“And his evening? His nightcap?”
“Mr Fenton, naturally. He lays out the brandy and retires.”
“Thank you, Mrs Greer. You may attend to His Grace now. Let him sip tea with sugar if he is able. Prepare it yourself and trust no one, Mrs Greer.”
The housekeeper looked perplexed but went without a word.
Violet stood in Henry’s dressing room and looked at the orderly surfaces. There was nothing that could have been used to make him ill. Then what?
The muslin.
The memory came to her like a bell struck in the dark. She turned and looked at Henry’s dressing table. His shaving things were laid out with military precision: the straight razor, the strop, the badger brush, the shaving bowl with its cake of soap.
She picked up the bowl. The soap was smooth, pale, and smelled of sandalwood. She turned it in her hands. It looked like an ordinary shaving soap.
She set the bowl down and scraped a thin curl of soap with the razor and held it to her nose. Sandalwood. Nothing else. She looked at the hearth. The fire had been laid but not lit. She knelt on the cold stone and struck the tinderbox until a flame caught on the kindling. She held the soap curl over the flame on the flat of the razor blade.
The sandalwood smell burned off in seconds. Underneath it, rising with the heat, was something faint. Acrid. Her mother had taught her this smell when she was nine years old, holding a dried sprig of yarrow over a candle while her mother explained which plants stored metals in their roots and what happened to the soil when arsenic leached from the mine tailings on the north hill.
Garlic. The heated soap smelled of garlic.
She dropped the razor. Her hands were shaking. She stood and walked toward the door. For the last few mornings, the razor opened his skin in a dozen small cuts, and the arsenic in the lather entered his blood, and neither her husband nor his valet had any idea.
Sarah had been in and out of these rooms her entire life. Having grown up in this house, she had been given the privilege of accessing any part of the house. She could have easily entered Henry’s room while it was empty and replaced the cake of soap which his valet would not have questioned.
She hurried to the landing.
“Kit.” He turned at the foot of the stairs. “Send a carriage to my mother. Now. Tell her Henry has been poisoned with arsenic. She will know what to bring.” Her voice was unsteady. Her legs trembled. “Tell the driver this is a matter of life or death.”
Kit turned to go, but she stopped him. “Find Sarah Baker. Find Mrs Garrick. Make certain neither of them leaves this house.”
“And Vexley?”
“Him too. Send someone to his lodgings. I want him here within the hour.”
Cranbrook appeared on the landing beside her. She had removed her gloves. Her face was white, but her voice was iron.
“I have sent for Dr Bainbridge.” She looked at Kit. “I will find Baker and the cook. You send for the Duchess’s mother and fetch Vexley. Go.”
Kit went. Cranbrook disappeared. Violet heard the front door open and close twice, heard hooves on the gravel, heard a carriage pull away.
She went back into the bedroom and called out to Mrs Greer.
“I need egg whites. Six of them. Beaten into a glass of cold water. And five jugs of boiled water, cooled. Now.”
Mrs Greer ran.
She then closed the door. Henry had not moved. His breathing was shallow, rapid, his chest barely rising under the damp shirt. She pulled the covers back over him and tucked them around his shoulders. She found a cloth in the washstand, soaked it in cold water, and laid it across his forehead. She changed it when it grew warm. She changed it again.
She sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. It was hot and limp in hers. She pressed it between both of her palms and held it against her chest.
“Stay,” she said. The word came out broken. “You do not have my permission to leave.”
He did not respond. His breathing stuttered. She pressed his hand harder against her heart and kissed his knuckles.
The tears came without warning. They fell down her face and onto his hand, and the sound that came out of her was ugly and raw and did not belong to a duchess.
She pressed her forehead to his knuckles. “Stay,” she said again.