Nerium Oleander

Mireille

{Present}

I walk along the different passages and pass by the many rooms until I finally halt in front of a huge rococo door. I recollect my first day at this estate, when I first came to this very room.

I smack twice at the door before hearing a faint 'Yes' from inside. I swallow my invisible unease as I gently push the door.

"Why him?!" I hear a familiar yelp and quickly glance at the direction of the voice. It is 5'4 midget, fuming at seeing me being involved in this discussion.

I come inside the Duke's study and shut the door tightly behind me. I adjust my line-of-vision on the Duke, whose table is in a straight line from the door. The Duke Allen is standing, getting support from his colossal desk. He isn't wearing his heavy overcoat, his casual top together with his breeches outline his perfect proportioned-manly built. His right wrist is wrapped with a bandage, reminding me of the time I kicked the same spot. I move my guilty gaze to his handsome white face and meet his fiery amber eyes. I'm only greeted by the nonchalance in his expression.

I wander my gaze to his right and see Sebastian, standing with his prominent placid expression, unlike the time at the 'afternoon-tea incident'.

My gaze moves again and I see Captain Raizel, standing sternly with his custom titian sword. He is in his two-pieces knight uniform. A look of bewilderment decorates his tan face.

I finally look at 5'4 midget, who is huffing and puffing. He is neatly wearing his glasses, the long thong of the glasses encircled round his neck. He has short brown hair and a hint of rustic brown in his eyes with some dotted freckles. He's holding some- or many papers in a neatly arranged order, just what suits his nerdy appearance.

"Why is he here?" Captain Raizel questions the Duke, plainly ignoring my presence.

Frankly, this is so messed-up! I feel so insignificant standing in between the presence of the Duke, who is in charge of the estate, the Captain, who is in charge of the Knights, Sebastian, who is in charge of the servants, 5'4 midget, who is subtly in charge of the administration. And then me, who is in charge of maintaining my secret.

××××××

{Yesterday}

"Phew!" I exhale as I plop on the soft bedding. Knights don't usually have soft beddings, but I acquired it with some pouts and whines.

"Today's training was soo tiring!" I groan while lying down on my bed and stretching my hands. I have my jamasʼ on, it's late after dinner.

I whiff in the typical smell of cleansers wafting in my dimly-lit room. I took a leisurely, satisfying bath tonight. Before dropping on the bed, I made sure my hair weren't dripping with excess water and made sure to dry the moisture.

I removed my locket before my bath and my dull brown eyes changed color to olive-green. Not to mention, my eyesight gets sharper with my emerald eyes. Thanks to this, I realized my room needs a good cleaning! I make a mental note to ask for a good servant tomorrow.

I go through the events after the 'afternoon-tea incident', I was safely let go thanks for my quick response in saving the Duke aka kicking the Duke in order to fling the cup out of his hands. The tea cup containing the poison was attended by Duke and his trusted officials, and no outsider was provided with the slightest of information. All the audience on that day, who witnessed Ella's death were secluded and sent to the rarely used warehouse in the estate, they were not to talk about the incident with anyone, not even among themselves. Despite being in a secluded workplace, they were under strict supervision of many trusted Knights. Though there hasn't been any strict order for me and I'm grateful. More or less, most of the estate is ignorant of the happening and continue on with their work. And so do I.

I'm still trying to figure out the gossip I heard about the blue-blood deaths, but I'm getting zero results. I also have to send replies to Casper and Andrew...... I ramble on my thoughts before closing my sleep-laden eyes.

A sharp knock startled me as I shot open my eyes. I ignored the knock, hoping the person to just go so that I don't have to drag my body up from the comforting bed and make my way to the door.

By the way of the repetitive knocks, it doesn't seem like the person would go without any back-answer. I curse loudly before I spring out of my bed.

"Who is it? And what do you want this late?" I complain without opening the door.

"This is Ron" I hear an anxious reply. Why was he here? Is the first question that came to my mind, but as tired as I am right now, I give up figuring it by myself.

"Why are you here?" I retort back before a yawn accompanied me.

"I have something really important. Orders from higher-ups" he says, hoping for me to miraculously open the door and invite him inside after hearing 'higher-ups'. Does he think I'm power-hungry? Or does he think I'm scared of authority?

