“Sampling.” Amanda conjured a rueful smile of her own. “We were all sampling the desserts. So—nobody had a regular-size serving of anything.”
“Ah, I see. That would explain it, of course.”
Amanda shifted a bit, wishing her headache would go away. An aftereffect of the poisonous berries, she supposed. Or of the sheer violence of her body’s reaction to the poison.
“you’ll be feeling better soon,” Mrs. Styles assured her. “Dr. Chantry will be by to check on you in an hour or so, and after that I’m sure she’ll say you’re ready for a light meal.”
Since her stomach barely flinched at the idea of food, Amanda thought she might be brave enough to try it; she was unexpectedly hungry. Sighing, she said, “I guess I made quite an impression on the neighbors.”
Mrs. Styles clearly understood the mortification behind that statement, because she patted Amanda’s arm and said comfortingly, “I wouldn’t let myself get upset about that if I were you, Miss Daulton. Everybody was just vexed that it happened at all. Why, Dr. Chantry told me that when Mr. McLellan carried you into the house, the rest of them were so worried that not one guest left until after midnight, when it was certain you’d be all right.”
“That was … kind of everyone.”
The nurse smiled at her. “Do you feel up to having visitors? Mr. Jesse’s been frantic; he wanted to be called as soon as you woke.”
Amanda nodded and watched Mrs. Styles bustle from the room. When she was alone in the bedroom except for the watchful dogs, she looked at them, her free hand still petting glossy black fur and velvety muzzles. Two pairs of liquid brown eyes gazed back at her.
“Carried me,” she murmured.
“Well, I’d say you were pretty lucky,” Helen Chantry said, closing her little black doctor’s bag and sitting on the edge of Amanda’s bed. “You got most of the stuff out of your system on your own.”
“Please,” Amanda said, “don’t remind me.” The two women were alone in the bedroom; Jesse had taken the dogs with him at Helen’s request, and Mrs. Styles was downstairs supervising the preparation of a bland meal for Amanda.
Helen smiled. “Embarrassing, I suppose, but it’s the best thing that could have happened, Amanda. The poison didn’t remain in your stomach long enough for much to be absorbed. Actually, your reaction was the fastest and most violent I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen numerous cases of baneberry poisoning over the years.”
Amanda rubbed her right arm, which now bore only a discreet Band-Aid where the IV needle had been. “The nurse said … other people got sick?”
“Yes, but it was hours later, after We’d stabilized you. I had my hands full last night, let me tell you. But most of the other reactions were fairly mild; we were extremely lucky that no one got enough poison for it to be fatal.” Helen smiled suddenly. “By the way—it may comfort you to know that everyone who had a piece of that pie was forced to upchuck. I wasn’t about to take any chances.”
“I hope Jesse didn’t have to—”
“No, he didn’t have any of the pie. As a matter of fact, you and Maggie were the only ones here at Glory who did. Most of the other unlucky victims were guests.” Helen chuckled. “And once they realized what I meant to do, several of them tried to deny eating the pie. Amy Bliss held to it tooth and nail that she hadn’t eaten a morsel—right up until she got sick with absolutely no help from me.”
“It sounds like you were popular last night.”
“Oh, definitely.”
Amanda couldn’t help but smile. “I thought it was Amy’s awful raspberry pie making me sick.”
“You weren’t alone in thinking that. Several even expressed the hope that it would cure her of this misguided urge to bake. However …”
Amanda said slowly, “You know … I sort of remember it all, now that I’ve had time to think about it. I mean, my eyes were closed, and I couldn’t say anything, but I heard most of what was going on around me. I think I could even repeat some of the conversations verbatim.”
“That’s interesting.” Helen frowned slightly.
“Why?”
