Devil's Food by Kerry Greenwood

Author:Kerry Greenwood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Kerry Greenwood
Published: 2011-01-18T15:41:53+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘Have a drink,’ I said, pouring out more of my lord D’Urbanville’s wine. ‘I’m Corinna and this is Daniel. You are not in any trouble. We just want some information.’

‘If it’s about who’s screwing who,’ he said, flushing all over his very fair skin, ‘then I won’t tell you.’

‘We don’t care who is screwing whom,’ I said, getting it grammatically right as well. ‘We want to know who sold Kylie those weight loss herbs.’

‘Didn’t they work?’ he asked, dismayed.

‘Er …’ I began. Did we want to tell him they were poisonous? This was a nice boy. He had ‘nice boy’ written all through him, like Brighton Rock. I hated to hurt his feelings. Daniel smiled at Bo and inspired fresh revelations.

‘You see, we have to be thin,’ he said, tossing off the wine and refilling his glass. ‘The beautiful boys won’t look at you unless you’re slim. Muscular, of course, with perfect abs and all, but slim. My friend Tobias …’ His voice trailed off.

‘Tell us about your friend Tobias,’ I prompted gently.

‘Took it all to heart,’ said Bo. ‘Stopped eating. Didn’t take

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anything but the herbs. Now I don’t know where he is. I’m

worried about him,’ he stated, suddenly sounding mature.

‘Where did he get the tea?’ asked Daniel.

Bo looked frightened. ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ he said.

I laid a hand on his. ‘But you are going to,’ I told him.

He looked down at the table as though he had never seen a hand before. I felt his fingers flex. His hand was soft, as though he had never done any manual work. Poor, sweet, soft, buttery boy.

‘The apothecary,’ he whispered. ‘He comes around most every night. With the witch. She can sell you a maigre doll to witch away your fat. He can sell you a tea to melt it away. At a price,’ he added bitterly. ‘But only to special customers.’

Daniel palmed fifty dollar notes. Four of them.

‘Buy us some?’ he asked. Bo paused. ‘Please?’ asked Daniel and smiled his melting smile.

‘All right,’ said Bo. ‘But he isn’t here yet.’

‘Then we shall wait for him,’ I said. ‘And we won’t tell him you told us. How will we know him?’

‘Hat,’ whispered Bo. ‘He wears a tall hat.’

Then he got up and scuttled away amongst the dancers. Daniel and I looked at each other.

‘A maigre doll,’ I said.

‘A tea of herbs,’ he answered.

‘Charlatan,’ I decided.

‘Poisoner,’ Daniel added.

The quartet started playing the fireworks music. The polite gathering danced. Daniel and I danced, too. We awaited the arrival of the apothecary and the witch and listened to the music of a sprightly minuet.

The night people had woken, as Abigail had said, and were filing into the formal drawing room. Vampires. Not for these the wild antics of the crypt; these were genteel. Only a flash of fang or an unwary glance at dilated eyes showed that Daniel and I were in the presence of the undead. They paced a pretty measure, presumably learnt in Prague in the old days, before the defenestration.

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