A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(88)

On each, Mertensia had listed the ingredients beside a tiny black skull, inked in lines so fine they might have been silken threads laid upon the label. I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. “So, not just the odd broken bone or spot of indigestion for Mertensia,” I murmured. “She has administered life and death to the people of this island.”

“Nothing so sinister as that,” Mertensia said as she moved into the room on noiseless feet. She was carrying a basket of wood and Stoker hastened to take it from her. “Thank you. Another small log to keep the stove hot, I think,” she told him. He did her bidding, stirring up the fire with a poker before placing the wood atop. She wore a pinafore over her clothes, a long affair that reached from shoulders to hem, and her sleeves were rolled back, her hair tucked haphazardly into a snood.

“I made up the foxglove for Mother Nance. Her heart gives her trouble from time to time, and I ensured the preparation was approved by her doctor on the mainland. The others have their uses as well,” she told me as she went to pluck a dried assortment of herbs from the bundles tied to the beams overhead. “More arnica, for your bruising,” she added with a glance at Stoker. “And for Tiberius’. The pair of you have managed to use up my entire store cupboard of the stuff.”

She smiled a little when she said it, but she could not sustain it. “You are worried about Malcolm,” Stoker suggested.

“It isn’t like him to be so irresponsible,” she said, collecting the rest of her ingredients. “Trenny said I should keep busy. No doubt he will turn up by sundown as Tiberius says and have a good laugh at us all for being so worried.” Her tone was light but her eyes were shadowed.

“We have searched the castle and found no sign of him,” I told her. “But we have uncovered evidence that Helen is a fraud as a medium.”

She snorted. “I could have told you that. She spent an entire summer here without even a hint that she might have sensitivities. Then as soon as she left here, she set herself up as Madame Helena. It’s a grotesque joke.” She broke the dried arnica into smaller bits, dropping them into a shallow stone mortar. She took up a pestle of the same material and began to grind the brittle leaves slowly.

“Helen said she had to provide for herself and for Caspian,” I told her.

“She has a small annuity from St. Maddern’s that Malcolm arranged after Lucian’s death. If she needed more, Helen had only to ask and Malcolm would have given them a home,” she retorted. “Lucian’s widow and child would never have been turned out in the cold.”

“Perhaps,” I mused. “But it seems a hard thing to one’s pride to have to come cap in hand to one’s relations to ask for money. I seem to have overheard Malcolm refusing Caspian a request for a loan only yesterday. The discussion grew quite heated.”

Mertensia’s hand stilled for a moment, but she went on, doggedly. “I do not know anything about that.”

“Then perhaps you would like to tell us about your quarrel with Rosamund the night before she disappeared,” I said sweetly.

She dropped the pestle with a loud crack. Stoker stood beside her, his manner gentle. “Mertensia, I am certain it was nothing—” he began.

She shied away from his hand, looking at him with sudden suspicion. “Is that how the two of you play at it? She hurls accusations and you settle the ruffled feathers?”

Stoker did not look at me. “I know it must seem that way—”

“Seem! You are her creature,” she spat. “Dancing to her tune, pretending to be kind when all the time you are waiting, like a spider.”

“You did not answer the question,” I said sharply, calling her attention back to me.

She returned to her work, taking up the pestle with shaking fingers. “Yes, we quarreled. Rosamund decided to show her true colors at last.”

“How?”

The fight seemed to have gone out of her. She ground her herbs as she spoke, her eyes never quite meeting mine, her back half-turned to Stoker. “She told me that things would be different after she married Malcolm. She said she had plans—for the village, for the household. I told her I did not mind if she wanted to make changes in the castle. It was her right as mistress. As long as I had my garden, I would be happy.”

Her voice faltered and I saw her knuckles whiten as she pressed the leaves to powder. “She wanted your garden, didn’t she?”

“All those years of work and she meant to tear it out. She wanted roses and peonies,” Mertensia said, fairly spitting the words. “She meant to pull down the whole poison garden, have the entire thing planted with flowers, pretty things, she said, instead of all those nasty poisonous plants she didn’t like.”

Stoker held himself quite still, but his voice was warm. “That must have felt like a betrayal,” he said.

“It was,” she admitted. She looked at him then, reluctantly, it seemed. “I thought I was going to have a sister of sorts. I’ve never had the knack of making friends easily, but Rosamund attached herself to me at school and for the few short months I was there, we were never apart. But the summer she came to stay here was different to what I expected.”

“How?” I asked gently.

“Difficult. Tiberius and Malcolm were always making such a fuss of her, dancing and riding and rowing. She monopolized them, but I was not surprised. Tiberius and Malcolm had always had a healthy rivalry. It was just the pair of them showing off. When Tiberius left, everything was quieter. I saw almost nothing of Malcolm, but I still never believed anything would come of it. He is just so proud of the island and she was interested in everything.”