Page 102 of Waking Roslyn

I suddenly remembered the way she’d turned to me and held out her hand. “She tried to show me.” I grabbed her hand and looked at her fingers. “It’s here too,” I said, holding them where her parents could see.

“You said she was smelling the flowers?” he asked.

“Yes.” I looked up and over the heads and shoulders that blocked my view, trying to see the bouquets. “That big one, with all the roses.”

Captain Sterling stood and went to look at the flowers. He touched one of the petals. “The same dust is on the flowers, Your Grace.”

“What?” I shouted. “How could that be? We inspected each bouquet carefully.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It must have been inside the closed petals and only came out when it was disturbed.”

“But what is it?” the duke demanded. “Poison?”

“Yes, or something of the like.”

“We need a doctor!” her mother screamed, her breathing erratic as she clung to Rose’s still form.

“Who would do this?” her father lamented.

Anger surged up inside me. “You know who would do this,” I said sharply. “She spent the last four years away from you because you all believed her life was in danger.”

He shook his head. “That was just a precaution. They wouldn’t really—”

“Well, someone did,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. I had no right to scold Rose’s parents. They were clearly just as terrified and worried as I was. But their insistence that she return, that she put herself on display for the whole kingdom to ogle and judge, had led to this.

And I didn’t even know what this was.

“Rose!” Her mother was shouting at her pale form as she continued to hold her.

“Violet, stop.” The duke urged his wife to loosen her hold on their daughter. “Let’s lay her flat on the ground, give her some space. Come on now. Help me lay her down.”

The duchess did as her husband bid her, though her sobbing grief made her movements stiff and shaky. His Grace kept Rose’s head cradled in his hand as he helped his wife lower Rose to the floor. Then he wrapped his arms around Her Grace from behind and gently pulled her back. They both collapsed on the ground, the duchess wailing as the duke tried to shush her.

I knelt down above her head and carefully adjusted Rose’s body, trying to be sure that her head and neck were straight and that there would be no obstruction to her breathing. If she was breathing…

Was she breathing?

My hands gently cradled her neck and I stared at her chest, practically going cross-eyed as I willed it to rise and fall.

There. There it was. It was moving up and down. Wasn’t it? Yes. The movement was small and shallow, but it was there. “She is breathing,” I said, glancing up at her parents.

Her father let out a shuddering sigh and a tear streaked down his face. Her mother’s wails just increased.

Captain Sterling stepped up with a damp cloth and started wiping the remaining dust from her face and hands. I wished I’d thought of that. We didn’t want any more of the poison to enter her body. He handed another cloth to the duke, advising anyone who might have touched the powder to clean their hands.

Focusing my attention back on Rose, I noticed how well her dress fit her frame. Should we loosen her clothing? Would that make a difference? Gretchen had recently started wearing stays, and while she had complained a bit about their stiffness, she never indicated that it was harder to breathe, and she’d kept right on training with the rest of us.

But Rose was unconscious. Did that make a difference? Where was the doctor? “Did someone go for the doctor?” I asked, suddenly unsure if anyone had actually taken that step amidst all the chaos.

Captain Sterling answered. “My fastest rider has been sent. Hopefully he will return with the doctor in less than half an hour.”

Half an hour. Such a short time, and yet it was an eternity in those moments as helplessness washed up and around and through me, threatening to smother my sanity and my breathing.

I tried to clear my mind enough to remember all the ways I’d seen Anne Lockley treating people with her herbs. What did my mother do for people when they were ill? Had anyone ever mentioned a substance that could take the life from someone so swiftly? Was it something the doctor or apothecary would recognize?

When the duke moved her up onto a couch, I helped him, and then I had to step back. As much as I wanted to be the one holding her hand and listening for signs of life, I had no claim on her. So while her parents pushed close to her and held her hand, I forced myself to stay back and watch, my eyes fixed on her chest as it rose up and down with shallow breaths, terrified that at any moment it would stop moving and none of us would be able to do anything about it.

I didn’t understand it. The silent, still form lying on the couch felt separate from the woman I knew. The vibrant girl who danced through the woods, talked to birds without apology, and took in the sweet aroma of every flower she could get her hands on. That her love of beauty had been weaponized and used to hurt her felt like a violation.