Upon a Midnight Dream (London Fairy Tales #1)(62)

“Blast!” He ran out of the kitchens and up to the bedrooms.

Bursting into Rosalind’s room, he stopped dead when his eyes took in the scene. Rosalind lay across the floor, appearing to be sleeping peacefully. And Mr. Fitzgerald cleaned a dagger by the window.

“Ah, so the prince comes to rescue the princess, does he?” Mr. Fitzgerald let out a bark of laughter.

“You!” Stefan roared. “It was you the whole time! There was no curse!”

“Only the curse that Rosalind’s mother brought into the family. I so wanted my love to be happy. So I gave her everything she wanted, even when she married the late earl. So very tragic, his accident. The man didn’t even taste the hemlock as it claimed his sorry excuse for a life.”

“Why kill him?”

“Because she started to care for him, why else?” Mr. Fitzgerald smiled and closed his eyes. “You see, I’ve been slowly poisoning the family for years. I wanted the earl to be unable to father children. He did, however, father two. Rosalind and Gwendolyn. Isabelle was a creature of my own making, though she never knew. Her mother, bless her soul, was so easily manipulated. I poisoned her against her husband, told her he was not able to father children. The family of course blamed her, so I offered her an escape. We could continue our love in secret. I would be the rightful father and when the time was right, we would threaten to expose the secret and run away together.”

Stefan made a move towards Rosalind, but Mr. Fitzgerald pointed the dagger at Stefan. “Confession is good for the soul, don’t you agree?”

“Of course.”

“I mean to confess my sins before I kill you. It would be polite after keeping you in suspense for so long.”

“Then by all means,” Stefan ground out, waiting until the perfect time before he strangled the man and sent him to his eternal punishment.

“She fell in love with him. It was slow—she tried to hide it from me. So I killed him. She was unable to get over the death, so I began to give her tea. I began to poison her mind with lies. Truly, it was so easy to confuse the woman it hardly seemed fair, so lost was she in her pain. I even convinced her that she helped kill her husband. It was too easy to allow her to nearly kill Rosalind. You see, if the mother was crazy, the fingers would not be pointed in my direction.”

“And now?” Stefan asked.

“Now,” Mr. Fitzgerald laughed. “Now I’m rich. All of my daughters are gone or will be the minute I drive my dagger into Rosalind’s heart. For I hate her the most of them all. She looks like her father the most, and she had his heart in her hand. She had his love. I never got to experience love from my daughters because the countess refused to tell anyone.”

“Jealousy is a sad excuse for murder.”

“Murder,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, “is never an excuse. It’s an ending. A finale. And it’s the only way to keep everyone silent. Unfortunately, Rosalind’s sleeping spells were happening less often, she became too accustomed to the tea. I imagine only her body sleeps now when she is exposed to it. In her sleep, she hears all. But she is paralyzed, do you know how frightening it must be for a woman to hear about her death, yet be unable to do a thing about it? Though I don’t claim to be a botanist, I’ve read that the body can almost become frozen in this state.”

Mr. Fitzgerald pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Stefan as he slowly walked to Rosalind’s side.

“I killed your father, my sweet. I sold your sister, and provoked the other to run away. I destroyed everything, and now I will kill the man you love.”

Stefan ducked just before the pistol went off.

Mr. Fitzgerald swore as Stefan’s body rammed into his. The dagger came slashing about Stefan’s face. With love driving him, Stefan grasped the blade of the dagger, letting it dig into his skin as blood trickled down his wrist, and slowly twisted it towards Mr. Fitzgerald’s throat.

Shaking, he slowly pushed it in until no life was left in the man’s cold eyes. With an oath he pushed away and ripped some of his clothing to cover the deep cuts.

“Rose,” he whispered as he sat across the bed. “Rose come back to me, awake my sleeping beauty.”

His lips brushed across hers as a single tear slid down her cheek.

“I love you,” he choked. “I love you so much.”

Green eyes flashed at him, and the beauty mouthed. “I love you, too.”





Chapter Twenty-seven


She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;

She is woman, and therefore to be won—Henry VI, Part I



Rosalind had never been so terrified, as when she overheard all the horrendous actions Mr. Fitzgerald had taken against her family and his own flesh and blood. She still shivered when she thought upon it.

Rest was the last thing she wanted, especially now that she knew she wasn’t dying and that her sleeping spells had been caused by nightshade in her tea. A botanist, Mr. Fitzgerald, or Edward was not, for he hadn’t realized a person could become used to the stuff in small doses. His greatest mistake was in trying to trick Rosalind into thinking she was dying, when really the plant was only dangerous in large doses and only if injected.

A chill ran down her spine when she thought of the other plants found in his possession. Monkshood being one of them. She would have surely died had he given her something more potent, and she was suddenly thankful that he had been thinking he was harming her with nightshade instead of the more poisonous plant.