A Rose at Midnight Read Online Free PDF

doctor had warned him that it might return, that it might…
    Taverner’s muttered words finally penetrated. “What did you say, Tavvy?”
    “I said it weren’t no bleeding gastritis. I’ve seen gastritis. My Uncle George died of it. It doesn’t work this way, not that sudden. And not with a young healthy cove like yourself.”
    Nicholas managed to pull himself up in bed, cursing the trembling weakness in his limbs. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice a flat demand.
    “Poison, Blackthorne. I think you’ve been poisoned.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous! Who would poison me? If Hargrove dies, I imagine Melissa will be nothing but grateful to me. No one else bears him any affection, and he has no family.”
    “Begging your pardon, sir, but he’s not your only enemy. You haven’t lived a blameless life.”
    Nicholas managed a ghost of a smile. “Truer words were never spoken, Tavvy. Not many people would mourn my passing. But there’s a question of opportunity. I don’t think Ellen would have sprinkled rat poison in the brandy before she left.”
    “No more brandy for you ,” Tavvy announced decisively.
    “Don’t be absurd, man!”
    “And I’m going to fix your meals myself. I never did trust the French.”
    “Now you’ve really gone mad. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me that ancient old Wilkins is avenging his despoiled daughter.”
    “Did you despoil his daughter?” Taverner asked, momentarily distracted.
    “I have no idea if he even has a daughter. If he does, and she’s pretty, and I was around, then I imagine I did just that.”
    “Those are a lot of ifs. No, my money is on the Frenchie.”
    Blackthorne considered this. “I admit she didn’t like me much. I hardly think that constitutes a motive for murder.”
    “I don’t know what her motive was,” Taverner declared. “All I know is she had a better chance than anyone. She’s the one who cooked your meal, isn’t she? And it ain’t something as simple as not liking you. I saw her face. She hates you. Hates you something fierce.”
    “Absurd,” Nicholas said, closing his eyes and considering the notion nonetheless.
    “Maybe. But I’m keeping a close eye on her. And she don’t put her foreign hands on anything you eat. No one does but me.”
    “You sure you’re not poisoning me, Tavvy?” he murmured, exhausted from the struggle his body had been through.
    “Nah,” his servant replied. “I’d stab you in the back if I’d a mind to. Poison is a woman’s game.”
    “Perhaps,” Nicholas said wearily. “But I suggest for once in your life you try to be subtle. If it was poison, and she was the one who did it, we need to catch her in the act.”
    “I’d like to cut her throat.”
    Nicholas waved an impatient hand. “Wait and see. Give me a couple of days to regain my strength. You insist on fixing all my food, and watch out for the ingredients she lets you use.”
    “What do you think I am, a flat?” Taverner demanded, incensed.
    Nicholas ignored him. “Then, if the gastritis hasn’t returned and I’m feeling better, we’ll have her prepare me a splendid meal.”
    “We will?”
    Nicholas smiled with haunting sweetness. “And we’ll make her eat it first.”
    Taverner nodded, chuckling. “You always were a bad ‘un,” he said.
    “I try, Tavvy. I do try.” And closing his eyes, Nicholas Blackthorne fell into an exhausted sleep. Only to dream, inexplicably, of France.

Chapter 3
    Nicholas was twenty-two when he first went to Burgundy. He was old for a grand tour, too old to have an impoverished cleric leading him around with a guidebook. Indeed, his main goal in his tour of the continent was to raise as much hell as he could get away with.
    He’d been sent down from Cambridge, of course. It had taken him the better part of three years to accomplish that, but in the end he did, wasting the expensive education his martinet of a father had provided for him.
    It had been a close call. The problem