Chapter Thirty-three

The place they found was a small antechamber where a number of pieces of furniture had been pushed out of the way. Ned pulled off dusty covers to find a pair of low-armed settees covered in tapestry. Even without the covers, they were dusty, but Ned was not about to worry about that. He just wanted to get Marguerite seated before she keeled over. She had turned pale—a ghastly pale—at Seznec’s words.

Ned sat down beside her and took her icy hand in his and chafed it in an effort to restore some warmth to her. They waited for Seznec to begin.

“You must forgive me,” the young pharmacist said as he sat across from them, running nervous fingers through his hair, as oblivious to the dust as they. “Your discovery, your miraculous discovery, made me forget the reason I came today. And I forgot as well that what I have learned may distress you.”

With an air of determination, he looked Ned full in the face. “I needed to find a way to determine if there was anything wrong with the tonic. I caught a pair of mice.” He paused. “Two, you see, in case one was already ill. I gave them a few spoonfuls of the tonic. Both died.”

Marguerite’s hand clenched Ned’s, but she did not speak.

Seznec continued. “As I told you when you came to my shop, I do not have a true laboratory here, not the kind you might find in Paris. I used the Marsh test for arsenic, which would have fit the symptoms you described, but that test was negative. Then I noticed that there was a grainy feel to the tonic. That should not have been.”

Ned wished the pharmacist would hurry up and get to the point. His impatience must have showed, because Seznec shook his head. “I will not trouble you with the things I tried, but eventually I sieved out some small seeds that looked familiar. They had an odd, irregular shape. I checked with one of the farmers, and he confirmed it. It was agrostemme—Agrostemma githago.” He peered at Ned. “I think in England you call this corn cockle.”

Ned shook his head. “I am not a farmer. I know very little of plants.” He looked at Marguerite, who also shook her head. With a musician for a father, she had always lived in cities. What would she know of gardens?

“No matter,” said Seznec. “It is a common plant that often grows in fields of grain. There have been occasions when its seeds have contaminated flour, usually in such small quantity that little or no harm is done. But when I was a student at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris there was a case where a small boy died from these seeds. As you can imagine, this impressed me greatly, and I remembered it when I saw the seeds again.”

Marguerite was shaking her head. “But you said this plant grows in grain fields. We have no grain fields growing near the chateau. How could this happen?”

“Ah, there is the question,” Seznec said. “For the seeds to land in the wheat, this is a tragic but understandable accident. For the seeds to end up in Dr. Fernac’s tonic—I do not see how this can be an accident.” He sat there with his hands on his knees and a stern expression on his face.

Marguerite did not seem to be listening to him. She was still shaking her head and speaking softly to herself. “How could she know?”

Her question drew the pharmacist’s attention, and it looked as if he was about to ask for an explanation when Ned interrupted. “This is a common plant, you say. Have there been other cases in other places?”

“Ah yes. But almost never fatal, and probably often not even noticed.”

“And it also grows in England?” Ned persisted.

“Assuredly. It is common everywhere, and has an attractive flower.” Seznec’s stern expression relaxed. “Children often gather bouquets of it. One touches it with no harm.”

“Children…” Marguerite’s murmur drew Ned’s attention, but she was looking off into the distance.

He turned back to Seznec. “You said the seeds are an odd shape?”

“Yes. Here, let me show you.” The pharmacist reached into a pocket and withdrew a small envelope. He opened it to display a dozen or so small seeds, twisted so that they looked almost like tiny seashells. “Touch them.”

Ned did so, paying close attention and noting that they seemed to be covered with tiny prickles. “Yes. I will recognize them if I ever see them again.”

“Good. And if you see them, you should destroy them. Meanwhile, if there is any more of Dr. Fernac’s tonic in the chateau, it must be poured away and the bottle sterilized. You will see to this?” He looked from Ned to Marguerite and back again.

Marguerite was still lost in her thoughts, so it was Ned who assured the pharmacist that the matter would be taken care of. “And we can promise you that there will be no more accidental problems.”

Ned and Seznec exchanged measuring looks. The pharmacist gave a short nod. “Good.” Then he smiled. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must return to the village and let everyone know that the Treasure of Morvan has been found. You can have no idea what this will mean to us. No idea.”

