Chapter 4

"You've nothing to apologize for, miss," Lucien said, and his voice came out rougher than he meant.She gave him a small, tired smile. "You're kind. But kindness doesn't buy medicine. The Duke does."She walked past him and down the stairs to meet the man she thought she was being sold to.Lucien stayed; he couldn't stop himself.On the little table by Kit's bed stood a brown glass bottle with a handwritten label: Kit's tonic. Mrs. Gaunt.Mrs. Agatha Gaunt was Silas's housekeeper, a tall, bony woman with a ring of keys at her waist and a mouth like a stitched seam. She had greeted the Duke's carriage with a smile that never reached her eyes.Lucien picked up the bottle and pulled the cork. He knew that smell. Every man who had ever watched a friend die slowly in an army hospital knew that smell: laudanum. Not a few drops—enough to put a grown man to sleep for a day.He looked at the thin girl breathing so slowly under the blanket, and suddenly he understood that the child wasn't sick at all. Someone was keeping her that way.Lucien poured a few drops into an empty scent vial from his pocket, set the bottle back exactly where it had stood, and walked downstairs—a footman with his eyes on the floor and murder in his heart.In the servants' hall, nobody spoke above a whisper. Supper was a heel of gray bread and a cup of weak beer for each of them. The cook told him without looking up that the beef roasting upstairs was for the Duke and the Crowthers, and the servants would get the bones on Sunday if they were lucky.A kitchen maid called Molly, no more than seventeen, had a fresh bruise on her cheek. When Lucien asked how she got it, the whole table went quiet."Master Basil," the cook finally muttered. "Don't ever be alone in a room with Master Basil."Basil Crowther was Silas's only son: twenty-six, soft-faced, with his father's charm and none of his father's caution. He drank before noon and thought the maids belonged to him like the furniture. Lucien filed the name away.Then the door to the servants' stairs opened, and Amelia came in, still in that faded gray dress, carrying a covered plate. The servants stood up at once."Sit down, please," she said, embarrassed. She set the plate in front of Molly. It was her own supper, untouched: two slices of beef and a roasted potato. "Put something cold on that cheek, Molly. And eat this."

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