The Perfect Poison Read online

  “Good morning, Mr. Jones,” she said brusquely. “I did not hear you knock.”

  “Sorry I’m late. One of the maids saw me arrive a moment ago and very kindly opened the door for me.” He went to the sideboard and studied the array of dishes. “The eggs look excellent this morning.”

  “They are,” Edmund said quickly. “And do try the gooseberry jam. Mrs. Shute makes her own.”

  “Thank you for the suggestion.”

  Caleb selected a large serving spoon and heaped scrambled eggs onto a plate.

  “Coffee, sir?” Patricia asked, picking up the pot.

  “Yes, thank you, I could use some.” He sat down at the head of the table. “I was up most of the night doing research in my library.”

  Lucinda tapped a finger on the damning headline. “You read Gilbert Otford’s piece, I take it?”

  “I never miss an edition of the Flying Intelligencer,” Caleb assured her. “Best source of gossip in town. Would you mind passing the butter?”

  “It is outrageous,” Lucinda fumed. “I vow, I am tempted to go to the offices of the Intelligencer and give Otford’s editor a piece of my mind.”

  “It could have been worse,” Patricia said quickly.

  Lucinda narrowed her eyes. “I do not see how.”

  There was another short silence while everyone tried to imagine a more notorious story.

  “The kidnappers might have been successful,” Edmund offered finally.

  The others looked at him.

  He reddened. “I was merely concurring with Miss Patricia. The story could have been far worse.”

  Patricia made a face. “Mr. Fletcher does have a point. I cannot bear to contemplate what would have happened had those dreadful men succeeded in snatching you off the street, Lucy.”

  “Well, they did not succeed,” Lucinda said darkly. “And now you will likely find yourselves dealing with the results of Otford’s story. Or perhaps I should say Lady Milden will. This news is bound to reawaken the old scandal.”

  Caleb reached for a slice of toast. “I think you underestimate Victoria’s power within both the Society and the social world, Lucinda.”

  “You refer to the power of the Jones family?” Patricia asked.

  “In a word, yes.” He was neither proud nor apologetic, simply stating the facts as he viewed them.

  Lucinda shook the folded paper at him. “There are some things that not even a Jones can fix.”

  “True.” He glanced at the newspaper with little interest. “But that story by Otford isn’t one of them.”

  She sighed, dropped the paper on the table again and smiled a little.

  “You never fail to astonish me, Mr. Jones,” she said wryly.

  “I hear that a lot.” He picked up the jam knife. “But generally speaking, the comment is not uttered in an approving manner.”

  “If neither Mr. Jones nor Lady Milden is worried about the effects of that newspaper story on your reputation, Lucy, I do not think that we need concern ourselves, either,” Patricia said. She looked at the tall clock. “Speaking of Lady Milden, she will be here any minute. We have a very full schedule today, beginning with a shopping expedition this morning.”

  Edmund grimaced. “How thrilling. I cannot wait.”

  Patricia glowered. “No one said you had to accompany us.”

  “Yes, someone did say that he had to accompany you.” Caleb forked up a bit of his eggs. “Me.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” Patricia cleared her throat and continued down her list. “This afternoon we are to attend an archaeological lecture.”

  “Where that idiot Riverton will no doubt put in an appearance,” Edmund muttered.

  Patricia angled her chin. “Mr. Riverton assured me that he is quite passionate about the subject.”

  Edmund was coldly amused. “The only thing Riverton is passionate about is acquiring your inheritance.”

  “Lady Milden would never have introduced me to him if she believed that to be the case,” Patricia shot back. A muffled knock sounded from the front hall. “That must be her now.”

  “What’s so fascinating about archaeology?” Edmund demanded. “Just a bunch of ancient relics and monuments.”

  “Pay attention at the lecture today and you might find out what is so intriguing about artifacts.” Patricia returned to her list. “Tonight there is another large social affair, the Wrothmere ball.”

  Edmund scowled and looked at Caleb. “How am I supposed to keep an eye on Miss Patricia at a ball?”

  “Obviously you will have to attend, as well,” Victoria announced, sweeping into the room. “And in your role as a friend of the family you will, of course, be obliged to dance with Miss Patricia at least once or twice to maintain the illusion.”

  Caleb and Edmund got to their feet to greet her. Edmund pulled out a chair. He looked stunned.

  “What is the matter?” Victoria seated herself. “Don’t you have any evening attire, Mr. Fletcher? If not, I’m sure Caleb’s tailor can outfit you.”

  “I, uh, have evening clothes,” Edmund said in a low voice. “I required them in my previous occupation.”

  “When you were a stage magician, do you mean?” Victoria said. “Excellent. Then that won’t be a problem, will it?” She turned to Lucinda. “Did Madam LaFontaine deliver the second ball gown that we ordered for you?”

  “It came yesterday afternoon,” Lucinda said. “But surely you have seen the unfortunate story in the morning paper?”

