Chemistry of Magic

by Patricia Rice

  She punched his arm. “Don’t be selfish. What I need to do is find some way of grounding myself, so the healing current does not drain me. Once I’m connected, once I go really deep and feel the tissues healing, it’s difficult for me to stop. My gift, my power, whatever this is that I possess, wants to keep healing until everything is perfect again. But doing so weakens me, especially in a case like yours, where the damage is too extensive. I’m not even certain what I can repair—tissues or just symptoms.”

  She’d been so foolish to waste all those years. . .

  He hugged her and pressed a kiss to her head. “Then do not experiment unless one of your family is nearby to ground you. It does no one any good if you kill yourself, which reminds me. Bridey says she can’t tell if you’re with child, or if that caused you to faint. There was some folderol about Wystan if we want an heir and souls and more nonsense I cannot interpret. What did she mean?”

  “That’s not any easier to explain,” she protested, snuggling against him. “Wystan was once a medieval Malcolm stronghold. It is filled with our journals, a place of retreat for Malcolm women when they’re in the family way, and also a place to go if we wish to be in the family way. If you would like to understand us, you might go there someday and study what makes us who we are. But as we understand it, Wystan is full of the souls of Malcolms who have passed beyond the veil and who are eager to return their gifts to the world. Evidence over the centuries has proved that conception is guaranteed, whether wanted or not, if men are allowed loose in that tower.”

  He snorted. “That’s a very convenient fairy tale. I like it. Bridey also told me that I’m too ambitious. Is she a fortune teller?”

  Emilia chuckled at his offended sensibilities. She pushed away so she could meet his worried eyes. “Bridey is of Malcolm descent, like the duke and I. She reads auras—the color of the spirit inhabiting you. She says every color has a meaning, but that’s all I know. But I don’t need her to read your colors to know you’re ambitious. I don’t know why ambition would be wrong, unless it means you’re the one allowing railroads to threaten our property. And in the meantime, I’m starved.”

  He still wore his trousers. She was still in her chemise. The servants would be in to check on them soon. There was no time for intimacies.

  “I understand medieval tower and journals and study. But you seem to be saying we could go to this place and make babies?” Dare asked in interest. “Are we talking magic?” He cupped her breast through her chemise.

  “No, we’re not talking magic.” She arched longingly into his caress, but she was too hollow to do more. “Unless you believe life is magical, which I suppose it is. Bridey had difficulty conceiving and never carried a babe past the first month or two, but after being with Pascoe in Wystan, she immediately conceived and seems to be carrying the child well. This is the kind of thing that happens there, with such regularity that we do not question why. It just is. We’ve spent a lifetime studying our family anomalies. You cannot expect to learn them overnight.”

  His brow puckered as he tried to comprehend. “I’m a man of science, but I accept that there are many things in this world that we have not studied sufficiently to comprehend. If I did not have this railroad business hanging over our heads, I’d fling you in the carriage and head for Wystan today.” He hugged her close and kissed her hair.

  Emilia graced him with her best smile, before the railroad business reminded her of yesterday’s events. Reluctantly, she climbed out of bed to gather her clothes and explain what she’d learned from her visit to Hadenton.

  She couldn’t tell if her husband’s fierce frown was for her or for Crenshaw, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t because Dare was feeling bad. He seemed flushed with health this morning as he washed and dressed. She knew he usually called James about now to shave him, but he seemed more intent on what she was telling him. She thought. At least he wasn’t telling her this wasn’t a woman’s affair.

  “Weathersby is one of the bankers I spoke to about the estate funds,” he told her. “He was the one who claimed Crenshaw was a gentleman your grandfather trusted. I’ll have your executor sue Weathersby and Crenshaw for conspiracy and theft. But it is this belief that the house was condemned for the railroad that has me more concerned than the money.”

  “I am positive my father would not have authorized the sale,” she said to reassure him. “I think Mr. Weathersby may be as much of a thief as Crenshaw and is just taking funds for an investment he can’t afford otherwise.”

