The Unexpected Wife - Jess Michaels Page 0,71

pages were worn, as if someone had looked at it often.

“Why were you talking about poisons with Lady Lena?” Pippa asked slowly.

Celeste lifted her gaze. “You know why. There is a belief that Erasmus was murdered using arsenic and I wanted to know more about the poison. I wanted to be able to better help Owen in his hunt. And I wanted to know…to know…”

“How he died.”

Celeste nodded. “Yes. But I’m confused by what I discovered.”

Pippa held out a hand and took the Lena’s copy of the book. As she did so, Celeste said, “Page thirty-four.”

Pippa turned there without answering and began to skim the passage. She paled as she did so, and Celeste knew why.

“You see,” Celeste said. “Arsenic is a known poisoning agent, but it is also in a great many things. The danger of it is usually accidental…or purposeful…poisoning in small doses over time. A slow sickness that is unexplained and takes a victim without anyone understanding what had occurred.”

Pippa nodded. “And yet we were led to believe that Ras was poisoned that night, not over a long period.”

“Which is why it doesn’t make sense. Certainly if the murderer had forced or tricked him into ingesting a large amount of the poison he would have died, but the reaction would have been horrific. There would have been bleeding and vomiting and excrement everywhere. His skin would have turned a horrible red.”

“None of those things were ever described by Abigail, Mr. Gregory or the Duke of Gilmore, and all of them saw Ras dead on the parlor floor,” Pippa breathed.

“They are not details one would leave out,” Celeste agreed. “Even to protect us from knowing the terrible truth. And it makes me wonder…what if he wasn’t poisoned, at least not that way?”

“Why did they believe he was poisoned with arsenic?” Pippa asked.

“I don’t know,” Celeste said. “Owen told me when he first broke the news and I never asked further. But I think it’s time I did.”

She shook her head and absently thumbed Abigail’s copy of the book to the same page that Pippa was looking at in her own copy. She froze as she reached it. “Pippa…the page about arsenic is torn out in this book.”

Pippa set the book in her hand down and rushed to Celeste. “What?”

“It’s torn from the book,” Celeste whispered. “Though it looks as though there was a note written on the page. The imprint of it is on the next page. Is there a charcoal pencil here?”

Pippa went back to the desk and searched the drawers. “I have one here.”

Celeste brought the book to her and they set it down next to her own copy. Pippa drew a deep breath and began to rub the pencil on the indentations on Abigail’s copy of the book. “He…deserves…” Pippa read as the words became clear. She dropped the pencil with a gasp.

“He deserves it,” Celeste read out loud. “Oh God.”

“But this makes no sense,” Pippa said. “How can the symptoms of an arsenic poisoning not match but then someone…Abigail presumably…leave this note on the page about the poison?”

“I don’t know,” Celeste admitted. “I cannot believe…well, I do not want to believe that Abigail could do such a thing. She has been nothing but kind to me and to you.”

“But it is possible,” Pippa whispered, tears filling her eyes. “If Abigail somehow knew the truth, if she knew anything at all about Ras’s selfish actions…” She shook her head. “Oh, Celeste, what do we do?”

Celeste paced away so that she no longer had to see the jagged words written in the margin of Abigail’s copy of the book. “I don’t know.”

Only that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what she had to do. And she also knew what would likely happen once she had done it.

“Celeste,” Pippa said.

She turned back. “We must…tell Owen,” she said slowly. “We must show him what we’ve found. He will have a better handle on the next step.”

Pippa blinked and a tear slid down her cheek. “He will arrest Abigail,” she whispered. “He will see her charged with this murder.”

“I don’t know,” Celeste said. Lied, for she knew that was very likely what he would do. It was his duty, after all. “The particulars still don’t make any sense. There might be more to this. Perhaps together we can figure it out.”

Pippa nodded slowly. “I would like to come with you.”

Celeste caught her breath. “You would?”

“Yes. Abigail is our friend, mine as much as yours. And three heads will be better