Page 41 of Who Wants to Marry a Duke
He still looked perplexed.
“Arsenous acid is . . .” She paused, trying to think in a layman’s terms. “It’s like a variant of arsenic—if it’s in the embalming fluid, it would turn up as arsenic in any test. A good chemist would know that, too, so he—or she—might try to claim in a court trial that the arsenic came from the embalming fluid, not from poison. But now we can test for arsenic in the other organs, and if we find any, then there’s no doubt it came from poison.”
“Ah, I see.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You’re already thinking ahead to proving your results.”
“I’m already thinking ahead to a trial, yes.” She began pacing again. “And honestly, given the description of his father’s death that Grey got from his mother, his relations, and their old servants, it sounds like a case ofacutearsenic poisoning. So the arsenic trioxide wouldn’t even have had time to affect the hair and nails. The previous duke died within a day of contracting his ague. If there’s arsenic, the stomach might still contain traces of it. The intestines almost certainly will.”
“I now know more about the anatomy of Grey’s father than I ever wanted to know,” he said dryly.
“And I don’t know enough.” She sat down on the sofa. “I can’t believe you’re not excited about this.”
“I can’t believe youare.” He shifted to face her, bringing one leg up so he could rest his knee on the sofa. “I mean, I recognize the implications your discovery has for doing the arsenic testing, but it . . . doesn’t thrill me as it seems to do you.”
“That’s because you’re not a chemist.”
“Thank God.” He stared at her. “I’d make a very bad chemist.”
“But you make an excellent duke, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know about that.” He sucked in a heavy breath. That reminded her . . . “I’m sorry, but I forgot you said you had to talk to me about something. What was it?”
His lips tightened into a thin line. “I wanted to ask you about our first meeting.”
She stifled a sigh. It was long past time they discussed it. She wished he hadn’t waited until when she was exhausted, but shehadbeen avoiding him, and that wasn’t his fault. Perhaps it was better to deal with it and be done.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, too.” Her heart began pounding. “But you go first. I’ve already regaled you for too long with the intricacies of my favorite subject.”
“Very well.” He rose and went over to the writing table. After refilling the glass he’d obviously been drinking from before, he took the other glass on the tray and waved it at her. “Would you like some brandy?”
“You know ladies aren’t supposed to drink brandy neat.”
“Yes, butchemistscan drink whatever they please.”
“Are you trying to ply me with strong drink so you can have your wicked way with me, Your Grace?” she asked, with a lift of one eyebrow.
A lazy grin crossed his face. “Now, would I do something like that?”
“You know you would.” And she wouldn’t mind it either.
Oh, dear. Working so late had clearly muddled her brain.
“Still, I should like to taste it,” she told him. A little bit couldn’t hurt, could it? And something about being recklessly alone with him made her wish to do other reckless things.
He set down the empty glass and came toward her. “Then you can taste mine.” He handed her his glass. “Here you go.”
Her first sip went down like fire, making her cough. But it was a warming drink in the chill of the room, so she sipped again. “It’s . . . um . . . strong.” And it made her feel thoroughly naughty, which was as heady a sensation as the drink itself. She handed the glass back to him. “Too strong for me.”
He took a rather large swallow. “You get used to it.”
“You’re stalling,” she said softly.
“You caught me,” he said with a rueful laugh. Then he stared down into his glass. “That night at the Devonshires’ ball, did you intend for us to be caught kissing?”
She frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Grey warned me that night to be careful of matchmaking mamas and scheming daughters. And in the years since then, I’ve found his advice to be sound.” He lifted his gaze to bore into her. “But . . . I was never sure about you and what you’d intended.”
The crushing pain in her chest was like how she’d felt when he’d made his cold offer the morning after the ball. “So you thought that I . . . that I . . .” She couldn’t breathe. “You thought I schemed to trap you into marriage.”