“Well … it isn’t the usual reaction to the stage of baneberry poisoning you’d reached; by then, unconsciousness tends to be total. Your pulse was slow, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
Helen hesitated, then said, “The characteristics of baneberry poisoning are similar to those of digitalis poisoning. You had most of the symptoms. Nausea, vomiting, convulsions, shock. But your blood pressure dropping like that … When it first started, you were dizzy?”
“Yes.”
“Sharp pains in your head?”
“I noticed a headache just before I got sick. But it was more a dull throbbing. I thought I was getting a migraine. Then there was a … a burning, tingling sensation spreading through me. My tongue felt funny, numb.” Amanda frowned, concentrating. “Then the dizziness and nausea, blurred vision. After that I got sick, very sick. The numbness in my mouth spread over my face; that’s what really scared me. And then my vision was getting worse, dimming, and I knew it was more than just bad pie.”
“You also had trouble breathing.”
Amanda nodded. “It was awful.”
“Chest pain?”
“I think … there was some, yeah. As a matter of fact, I hurt all over. My stomach was cramping even after I was sick, and then later …”
“What?”
“I was cold. Terribly cold.” Amanda looked at the doctor’s grave face and felt a different kind of chill. “So—what does it mean?”
Helen was silent for a moment, frowning, then said carefully, “The treatment for most poisons is fairly consistent; get the stuff out of the body if at all possible, neutralize it otherwise, and then treat symptoms. That’s what I did with you. There wasn’t really time to think about it. But now that I can, now that you can tell me what you were experiencing … most of those symptoms aren’t consistent with baneberry poisoning, Amanda.”
“Then what are they consistent with?”
Again, Helen hesitated. “If I hadn’t just completed a toxicology course not six weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have that answer; there are so many kinds of poison.”
“But you suspect a particular kind?”
“It could be almost anything. But … the numbness and loss of vision, the low blood pressure and slow pulse, the difficulty breathing, and especially the chills … It could have been monkshood. Offhand, I can’t think of anything else that would have produced just those symptoms. And if it was monkshood … it shouldn’t have been put into a pie by mistake.”
Amanda didn’t respond for a long minute, and when she did, her voice was calm. “we’re speculating, when we can’t possibly know anything. There were samples sent off to be analyzed, weren’t there?”
“Standard procedure, in case we have to deal with botulism or some other kind of food poisoning.” Helen shook her head. “But all the labs are snowed under; that’s why your DNA test is taking so long. It could be weeks before we get results.” She paused, then added neutrally, “Unless, of course, I tell J.T. that I suspect deliberate poisoning. As sheriff, he could request the lab work be expedited.”
Amanda shook her head immediately, even before Helen finished speaking. “I just had an unusual reaction to the baneberries. That’s possible, isn’t it? Likely, even?”
“Possible, I’ll give you. Likely? I don’t think so.”
“You said nobody else got as sick as I did, and more than a dozen of us ate the pie. So—”
Helen shook her head. “The symptoms of the others were definitely consistent with baneberry poisoning. And I can’t explain that—unless you got something extra. Unless something was added to your piece of pie after you cut it, and before you ate it. Is that possible? I mean, was there an opportunity for someone to slip something onto your plate when you weren’t looking?”
Amanda remembered putting her plate down on the table, and then moving away to dance with Walker.
She couldn’t recall having even glanced back at the table during the dance, and had no idea who might have wandered past bearing a pinch of—what had Helen said? Monkshood? Almost anyone could have done it. Walker was, actually, the only person she could rule out—if, of course, someone had deliberately tried to poison her that way.
“Amanda—”
“Helen, it was an accident, that’s all. Just an accident.” Amanda held the older woman’s skeptical gaze with her own. “Until we know differently, that’s all it was.”
“And I suppose,” Helen said, “you’d rather I didn’t mention any of this to anyone else?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. It would only upset everyone—especially Jesse.”
“I don’t like it.”
Amanda hesitated, then said, “Helen, yesterday there might have been a reason for someone to want to … get rid of me. Today there isn’t. I had told Jesse I didn’t want to inherit any of this, and today he told me he’d do as I asked and wouldn’t change his will in my favor. The others know it now.”
