The Perfect Poison Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS AMANDA QUICK

  The Third Circle

  The River Knows

  Second Sight

  Lie by Moonlight

  Wait Until Midnight

  The Paid Companion

  Late for the Wedding

  Don’t Look Back

  Slightly Shady

  Wicked Widow

  I Thee Wed

  With This Ring

  Affair

  Mischief

  Mystique

  Mistress

  Deception

  Desire

  Dangerous

  Reckless

  Ravished

  Rendezvous

  Scandal

  Surrender

  Seduction

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE

  Dark Light

  Silver Master

  Ghost Hunter

  After Glow

  Harmony

  After Dark

  Amaryllis

  Zinnia

  Orchid

  OTHER TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ

  Running Hot

  Sizzle and Burn

  White Lies

  All Night Long

  Falling Awake

  Truth or Dare

  Light in Shadow

  Summer in Eclipse Bay

  Smoke in Mirrors

  Dawn in Eclipse Bay

  Lost & Found

  Eclipse Bay

  Soft Focus

  Eye of the Beholder

  Flash

  Sharp Edges

  Deep Waters

  Absolutely, Positively

  Trust Me

  Grand Passion

  Hidden Talents

  Wildest Hearts

  Family Man

  Perfect Partners

  Sweet Fortune

  Silver Linings

  The Golden Chance

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of

  Pearson Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2009 by Jayne Ann Krentz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

  or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do

  not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation

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  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Quick, Amanda.

  The perfect poison / Amanda Quick. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-04665-4

  1. Women botanists—England—Fiction. 2. Secret societies—England—Fiction. 3. Psychic ability—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.R44P’.54—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This one is for my fantastic sister-in-law, Wendy Born. With love and thanks for the Ameliopteris amazonensis.

  And for Barbara Knapp, with my deepest appreciation and thanks for, among other things, introducing me to Mr. Marcus Jones.

  I am very grateful to you both for opening a window on the wonderful world of nineteenth-century botany.

  ONE

  Late in the reign of Queen Victoria . . .

  Lucinda stopped a few feet away from the dead man, trying to ignore the fierce undercurrents of tension that raged through the elegant library.

  The constable and the members of the grieving family were well aware of who she was. They watched her with a mixture of macabre fascination and barely concealed horror. She could hardly blame them. As the woman the press had once featured in a lurid scandal and a tale of shocking murder, she was not welcome in polite society.

  “I do not believe this,” the attractive, newly minted widow exclaimed. “Inspector Spellar, how dare you bring that woman into this household?”

  “This will only take a moment,” Spellar said. He inclined his head toward Lucinda. “If you would be so kind as to give me your opinion, Miss Bromley.”

  Lucinda was careful to keep her expression cool and composed. Later the family members would no doubt whisper to their friends and associates that she had appeared as cold as ice, just as the newspapers and the penny dreadfuls had portrayed her.

  As it happened, the thought of what she was about to do actually did chill her to the bone. She would far rather be home in her conservatory enveloped by the scents, colors and energy of her beloved plants. But for some reason that she could not explain, she found herself drawn to the work that she occasionally did for Spellar.

  “Certainly, Inspector,” she said. “That is why I’m here, is it not? I think we can safely say that I was not invited for tea.”

  There was a gasp from the widow’s spinster sister, a severe-looking woman who had been introduced as Hannah Rathbone.

  “Outrageous,” Hannah snapped. “Have you no sense of the propri
eties, Miss Bromley? A gentleman is dead. The least you can do is behave in a dignified manner and leave this household as quickly as possible.”

  Spellar gave Lucinda a veiled look, pleading silently with her to watch her tongue. She sighed and closed her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was jeopardize his investigation or cause him to think twice about requesting her advice in the future.

  At first glance one would be highly unlikely to guess Spellar’s profession. He was a comfortably stout man with a benign, cheerful countenance, a voluminous mustache and a thin ring of graying hair, all of which served to distract others from the sharp, insightful intelligence in his blue-green eyes.