  “Very possible. Pascoe is the man to find out. But. . .”

  He hesitated so long that she came out of the dressing room to study him with worry. “But?”

  He sat down on the bed’s edge. “Bridey is right. If we are being honest, I admit to ambition, sometimes to excess. I have invested a good part of my wealth in a railroad consortium building a line into Harrogate.” He looked up with a guilty expression. “Our plans were laid out when the abbey lands were still in the Crown coffers. Now that they belong to Pascoe, we cannot finish the track. I stand to lose everything I invested.”

  “You are behind the railroad going through Alder?” Shocked, she couldn’t absorb the immensity of what he implied.

  “A railroad,” he explained. “Railroads are essential. But we never planned a track through your land.”

  “But you planned one through Pascoe’s lands and you didn’t tell him?” Outraged, she wanted to fling him out the window. Had he been a stranger, she might have attempted to do so. But this was Dare. She had known his ambitions when she married him. “Were those your surveyors that Mr. Ives-Madden saw?”

  “Not mine,” he said forcefully. “I’ve ascertained that.”

  “So then it’s all right?” she asked in relief. “No one will be destroying our homes and fields?”

  To her dismay, he shook his head negatively.

  “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I can’t throw away investor money by giving up now. And even if we did, there is another rail line to the north that wants to connect with Harrogate. Alder is in their direct path, so they will go through here one way or another.”

  Emilia fisted her hand over her middle. “So no matter what, we lose our homes?”

  Dare shook his head. “The abbey fields make the best route, true. We’ve bought up land that is going to waste on either side of them. There is an alternative, if Pascoe won’t sell.” He held her gaze. “The tracks could conceivably go through some of your unused property. If Weathersby’s association is considering that, then they are also talking to the northern rail line.”

  Emilia felt sick. If Pascoe refused to sell his property, Dare would go broke and his family would starve. If Dare’s investors didn’t lay track, then the men in Harrogate would—right through her land.

  None of them had any understanding of what that meant. She gathered her courage and regarded him stonily. “I have no unused property,” she informed him. “After we eat, I will show you.”

  “It’s swamp,” Dare declared, studying the wasteland land he’d considered an alternative to Pascoe’s. He felt his boots sinking into soggy peat. “You could make a great deal of money selling off this worthless property. Why would you say no? Think what you could do to the cottage, the servants you could hire, the laboratory you could build. . .”

  Here was a solution to their land problem! He could sell the consortium this swamp. Even if they had to build a trestle over it, they’d still make a fortune.

  “I won’t need a laboratory if I lose this land,” his bewildering wife protested, lifting her old skirts above a pair of old boots and descending an embankment with the nimbleness of a mountain goat.

  Dare was fairly certain Emilia was not insane. Odd, perhaps, misinformed, no doubt, but not insane. So she believed this swamp was more important than her studies. It would behoove him to figure out why or spend the rest of his limited life believing he’d married a crazy woman who would see his family starve over a swamp.

 
He slid down after her, catching her arm as they reached the bottom. She tugged him to a stop and pointed at their feet.

  “We are walking on Sir Harry’s garden. It’s overgrown, but there should be stepping stones so we needn’t crush the mosses.” She crouched down and brushed aside ferns until she found a solid rock. With a gardener’s expertise, she produced a pair of secateurs from her apron pocket and began clearing a path.

  “It’s a bog filled with bog plants,” Dare argued, gazing at the lush greenery. He hadn’t spent much time on his father’s very small estate. He barely knew hay from alfalfa. But he knew a bog when he saw one.

  She pointed to clumps of rounded leaves. “Liverwort, dozens of different species, some unknown anywhere else in the kingdom. Some species are excellent for improving blood circulation. Others are excellent for women who need it when they reach a certain age to balance out their ill humors. There’s another species further on which makes an excellent tonic. I was waiting for this fall to harvest it to see if it might give consumptives more strength to fight the disease. My grandfather spent his life importing new varieties, learning their properties.”