“I still don’t like it,” Helen said. “If we do nothing, somebody could think they’d gotten away with an attempt against you.”
“What if we did do something—make a big deal out of this and claim I’d been deliberately poisoned— and it turned out we were wrong? The family’s under enough strain.”
“You could go away for a few weeks,” Helen suggested. “Until we know for sure. Remove temptation, so to speak.”
Amanda shook her head. “No, I can’t do that.”
Helen looked at her impassively. “Because the DNA test results would make it impossible for you to come back?”
Amanda managed a smile, though it felt a bit strained. “Wasn’t it you who first told me that I could have pints of Daulton blood and the test might still come back inconclusive?”
“Yes. I also told you that if you had no Daulton blood, the test would almost surely tell us that.”
“I thought you believed I was a Daulton.”
“I do. In fact—I’m fairly sure you are.”
Amanda gazed somewhat warily into Helen’s grave face. “How come that sounds like a qualified answer in spite of all the positive words?”
Helen smiled slightly. “My opinion doesn’t really mean much, does it? The point is, Jesse accepts you, and that makes you a threat to anyone else who might covet any part of his estate—especially Glory. Why won’t you go away for a few weeks, Amanda?”
“I can’t. Jesse doesn’t have much time left. And … I think if I miss this chance to find out what happened twenty years ago, it’ll never come again.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know—it’s just what I feel. I have to stay here, have to be here now.” She shook her head. “Besides, we’re both jumping to conclusions. It was probably just a simple accident, and I had an unusual reaction. That’s all.”
“If I’ve learned anything in my life, Amanda, I’ve learned that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. As long as Jesse is alive, he can change his will in your favor. We all know he wants to. We all know he has a tendency to get what he wants.”
“I have the same tendency,” Amanda told her.
After a moment, Helen said, “When Walker brought you into the clinic for your blood test, I knew you were an intelligent woman. Don’t disappoint me, Amanda. Be careful.”
Amanda could only nod in response to that. But when she was alone in the bedroom, her head still aching, she had to ask herself if she was intelligent at all.
THE THUNDER WOKE HER LATE THAT night, the noise crashing and rolling as if the world were being torn apart. After a moment of disorientation, Amanda lay watching the room being lit with flashes of stark light and listened to the rain and the thunder and petted the dogs—who were sleeping on her bed for, Amanda had told herself, this one night.
It was the first storm since she had arrived here almost two weeks ago. It had been a quiet spring, everybody said, and so the summer would no doubt be a rough one.
Amanda wasn’t afraid of storms, but they had always made her feel restless and jumpy. And she had been in bed all day, which was not something she was used to, so the restlessness was even stronger than usual. The clock on her nightstand told her it was after midnight, and nothing had to tell her she wouldn’t sleep for quite a while.
She sat up and pushed back the covers, moving carefully just to make sure there was no lingering dizziness. But when she was on her feet beside the bed, it was to find herself clear-headed and steady, which was a relief. She slid her feet into a pair of fuzzy bedroom slippers, got her robe from the chair near the bed, and, accompanied by the dogs, left her bedroom.
The upstairs hall was dim but not dark, lit by several lamps turned down low. Amanda moved quietly; she wasn’t especially worried about waking anyone, since there were no occupied bedrooms between her room and the main stairs, but after the previous night’s commotion, she certainly didn’t want to even take the chance of disturbing anyone.
She paused at the top of the stairs, watching the dogs start down the carpeted treads, then turned her head as a hint of motion caught her eye.
At the other end of the hall, where the master bedroom was located and where the rear staircase led down to the back of the main house, a faint light could be seen underneath Jesse’s door. There was no lamp nearby, but it was easy to see Maggie because she wore a filmy white nightgown. She reached Jesse’s door, opened it, and slipped inside. A few moments later, the faint light inside the room went out.
