- - -
Delilah was by Valentina's side in an instant. She had suspected something might happen, almost expecting it from Valentina's suggestive letter, but something felt odd. Nevertheless, one thing at a time. She peeled back her friend's eyelids to find dilated pupils, felt her pulse to be slow, and her breath to smell a bit musty. Combined with the other symptoms…
"Send physicians to the Avington mansion immediately," she said quietly to her maid. "They use the same ones as us. Tell them it is likely deadly nightshade."
"Call for the constable, but use our ways. Do not alert the baron," she said to her other maid.
The two nodded and left. Delilah turned to Valentina's knight, who was carrying the unconscious lady delicately.
"Take her back to the Avington mansion at once, and do not let anyone near her until she's home. The physicians will meet you there."
The knight obeyed at once and swiftly departed. Valentina's maid tried to go with them, but Delilah stopped her with a hand, so the girl backed away until she faded from attention, an excellent servant. Delilah addressed her own knight next.
"Make sure no one enters or leaves the room without my knowing, and that no one touches anything on the table. Especially keep an eye on Lady Catherine."
Annalise, who had just finished calming down the other guests, rushed to her anxiously.
"Is she all right?"
"Of course. She is the saintess, after all."
"Good. Then, the question becomes…"
Together, their gaze slid over the room. All intimate friends they had been acquainted with for years, dearly attached to Valentina politically, socially, and emotionally, except for one.
The ladies were nervously chattering amongst themselves, while Lady Catherine was sunken on the floor, her dress pooling around her, her mouth agape and eyes wide in a terrified expression. She was so pale that she looked as if she might faint herself. The very sight of her revolted Delilah, especially this pathetic state. How could Damian possibly prefer-no, that wasn't important right now.
"Ladies! I know we are all quite concerned for Lady Valentina, but fortunately, from my humble observation of her condition, I do believe she'll be quite all right."
She and Valentina, like almost all heirs and other popular targets of assassination, had both developed resistance to most poisons from long periods of gradual exposure. With the best physicians in the kingdom, she trusted that her friend would recover in no time. Meanwhile, she would avenge her for this injury.
The ladies quieted immediately when she began speaking and breathed sighs of relief at her reassurance, muttering comforting remarks to each other. Lady Catherine, in particular, looked up with gleaming eyes full of genuine joy.
"However, there was no doubt she was poisoned."
Silence. Tension crept into the air. All eyes were on her, trusting and hanging onto her every word. Ahh… she would enjoy this.
"To start, between all of us, surely we have tried all the refreshments. Yet does anyone feel ill?"
Heads shook. Lady Catherine's stupidly naive face twisted into confusion.
"Then, whoever poisoned Lady Valentina was targeting her. It could not have been done through the food or drink themselves, for they were shared and there would've been no way to tell which ones Lady Valentina would have. I doubt it was her cutlery or tableware either, for the poison I believe was used, deadly nightshade, is extremely difficult to apply to these surfaces without detection."
"Of course, everything on the table will be tested later to confirm or ridicule these statements, but in the meantime, I would like to offer some of my own speculation, if I may be so bold?"
Eager nods and fretful glances among the ladies, as they wondered who among them could be the failed murderer who bit the hand that had fed her for all these years. Already, gazes were beginning to be cast towards Lady Catherine, though she remained oblivious to the fact and looked back at Delilah with those shallow, unintelligent eyes.
"First, I'm sure that you're all familiar with deadly nightshade. Symptoms take some time to develop, so it was likely something she consumed early on. Second, I was sitting next to Lady Valentina the entire time, and if you would all trust that we have been the closest of friends since we were born and I would rather die than betray her, I can guarantee that no one went near any of her food. After, of course, that first cup of tea poured by our host."
All heads turned to Lady Catherine. She seemed to finally realize the position she was in and started, her hands flying to her mouth in horror. If Delilah had not suppressed all her urges from a very young age, she would've wanted to smirk.
Yet, what now? Valentina was like a puzzle, and Delilah knew she must've given her the pieces, she just needed to put them together. Combing through all the recent conversations she'd had with Valentina, one suddenly struck her.
The dress Lady Catherine wore was a popular one this season, and Delilah had seen it many times. No one else might've noticed it, perhaps not even the wearer herself with the puffiness of the sleeves, and it was challenging even when she knew what she was looking for, but at last, an uneven surface on the cuff of the left sleeve caught Delilah's eye.
