Verity stirred at once, the illusion of sleep dissolving as she pushed herself upright and regarded him with irritation rather than alarm. “What are you doing?”
He did not answer her. He moved through the room, opening drawers, overturning whatever lay in his path, scattering her belongings without care as he searched.
“What are you doing?” she demanded again.
He turned on her with a focus that had replaced the earlier disorientation. “Where is it?”
She watched him for a moment, then tilted her head slightly. “Where is what? If you tell me what you seek, William, I shall be happy to help you find it. That is what wives do, is it not? They take care of their husbands.”
There was no sincerity in it.
“The poison, Verity,” he snapped. “Where is the bloody poison you’ve been feeding me, likely since the day we wed?”
She held his gaze, and then something shifted, not fear, not denial, but a quiet, unmistakable satisfaction. “You will not find it.”
The certainty of it settled something in him even as it stripped the last of his doubt. “What have you done?”
“What was necessary,” she replied, rising from the bed with the same composure she brought to everything else. “I decided not to continue as we were.”
His pulse hammered. “You poisoned me.”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation, no defense. She offered no justification for her actions, and that, more than anything, unsettled him.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I wanted to be a bride, and I was one. I find I never truly wished to be a wife, though. Widowhood is a much preferable state. All the freedom and none of the demands… not that you demanded often. Another benefit of poison.”
“You planned this all along,” he accused.
“I did. Though I must say, you have grown exceptionally tiresome this past week, obsessing about Miss Ashworth as though she were some paragon and not simply a fool you strung along for more than half a decade with little more than empty promises. Like all men who are little more than spoiled boys, she is only desirable to you now because she is desirable to someone else. Wanting what you cannot have, William, has never ended well for you.”
He crossed the distance between them without thinking and closed his hands around her throat. There was force in it, enough to stop her breath and bring her hands up at once to his wrists. He squeezed, his fingers sinking into her flesh, but he could not sustain it. His balance shifted with a wave of dizziness, and his grip faltered almost at once. The strength he meant to bring toit was not there, the poison having already taken its toll. She felt the weakness and seized upon it, her nails gouging his skin as she twisted against him. Space opened between them before he could rally, and she wrenched herself free. He reached for her again, meaning to finish it, but his body refused to obey. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, appearing to be the drunkard everyone thought him. When he shoved her back it was abrupt and uncontrolled, and she staggered before catching herself just enough to break free entirely. Drawing in a harsh breath, one hand pressed to her throat, she fixed her eyes on him for a single, measuring moment. The nearness of it was not lost on her. Then she turned and ran.
He did not follow, remaining where he stood as the room swayed around him with increasing force. All the while his pulse pounded through him , reverberating inside his skull, in a relentless rhythm. Finally overcome, he simply sank to his knees with one hand braced against the floor, struggling to steady himself against the worsening dizziness and the heat that pressed in on him from all sides. A crash broke through the quiet of the house, followed by voices and the hurried rush of feet as servants descended in alarm, the disturbance spreading quickly through the household, and he remained where he was when the door opened again and the butler entered in visible disarray.
“Forgive me, sir,” the man said, struggling for composure. “It is Mrs. Sutton. She has fallen down the stairs.”
“Is she dead?” William asked coldly.
If the butler was taken aback by the response, he was well trained enough to conceal it. “Indeed, sir. I fear she is well beyond any aid now.”
William did not respond at once. “Prepare her for burial,” he said at last, his voice steady and without grief. “As quickly as possible.”
He did not rise. The certainty had already taken hold within him. Whatever she had done would not be undone. The poison was even then winding its way through his body, taking his balance, taking his breath. There was only one consolation. She would be rotting in the dirt before him.
Chapter
Nineteen
They rode out early the following day, Caroline and Eleanor in the carriage with Julien and Adrian following behind on horseback. It was Adrian who broke the silence first. “So, you’ve finally done it!”
“Done what?” Julien asked. He knew, or at least suspected, what his friend was alluding to.
“You’ve fallen completely in love with Miss Ashworth.” Adrian made the observation with a smirk. “I had long suspected you had feelings for her. I will confess I am surprised at the haste with which you are marrying though. Not that I question your choice, merely that I would’ve thought she would prefer to do this back in London with her family present.”
“The truth is I have not fallen in love with Caroline,” Julien admitted. There was no longer any reason to hide it. As for Adrian’s assertions about delaying the wedding ceremony until her family could be present, it gave him some pause too. “The fact is, quite simply, that I have always loved Caroline. I’ve dodged every matchmaking attempt in the interim for one reason and one reason alone… I would have no wife that was not her.”
