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Nick’s cup, shattering when he set it down. A red handle; she saw it in her mind. Her handle had been... blue. Coleman must have poisoned Nick’s teacup.
Alice recalled thinking it was odd that the tea had already been poured.
“Oh, thank God,” said Alice.
Poison they could control, couldn’t they?
“I wouldn’t thank him yet,” Dr. Forster said. “He’s not out of danger. It was a very large dose. Belladonna, if I’m not mistaken; look at his pupils.”
Alice raised one of his lids; his eyes were nearly black the pupils were so enlarged. No silver visible.
“A large enough dose to kill an ox, but he’s strong and I think he’ll survive. Everyone must be quiet. He needs absolute silence and darkness. And we’ve got to stabilize him. Hold him down, Patrick and Lear. Keep him covered. Lady Hatherly, you keep speaking to him in a soft voice, he seems to like that, his eyelids flicker when you speak.”
Alice held his face in her hands, her tears falling on his cheeks as she bent over him.
“Nick, she whispered. “I love you. Nick, please come back.”
She didn’t even care that everyone in the room must have heard her say she loved him. She didn’t care if he knew it.
If only he woke up, if only he wouldn’t die, she would tell him again and again.
“Nick,” a voice cried from far away.
Scent of lavender.
A soft voice.
Alice.
Was she down here with him? Had he dragged her into the abyss?
Arms holding him, encircling him. “Come back.”
Tears wet on his face. Her tears. Her soft voice calling.
A stern voice now. “I’ve had about enough of this. Now follow my voice and come back to me.”
A thread spooling before him.
Laughter. Dimples. A body. Not a body. Her body. Alice. She wasn’t here with him; she was in the sunlight, trying to save him from the darkness.
You can’t save me, Alice.He couldn’t breathe. Fear clutching at his throat. Taking away his breath.
“I love you, Nick.”
The words pierced through him.
She loved him and he would never emerge from this prison.
He’d gone mad. No other explanation for this darkness and these delusions. For the rest of his life, he’d always be searching for the lavender scent of her hair and the turquoise color of her eyes.
Not knowing why.
Just searching, as his father searched for orchids everywhere.
Finding orchids in the cotton stuffing of chairs.
Mistaking dandelions for rare blooms. Or even, once, a tuft of white hair the duke snatched from his hairbrush. Holding it up, so proud.
