“Dear God in heaven. Is it a stroke?” She checked his pulse, then tried to heft him and prop pillows under his head and back before he choked. As she tried to look into his eyes, her toe bumped something and knocked it farther under the couch. “Bella! Fetch Jasper! Hurry! Yer da needs him.” She didn’t look to see if the child listened or not, knowing Bella would do what was best for her father.
“What did that hag do to ye?” she whispered. She pulled his eyelids open wider. His enlarged pupils gave her pause. Both were extraordinarily dilated, but matched in size.
He yanked away, working his jaw as though shouting, but no sound came out. He twitched and flailed, knocking her aside. She watched his movements, noting that while they were erratic, there appeared to be no paralysis.
During a lull in his battle with what only he could see, she jumped in close and smelled his breath. Perhaps a hint of wine, but there was another scent she couldn’t quite place. Sort of sickly sweet, with a hint of anise.
Old Mrs. Crowley from the bookshop had held a fascination for poisons and the macabre. The eccentric old woman had loved studying medieval deaths by poisoning. Lorna had always been more interested in the plants that provided the lethal effects.
She dropped to her knees and searched under the couch, hoping it was Gunn’s wineglass she had kicked.
“No!” he shouted.
She sprang out of the way just as he rolled off onto the floor, swinging his arms and kicking. He had to be drugged.
Fighting panic and afraid he was about to die, Lorna leaped over him and recovered the wineglass from under the couch.
“If ye die, I will never forgive ye!” She sniffed the glass and came up with the same sickly-sweet anise aroma. After piling pillows and cushions all around him, she ran to the cabinet covered in decanters and took a whiff of each one. None of them matched the scent of the glass that he must have dropped, since its dredges matched the odor on his breath.
“Help!” she screamed into the hall. “The chieftain has been poisoned!”
She returned to Gunn, dropped to the floor, and tried to prop him upright against her. She supported him with her legs clenched around him and held his head back against her chest. “Gunn!” she shouted. “Fight it! Fight it with all that is in ye!”
Jasper charged into the room, followed by Edmond and Mrs. Thistlewick.
Mrs. Thistlewick crossed herself and stood to one side. Jasper and Edmond knelt beside their chieftain.
“That wretched woman poisoned him.” Lorna fought to keep Gunn leaning back against her and as upright as she could. She hadn’t a clue what else might help. Then it hit her. “He needs to either vomit or drink liquid charcoal. Or both. I dinna ken how, but we have to either dilute or get rid of whatever she gave him.”
“How do ye know it was her?” Edmond asked, cringing as Gunn shouted an unintelligible stream of gibberish.
“Bella and I met her in the hall, coming out of this room. Would a normal person sashay out of here and leave him in this condition?” Lorna hugged his head back against her and wrestled her legs over his flailing arms. He seemed to be weakening into another lull. “There is a glass in my pocket. It was beside him when I came in. As though he dropped it.”
“Let me check it. I ken my apothecaries well enough.” Mrs. Thistlewick dodged his twitching legs and recovered the glass. She ran a finger down inside it, then touched it to the tip of her tongue. “Heaven help him. ’Tis deadly nightshade, and a fearsome amount. It numbed the tip of my tongue.”
“Where is Bella?” Lorna asked. “She does not need to see this.”
“I want that woman hanged for this,” Bella said from the other side of the couch. Pale as fresh cream and tears streaming down her face, she pointed at Jasper. “As daughter of the chief, I order her hanged from the tower! Now!”
Gunn bucked and thrashed, knocking Lorna backward, but she held tight, determined to keep him from doing himself harm. If Lady Murdina had given him a tincture of belladonna in his wine, hallucinations could make him out of his mind for as long as three days. Or so she had read. Of course, that was if he survived.
“We dinna need to kill her right off,” she said to Bella. The child should not be saddled with a decision that would follow her all her days. “Lock her up until yer da heals so he can mete out her punishment. Vengeance is his right, ye ken?”
“What if he doesna heal, Mistress Lorna?” Bella moved closer, her tears streaming faster. “What if he dies just like Mama?”
“We must not think that way, ye ken? But if the worst happens, I will stay with ye till ye run me off with a stick.” Lorna knew the child would recognize a lie and was mature enough to deserve the truth. As Gunn’s throes went into a lull, she nodded at Jasper. “Jasper is here, and Mrs. Thistlewick too. Together, we will all see justice done and we will all be here for ye.”
“He has gone still. Is he dead?” Bella hiccupped a quiet sob and came closer still.
Still hugging him back against her chest, his head resting on her collarbone, Lorna smoothed Gunn’s hair out of his face, then took Bella’s hand and pressed it to his throat. “There. Feel his heartbeat? ’Tis fast and a bit erratic, but it pounds strong. Feel it?”
“What about what ye said we should do for him?” Jasper asked. He kept his gaze locked on the rise and fall of his chieftain’s chest.
“I dinna ken how.” Lorna wished she possessed more medical knowledge. “I am afraid if we try to pour anything down his throat or gag him so he will vomit, he might choke.” With one arm still locked around him and her legs clamping his arms to his sides, she leaned back against the couch. “I dinna ken what to do other than pray.”
Bella snuggled down next to her and rested her head on her shoulder. “I am afeared, Mistress Lorna.”
“I am too, my wee one.”
