Twenty physicians bled the Duke of Penrith for three months and called it “bad blood.” But a poor maid earning only a few shillings a week scrubbing floors discovered a poisoned green stitch hidden in his collar — revealing the chilling truth that not a single doctor had seen.

 PART 7

Norah walked to the corner of the room and grabbed the heavy wooden pail that had been sitting there for four days. The stench was foul — a mix of old blood, dirty water, and the shredded remains of the poisoned silk. She hauled it over to where Edward lay.

“The water in this bucket,” Alistair said, his voice dropping to a deadly conversational whisper, “has been steeping the arsenic from your lovely gift for nearly a week. It is a highly concentrated brew.”

He crouched down beside Edward. The effort made his joints pop in the quiet room. He grabbed Edward by the hair and yanked his head back.

“You are going to write the letter, Edward. If you refuse, Norah will hold your nose, and I will pour this bucket down your throat. The arsenic will burn the lining of your stomach away. You will bleed internally for three days before your heart finally stops.”

He let go of the hair. Edward’s head thudded back against the floorboards.

“I know exactly how it feels,” Alistair added. “I highly recommend avoiding it.”

Edward stared at the dark, sludgy water. He looked at Alistair’s eyes.

He saw no bluff. He saw a man who had already crossed the threshold of death and had no fear of sending someone else over it.

“Paper!” Edward choked out, a fresh tear tracking through the grime on his cheek. “Get me the paper.”

Norah walked to the writing desk. She pulled out a fresh sheet of heavy parchment, a quill, and a pot of black ink. She dragged a small wooden footstool over to Edward and set the supplies down in front of him.

For the next ten minutes, the only sounds in the room were the scratching of the quill, the ticking of the clock, and the ragged wet breathing of a broken man.

When Edward finished, he dropped the quill. His hand was shaking so badly he had smeared the wet ink at the bottom of the page.

Alistair picked up the paper. He read it in the dim candlelight. He nodded slowly.

“Very good, cousin.”

He folded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of his trousers.

Then, without a word of warning, he brought the heavy heel of his bare foot down sharply on the side of Edward’s uninjured head.

Edward collapsed, slipping instantly into unconsciousness.

Alistair swayed. The adrenaline finally left him, and his knees buckled. Norah caught him — her arms wrapping tightly around his waist, taking his weight before he hit the floor. He was heavy, his skin slick with cold sweat.

“I have you,” she whispered, her voice rough.

“He is heavy,” Alistair muttered, his eyes sliding shut. “The bastard is heavy.”

“We need to bind him before he wakes,” Norah said.

She half dragged, half carried Alistair back to the armchair.

“And we need to wait for morning. Lipton will come. We trap them both.”

Alistair sank into the chair. He looked at Norah.

Her apron was stained. Her hair was escaping its pins. And she had a smudge of soot across her forehead.

She looked magnificent.

“You have a brutal streak, Norah Reed,” he breathed.

Norah pulled the heavy velvet cords from the window curtains and began binding Edward’s wrists. She tied the knots tight, pulling the coarse rope until it dug into his skin.

“Only when the situation demands it, Your Grace.”

Morning arrived with the grey weeping drizzle typical of a Yorkshire autumn.

At precisely nine o’clock, Dr. Horus Lipton knocked on the heavy oak doors of the Duke’s bedchamber. When no answer came, he pushed the door open, his face arranged in a mask of professional, solemn grief. He carried his black leather satchel, fully prepared to declare the time of death and collect his final extortionate fee.

“Lord Edward?” Lipton called softly, stepping into the dim room. “The footman said you had not come down for breakfast. Is the poor Duke finally—”

He stopped.

The words died in his throat.

The heavy curtains were thrown wide open, flooding the room with stark, cold daylight.

Alistair Hawthorne was sitting up in bed. He was pale, hollow-cheeked, and looked entirely like a man who had recently toured hell — but he was undeniably, firmly alive. He wore a clean white linen shirt. In his right hand, resting casually against his knee, was a heavy flintlock duelling pistol.

It was pointed directly at the doctor’s chest.

Norah stood by the fireplace, calmly stirring the coals with the iron poker. And in the corner of the room, gagged with a dirty rag and bound securely to a heavy oak chair, sat Lord Edward. His leg was splinted roughly with pieces of firewood and torn bedsheets.

He looked at Lipton with wide, frantic eyes.

Lipton dropped his satchel. The heavy thump echoed loudly.

“My— Your Grace!” Lipton stammered. The colour drained from his face so fast he looked more like a corpse than Alistair did. He took a stumbling step backward. “You are— you are recovered. A medical miracle—”

“Do not insult my intelligence, Horus,” Alistair said. His voice was a rasping drawl, but it carried across the room like a whip crack. “And do not take another step toward that door. My hand shakes, and this trigger is remarkably light.”

Lipton froze. His eyes darted from the pistol to Edward, and finally to the maid standing by the fire. He recognised her.

“The invisible girl who emptied the slops.”

“I don’t understand,” Lipton lied, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Your cousin — he sent for me to comfort you in your final hours. I have done nothing but try to heal you.”

Norah walked over to the washstand. She picked up the ruined, shredded remains of the green silk nightshirt and tossed it onto the floor at Lipton’s feet. The heavy embroidery glinted in the morning light.

“Scheele’s Green,” Norah said. “A copper arsenite dye pressed directly against an open sweating blister for three weeks.”

Lipton stared at the fabric.

He knew exactly what it was. He swallowed hard.

“I am a physician,” he said, his voice trembling. “I treat the humours. I am not a— I could not have known.”

“You knew,” Alistair said coldly. “You diagnosed a rotting liver when my skin was blistering. You prescribed laudanum to keep me compliant. And last night you agreed to let my cousin smother me, provided he funded your new clinic in Mayfair.”

Lipton’s knees gave out.

He collapsed onto the floorboards, his expensive wool trousers soaking up the dust. He crawled forward, clasping his hands together.

“He forced me!” Lipton wept, pointing a trembling finger at the bound and gagged Edward. “He threatened my practice. He holds my debts, Your Grace. I swear to you, I was a victim of his ambition—”

“You are a leech,” Alistair said.

He lowered the pistol, disgusted by the display of cowardice.

“A parasite that feeds on the dying.”

Alistair looked at Norah.

She nodded.

She walked to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it entirely open.

Standing in the hallway was Justice Hail.