After moments of silence, I finally wear my locket, changing my emerald eyes back to the dull brown. I wrap a fluffy quilt over myself, covering my front and my back, since my chest isn't bandaged up nor am I wearing a vest, I'm in simple jamasʼ and I'm afraid my charm as a female may leak out. *Narcissism alert*.

I sluggishly open the door, bit by bit, I marginally open it to allow only one of my eye to peek outside at the isolated, fairly-lit passage. Then, I glare at the anxious dark haired footmen, planning his murder for disturbing my beauty sleep.

Seeing the latter scared, pleading with rigorous apologizes, I reluctantly pull him inside my room, delaying his murder.

"So tell me" I growl, my arms crossed over my chest, above my quilt "why the hell are you here at this time?" and just how can you be so informal with me?

He stands near the closed door, ready to get kicked out by me. Getting welcomed by me, at this time, is a luxury and he can't afford it. No one can.

He swallowed hard, as if battling if he should tell me or not.

"If you don't have anything, beat it! Before I do it!" I growl once again, taking one step forward making the frightened servant ever more frightened.

"I apologize greatly, but please listen to me. This humble servant has no reason to distu-" Ron starts his monolouge before I cut him in between.

"Cut it" I glower at the poor man in front "I'm not in the mood to listen to your honeyed apologies!"

Ron bit his lower lip, gulping his uncertainty and taking a firm stance, he continues "your presence has been requested by the Duke, tomorrow- in his study. He wants to question you about the 'tea-incident'. There will be other......"

I rapidly enlightened myself about tomorrow's discussion and about the four people attending it besides me, who has their field of expertise and knowledge. After about an hour of polishing myself up, before I could kick him outside, Ron exited my room on his own accord and went away happily.

×××××××

"Hah..." I sigh, while Captain and Duke have a stare-down battle. They sharply stare at one another, as if communicating through eyes.

"He holds some value" Duke answers with his playful smirk, focusing his attention on me.

Hah! He actually ranked me? I roll my eyes, I don't think he ever pays attention to someone of "no value" to him. Like, if I can't provide him any entertainment or any information, I'm a zero ranker. But since I have information he yearns and provide him his so-called 'entertainment', due to my 'disguise', I have "some" value.

After Duke's declaration, Captain and 5'4 midget narrowed their eyes on me, as if finding the hidden "some value". I ramble on in my thoughts when we get interrupted by two jumpy knocks.

"She's finally here" Sebastian opens his mouth for the first time since I came here.

"Come in" Duke permits the knocker and the door flings open, revealing a petite beauty with shiny-silky ebony hair. She speed-walks into the study in her vivid khaki gown. The maids accompaning her shuts the door after their lady has walked inside.

"Brother!" Lady Fiore calls her 'loving' brother, her face is grim with anxiousness and maintains a scowl. "How could you forget your only sister during the 'flower-viewing'!" she whines "you already know how much I'm craz- enthusiastic about different plants...." she ends with a small sniff.

Poor lady. She definitely doesn't want to admit she is actually 'crazy' about plants. The fact that the Duke entertains flower-viewing is actually childish, since according to the society standards, no grown men is involved in such activities and they are for women.

"It was poison." 5'4 midget breaks in the lady's whining "the flower was deadly poisonous, a deadly flower-viewing."

He takes a small stop in between his sentence to highlight the importance of his words. My instincts were correct, the tea was poisoned, with a deadly poison at that. Ella proved it.

"But it was a flow-" lady Fiore retorts but gets cut off by the sharp yell from 5'4 midget.

"It was served to His Excellency!" he yells with all his might. Clenching his hands into fists, he was one with his anger.

"Calm down Monroe" Captain said with his signature glare, which usually silenced the many barbaric Knights "He isn't dead yet though" he eyed Duke before changing his harsh tone into a teasing one.

This treatment only has one conclusion for me: does Captain Raizel hate Duke Allen? I intently gawk at the ongoing drama in front when lady Fiore's questions grasp my attention.

"Who saved you, brother?" she asks, quite relieved to hear about her brother's safety. She must know the gist of the incident if she knows someone, which is gladly me, saved the Duke.

"Oh, It was Edgar- Edgar Radford. The knight you met in the garden" Duke informs nonchalantly to her, fixing his gaze on me.

