Page 23 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

“I am Trefrey,” the physician said, removing his coat and laying it aside with his hat. “I assume I have the honor of addressing the Duke of Hartwell?”

My, but word had traveled fast.

“Honor?” Maxim gritted past his clenched jaw. “Just do your job, man.”

“Of course, Your Grace. If the lady will—” He gestured toward the door with a sweep of one arm, as if to usher Mrs. Drummond and her delicate sensibilities from the room.

“Certainly not” was her tart reply, her eyes barely leaving Caro’s face. Mrs. Horn gave a curt nod of silent agreement with her refusal.

Trefrey sighed. “Very well. Who can tell me what happened?”

“She rose early,” Maxim began. At various points throughout the night, he’d caught himself straining for any sound of movement from her room.

“As she always does,” interjected the housekeeper. “She takes a morning constitutional.”

“And today,” added Mrs. Drummond, “she invited me to join her. When she stepped out, I thought she looked wan, and she told me she hadn’t slept well. She blamed it on a megrim.”

Trefrey took in the information as he examined her, lifting her limp wrist from the bed to check her pulse, lowering his ear to her chest to listen to her breathing. “A migraine is a possibility. Several of my patients suffer most acutely when the weather is about to turn.” With his broad thumb, he drew up one eyelid, then the other. Caro showed no signs of consciousness. “She vomited, the boy said.”

“Yes.”

“Had she eaten anything?”

“She never takes a bite of breakfast before she goes out,” Mrs. Horn fretted, “no matter how often I caution her—”

“You.” Maxim rounded the end of the bed and faced Mrs. Drummond, driving her slowly back toward the wall as he approached. “You gave her something. I saw you.”

“A p-p-peppermint drop,” Mrs. Drummond choked out, her pale blue eyes wide with undisguised panic. “T-t-to soothe her stomach. P-p-perfectly harmless.”

“Now, now, Your Grace,” the physician soothed, as if a mad duke was an ordinary fixture in the sickrooms he visited. “I’ve never yet seen someone laid low by a sweet. Have you any more, ma’am?”

Maxim stepped back just far enough to allow her to retrieve her reticule. She dumped its contents on Caro’s dressing table: a key, a handkerchief, a few coins, and three or four paper-wrapped shapes. The physician picked up one, untwisted the paper, sniffed the contents, and popped the sugary droplet into his mouth. “Not the culprit,” he opined once the sweet had melted away.

“But you still think it was something—something she took in. Not merely a headache.”

“Difficult to say. Has anyone else been taken ill?”

Mrs. Horn started to shake her head, then gasped. “Geoffrey. The footman. Started complaining of the gripes just this morning and had to be relieved from his duties.”

“There, you see.” Trefrey nodded sagely. “It will be something they both ate. Something from the larder.”

The housekeeper looked both stricken by and scornful at the suggestion. “I keep a clean kitchen, sir,” she insisted.

“Will my wife recover?” Maxim paused slightly between each word to keep from shouting. He wanted to strangle someone, and as Mrs. Drummond had managed to slither out of his reach, the physician would do.

“Oh, yes. In a day or two, she’ll be right as rain. A nice, strong purgative will help things along.” He fished in the little leather satchel he had brought and withdrew a small, corked bottle. “A spoonful should do the trick,” he said, holding it out. “And one for the footman too.”

Maxim reached for it, but Mrs. Horn snatched the bottle away first. “That’s no task for a man, Your Grace. Besides, I thought you meant to be on your way at first light. It’s well past that.”

Her subtle scolding was far less than he deserved. “I—” He glanced from the housekeeper to the physician. “This morning’s events have, of course, altered my plans.” He couldn’t leave her like this, even if he should.

Mrs. Drummond had resumed sponging Caro’s brow, but she gave a skeptical sniff. Did she imagine he was somehow responsible for his wife’s sudden bout of illness?

“Mrs. Horn,” he said, turning back toward the housekeeper, “is there a manservant in the household who could be trusted to deliver some important papers to London?”

The housekeeper shook her head. “I’m afraid the only manservant here is Geoffrey. And your valet, of course.”

“Leclerc would not be well suited to the task.” He spoke no more than a few words of English and read none at all. He had never been to London. It was far too easy to imagine him lost, robbed, or worse.