  “Hmm?” Lady Milden glanced at the copy of the Flying Intelligencer . “Oh, yes, the one about those men who attempted to kidnap you and sell you into a brothel. Very exciting stuff, I must say. I’ll wager that every gentleman in the room will be lined up to dance with you tonight.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  AN HOUR LATER LUCINDA WAS STILL TORN BETWEEN irritation and utter bewilderment.

  “I simply cannot comprehend why Lady Milden is convinced that my reputation as a notorious female will be an asset at the ball tonight,” she fumed.

  “Do not expect me to explain it,” Caleb said. “The nuances of polite society escape me.”

  They were standing in a mysterious realm she had never expected to enter: Caleb’s library-laboratory. When he had invited her to accompany him to his residence after Lady Milden, Patricia and Edmund had departed on the shopping venture, she had been first startled and then intrigued. It was true that her status as a spinster allowed her a degree of freedom equal to that of a widow. She no longer had to guard her reputation as carefully as Patricia did. Nevertheless, paying a call on a single gentleman in his own home was a decidedly daring thing to do.

  Then again, when it came to her reputation, there was virtually nothing left for her to lose, she thought.

  She turned away from the nearest shelf of dusty, leather-bound volumes and looked at Caleb.

  “No, Mr. Jones, the nuances do not escape you,” she said. “Nothing escapes your powers of observation. The proprieties dictated by society may bore you or they may annoy you but I do not believe for one moment that you are unaware of them. You know very well how things operate in the highest social circles but I suspect that you simply choose to ignore the rules unless it suits your purposes to accommodate them.”

  He closed the door and turned, one strong hand still wrapped around the knob. His mouth curved faintly.

  “And that, my dear, is the real secret of power in the polite world,” he said.

  “Does your entire family hold that view?”

  “It might as well be the family motto.” He watched her turn back to the ancient volumes. “That shelf is filled with alchemical treatises. Are you interested in the subject?”

  “The old alchemists were primarily concerned with the elements, were they not? Mercury, silver, gold. I am more inclined toward botany, as you know.”

  “My ancestor Sylvester Jones thought of himself as an alchemist but in truth his interests ranged across the scientific spectrum. He did a lot of botanical resea
rch. In fact, most of the ingredients in that damned formula of his were derived from herbs and plants of various kinds.”

  “Do you keep the founder’s journals and records here in this library?” she asked.

  “I have several but by no means all of them. There are a lot more in the Great Vault at Arcane House. Gabe wants to institute a project aimed at copying the old bastard’s writings so that we will have duplicates in the event some are lost or destroyed. But it will not be a fast or simple venture.”

  “Because of the quantity of work that he left behind?”

  “That and the fact that he wrote everything in his own private code. We also suspect that several volumes are still missing. We found a large library when we excavated Sylvester’s tomb but there were some significant gaps in terms of dates.”

  “What happened to the missing books?”

  “Who can say? I think it is very likely that some of them ended up in the hands of the three women with whom he is known to have produced offspring. Others may have been stolen. He had a great many enemies and rivals.”

  “Where do you keep the founder’s journals that are in this collection?”

  He looked toward a heavy steel door set into one of the thick stone walls. “They are in that vault, along with some . . . other books.”

  A flicker of intuition told her that whatever those other books were, he did not want to discuss them.

  “What a fascinating place this is.” She replaced the volume on the shelf and wandered slowly down an aisle created by two long bookcases, pausing occasionally to read the titles stamped into the leather spines. “It is rather like my conservatory, a world unto itself. Every time one turns a corner one finds something unique and fascinating.”

  There was silence behind her. She glanced at Caleb over her shoulder and saw that he was studying the library as though he had never seen it before.

  “I had not thought of it that way,” he said eventually. “But you are right. This is my conservatory.” He reached out and touched one of the ancient books. “Most people find this chamber oppressive. They wonder how I can bear to spend so much time here. Hell, the whole damn house makes them uneasy.”

  She smiled. “You are not like most people, Caleb.”

  “Neither are you.”

  She turned down another aisle of books. He followed.

  “Are you still concerned about that piece in the morning paper?” he asked.

  “Not as much as I was when I first read it,” she admitted. She plucked another book from a shelf. “The thing that worried me the most was the effect it might have on Patricia’s husband project. But if Lady Milden believes that an attempted kidnapping of her client’s cousin with the intent of selling said relation into a brothel is the merest frippery, who am I to argue?”

  “What about being here alone with me?” Caleb said. “Does that concern you?”

  The darkness was back in his voice and in him, stirring the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck. And suddenly the atmosphere was charged with the kind of energy only he could generate, the sort that elevated and compelled all her senses. The intimate currents of power that pulsed between them, especially when they were in close proximity, seemed to be growing stronger by the day. Did he feel it, too? she wondered. Surely he could not be oblivious.

  Impulsively she tried to lighten things.

  “You forget that I barely escaped a career that would have forced me to endure the most lustful and depraved desires of the male gender,” she said, opening the book in her hand. “I assure you that, compared to such a fate, being alone with you is not of any grave concern to me.”

  “I am male,” he said. There was nothing in his voice. It was perfectly neutral.

  “Yes, I noticed.” She turned a page. The Latin seemed to blur a little. She had to concentrate in order to translate it. A Historie of Alchemie.