Damn! He knew. He must also know about our little adventures. I'm thankful God that the Duke didn't decide on severing my beautiful neck, because of some baseless rumors about me and his lovely little sister.

"Oh my! Thank you very much for saving his life!" lady Fiore chirps, making her way towards me and clasping my hands into hers, she gives a perfect smile with perfect doe eyes.

I don't think she realises the piercing glares I'm getting from Sebastian, 5'4 midget and even from Captain. I only respond her with a forced smile, hoping she catches my obvious signals.

"Ahem" an artificial and stern interruption from Sebastian makes everyone alarmed, everyone looked his way and taking the chance, I hastily slip away my wrists from the lady's grasp. "We should start this discussion soon. We can't disturb further schedules" says the indifferent voice.

"Sorry" lady Fiore mumbles, quite grumpy at leaving my side. I'm sure she uses her seductive yet innocent looks to grasp hold of someone who she claims to be "valuable". And seeing that I didn't fall for her 'artfulness' must have hurt her pride.

"What data did you collect from it?" Captain's rational voice breaks my thoughts.

"Everything, yet nothing" 5'4 midget tries sounding philosophical but he's just sounding like an idiot to me. "From my observations, I can affirm the poison to be deadly fatal" he adds.

"It wouldn't have affected me much probably, since I'm immune to some poison" Duke cracks a lame joke, grinning casually.

I was going to say- the poison would affect him just like an ordinary person since he is a human biologically. But "immune to some poison"? Isn't it a tad bit too good to be true? Why and how is he "immune" to poison? I mean, Perfection is only for God.

"No way in hell!" Sebastian roars, his voice intermixing with 5'4 midget's and Lady Fiore's showing their firm denial at such absurd reasoning. Captain remains silent, giving the Duke a look of utter ludicrousness as if he were frantically searching for proof of Duke's sanity.

"Immunity to poisons is a far-fetched dream. What you experience is tolerance toward some poisonous compounds because you regularly intake a non-lethal amount of poison. Tolerance to Oleander is not possible, since even an insignificant amount of this plant is enough to kill a human. Right now, your tolerance level is lower even for Ricin" 5'4 Midget babbles on with a firm negation to Duke's joke, providing answers to my many questions.

"Last time when you were given a small intake of Ricin- you suffered rashes all over your body, you were paralyzed for about three days having high fever for days, you were hallucinating such nasty illusions that you were ready to kill anyone approaching you and that was me, you were bedridden for months and came out on wheelchair, you were on the verge to have a young dea-" it is now Sebastian's turn to ramble on and scold his grace, Duke.

"Alright!" Duke exclaims cutting in between Sebastian, getting his health monolouge from Sebastian who stores every information regarding Duke in his mind in a hard-to-imagine manner "Let's continue our actual discussion, shall we?" Duke says, in an attempt to brush the topic he ensued. Maybe he doesn't want to recollect his past sufferings from the poison.

" "Oleander" ..... Do you know anything about it, Fiore?" he quotes with a scowl.

"Oleander...... I know the family Oleander" lady Fiore answers with grim eyes and a tensed face "it is a branch of deadly poisonous plants, with severe side effects of death in humans"

"Oleander is a new and foreign variety which doesn't have much information in any books" 5'4 midget chimes in, growing the anxiety in the atmosphere.

"And that plant poison was in the tea?" I ask, my face is a complete question mark at the discussion.

"That's right. That poison killed that maid, who touched the contaminated tea" 5'4 midget explains in a clear manner.

"Death by touch? Was the poison that toxic?" Sebastian reveals his query, his wrinkles becoming more prominent.

"Oleander poisons usually contain such high risks to humans. If ingested, some end with hallucinations, seizures, constant vomitings and thus death. Others may be more malicious and cause extreme oxidation in humans, resulting in an agonizing death, but.... I haven't read about 'death by touch' ever" lady Fiore ends her monologue, her tone is more mature than it was before, the silly and innocent girl vanished completely and a cerebral, grown up beauty showed itself. She is indeed the sister of Duke Ferdinand Allen.

"When I first examined the body, I found many secondary effects other than the prominent oxidation" 5'4 midget takes a long pause, which only increases my curiosity. I want to know how did that maid, Ella die, how much she suffered before her death.

