JoAnn Wendt by Beyond the Dawn

water. Garth. The garden.
    He went on, “You have publicly questioned the duke’s right to raise his son as he wishes. That was dangerous. His Grace is extremely angry with you, Flavia.”
    She gulped air in relief. So it was not about Garth.
    “But my baby—I—I shall apologize to His Grace.”
    “See that you do, child. I fear the duke’s temper. A streak of madness. . .” Uncle Simon’s voice trailed off into a wheezing cough.
    At the cloakroom he sent one footman for his landau, another for the cloak. Tiredly, he shrugged into the cloak, turned and kissed Flavia on the cheek. He’d taken no wine, and his breath smelled of illness. As Flavia helped him to the door, the duke’s steward strode in, bowed to Flavia and thrust a package at Uncle Simon.
    “Mr. Beauchamp. His Grace would be pleased if you would take these papers to the Board of Trade immediately and file them. In the usual manner.”
    Flavia’s breath caught in outrage.
    “It is the middle of the night! My uncle isn’t fit to—”
    “Your Grace!” Uncle Simon checked her, then slowly reached for her hand, bowed over it and kissed it. “Your Grace, I shan’t detain you. You have your duties; I have mine.”
    She breathed in tight, jerky spasms as she watched Uncle Simon go. When his landau had clattered off, she remembered the steward. The man was a sycophant. He would rush to tell the duke about her outburst unless she somehow apologized. She turned to do so. But except for footmen, the entry hall was empty. The steward had gone.
    When the ball ended and she could at last escape to her apartment and undress, she fell into bed, emotionally exhausted. She drifted toward sleep even as she fought against it.
    That the duke did not come in, that he’d omitted the marital visit he’d requested, scarcely made a ripple in her mind.
    * * * *
    She awoke to bright sunshine and a tap on the door. One of the duke’s newly hired German maids came in bearing Flavia’s usual morning cup of chocolate. Bleary-eyed, Flavia reached for the cup. It flashed robin’s egg blue in the sunshine, its gold rim glinting, its contents steaming chocolatey and rich. She brought the cup to her lips.
    Ten minutes after she’d drunk it, she knew the chocolate had been drugged. A hundred hammers pounded her skull. Her heart was a clock gone mad—now racing, now refusing to tick. She tried to lunge out of bed, but the bedpost danced away and she fell into a chasm. From the bottom of the chasm she could see the pink and gold walls of her bedchamber begin to tumble. Faster and faster they spun, until a door in one wall opened and the duke’s steward tumbled toward her. Flavia blinked. The steward splintered and now there were six of him tumbling closer, ever closer.
    “Help me,” she whispered.
    But even as she begged, she knew it was too late. Everything was slipping away. She felt someone pick her up and drop her onto the bed. Then the bed dropped away and was falling. She fell with it. Fell into oblivion.
     

Chapter 4
     
    Garth NcNeil was blind drunk. He’d been drunk for a month. Drunk ever since the duchess of Tewksbury had taken sick and died the morning after the Tewksbury ball.
    Lying in a nest of stinking bedding, he groaned. He cursed the consciousness that stirred in him as sunlight filtered through the space in the broken window slat. He rolled from its stabbing light. He fumbled in the sour sheets for his bottle. He found it. With shaking hands, he guided it to dry, crusted lips.
    Empty!
    He launched a torrent of invectives at the offending bottle. He cursed it thoroughly, as though it were the embodiment of the pox that had taken Flavia so suddenly. Drunkenly, he snaked his way to the edge of the bedstead and drummed the bottle against the floorboards, signaling the innkeeper below.
    He needed rum. Much more rum. Consciousness was not to be borne. Pain... too much pain... memories that slashed like scimitars.
    His risky visit to Tewksbury Hall, where