  He saw weeds. “There is no profit in a crop of liverwort!”

  “Sadly, no,” she agreed, uncovering more stepping stones and proceeding toward the lowest part of the swamp. “When we start putting money above the needs of people, everyone loses. We’ll kill off valuable herbs that could save human lives. What is the purpose of money if it can’t buy health?”

  Stunned, Dare studied the truth of this painful revelation. Weeds could cure him?

  He’d spent his entire life learning how to turn everything around him into gold. Even now, he calculated the cost of building a trestle over this swamp. But what good would it do him or others if they died because the herbs they needed were lost?

  He’d rather believe the herbs were quackery, but Emilia thought otherwise. And his wife had been right enough times that he couldn’t simply discount her beliefs for his.

  “We could move your plants closer to the house,” he suggested, walking on the stones because she seemed to think it important. “We could dig holes and fill them with water. Weeds are hardy. I don’t see the difficulty.” He was practically pleading. There had to be a way.

  She sent him a look of pure exasperation. “Put your hand in that stream you’re standing beside.”

  Dare crouched down, pulled off his glove, and stuck his hand in the water. “Ah, thermal springs! But this whole area is dotted with springs. One isn’t any more special than the other. I surmise you don’t want to start a spa out here.”

  “You surmise correctly,” she said curtly. “These particular mosses would not grow without the spring to keep them warm in winter.” She pointed her cutters at a particularly succulent bunch of slime on the rocks lining the spring. “Those mosses have been known to prevent infection. Do you have any idea how miraculous that would be? Grandfather was unable to find a form in which it could be sold at an apothecary. It needs to be wet and green to work. But if we could hire a botanist, he might learn to grow it elsewhere. We could save millions of lives if we could fight infection. Just think of the soldiers who have lost limbs who might have been saved had this moss been available! But if you destroy the seed and the plant, the opportunity to save others will be lost forever.”

  Dare was feeling desperate. “Why should we sacrifice our futures for a few plants that probably grow elsewhere?”

  “How many untouched hot springs do you know?” she asked with asperity.

  None. And by the time they located one, it would be too late for the railroad.

  Dare sighed and brushed ferns back from what appeared to be a carved stone overhanging the stream. He could make out a worn Celtic triple spiral covered in moss, giving evidence that this spring had been a source of water for thousands of years.

  “My ancestors were reported to be Druids,” Emilia said, coming to stand over him and admire the carving. “This land has been in our family long enough to make the legend believable.”

  “I am a man of science. I don’t believe in water gods or Druids or even in ancient family history. But I respect your belief in the holiness of this place to you family.” He bowed his head in despair, realizing he could never sell this land over Emilia’s objections. She was his family now as much as his mother and sisters. Damn.

  “Thank you,” she whispered in what sounded like relief. “I hope someday to make you understand so that you’ll know you did the right thing.”

  He’d be dead someday, but he didn’t need to remind her of that regret. “I will talk to Pascoe and Bridey about their land,” he said, placing the future of his family in the hands of others. “And then I shall go to Harrogate with a lawyer and have a good long talk with the banker.”

  “Lord Erran Ives is a lawyer. He might still be at Wystan with Ashford,” she said. “I’ll write Lady Ashford and ask if she’ll send him down to talk with you and Pascoe. He’s a lawyer with a powerful gift in his voice.”

  Dare scowled at her. “You’re telling me that even men have these mysterious Malcolm abilities?”

  She shrugged and smiled brightly. “One of Lord Erran’s great-grandmothers was a Malcolm, one who would have adored this spring. He’ll understand.”

  Dare offered his hand to help her up. She took it without hesitation, appeasing his ill humor. “I don’t have the luxury of time for learning superstitions, but for you. . . I want to believe you are different, that you understand what I need. But in return, I know I must listen to what you need. I’m not a complete nod-cock. I understand quid pro quo.”