"Lady Catherine, could you come here for a moment?"
Hesitatingly, the initial alarm in her eyes slowly changing to fear, the girl picked herself up from the ground and approached her, almost like a piece of prey heading to its death towards a hungry beast. Usually, the prey is simply eaten as a part of the cycle of life, but in this case, it was getting what it deserved.
"May I see your arm, Lady Catherine?"
Bewildered but obedient, Lady Catherine extended her left arm. Delilah lifted it so she could see the interior of the large sleeves. It was rather ungraceful for Lady Catherine, but it was better than asking her to remove her dress completely. Surely enough, Delilah found what she was looking for. In fact, it was even more incriminating than she'd expected.
She addressed the greenhouse calmly. If she had any emotions, she might've felt triumphant under the bright sunlight.
"Cleverly sewn in between the layers of Lady Catherine's sleeve is a one-use sealable pocket, a common design from the east. A very thin, transparent string seals it, with the other end wrapped around the wearer's finger, not visible at a normal distance. With only a slight and conveniently undetectable movement of the finger, the string comes loose and can be easily disposed of. The contents of the pocket can then be used, for example, quickly poured into someone's tea."
"However, not quickly enough, in this case, for it contains what I'm almost certain are remnants of deadly nightshade powder."
- - -
"You bitch!"
Annalise charged in front of the little vixen and slapped her hard, making her stumble back several steps and fall onto the ground with a cry. Oh, the satisfaction! She'd wanted to do that since the very first time she saw her at her debutante, tainting her memory of what should've been the occasion of a lifetime, and the urge only increased as she saw how increasingly miserable she managed to make her friends. If only Valentina could see this!
"Now, Lady Annalise," Delilah placed a calming hand on her arm. "Let us not jump to conclusions too quickly. I was merely pointing out certain facts and suggesting one way events might have occurred. It could, certainly, all be a very strange coincidence."
Annalise wondered how her friend managed to not laugh saying these words. She shook her head vehemently and swirled around to find Valentina's maid, who was watching with intrigue in the corner and stepped forward readily at the sudden attention.
"You claimed that Valentina was poisoned as soon as she fainted. Did you suspect something of the sort would happen? Did Valentina say anything?"
"Why, not directly, Your Ladyship, but I gathered it might from bits and pieces!" the girl exclaimed. "My lady is always so kind to Lady Catherine, and she was worried about how all the nasty rumours and her illness might've hurt her. Still, slowly, she was becoming afraid that they might've impacted her some other way. As in, in the head. The way Lady Catherine acted sometimes, especially once my lady realized that she was in love with His Highness-"
Dramatic gasps at the unspoken secret being revealed through the blunt words of the maid, and a look of shock and desperation casting over Lady Catherine's face. The maid nodded theatrically.
"Oh, yes, my lady could always tell! Many ladies fall in love with His Highness, and it's not their fault. They know that there's nothing they can do, and they get over it. But Lady Catherine was different. It wasn't any of that commoner bias, of course. My lady thought she was the sweetest thing in the world! She was just a bit odd. Unpredictable. Which is understandable, with her upbringing and everything she's gone through. In any case, it made my lady uneasy. She thought on the bright side of things, of course, but I could tell she was afraid of something."
Annalise grasped Delilah's hands. "That just matches perfectly with what she wrote us, doesn't it?" She turned to the room. "Lady Valentina sent us letters before this party, asking us to watch over her. She said she didn't think anything would happen, and was only writing as a precaution, but it did happen, didn't it? Lady Valentina trusted you, Lady Catherine!"
The words seemed to hurt Lady Catherine more than the slap had. Annalise spoke again to the ladies.
"Has Lady Valentina been anything but kind to her? Is she not the sole reason that we are all here today? And this is how she is repaid!"
Lady Catherine shrank back, tears welling up in her eyes. Outbursts erupted from the guests.
"How dare she!"
"What a lowly, nasty creature. Get her out of here!"
"She should be locked up!"
Annalise contained her smirk. Through the glass walls of the greenhouse, she saw the constable's carriage arrive, followed by the city knights.
At last, this little vermin was going to be exterminated.