childhood favorites were still in the bookcase and she’d selected Louisa May Alcott’s Rose in Bloom, recalling that through her title character Alcott had a lot to say about love and marriage. She gave up after rereading the first page three times and let herself fall asleep. Her mother had been in several times to “make sure you don’t need anything, dear,” but Faith wasn’t fooled by the excuse and felt very safe indeed.
    Which was a good thing, because the words she couldn’t get out of her mind were the ones her great-aunt had uttered, “The bride’s been poisoned!”
    T ammy Wayfort was sitting in her boudoir at her dressing table, gazing at herself in a large ornate mirror. Her “boudoir”—she loved the way the word sounded, stretching out the first syllable and inflecting it with more than a hint of her Southern upbringing in the Delta.
    With the abrupt end to darlin’ Faith’s shower—and really, didn’t her sister-in-law know she didn’t mean “poisoned” like from arsenic, but from some food that went down wrong!—Tammy had decided to come back to the house on Long Island rather than stay at the Carlyle as she often did when she was in the city. This house, The Cliff, located on the North Shore’s Gold Coast, had been built by Sky’s grandfather on a bluff overlooking the sea. The mansion had its own private beach, tennis courts,