  Proving she was, indeed, a paragon of understanding, she acknowledged his declaration with a nod and said, “We can work together. I wish to understand arsenic. Why would a doctor put poison in a medicine and believe it cured people?”

  And then she dropped his hand to crouch on another stone.

  “Arsenic is a naturally-occurring element in soil and water,” he told her as she removed a bottle from her apron and filled it at the stream. “It’s quite possibly in that spring water, along with dozens of other minerals. Man has known about it for centuries. It’s a byproduct of copper refining, for instance. It’s been used in pesticides and medicines and may actually be as necessary to the body as fruits and vegetables, since many foods absorb it from the soil.”

  “A very complicated element,” she said with a frown, tucking the bottle back in her apron. “You said there are different kinds?”

  “Aye, and therein lies the problem. Arsenic combines with other elements to do different things. It’s a preservative and a fixative in its most poisonous form. But as long as one doesn’t go around eating wood and paint, it’s harmless to humans.”

  “Paint?” she asked, looking up from gathering moss. “Wouldn’t it hurt the people mixing the paint? I have a sister who decorates rooms. Are she and her workmen in danger?”

  Dare shrugged. “Not that I know of, but I just read a Russian scientist’s treatise on mad hatter syndrome that indicates the mercury used in making felt hats is poisoning the hatters. So it is possible that arsenic may be poisoning us in ways we don’t understand.”

  “So, in the interest of progress and making money, we could all be killing ourselves?”

  “Or we can be producing copper to sheathe ocean-going vessels so sailors needn’t risk their lives scraping barnacles. And it shows exciting possibilities in the field of electrical conduction that could make all our lives easier in the future. We simply have to be careful of how we use our discoveries, not stop experimenting entirely. If your sister isn’t drinking paint, then presumably, she is safe.”

  “I need more treatises on arsenic,” she said worriedly, gathering her skirt and climbing up the hill. “I want to know what other symptoms it might cause. Could it have made your cough worse too?”

  “I didn’t start taking Fowlers for a very long time after I developed the cough,” Dare warned her. “I doubt there’s any connectio
n. What do you plan to do with that water?” he asked, climbing up after her and wishing he’d thought to bring a bottle of his own.

  “I’m not sure.” His intrepid wife frowned and took his arm—something she was more willing to do these days he noted with pride. “Now that my pharmacopeia is complete, I’d intended to experiment and improve upon it. But this talk of minerals and arsenics and other naturally occurring substances. . . I want to know more.”

  “I can help you with those studies. I’ve been learning to separate elements in hopes of finding new ones. Once we learn the composition of our planet, we can better understand how the building blocks fit together.”

  Instead of yawning and changing the subject, she studied him with interest. Even men of his acquaintance hid behind newspapers when Dare expounded upon his theories. He waited to see how much she wished to know.

  “How did you become interested in elements? Is there money in such discoveries?” She asked that last part skeptically.

  He acknowledged her perceptivity with a nod. “There is seldom money to be made from scientific discoveries until some commercial inventor finds a way to put them to use and sell them. The steam engine took decades to develop and is just now becoming commercially viable. So, no, I do it because I like to know what makes things work. Until recently, I’ve not had time to invest much energy in a hobby that does not lead to a profit, so I’ve not made much progress.”

  “Consumption keeps you home now,” she said sympathetically. “I understand the frustration of not being able to go about as one might like.”

  “Which is why you were angry with me yesterday? You didn’t want to be left home?”

  “Precisely,” she said in a clipped tone that indicated she still wasn’t happy with him.

  Oddly, Dare realized he wanted her to be happy with him. He’d ignored the silly requests and complaints made by his family for years, but Emilia—didn’t want to visit a duke because of his title. She wanted to visit a man who could teach her. Dare could relate to the quest for knowledge.