Page 32 of The Cornish Inheritance

What? Why on earth had Mrs. Treloar suddenly decided on this? All sorts of thoughts jostled through Caroline’s head but she couldn’t come up with a viable reason. “Goodness. That’s short notice. I’ll need to change into a gown suitable for dinner. Can you come and help me, Patience?” As the clock in the schoolroom declared the time to be five and twenty minutes to six, she didn’t have long to prepare for this new ordeal.

Leaving Yves tucking into his boiled egg, Caroline and Patience retired to Caroline’s room.

Caroline threw open her wardrobe. What a good thing she’d packed as many of her gowns as possible, the heavy weight of her valises now fully justified. She plucked out a demure, pale-blue gown with short, puffed sleeves for which she had matching gloves, and a lace fichu to disguise a decolletage that would be unseemly in a governess.

“Oooh, that’s very pretty, Miss.” Patience’s work-reddened hands smoothed the elegant silk of the skirt. “I wish I had a dress like this one.”

With Patience’s over-enthusiastic assistance, Caroline took off her plain daygown and stepped into the fresh evening one. But her hair needed something done with it, and this was where Patience’s skills came to an end. Her hairdressing talents seemed to be confined to the single plait that hung down her back. Caroline would have to manage by herself.

She made an effort that at best might have been deemed barely satisfactory by her old lady’s maid, but at least her hair was now tidy after getting windblown on their journey back from Penzance. She tucked her customary spare hairpin into her bodice, pulled on her long gloves and rose to her feet, smoothing down her skirts much as Patience had done. “Will I do?”

Patience nodded with proprietorial vigor. “You look a right picture, Miss.” She leaned in close to sniff the perfume Caroline had dabbed on. “And you smell like a flower garden.”

Not quite, but she could produce nothing better in the short time allotted to her.

Patience took a step back the better to admire what she plainly considered her own handiwork. “A lot nicer than Mrs. Treloar ever do look. Even when she’s preening herself for that Mr. Trefusis.”

Caroline, choosing to pretend she hadn’t heard Patience’s disrespectful remark, stepped out onto the corridor… and remembered she hadn’t swapped the two medicine bottles over. Her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t leave the bottle still holding what might prove to be a fatal dose for a small boy. Bridget might just be sloshing it into a glass, careless of how much she administered. Suddenly, she felt like Daniel going into the lion’s den in the Bible, which, despite its danger, had always been one of her favorite stories. Only she was living in the lion’s den. Now she knew how he’d felt.

“Where is Bridget?”

Patience was tidying up Caroline’s discarded gown and ankle boots. “Downstairs a-having her supper.”

She had to do it now while she had the opportunity. Her bag was still in the schoolroom. If she went now, Bridget wouldn’t know. “You go down and get your own supper, quickly,” she said to Patience. “Yves will be fine on his own for a short while. I’ll just go in and tell him to play with his soldiers. Off you go.” Did she sound as stilted and tense as she felt? Maybe Patience would think it because she was afraid of taking dinner with the family, which she was, in a way.

Patience fetched Yves’s supper tray, only the well-scraped-out eggshell remaining, and departed along the corridor.

Caroline bolted first into the schoolroom to retrieve her bag, then hurried into the nursery, where Yves was lying on the floor drawing.

She didn’t have time to waste. “Quick. Go to the door and watch through a crack for Bridget coming back while I swap the medicines over.”

Yves jumped straight into the swing of this adventure, all unaware that it might be saving his life, and ran to the door. Opening it a crack, he peered outside. “All clear.”

Caroline fished the bottle of tonic out of her bag and hurried to Bridget’s door.

Yves glanced back at her. “I’ll hoot like an owl if I see anyone coming.”

Possibly not his best idea. Caroline hastened to the bed and lifted Bridget’s pillow.

The key wasn’t there.

For a dreadful moment, the world seemed to stand still around Caroline, the air thick and difficult to breathe. Had Bridget realized her room had been searched and hidden the key elsewhere, or worse still, secreted it about her person? She heaved in a steadying breath and tried to gather her thoughts. It must still be here somewhere, surely? Bridget hadn’t taken it with her before.

As fast as she could, she repeated her earlier search. Nothing. A glance back at the door showed Yves still peering out of it. Any minute now, Bridget would be returning, and, on top of that, if she delayed any longer, she’d be late for dinner with the family and be thought rude and ungrateful.

She scanned the room again, but no inspiration came to her. Could Bridget have decided to keep the key on her person? On a string around her neck, maybe?

Something small caught her eye, almost underneath the spartan bed. Three strides took her to it, and, bending down, she rose with the key in her hand. It must have fallen out from under the pillow somehow.

She threw a glance at Yves, still standing guard, as she ran to the corner cupboard and with shaking fingers opened it. The bottle stood there, the name Dalby’s embossed in large letters down the front, with underneath that, in much smaller lettering, Carminative. Where to empty it?

The sash window didn’t want to open. So much for letting fresh air into the nursery. She heaved at it with all her strength, and at last, just when she was about to give up, it slid up a scant three inches. Enough to slide the offending bottle through and tip the contents onto the flowerbed below.

“Someone’s coming,” Yves called. “I heard the door from the gallery open.”

Her fingers shook so much she nearly couldn’t do it. A quick rinse out with some of the contents of her new bottle, a second emptying, and she was filling the bottle as Yves disappeared through the door out onto the corridor.

Stopper back in the old bottle, new bottle into her bag, old bottle back into the cupboard, and key turned in the lock. Close the window. It stuck, but superhuman strength came to her. If her heart beat any more violently, it was going to come bouncing out of her mouth.