Page 79 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
“I saw you putting powders into Archie’s medicine bottle, making the dose ever stronger each week until?—”
“It was you who fed him that medicine, Lunetta. Not me.”
“I cut it back,” she said. “Gave him less, and then nothing at all.”
“Ah. So that’s why he lingered. And here was I thinking he had an iron constitution. You merely killed Archie more slowly.”
“’Twas you who killed him. And you’ll swing for it.”
“Shut up.”
“Bragged about the opium your father could get you,” Lunetta said. “Bet your pa hoped you’d take too much yourself and he’d be done with you. But you were too smart for that, weren’t you Vern. You convinced him there was a way to get vengeance on the man who killed his favorite son. You found a surveyor you could bribe in your pa’s name and then you blackmailed the old man into going along with your scheme.”
Lord Vernon laughed. “There was no blackmail. He thought it was a grand idea.”
Nerves tingling, Blythe held her breath watching Graeme and Jarrow edge closer.
Lord Vernon eased back the hammer on the gun.
“He drugged you too, Lady Chilcombe,” Lunetta said. “That night. I saw him.”
“And I’m sorry for all that happened, my lady,” Thornsby said. “I didn’t know you were with child.”
“I know,” Blythe said, hoping to draw his attention her way. “And I knew the drink was drugged after the first sip.”
Lord Vernon glanced away from Lunetta, though his gun still pointed at her.
“Don’t do it, Falfield,” Graeme said.
Lord Vernon whipped around and two sharp cracks resounded. A chunk of plaster whizzed past Blythe’s cheek. Lunetta collapsed back on the sofa while a pistol skidded across the floor. Blythe looked up to see Lord Vernon clawing at the leather cords curling around his wrist and arm from the whip held by Thornsby.
Lord Vernon lunged for the woman and Graeme and Jarrow hurled themselves at him, knocking him to the carpet and pinning him there.
The sound of glass breaking in the room beyond stirred a baby’s cries, and then Morley and Bobby ran through the door from the back room.
Hands shaking, Blythe picked up Lord Vernon’s discarded pistol, wincing at the heat of the barrel and almost dropping it.
She silently handed it to Graeme, who’d yielded his part in restraining Lord Vernon to Morley.
“Pistols,” she said. “I never thought…” She shook her head to clear it. She was babbling.
Graeme pulled her close in a hug. “Let’s get you out of here.”
She pushed him away and went to Lunetta. “Were you hit?” she asked.
“No,” she said breathlessly. The baby continued to squall and the look of distress on Lunetta’s face told Blythe it was her child.
Thornsby was busy untangling the fronds of her whip.
Blythe hurried through the connecting door into an inner room that was a kitchen with a table. A black pot dangled from a jack on the old-fashioned hearth and a kettle stood on a trivet. She passed them and went to the large basket where the baby lay crying.
“At least you are warm in here, little one,” she said, lifting the downy-haired bundle out carefully. The crying stopped and blue eyes gazed up at her, eyes the same pure cerulean blue as Coralie’s.
She shoved down a too familiar anger and held the precious bundle close. The child needed comfort, and probably feeding, and definitely a change of clouts. The pouty lips smacked together a few times, and Blythe looked around.
“There’s gruel here.” Graeme had followed her in and was checking the pot over the hearth. “Still warm.” He scooped up a bit with his finger, tasted it, and then went to retrieve a dish and spoon.
She settled on a chair by the plain deal table and began feeding the babe, who smacked its lips some more and grumbled hungrily.
