AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You could speak to your mother,” Sarah said. “If we did not tell her that the idea came from my family…”
They looked at each other, silently admitting a great deal that had remained unsaid. Then Kenver shook his head. “I’m not certain she cares whether Papa dies.”
“Kenver!”
He bowed his head. “No, I won’t think that. I don’t think it.” He was silent for the space of two breaths. “She doesn’t listen to me, however. We must find a way to do this ourselves.”
Sarah put a hand on his arm. “It is only a hope, Kenver. My mother did not promise it would work.”
“Dr. Greel is promising that Papa will die. Quite soon. It seems a time to try anything.” He frowned. “I could barricade myself in his room and give him your potion.”
Their eyes met, acknowledging the uproar this would cause. And the poor chances of success.
“I had an idea,” Sarah said.
“What?”
“I have some vials like the ones Mrs. Dillon uses for laudanum. I could make up a similar-looking liquid and substitute them.”
“So he gets none when she doses him?”
Sarah nodded. “Then I could give him my mother’s mixture. It looks like barley water. I daresay no one would notice. It’s just…”
“What?”
“Is it right to sneak?” Sarah asked him.
Kenver took a long breath and let it out. “Let us go and see Papa.”
They went along the corridor to the dim bedchamber. The earl lay white and nearly as still as death.
“Sleeping,” said the nurse. She scarcely looked up from her knitting. “Not long now.”
“Is the laudanum really necessary?” Kenver asked. “It makes him so…” The rise and fall of his father’s chest was just barely perceptible.
“It brings him peace,” the nurse replied.
“Peace,” repeated Kenver when they were back in the state suite. “She might as well have said ‘rest in peace.’ They have given up on Papa.”
Sarah’s worry over the size of his doses had increased. If they did nothing, the earl was unlikely to last much longer. “Mama’s mixture will do no harm,” she said. “And it might help.”
Kenver nodded. “We’ll do it.”
Sarah filled her vials with a harmless liquid that mimicked those containing the laudanum. “I sit with your father while Mrs. Dillon goes for her breakfast. I can switch them then.”
“I will watch at the door.”
Sarah nodded.
The next morning, they carried out their plan soon after the nurse left Lord Trestan’s bedchamber. Kenver put the vials of laudanum in his pocket and took them away. Sarah filled a pitcher with her mother’s herbal mixture and put it on the table. It looked like the barley water that usually sat there and would rouse no questions. The earl half woke a little later, and she gave him some. Mrs. Dillon returned, administered his “laudanum,” and sat down to her knitting. Sarah opened the book she’d been reading and began.
Over the next several days, this routine continued. At first, the earl’s coughing increased without the laudanum. Sarah told herself this was right, based on what her mother had said, though it was hard to listen to him hack. Mrs. Dillon was puzzled and increased the dose until she said it was as much as she dared to give. But the paroxysms were less violent as time went on and produced more and more greenish phlegm.
Lord Trestan grew restless. He was periodically conscious now and knew where he was. Sarah read to him and gave him her mother’s mixture as often as he would take it. She used most of what she’d brought and sent a groom for more, letting people think it was something from home for her.
The earl slowly improved. And on the autumn equinox, he finally had his first peaceful night’s sleep. From that time, he began to recover, slowly, from a position of great weakness.
The doctor and nurse took credit for this “miraculous” cure, and Sarah let them. She wished she might say that laudanum had not been the best treatment, but neither she nor Kenver wanted to face the uproar this would cause. The earl’s recovery was the point, and it was increasingly clear that he would pull through.