  Few who were not well acquainted with him would guess that he possessed a true talent for noticing even the smallest clues at a murder scene. It was a psychical gift. But there were limits to his abilities. He could not detect any but the most obvious cases of poisoning.

  Fairburn’s body lay in the middle of the vast floral carpet. Spellar stepped forward and reached down to pull aside the sheet that someone had drawn over the dead man.

  Lady Fairburn burst into a fresh cascade of sobs.

  “Is this really necessary?” she cried brokenly.

  Hannah Rathbone gathered her into her arms.

  “There, there, Annie,” she murmured. “You must calm yourself. You know your nerves are very delicate.”

  The third family member in the room, Hamilton Fairburn, set his well-modeled jaw in grim lines. A handsome man in his mid-twenties, he was Fairburn’s son by a previous marriage. According to Spellar, it had been Hamilton who insisted on summoning a detective from Scotland Yard. When Fairburn had recognized Lucinda’s name, however, he had been aghast. Nevertheless, although he could have refused to allow her into the mansion, he had not done so. He wanted the investigation to go forward, she thought, even at the cost of having such a notorious female in his house.

  She walked toward the body, bracing herself for the disturbing sensations that always accompanied an encounter with the dead. No amount of preparation could entirely dampen the disorienting sense of utter emptiness that swept over her when she looked down at the figure on the floor. Whoever and whatever Fairburn had been while he was alive, that essence was gone.

  She knew that traces of evidence that might provide clues to the manner of his death still clung to the scene, however. Spellar would certainly spot most of them. But if there was any indication of poison, it was her mission to detect it. The psychical residue of toxic substances remained not only on the body but on anything the individual had touched in those last moments.

  There was often other, very unpleasant and much more obvious evidence, as well. In her experience most people who died after ingesting poison became violently ill before expiring. There were always exceptions, of course. A long, slow, steady diet of arsenic did not usually produce such dramatic results at the end.

  But there was no indication that Lord Fairburn had suffered from bouts of nausea before he died. His death could have been attributed to a stroke or a heart attack. Most families who moved in elevated circles, as the Fairburns did, would have preferred to accept such a diagnosis and thereby avoid the publicity that inevitably attended a murder investigation. She wondered what had made Hamilton Fairburn send a message to Scotland Yard. Clearly he had his suspicions.

  She concentrated for a moment on visual cues but they told her little. The dead man’s skin had turned a stark, ashen shade. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His lips were parted in a last gasp. She noticed that he had been older than his wife by at least a couple of decades. That was not an unusual circumstance when a wealthy widower remarried.

  Very deliberately, she stripped off her thin leather gloves. It was not always necessary to touch the body but direct physical contact made it easier to pick up nuances and faint traces of energy that she might not notice otherwise.

  There was another round of shocked gasps from Lady Fairburn and Hannah Rathbone. Hamilton’s mouth tightened. She knew that they had all seen the ring on her finger, the one the sensation press claimed she had used to conceal the poison that killed her fiancé.

  She leaned down and lightly brushed her fingertips across the dead man’s forehead. Simultaneously she opened her senses.

  At once the atmosphere of the library altered in subtle ways. The scents that emanated from the large jar of potpourri swept over her in a heavy wave, a combination of dried geraniums, rose petals, cloves, orange peel, allspice and violets.

  The colors of the roses in two tall, stately vases intensified dramatically, exhibiting strange hues for which there were no names. While the petals were still bright and velvety, the unmistakable reek of decay was clearly detectable. She had never understood why anyone would want to decorate a room with cut flowers. They might be beautiful for a short time but they were, by definition, in the process of dying. As far as she was concerned, the only suitable place for them was in a graveyard. If one wished to preserve the potency of a plant or bloom or herb, one dried it, she thought, annoyed.

  The sad-looking filmy fern trapped behind the glass front of the Wardian case was dying. She doubted the exquisitely delicate little Trichomanes speciosum would last the month. She had to resist the urge to rescue it. There was scarcely a household in the country that did not boast a fern in the drawing room, she reminded herself. One could not save all of them. The fern craze had been going strong for several years now. There was even a name for it, Pteridomania.

