“Yes,” she said, biting her lip. “I suppose you’ll have to go find Father Pardloe in Charles Town. If he …” Her voice died away.

“If he what?” he demanded, in no mood for obfuscation. She didn’t reply at once, but went to the sideboard and took down a bulbous black bottle. He recognized it; it was the German brandy Papa and Uncle Hal called black brandy, though the name was really “Blood of Martyrs.” He waved it away impatiently.

“I don’t need a drink.”

“Smell it.” She’d uncorked the bottle and now held it under his nose. He took an impatient sniff, then stopped. And sniffed again, more cautiously.

“I don’t pretend to be a judge of brandy,” Amaranthus said, watching him. “But Father Pardloe did give me a glass of this once. And it didn’t smell—or taste—like this.”

“You tasted it?” He raised a brow at her and she shrugged.

“Only a fingertip. It tastes much as it smells—hot, spicy. And that’s not how it should taste.”

William dipped a fingertip and tried it. She was right. It tasted … wrong, somehow. He wiped the drop of wine on his breeches, staring at her.

“Do you mean to say you think someone’s poisoned this?” His natural incredulity was lessened by the worry of the last few days, and he found that he wasn’t at all unwilling to believe this.

Amaranthus grimaced, gingerly putting the cork back into the bottle.

“A few weeks ago, Father Pardloe asked me did I know what foxglove is. I told him I did, and that he’d seen it—Mrs. Anderson has quite a lot of it bordering the front walk of her garden.” She took a short breath, as though her corset was too tight, and met William’s eye. “I told him it was poisonous. And I found that”—she nodded at the bottle—“locked up in the strongbox in his office. He gave me a key some time ago,” she added pointedly, “because all of my jewelry is in it.”

William looked at the bottle, black—and menacing. The fingers of the hand that had touched the stuff felt suddenly cold and seemed to be tingling. He rubbed them impatiently against his sleeve.

It wasn’t that he thought Uncle Hal wouldn’t kill someone he thought needed killing; he just didn’t believe he’d do it with poison. He said as much to Amaranthus, who looked at the bottle for a long moment, then back at him, her eyes troubled.

“Do you think he might have meant … to kill himself with it?” she asked quietly.

William swallowed. Faced with the imminent prospect of telling his wife what had become of their eldest son, and the eventual prospect of having his family and the regiment disgraced and destroyed … he didn’t think Harold, Duke of Pardloe, would seize upon suicide as an escape, but …

“Well, he didn’t take it with him to Charles Town,” he said firmly. “It’s no more than a three-day ride. I’ll go and find him. Put that stuff somewhere safe.”