  “And whenever I think of you I am filled with lustful desires,” Caleb said in that same too-even voice.

  She closed the book very slowly and turned to face him. The heat in his eyes was as powerful and as intimate as the invisible currents of energy swirling around her. She realized her pulse was beating very quickly.

  “Would those desires also be of a depraved nature?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, unnervingly serious, as usual. “Depraved implies an unnatural quality, does it not?”

  She clutched the book tightly. “I think that is a fair definition, yes.”

  “What I feel when I am with you seems entirely natural.” He walked to where she stood and gently removed the heavy volume from her fingers. “And very necessary.”

  “In that case, I do not think I need be overly concerned,” she whispered.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE INDESCRIBABLE RUSH OF EXHILARATION AND CERTAINTY slammed through him again, as it always did when he was close to her. He knew that when he touched her he would forget about the other damned books in the vault and the impending sense of doom that always came over him when he studied them. His hand shook with the force of his desire when he put A Historie of Alchemie back on the shelf.

  He drew her into his arms. She came willingly, a sultry, intoxicating heat in her eyes.

  “The other night in the drying shed you set me free for a time,” he said against her mouth. “I want to feel that way again.”

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “Caleb, what are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. It’s not important. You are all that is important.”

  Shadows veiled the sweet warmth in her eyes. He knew that she was about to argue with him and demand answers he did not want to give. So he kissed her, instead.

  The embrace started out slow and deliberate. He wanted to make things last as long as possible, wanted to savor the sense of rightness and the deep certainty that flooded through him when he was with her. But when she sighed and put her arms around his neck, his passion burned with a fierceness that threatened to consume him. His intuition was screaming at him: It is possible that you will have very little time with her. You must not waste any of it.

  He picked her up and carried her to the cot in front of the hearth. It seemed to take forever to remove her high-heeled boots, the heavy gown and the layers of underclothes beneath it.

  When she was wearing only her stockings he put her down on the rumpled quilt that covered the narrow bed.

  For a moment he could only stand there, drinking in the sight of her. In the moonlit darkness of the drying shed he had relied on his sense of touch and the energy they generated together to tell him that she was perfect for him. But now he could see her, too, and the vision of her lying there, waiting for him, dazzled him.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  She gave him a shy, tremulous smile. “You make me feel beautiful.”

  “You make me feel free.”

  Free from the cage that was slowly closing around him.

  He wanted to tell her about the journal and the notebook but he feared that to do so would ruin the magic between them. The last thing he wanted from her was pity. There was still the possibility that he would escape his fate. When he was with her, hope flowered inside him. Damn it to hell, he would escape.

  He peeled off his coat, yanked at the knot of his tie and shrugged out of his shirt. His shoes and trousers were the next to go. He tossed everything into a careless heap on the floor. Then he stopped, awkwardly aware that she was studying him the way he had looked at her a moment ago.

  It occurred to him that it was quite likely that the only nude men she had ever seen in her life would have been classical statues. He was no David fashioned of cold, polished marble and perfect in every detail. He was a man with all the rough edges and the hard planes and angles that came with the gender. And he was fully, achingly erect.

  “Men are not nearly so delightful to look upon as women,” he warned.

  She smiled slowly. “I find you very satisfying to look upon, Caleb Jones.”


  She held out her hand. Relief soared through him. He gripped her fingers and allowed her to pull him down onto the cot beside her, right where he wanted to be. He kissed her again, easing her onto her back and trapping one of her legs beneath his own so that he could explore her more thoroughly.

  Enthralled by the soft, delicate curves of her breasts, he bent his head to take one nipple between his lips. She shivered in his arms. When he stroked a palm over the delightful spheres of her buttocks, she murmured something inaudible and flattened her hand against his bare chest. It seemed to him that the warmth of her fingers went straight to someplace deep inside him, to his heart.

  He touched her elsewhere, seeking the hot, damp secrets between her thighs, wanting to feel the full brilliance of her energy. She twisted against him and uttered a small, choked cry.

  Slowly, cautiously, she began a tactile study of her own. He shuddered at her touch.

  The gathering storm of their mutual desire stirred the atmosphere, enveloping them. The intimacy of the moment thrilled him as nothing else ever had. He might have very little time with her but what he had he would savor with all of his senses. Without knowing it he had been seeking this sensation all of his life.

  At last, when he could bear the desperate need no longer, he entered her, thrusting slowly, deeply, claiming her with his own power even as he abandoned himself to hers.

  With Lucinda he was free to unleash all of the dangerous heat that burned at the core of his being. The currents clashed and resonated. The aurora of their fused energies lit up the space around them with colors and fires that could only be truly appreciated when all of his senses were flung wide open.

  For an instant, caught up in the heart of the storm, he glimpsed the power of raw chaos and laughed at the patterns he saw there.

  SOME TIME LATER he felt her stir against him. He tightened his grasp. She struggled harder to disentangle herself from his arms. He opened his eyes and reluctantly released her. She sat up quickly and then she got to her feet and started to dress with a speed and determined efficiency that sent a jolt of alarm through him.