Lysander lay back upon the pillows, somewhat reassured by the fact that it had indeed been a very small dose. As the throbbing in his brain began to distance itself and his drowsiness grew, he realized he had not been offered the lady's name.

And he really, really wanted to know.

MR. BING FOUND GEMMA in her stillroom, putting away the bottle of laudanum she kept in a locked cabinet. The room smelled of flowers, or perhaps cooking spices, and the sometimes stronger smells of camphor and linseed oil. Bing tended to stay out of that room. He was much too modern a fellow, he assured himself, to believe in talk of witches and such — but when his employer lost herself in her work for days at a time, and he would wander in to find her looking pale and peculiar with her gaze distant and her thoughts elsewhere, he had to wonder.

Well, there was no such thing as witches, and that was that.

Tonight the stillroom was dim with the light of a single candle and there were no mysterious potions boiling away on the small stove in the corner using the pots that she wouldn't let him use for food — not saying that she made poisons exactly, or perhaps she did. He would have no way of knowing.

"It ain't goin' t' work, you know that, Missus."

She didn't look at him as she carefully reattached her small ring of keys to its elegant chatelaine on the hook at her waist.

"You can't bring home every stray and hope to fix 'em all," he insisted.

She ignored him. Instead, she picked up a broom and began to sweep a floor that didn't need sweeping. She was a stubborn one, his Mrs. Oakes. As strong as any Daleswoman, for all her refined Southern ways.

He wasn't going to change her mind, and there was no reason why he should, for he'd never been able to before. Bing gave a heavy, obvious sigh.

"This is the bloody House of Last Resort," he grumbled to himself as he left his mistress to her work.

GEMMA CONTINUED TO PUT on a show of puttering about amongst her herbs until she was certain Mr. Bing had gone to his room.

Then she slipped from the stillroom with her candle and made her way down the hall to her chamber. As she passed the base of the staircase, she cast a glance upward, but all was silent.

Her visitor was asleep.

All in all, Gemma was rather proud of her dignified exit from the stranger's sickroom earlier. She was fairly certain that Mr. Bing had not detected her profound attraction to the man.

Well, it was certainly understandable. Heavens, what a mouthwatering fellow! If he'd been very handsome when unconscious, he was absolutely devastating while awake!