  With the ease of long practice, she suppressed the distracting energy and colors of the plant life in the room and concentrated on the body. A faint residue of unwholesome energy slithered across her senses. With her talent she could detect almost any type of poison because of the way the energy of toxic substances infused the atmosphere. But her true expertise was in the realm of those poisons that had their origins in the botanical kingdom.

  She knew at once that Fairburn had, indeed, drunk poison, just as Spellar had suspected. What stunned her were the faint traces of a certain very rare species of fern. A cold chill of panic trickled through her.

  She took a moment or two longer than necessary with the body, pretending to concentrate on her analysis. In reality she used the time to catch her breath and steady her nerves. Stay calm. Do not show any emotion.

  When she was certain that she had herself under control she straightened and looked at Spellar.

  “You are right to be suspicious, sir,” she said in what she hoped were professional tones. “He ate or drank something quite poisonous shortly before he died.”

  Lady Fairburn gave out a shrill cry of ladylike anguish. “It is just as I feared. My beloved husband took his own life. How could he do this to me?”

  She collapsed into a graceful faint.

  “Annie!” Hannah exclaimed.

  She dropped to her knees beside her sister and removed a dainty vial from the decorative chatelaine at her waist. She pulled out the stopper and waved the vinaigrette under Lady Fairburn’s nose. The smelling salts proved effective immediately. The widow’s eyes fluttered.

  Hamilton Fairburn’s expression hardened into grim outrage. “Are you saying that my father committed suicide, Miss Bromley?”

  She closed down her senses and looked at him across the vast expanse of the carpet. “I never said that he deliberately drank the poison, sir. Whether he took it by accident or design is for the police to determine.”

  Hannah fixed her with a seething glare. “Who are you to declare his lordship’s death a case of poison? You are certainly not a doctor, Miss Bromley. Indeed, we all know exactly what you are. How dare you come into this household and hurl accusations about?”

  Lucinda felt her temper stir. This was the annoying aspect of her consulting work. The public was consumed with a great fear of poison, thanks to the sensation press, which had developed a morbid infatuation with the subject in recent years.

  “I did not come here to make accusations,” Lucinda said, fighting to ke
ep her voice even. “Inspector Spellar requested my opinion. I have given it. Now, if you will excuse me, I will take my leave.”

  Spellar stepped forward. “I will escort you outside to your carriage, Miss Bromley.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.”

  They left the library and went into the front hall, where they found the housekeeper and butler waiting. Both individuals were steeped in anxiety. The rest of what was no doubt a very large household staff remained discreetly out of sight. Lucinda did not blame them. When there was a question of poison, the servants were often the first to come under suspicion.

  The butler hurried to open the door. Lucinda went out onto the steps. Spellar followed. They were met with a wall of gray. It was midafternoon but the fog was so thick that it masked the small park in the center of the square and veiled the fine town houses on the opposite side. Lucinda’s private carriage waited in the street. Shute, her coachman, lounged nearby. He came away from the railing when he saw her and opened the door to the vehicle.

  “I do not envy you this case, Inspector Spellar,” she said quietly.

  “So it was poison,” Spellar said. “Thought as much.”

  “Unfortunately nothing so simple as arsenic, I’m afraid. You will not be able to apply Mr. Marsh’s test to prove your case.”

  “I regret to say that arsenic has fallen somewhat out of favor of late now that the general public is aware that there is a test to detect it.”

  “Do not despair, sir, it is an old standby and will always be popular if for no other reason than it is widely available and, if administered with patience over a long period of time, produces symptoms that can readily be attributed to any number of fatal diseases. There is a reason, after all, why the French call it inheritance powder.”

  “True enough.” Spellar grimaced. “One can only wonder how many elderly parents and inconvenient spouses have been sped on their way to the Other World by that means. Well, if not arsenic, what then? I did not detect the smell of bitter almonds or notice any of the other symptoms of cyanide.”