"I believe," Alaric said, his voice laced with a lethal calmness, "that you are being systematically weakened. Foxglove, perhaps. Or belladonna in small, non-lethal doses. Just enough to keep you ill. Just enough to ensure your body could never sustain a pregnancy, or to cause a miscarriage if you did conceive. And Abernathy was paid to provide the medical justification for it, paving the way for me to annul our marriage or wait for you to simply waste away."
Brynn looked down at her hands, trembling violently now. The dizzy spells, the nausea, the metallic taste that lingered on her tongue every morning after Clara brought her tea and the tonic. She had blamed herself. She had wept in the dark, cursing her own body for being defective, for failing the man she loved.
"Oh, Alaric," she gasped, tears welling in her eyes again, but this time they were born of anger, not sorrow. "They made me believe I was broken."
Alaric was out of his chair in a second, pulling her up and wrapping her in a fiercely protective embrace. She buried her face in his linen shirt, breathing in the scent of sandalwood and clean skin.
"You are not broken," Alaric whispered fiercely against her hair. "You are perfect. And I swear to you on my life, those who dare to touch you, those who dare to scheme against us in our own home, will face a reckoning they cannot even begin to fathom."
He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes, his own blazing with a terrifying, vengeful light. "Starting tomorrow, Clara will no longer have access to your chambers. You will eat and drink nothing unless it comes directly from my hands or the head chef. I will have the tonic analyzed by a chemist I trust."
"And Nansen?" Brynn asked, her voice steadying as she drew strength from her husband's unwavering resolve.
"Nansen," Alaric said, a grim, terrifying smile touching the corners of his mouth, "is going to find himself very warmly welcomed at our upcoming country house party. We are going to play a game, Brynn. We are going to let them think they are winning."
Brynn looked at the roasted pheasant, the fine wine, the heavy silver. The dinner table had transformed from a place of quiet retreat into a war council.
"I am not too frail to fight, Alaric," she said, lifting her chin, the blood finally rushing back to her cheeks.
"I know, my love," Alaric replied, pulling her chair out for her once more. "Now, sit down and eat. We have an empire to defend and a cousin to destroy."
Autumn painted the sprawling grounds of Westmore Park in brilliant shades of amber and crimson, providing a picturesque backdrop for what was secretly a meticulously orchestrated battlefield. Carriages arrived daily, depositing London's elite at the grand portico of the Duke's ancestral estate.
Among the earliest arrivals was Nansen Wyndham. He sauntered into the great hall with the unearned arrogance of a man who believed the marble beneath his boots would soon belong to him.
Brynn watched him from the gallery above, her grip on the balustrade firm. Two weeks had passed since the supper that changed everything. Under Alaric's vigilant protection, she had secretly ceased taking the foul-tasting tonic. The change in her constitution was nothing short of miraculous: the dizzy spells had vanished, the color had returned to her cheeks, and the lethargy that had bound her to her bedchambers was entirely gone.
Yet, to the outside world—and specifically to Clara and Nansen—she played the part of the fading duchess. She expertly applied rice powder to pale her complexion and leaned heavily on her maid's arm whenever they walked the corridors.
"He looks far too pleased with himself," Alaric murmured, stepping up behind her and slipping an arm around her waist.
"He believes his plan is reaching its culmination," Brynn whispered back, leaning into his warmth. "Clara told me this morning that Doctor Abernathy is expected to arrive tomorrow at Nansen's special invitation, just in case my frail nerves require attention during the festivities."
Alaric's jaw tightened. "Perfect. I want all the rats in the same trap."
The trap itself was being prepared in Alaric's private study. The chemist he had employed, a brilliant, reclusive apothecary named Thomas Higgins, had sent his report via a trusted courier: the tonic was a calculated, insidious brew of diluted hemlock and belladonna. It was not meant to kill her quickly, but to mimic severe systemic failure, ensuring any potential pregnancy would end in a tragic miscarriage while slowly destroying her organs over years. It was a coward's poison.
Later that evening, the estate's massive dining hall glowed with the light of hundreds of beeswax candles. Brynn sat at the opposite end of the long table from Alaric, flanked by gossiping dowagers and ambitious lords. Nansen was seated near the center, holding court with a raucous tale about a horse race in Newmarket.
Every so often, his eyes would dart toward Brynn, tracking her supposed frailty. She obliged him by delicately waving away a plate of roasted venison and pressing a lace handkerchief to her lips, feigning a sudden bout of nausea.
"Are you quite well, cousin?" Nansen called out, his voice laced with a sickening faux concern that silenced the immediate chatter. "You look frightfully pale. Perhaps the journey to the country was too taxing for your delicate constitution."
Alaric's eyes met hers down the length of the mahogany table. It was a silent signal.
"I am perfectly well, Nansen," Brynn replied, ensuring her voice wavered just enough to sound unconvincing. "Just a momentary faintness. Clara has prepared my tonic. I am sure I shall be restored shortly."
Nansen's smile did not reach his eyes. "Of course. We must trust in Dr. Abernathy's remedies. The man is a genius with feminine ailments."
The following afternoon, Dr. Abernathy's carriage rattled into the courtyard. Alaric did not greet him. Instead, he allowed Nansen to welcome the physician and escort him to a guest suite in the east wing.
Alaric had intentionally placed Abernathy's chambers adjacent to Nansen's with a connecting door that the Duke knew was poorly soundproofed. He also knew of the hidden servants' passage running behind the walls of those very rooms.
That night, while the guests were occupied with a string quartet in the drawing room, Alaric and Brynn slipped into the dusty, narrow passage. Through the small, concealed ventilation grates, the voices from Nansen's parlor carried perfectly.
"She looks worse than I expected," Abernathy was saying, his voice tight with anxiety. "I told you, Wyndham, the dosage must be controlled. If she dies here with a house full of peers, there will be an inquest. The magistrates will demand a post-mortem."