Page 83 of Along Came a Rogue

“Truly?” She forced a weak smile as Yardley gestured for her to quickly drink up half the cup, then refilled it from the pot. Thank God for Yardley. Whatever would she have done without the woman’s help during the past two years?

Her maid nodded with a sly wink. “Makes him English, my lady.”

Emily took a long sip of tea. It tasted different from usual, with hints of a faint licorice flavor. But it was still pleasant and warm, and she wouldn’t dare refuse it and risk yet another argument about how she needed to eat more. Yardley smiled at her reassuringly, waiting for her to drink the tea and nibble at one of the biscuits, even though it tasted like sawdust on her tongue.

“The house is quiet this afternoon,” she commented as Yardley moved around the sitting room, straightening the pillows and curios, putting away the stack of books and the set of paints Grey had sent her several weeks ago as part of his attempt to wear down her resistance and win her heart. It had been the one gift she’d selfishly allowed herself to keep.

“Everyone’s gone out.” Yardley did not glance up at Emily, her attention focused on straightening the ink, quills, and papers on the writing desk. “The duke is at the Lords, and the duchess is paying calls on Lady St. James and Lady Agnes Sinclair.”

She took another sip. “And my brother?”

“Lord Thomas received a message from His Grace to visit Strathmore House.”

Hmm…that was odd. Thomas had been on his way back from the Westovers’ home when he was shot, and both Edward and Kate seemed keenly aware of her brother’s agitation toward visiting at this time in the afternoon, because it invariably meant he’d be traveling home at sunset, that time of day when the footpad assaulted him. Perhaps the request for him to visit meant they thought he was healed, and not just physically. Or perhaps…perhaps it meant…

Goodness, she wasn’t certain what it meant! Her head was suddenly groggy, making thinking difficult.

A nap. That was it—she needed the nap she’d grown used to taking in the afternoons. She’d just finish her tea, then lie down. But her hand shook as she raised the cup to her lips, and she blinked hard to keep her eyelids from drooping shut.

As confusion and sleepiness fell over her like a cloud, Emily watched as Yardley sat down at the desk and dipped the quill into the ink, then scratched out a note on a piece of stationery, one with the gold-embossed EMC imprinted across the top.

Emily stared at her, her swirling mind suddenly unable to focus. Why was Yardley sitting at her desk, using her stationery? “What are…” Her lips grew thick, barely able to form words. “What are you…”

Yardley blotted the ink and shook her head regretfully. “Why couldn’t you have gone to Glasgow as we’d planned? I would have gotten the money, and no one else would have been hurt.” Swiping the back of her hand against her eyes, she carefully folded the note and rose. “You’d have been safe then. There would’ve been no need for any of this.”

She set the note on the fireplace mantel. When she finally glanced over her shoulder at Emily, tears streaked down the older woman’s cheeks.

“I would have taken care of you, just as if you were my own daughter. But I need the money, you see. For my sister. She’s terribly sick and can’t afford medical care, can’t keep up her dress business…We could have helped her with all of that, you and I. If only you’d listened to me.”

Emily shook her head as the chair began to tilt beneath her. Something was wrong, very wrong. “The tea,” her tingling lips forced out in a garbled mumble. “You…the tea…”

Her body numbed. Her breathing came labored and hard as she fought to keep her eyes open. The teacup and saucer fell from her deadened hands and spilled across the floor.

“But you had to let that man into our house,” Yardley scolded angrily. “When he arrived, you forgot all about leaving, didn’t you? Now we’ve no choice but to do it this way.”

Emily’s head swirled so thick with dizziness that her stomach rumbled nauseously, and for a moment, she thought she might cast up the poisonous tea. Her hands groped numbly for the chair arms as black spots flashed before her eyes in time to her pounding heart, her vision growing darker and darker.

With every ounce of strength, she levered herself up from the chair, opened her mouth to scream. But no sound came—

She sagged slowly toward the tea-stained rug.

Yardley caught her.

“There now, don’t you worry, my lady.” Putting Emily’s limp arm over her shoulders, Yardley led her toward the door. “It’ll all be over soon, and as painless as possible, I promise you that.”

* * *

Emily blinked rapidly. The room around her came slowly into focus as the fog lifted from her eyes. Her head pounded with sharp pains as she tried to remember who she was, where she was, what had happened…

“She’s waking up.” A familiar voice cut through the blurriness inside her head, and Emily was just able to make out Yardley’s concerned face in front of her in the dim lamplight.

“Finally.” A man’s voice came from the darkness behind her, this one unrecognizable. “You put too much of that damned powder in the tea.”

“I had to make certain she was asleep. I couldn’t very well have her screaming for help while I was carrying her out of the house, now could I?”

Her fuzzy mind slowly registered what they were saying. She’d been drugged—that was why the tea tasted like licorice, why she’d gotten so tired, so suddenly.

And Yardley had done it to her.