After an instant of surprise, Amanda said to herself, Well, why not? Maybe it was sex, or maybe just comfort. If it was comfort the two shared, who could wonder at it? For all his strength and autocratic ways, Jesse was a man facing his own mortality, and at such times even the strong might need to lean on someone else, however briefly or secretly. And if it was sex … well, why not?
Jesse had been a widower for forty years, and if he was the typical Daulton male, sex was an important— not to say vital—part of his life. Judging by what Amanda had read, Daulton men were sexually active right up until burial—several had fathered children into their eighties—and given his potent energy even in these last months of his life, it was likely Jesse enjoyed sex as well as he enjoyed all of life’s other pleasures.
Maggie had come into this house an unattached young woman, undoubtedly attractive, and had probably fallen in love with Jesse—who’d been only thirty-five then and no doubt at the peak of his vitality— early on; he had just lost a beloved wife, and might well have reached out to her at some point because he needed comfort—or only sex.
Frowning a little, Amanda followed the dogs down the dim stairs. She couldn’t help wondering if Maggie had ever hoped Jesse might marry her. Surely she had; a woman of her generation must have found the prospect of being a lifelong mistress impossible to envision, particularly at a time and in a part of the country where such a thing, if publicly known, would have been viewed with harsh disapproval.
But in all probability, Amanda thought, Maggie had never imagined that relationship would go on for so many years. Probably, she had expected marriage all along and had, finally and perhaps only recently, looked back at the decades with a shock of realization.
Jesse was dying … and Maggie would never be his wife.
I’m being fanciful. I don’t know any of this.
But if she was right, Amanda thought, it was, at least on the face of it, yet another black mark against Jesse. To keep a woman in his house for so many years, first as a nurse to his child and then as his housekeeper, paying her for those duties, and all the time to receive her into his bed completely on his own selfish terms was … it was positively medieval.
Amanda paused on the landing as a flash of lightning illuminated the old grandfather clock there. She looked at the clock without really seeing it, then shook her head and went on.
It was none of her business, of course. Maggie was certainly a grown woman and able to leave; she wa
sn’t a slave or an indentured servant, after all. And, anyway, Amanda didn’t know she was right about any of this. For all she knew, it was Maggie who disdained marriage, preferring no legal tie, and Jesse who wanted one.
Except that Jesse did tend to get what he wanted.
Those thoughts and speculations fled when Amanda reached the kitchen. There was a light on, but she was still a little surprised when she saw Kate sitting at the small wooden table with a mug before her. The older woman wore a silk robe over her nightgown and her hair flowed loosely over her shoulders. She looked younger, and peculiarly vulnerable.
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said as she and the dogs paused just inside the room. “I didn’t know anyone else was up.”
Kate shook her head a little. “I hate storms,” she said. “I thought some herbal tea might help me relax.” She smiled briefly. “It isn’t working.”
Amanda waited for booming thunder to diminish, then said, “I don’t like them much myself.” She got a glass from the cabinet and went to the refrigerator to pour milk; Helen had instructed her to stick to bland food and drink for a day or two and, anyway, she thought it might help her sleep.
She hesitated, wondering if Kate wanted to be alone, but when the other woman gestured slightly, she sat down on the other side of the table. Interesting, she thought. Kate had been freezing her out for days.
“you’re obviously feeling better,” Kate said.
Amanda nodded. “Much.” She sipped her milk and waited somewhat warily.
Kate looked at the mug her long fingers held, then said, “I’m sorry about what happened at the party.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Amanda said neutrally.
“Still, I’m sorry.” Kate was silent for a moment. Then, awkwardly, she said, “I’m sorry about all of it, Amanda. The way I’ve been acting, I mean.”
So you did care about Jesse’s will, after all Either that, or … Or had she been shocked, perhaps, by the reality of what a pinch of poison could do? Either way, it appeared that Kate wanted to make peace.