My Lady Jane(40)

“Honestly,” he managed to rasp. “You need three armed men to subdue me? I’m already dying.”

The man who was tying up his wrist grunted and jerked the rope tight.

“Oh,” Edward said, with sudden clarity. “Because you think I might transform into a lion and devour the lot of you?”

If only he could.

When he was secured, the men melted into the shadows, leaving him alone with Boubou. The old doctor looked tired and gruff, like he was unaccustomed to being awake at this hour, and it irritated him. He set the lantern down and slung a dark satchel from his back, from which he unrolled a set of rather sharp-looking knives.

Edward hardly felt the pain when the doctor cut his arms and drained the blood into a large pewter bowl. He was nearly senseless, hovering just outside some balmy unconsciousness, when the door creaked and through his half-open eyelids Edward thought he saw Lord Dudley’s nose. Which in his semi-delirious state struck him as hilarious.

“Excellent,” he slurred. “So glad you could join us, John.”

“Always so petulant,” the duke replied. “Foolish boy.”

Now Boubou was holding a goblet to his mouth. Unlike the tonic they’d given him last time, before he’d revised his will, this one tasted so sweet it made his teeth ache.

Wicked, he thought.

He tried not to swallow, but Boubou held his head back and kept pouring the poison down his throat, unrelenting until he was forced to swallow. The doctor wiped Edward’s lips with a napkin.

“So this is it,” Edward hardly had the strength to say. “Bravo, Boubou. You’ve successfully committed regicide.”

Boubou’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “It was a pleasure serving you, Your Majesty.”

Edward laughed. He was floating out of himself. Boubou was untying his hands but he couldn’t feel them. He drifted between light and dark. The last thing he remembered before he spun away entirely was the sound of the door closing, and a key turning in the lock.

There was a scratching sound. Once, and then again. Edward sucked in a lungful of air. He was alive. How was he alive?

The scratching came again, more insistently.

“Pet?” he called hoarsely.

Now he heard a sharp, bright noise from the direction of the door. The mew of a cat. Which made no sense.

He sat up. The wounds on his arms from the bloodletting throbbed, but his head felt remarkably clear. He threw off the blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Tested his strength.

Maybe he could stand.

He tried. He stumbled to the door and attempted to open it.

Locked.

The meow came again. There was a flicker of light under the doorway.

He swayed and put his hand against the rough oak of the door to steady himself.

“Hello?” he whispered.

“Edward,” came a faint, familiar voice on the other side of the door.

“Bess,” he breathed.

“I can’t stay,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her. “They’ll come back. They assume you’ll be dead by now, but they’ll come back to check. They wanted to make it look like you died of ‘the Affliction,’ but if they find you alive now, Edward . . .”

“Get me out of here.”

“I can’t. I don’t have the key. You have to go out the window.”

“Bess, it’s a fifty-foot drop.”

“You could climb it,” she suggested. “When you were a boy you were always such a climber. You were never afraid of heights.”

He snorted. Right. Climb down. But carefully, step by deliberate step, he walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. It was morning, the sun just breaching the palace walls. Below him, so far below, the courtyard stretched toward the river. Guards were posted at regular intervals.

No good.

“Bess?” he murmured.

“I’m here.”

“I can’t climb down. There’s got to be another way.”

She didn’t answer.

He moved back to the door and leaned against it. He felt stronger now, but he was also so tired that he almost couldn’t stand.

“I gave you a draught in the apricots to counteract the poison, but it won’t last,” Bess whispered. “You have to get out, Edward. Then go north. To Gran at Helmsley. She can help you. I’ll join you if I can.”

“How did you know they were going to come for me tonight?” His knees wobbled, but he fought to stay upright.

“There’s no time to explain,” she said. “You need to go. Now.”

“I would love to,” he said. “There’s only one problem. I’m currently locked in a tower.”

She sighed. “You’ll have to climb . . .”

“I’m too weak,” he said. “It’s too high up.”

“. . . or you will have to change yourself. You have to find your animal form.”

He would have laughed, but he was too shocked at the idea. “My animal form. You’re saying I’m an E?ian.”

“Your father was an E?ian,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Yes. I remember.” His hand formed into a fist against the door. “I’m not my father.”

“Your mother was an E?ian, too.”