Her Journey Beyond the Script novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Poisoned Tea
Aveline swaps the cups in front of Perdita and the Queen's ladies, Perdita refuses her own tea and faints, and Torin takes the cup, smells it, and orders the room cleared.
The sunroom had glass walls, white wicker chairs and a view of the whole river.
Aveline carried the white teapot in with both hands.
She had not slept.
She had spent the night with the pot on a table across the room, watching it.
Perdita sat waiting in the middle of the room, in a pale yellow gown, with her hands folded.
Two of the Queen's ladies sat at a window with their embroidery.
They looked up the moment Aveline came in.
"Lady Aveline," Perdita said, and rose, and curtseyed.
Her voice trembled in all the right places.
"I'm so glad you came. I was afraid you would not."
"You sent such a kind gift," Aveline said. "I couldn't leave it alone."
She set the white pot on the little table between the chairs.
It was still faintly warm.
Perdita's eyes went to it and came away again, very fast.
Aveline sat and smiled.
"Will you pour, or shall I?"
"Oh, please. You are my guest."
"Then I'll pour."
She lifted the lid, and the rose scent rose with the steam.
Under it was something thin and bitter that she knew from a hundred mystery novels.
Almonds.
She poured two cups with a steady hand.
She slid one across to Perdita and held up the other.
"To peace," she said.
Perdita did not move.
"Please. After you."
"I couldn't."
"You sent it with your love," said Aveline pleasantly. "Surely you want a cup of your own gift."
The color went out of Perdita's face.
The ladies at the window had stopped sewing.
"I'm not thirsty," Perdita whispered.
"It's a very warm day. Drink."
Perdita's fingers closed on the saucer.
They shook.
She lifted the cup an inch off the table, and her eyes slid up to the ladies and back.
Aveline knew what came next, because she had read it.
In the book, Perdita drank one swallow, because she had taken the antidote that morning.
She doubled over.
She gasped, "Aveline, how could you?" and fell into the arms of the Queen's ladies.
The prince was fetched.
The foolish betrothed was dragged out in front of the whole court.
Today Perdita had no swallow to take.
The girl set her teeth into her lower lip.
Then she let the cup fall.
It struck the floor and shattered, and the tea splashed her yellow skirt.
"Oh," she cried. "Oh, I feel so dizzy. It's poison! It's poison, she's poisoned me!"
She crumpled into the nearest chair, and one hand went to her throat.
The ladies leaped up.
"Lady Perdita!"
"Fetch the physician!"
"Guards!"
Aveline did not stand.
She turned her own full cup a quarter turn on its saucer, and looked up at the ladies.
"Lady Perdita says it's poison," she said. "But she didn't swallow a drop. Her dress is wet, and her cup is on the floor."
The nearest lady stopped with one hand on Perdita's arm.
Perdita's eyes flew open.
"She's lying," Perdita sobbed. "I can feel it burning."
"Where?" Aveline asked.
"My..." Perdita's hand moved from her throat to her stomach and back.
"I see," Aveline said.
The second lady looked at the first.
Neither of them said anything.
Neither of them would meet Perdita's eyes.
"What is this?"
The soft voice came from the doorway, and everyone in the room went still.
Queen Hester Deincourt stood there in grey silk, with pearls at her throat and her small hands folded.
"Lady Aveline," she said gently. "I am told you have been found with a poisoned cup."
"I have been found with a pot of tea Lady Perdita sent me, Your Majesty," said Aveline.
"She has not drunk it. I have not drunk it," Aveline added.
"The physician will say."
"I'm sure he will."
"You are a clever girl, suddenly," the Queen said, and smiled.
It was the smile of a cat at a mousehole.
Behind her, boots rang on the tiles.
The whole room turned.
Crown Prince Torin Deincourt came through the door in his riding coat, with the dust of the road on his boots.
He did not look at Perdita on the chair, or at the ladies, or at his stepmother.
He crossed the room and picked up Aveline's untouched cup.
He raised it to his face and breathed in once, slowly.
For a moment his jaw went hard.
Then he set the cup down on the table, very carefully, and straightened.
"Everyone out," he said.
"Torin," said the Queen.
"Everyone, Mother."
Nobody argued with him.
The ladies hauled Perdita up between them, and she managed a last sob on the way out.
The Queen went last, and she looked back once at Aveline.
Aveline rose to follow.
"Not you," said the prince.
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