The Poyson Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

somewhat resembles you, and that's who I thought you were at first glance."
    "Resembles me?" Elizabeth asked, stopping so suddenly he almost bumped into her. Her tone and glance were more withering than curious.
    "I mean in hair color, height, and form," he added quickly. "She hardly has your fine features, bearing, or presence. No grace like yours, cousin. She's a bumbling sort, but Mother quite favors her. I'll just stop in here." He indicated a door that had to be, by the smells and sounds emanating from it, the kitchen. "I'll have Glenda send someone up to Mother. When she exerts herself, she sleeps for hours. I've been sitting with her when I wasn't weak with blood loss myself."
    Elizabeth followed him a little ways down the dim hall. She was surprised to realize she still wore her cloak, though her hood had long fallen down her back. "And tell Glenda," she added, "to give my breakfast to my man out with the horses. Ask her, I mean, will you?"
    He inclined his head in a hint of bow as
    Glenda came out with a tray. While
    Henry explained, the woman's narrow eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them. She nodded with a sniff, muttered a curse against poor Meg, and bellowed for Piers to come take the "fine lady's tray" to the stables.
    No, Elizabeth thought again, they didn't stand on ceremony here. Ordinarily it might have amused her, but she felt only foreboding as a male servant appeared to swirl Henry's cloak over his shoulders and give him his cap before they went outside.
    A bench against a brick wall in a patch of sun overlooked the kitchen herb garden. It was laid out in neat rows surrounding a cleverly knotted central pattern that the early frost had not yet blighted in this wind-sheltered place. Beyond lay the kitchen door and a window with its view partially obscured by hanging, drying clumps of herbs.
    "Please, sit, Your Grace, and I shall tell you all."
    "Will you not call me Elizabeth when we are alone together?" They sat, of necessity, close on the narrow bench. "Or you know," she went on, her voice almost wi/l, "here I almost feel I should be just plain Bess and be quite at home, except for what you have to tell me."
    He nodded and flushed--unless it was the crisp breeze that curled around the corner that suddenly burnished his cheeks. "Of course. And you must call me Harry as my friends do. Elizabeth, I did not mean for Mother to summon you here, but I am heartened she did." She saw he was more distraught than he had let on at first. He kept shifting his position, and his deep voice faltered. "I was afraid to put this--this dangerous disorder--to you in writing. The attack on my man and me in the forest not far from here was no accident--when I thought I had come home covertly to see my mother before she--she ..."
    "But are you certain she is dying?" she asked, leaning slightly toward him. "Can we not bring in some skilled apothecary or physician?"
    He hung his head, staring at his hands gripped on his knees. "She's had all the local ones. The thing is, she's given up the will to live since my stepfather died last winter. She's been wasting away with worsening signs like watering eyes, nausea, stomach pains, and general weakness.
    Though I am glad you came, I fear that now that she's seen me and you at long last ..."
    "That she will have naught else to live for?" He looked up sharply. "You read my mind. But to this other dreadful business. My man and friend Will Benton was killed riding next to me not a quarter hour before we would have arrived here."
    "Killed? Then, that is the murder. I am sorry, cousin, for him and you," she said, covering his hands with one of hers. "Thank the Lord you will mend, but I am sorely grieved for his loss."
    "He was ever your loyal subject. He attached himself to my faded star, but it was you he longed to see in power." He slumped slightly. She held his hand tighter. "In a way it's my fault he's dead," he went on, his voice shaky. "He was hardly the target of such a