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“Is that Pretty Polly?” She took a step, felt her knees buckling, and hastily sat down
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said He looked sorry, too, but she wasn’t sure what he was sorry about: Polly being here with him, or the lies he had told her? Either way, Sebastian could wait, she thought, her gaze sliding to Maeve There were more important matters to deal with
“Was it really Maeve?” she asked Dobson “Did she really poison my mother’s coffee?”
“That’s e need to find out,” Sebastian answered for him He came over to where Maeve was huddled in Dobson’s arive her, Maeve?” he said alently “What was it? Help us”
Maeve’s breathing grew louder “They made me,” she said in a muffled voice “My life has never been my own, not since I was nine years old I was sold to her and she’s ownedto Dobson “That’s why I was put to work here So I could watch Madame, and then tell her what I heard and saw”
“Who do you mean by ‘her,’ Maeve?”
Maeve gave a bitter laugh “You already know,” she whispered “It was her paid the apothecary’s boy to bring ive her small doses, she said To make it look natural”
“Maeve, what did you give Aphrodite?” Dobson asked her, the urgency plain in his gruff voice “What you’ve done is very wrong, but you can help us now You can make up for it Please, tell us”
But Maeve heaved a deep sigh “It’ll be too late anyway,” she said painfully “You won’t believeas I could I tried to keep her alive as long as I dared But she knew, she always knows, and she sent et it over and done with”
“Goddamn it, tell me!”
“Arsenic I gave her arsenic”
Dobson went still, shock wiping his face blank, and then he was gone, the door sla for soo and fetch the doctor at once, and to tell him that Madame had been poisoned with arsenic
Without Dobson to support her, Maeve stu at the back of it to keep herself upright
“Who told you to do this?” Francesca stared up at her, wanting only a name so that she could find this woedy she’d caused “Tell me her name”
“Don’t you know?” Maeve replied bitterly “Didn’t he tell you?” with a nod at Sebastian