Read Online The Tempting of Thomas Carrick by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online Page A

Bradshaws ate, although I suspect they ate it at breakfast yesterday. But Joy was poisoned, and by something quite different. Something she most likely ate either while here, or when she was close to here.” She paused, calculating, then shook her head. “I don’t think she could have eaten it before she left the manor. She wouldn’t have made it this far, let alone been in any state to reassure the Forresters enough for them to leave the Bradshaws in her care.”
    Thomas’s hands had stilled, the lamp half filled. He searched her face, then said, “Our healer was poisoned?”
    She grimaced. “I know it sounds unlikely, but I’m prepared to swear that Joy is dying of poison, one of the more potent ones. But how she came to take it in”—she raised her free hand, palm up—“that’s impossible to say. She could have eaten a mushroom she thought was safe, but that was actually another species. Although it sounds far-fetched, it happens often enough, even to people who think they know what they’re doing.”
    He held her gaze, then quietly said, “So the Bradshaws are severely ill because of one sort of poison, and our healer sent to aid them is dying of another sort of poison.”
    She sighed. “Yes, I know. What are the odds? But I can only report what I know, and I know Joy is dying of poison. No seizure, or heart failure, or any other cause of death looks quite the same.” She raised the ewer. “I’m going to fill this.”
    She turned and opened the door.
    “The well is to the right, toward the barn.”
    She went out, drawing the door closed behind her. The twilight was deepening and the air had grown chill, but she wasn’t planning on being outside for long. The rear yard was paved, and the well stood in pride of place in the center of the expanse; there was light enough to see her way.
    The stone well was open, but shaded by a small pitched roof. The bucket had been left down and was already full; she bent to the task of hauling it back up. Swinging the sloshing bucket to the side of the well, she unhooked the handle. Steadying the ewer between her feet, she was about to lift the bucket from the well wall and pour the water into the ewer when three cats and five kittens came running from the barn, mewing plaintively.
    The cats made straight for a gray enamel bowl on the ground beside the well. The bowl was empty.
    The cats twined about the bowl and Lucilla’s skirts.
    “You poor things.” She bent and picked up the bowl, tipped the bucket enough to splash water into it, then carefully set it down beside the well.
    The cats had backed off. She stepped away and watched as the three older cats crept forward. Noses extended, whiskers twitching, they approached the water.
    They got to within a few inches, then pulled up and, lips curling, backed away.
    Two of the kittens made a dash for the bowl. One of the larger cats hissed and batted them away.
    Casting what she could only describe as dark looks at the gray bowl of water—and, incidentally, at her—the cats grumbled and slunk away, back toward the barn.
    Lucilla looked at the bucket of water, and a chill slid down her spine.
    A second’s thought was enough to transform suspicion into certainty.
    Jaw setting, she gripped the bucket and tipped the water back into the well. She left the empty bucket by the side of the well, tipped the water out of the gray bowl, swiped up the empty ewer—and remembered the glass of water on the sideboard and someone who might well be thirsty.
    She burst into the kitchen just as Thomas lifted the glass from the sideboard. “No!” She flung out her free hand. “Don’t drink that.”
    Thomas looked from her to the glass, then looked back at her, at the ewer dangling, obviously empty, from her other hand. “The water ?”
    His tone was both horrified and incredulous.
    She slumped back against the door and nodded. “It’s tainted. Even though they’re desperate, the barn cats won’t touch it.”
    Catching her