"I don't think it's a good idea to scatter my findings before the lady" he says with a look of uncertainty, despite addressing lady Fiore, his uncertain gaze falls on me- not sure if such valuable information should be provided to me, an outsider.

Truth be told, I'm so intrigued by this poison thing that I don't want to let go, so, I'm definitely going to learn the truth no matter the circumstances.

"He" Captain points to Duke Allen before completing his sentence "is okay with it". Captain proceeds to give a small shrug to 5'4 Midget, assuring him that it'll be alright. Duke is confident in involving me in the discussion because he is sure about my weakness....

"Then, let me begin" 5'4 midget says as he shuffles some papers in his hand and readies himself to reveal his bizarre findings "the first and foremost is the actual poison. Instead of the tea, the dried petals were poisonous. They were the petals of Nerium Oleander, the most deadly plant till date"

Everyone grows grim at his revelation. No one of us perceived this happening, the petals were poison and not the liquid? Most importantly, "most deadly plant till date?". Who has so much hatred for Duke?

"Don't be surprised yet" he says calmy, as if assuring us that his next sentences are gonna shock us even more "this Oleander plant causes death by touch, and if you are lucky enough to survive it, ingestion of this flower is bound to kill you" he says, his eyes glowering with malice.

"The body suffered from oxidation, hallucinations, seizures, extreme pain and what not. From my first examination, it was plainly evident that the skin was completely desiccant and shriveled as if the touch, between the finger and petal, imparted heat enough to burn away the skin of the hand. Next, I proceeded to the eyes, they weren't shut despite the body dying a few hours before- the pupils were eyeing upward as if the person couldn't handle the shock, the shock of experiencing nasty hallucinations."

"Then, I briefed the account of the death from His Excellency, and feathered in my knowledge on Nerium's side effects. And the picture became big as life. The behavior before the death, the burning away of skin was oxidation, the upward eyeing of the pupils meant seizures and along with grabbing the head, the body must have suffered from hallucinations. The wriggling movement could mean the body's response to the unbearable pain an-"

He is interrupted by the harsh cough from Lady Fiore, she covers her face with her soft hands and runs away from the vast study as if not wanting to show her crying face to anyone.

My wide opened eyes feel hot as thick tears roll down my white face, my sight blurs with another fresh batch of tears. My legs give out as I crouch down while covering my mouth, controlling my urge to throw up. I bend my gaze from others, not wanting them to see my precious tears. I only hear the faint voices from the screaming onlookers, I close my eyes as memories of Ella's agonizing death flashes before my eyes, overlapping with the facts I just heard. The last thing I feel is the rushed footsteps near me.

I feel completely blank, not wanting anything I heard and saw to be real and just be a bad dream I'm so used to. My logic shouts to "stop crying" but I can't. I know crying won't reverse anything, it won't reverse her death, it won't reverse the birth of such vile people who were hostile enough to make such a move. I know I should cease my weeping but I can't, rather I don't want to. I don't want to admit the truth, I don't want to admit her agonizing death, I don't want to admit the presence of such atrociousness in a world where I spend another careless day happily.

"Enough" I finally hear a raspy threatening and enraged voice, it spewed anger, animosity and utter dislike. I halted my continuous tears and opened my eyes, just to see a looming spine-chilling figure with gold amber eyes having soft hues of flaming claret. He is crouching before me, gritting his teeth- his many veins were visible, highlighting his anger. His white face is completely raged, showing light red on his ears and cheek. It is Duke Allen.

***************

A/n

The chapter ended. Though I wanted to lengthen it a bit more, but I already surpassed the word limit I set myself.

I researched about poisons for this chapter, and I found so many poisonous plants! It's like, I'm scared to touch any unknown plant now. So many cause hallucinations and stuff and most bizarre is that, some of these are used as ornamental plants?!

Anyway, I sure will never research anymore of them. Also, Ella's death and the after-effects on her body are completely imagined by myself. I don't know any realistic incident pertaining to this matter (I don't want to know either) I only read the causes of the plant. The oxidation, upward motion of pupils etc. Is something I wrote myself and is purely fictional and a part of my imagination. So don't go on believing imaginative stuff.