Page 115 (1/2)

"Och, ai’ ye I’ll o down yet a while"

"Thanks, Auntie" She kissed the old wolance at her aunt, took a step back toward the hearth, and unobtrusively slid the cradle a little farther frorass and barbecue smoke Itin her veins She could hear the strains of er’s voice A quick turn in the fresh air, and then she’d go in; perhaps Roger would be ready for a break by then, and they could--

"Brianna!" She heard her naarden, and turned, startled, to find her father’s head poking cautiously round the corner, like a ruddy snail He jerked his chin at her and disappeared

She cast a quick look over her shoulder to be sure no one atching, and hastily whisked round the wall into the shelter of a sprouting carrot bed, to find her father crouched over the recumbent body of one of the blackmanure with her cap over her face

"What on earth--" Brianna began Then she caught a whiff of alcohol, pungent aarden scents of carrot tops and sun-ripened manure "Oh" She squatted next to her father, skirts ballooning over the brick path

"It was my fault," he explained "Or some of it, at least I left a cup under the s, still half-full" He nodded toward the brick path, where one of Jocasta’s punch cups lay on its side, a sticky drop of liquid still clinging to its rim "She must have found it"

Brianna leaned over and sniffed at the edge of thewith heavy snores Ru odor, but she also detected the richly sour scent of ale and the s of brandy Evidently the slave had been thriftily disposing of any dregs left in the cups she collected for washing

She lifted the ruffled edge of the cap with a cautious finger It was Betty, one of the older maids, her face slack-lipped and drop-jawed in alcoholic stupor

"Aye, it wasna the first half-cup she’d had," Ja I canna think how she walked so far frolanced back, frowning The brick-walled kitchen garden was near to the cookhouse, but a good three hundred yards froe, and several flower beds

"Not just how," Brianna said, and tapped a finger against her lip in puzzlelanced up at her tone She rose, and tilted her head at the snoring woman

"Why did she walk out here? It looks like she’s been tippling all day--she can’t have been dashing out here with every cup; somebody would have noticed And why bother? It’s not like it would be hard to do without being noticed If I were drinking leftovers, I’d just stay there under the s and gulp it"

Her father gave her a startled look, replaced at once with one of wry aht But perhaps there was enough in the cup that she thought to enjoy it in peace"

"Maybe so But there are surely hiding places nearer the river than this" She reached down and scooped up the e, rum punch?"

"No, brandy"

"Then it wasn’t yours that pushed her over the edge" She held out the cup, tilting it so he could see the dark dregs at the bottom Jocasta’s ruar, and butter but also with dried currants, the whole concoction being mulled with a hot poker The result not only was dark brown in color but always left a heavy sedirains of soot from the poker and the charred remnants of incinerated currants

Ja He inserted his nose into the cup and took a deep sniff, then stuck a finger into the liquid and put it in his e

"Punch," he said, but ran the tip of his tongue back and forth over his teeth, as though to cleanse it "With laudanum, I think"

"Laudanum! Are you sure?"

"No," he said frankly "But there’s so in it beyond dried currants, or I’m a Dutch furiously She couldn’t make out much beyond but the sweet, burned s oily and aromaticperhaps not

"I’ll take your word for it," she said, wiping the tip of her nose on the back of her hand She glanced at the supine o look for Mama?"

Jamie squatted beside the maid and inspected her carefully He lifted a li, then shook his head

"I canna say whether she’s drugged, or only drunk--but I dinna think she’s dying"

"What shall we do with her? We can’t leave her lie"