Marguerite felt cold. She could not believe how cold she felt. It was as if she had fallen into a place where all was ice. She was not even sure she could move—she might be frozen in place. She heard M. Seznec leaving, but she could not seem to turn her head to look at him.

With a sudden rush of determination, she pushed herself to her feet. She had to escape these rooms haunted by a dead past. She had to get outside. She needed to be alone. Half running, she almost tripped over the discarded covers, but she recovered. Her cloak was in the next room and she snatched it up as she ran past and down the stairs.

Ned’s voice was calling her. It seemed to come from a great distance. She kept running.

“Stop it, Marguerite. You have to stop.”

An arm—Ned’s arm—wrapped around her and pulled her hard against him. She looked around and realized that she was outside now. The wind whipped her hair free of its pins and strands lashed her face and her eyes. The hair in her eyes must be what was causing the tears.

He pulled her close to him and held her head against his shoulder with one hand while the other gently rubbed her back.

“Stop that,” she said, her voice muffled against his coat. “You are treating me like a small animal. A pet.” But she did not lift her head. She could feel his smile against her hair. Was that possible?

He did not remove his hands, but he allowed her to pull back enough to stand by herself while he studied her face. “You are feeling more yourself, then,” he said.

A foolish remark. Who else could she be?

She tried to turn away, but he turned her face back to him. “It cannot be a surprise,” he said. “You suspected… we both suspected.”

“But suspecting isn’t the same as knowing. So long as it is just suspicion, there is always hope.” She closed her eyes. “And until I told you, you did not even suspect.”

“Marguerite…” He tightened his hands on her shoulders. “Did I suspect that she was trying to poison Tony? No, of course not. But did I think that there was something wrong with her? At first I thought she was just childish, but recently—yes, I began to think there was something seriously wrong about her.”

“Childish, yes. Delphine is such a child. She may not have realized how dangerous these seeds, this corn cockle, could be. Such a silly name, corn cockle. How could she think it deadly? She may have thought the seeds would just make people ill.”

She opened her eyes to see Ned looking at her with pity in his eyes. She hated pity, and lifted her chin, which made him smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now think back. When her uncle died, how did she react? Was she horrified? Frightened?”

The memory came back—Delphine looking up from her needlework when her mother came to break the news. “Then he cannot make me go back to the school,” she had said with a smile, and went back to her needlework.

“No.” Marguerite drew the word out. “No. She was not horrified. She was not even upset. How could we not have noticed how strange that was?”

Suddenly she was furious, at she knew not what. “How could we not notice?” She began to beat on his chest with her fists. “Why didn’t we notice? Why didn’t we see that something was dreadfully wrong?”

Ned’s hands rested gently on her shoulders, and he didn’t even try to stop her. He just let her beat away at him until she collapsed against him in tears. “You said it yourself. You all thought she was childish, just as I did. No one would be likely to think anything else. No one would want to think anything else.”

They began walking. She felt so safe walking with his arm around her shoulders. It was frightening how safe it felt. She did not want to think about how soon it must end, how soon they would have to part, so she put her arm around his waist to be closer.

“The next thing we must do,” he began.

She straightened up, not having expected the farewell to come so soon.

“The next thing we must do,” he continued, “is to see if there are any more bottles of tonic floating around.”

“Tonic?” That was not what she had expected, and her confusion made her feel a bit stupid.

“Yes. Dr. Fernac may have some on hand, and Tony may have an extra. If the tonic is something the good doctor frequently hands out to patients, the housekeeper may have a few bottles tucked away in the pantry. We can’t assume any of them are safe so we need to get rid of any we find.”

She stopped, and he looked at her in surprise. Formality. She needed formality. There was no other way she would be able to say what she must say. He would not say it himself, but it must be said. “Lord Edward, this is very kind of you, and I can never thank you enough for the help you have given me, but I think it is time for you to leave.”

“Leave?” He seemed confused. Did he not realize that she was setting him free?

“Yes, leave. You have found the treasure for your friend, and he is safe now. No more harm will come to him. You need have no worry on that score.”

He folded his arms and shook his head at her. “You really are the most ridiculous creature, Marguerite. You left out the most important thing of all.”

Now she was confused. What had she forgotten?

“You forgot your promise to marry me.” He took her arm to lead her into the house. “Now we need to get to work and find tonic and then see if your little cousin has a cache of those blasted seeds hidden anywhere.”