The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  He held his breath, wondering if she would take the book and just leave. The coffee machine engaged, and he heard the comforting click of her laptop keys as exhaustion began to nibble at the edges of awareness. He sighed, reaching for the glass pipe on the nightstand. In the distance, he heard the sound of a mobile ringtone.

  CHAPTER 49

  Anne grabbed her phone on the second ring. Paul Gilles. Bloody hell. He purred with smarmy delight. “Hello, darling.”

  “Paul.” She hated that self-satisfied voice of his. What was it this time? What had the diaries revealed? She shuddered. “To what do I owe this call? You do realize it’s half two?”

  “Not here, it isn’t. We found it. The bloody fucking holy grail. A tissue sample.”

  “You’re joking. A tissue sample almost two hundred years old? Is it even usable? I doubt it’s the least bit reliable. And how can you be certain it is from—”

  “It is a finger. Likely left-hand ring finger. And guess what?” There was a sinister, gleeful tone to Paul’s voice that sent a shiver through Anne’s spine. “We’re running it through the gene sequencer. Now. We’ve got him.”

  Not again. She laced her tone with as much exasperated disdain as she could muster. “Paul, leave the poor man be. He’s just been through a terrible ordeal and—”

  “And walking around as if he’d skinned his knee? Indeed. We need him, and if you can’t deliver one small—”

  “What then? Kidnap? I do not want to hear this. It’s why I left London in the first place—that and you. What are you doing? I don’t even know you anymore. What you are planning goes beyond the bounds of legitimate, ethical scientific research.”

  She bloody well knew they’d already gone way beyond it, time and again. She knew considerably more . . . had seen considerably more than Paul could imagine she had. And if it came to it, she would leverage her knowledge to protect Gaelan.

  “I’m hardly Mengele . . . and I know that’s what you’re thinking. That honor would go to the chap who chopped off—and very nicely preserved—a man’s finger in the mid-1800s. I just want to know if it is your friend’s missing finger in the jar. All I need is one small sample. Anything will do of course. Blood would be best, and don’t tell me, Dr. Anne Shawe, PhD, MD, expert in telomeres, that you don’t itch to know his genetic makeup.”

  “Of course I do, but I won’t have anything to do with your bloody project. I know what Hammersmith—and you—have been up to, and if the authorities ever learned . . . If these last months have taught me anything, it is that I no longer wish to associate my name and reputation with Transdiff.” Anne was shaking with fury. It was everything she could do to hold onto her mobile.

  Paul’s voice dropped to a whisper, the sneer gone, replaced by something far more sinister. “What do you mean? What do you think you know?”

  Shite. “Nothing. Only that I know it was the worst mistake of my life hooking up with a wanker like you. I am only the worse for it.”

  “I’m on a midafternoon flight. I cannot wait to meet your Mr. Erceldoune and verify how he lost three fingers from his left hand.”

  “How much does Hammersmith know of what you told me?”

  “Why, all of it, of course, my darling. You don’t think I would hold back any important information from our employer, do you?” The dig hit its mark.

  “Look,” she said, quietly opening the door to Gaelan’s bedroom, hoping he was still asleep. He looked restless, but not awake. “That book he’s been helping me with? You’ve no idea what he’s discovered in it. It’s incredible—beyond amazing. We need him on our side. His value is far beyond any anomalous physiology he may or may not possess. And if you harass him or try to force him into something he wants no part of, he’ll bolt, and there will go any chance of—”

  “That’s great about the book, but it changes nothing. He will be coming back to London with us, and I guarantee you, it is in his best interests to do it. I’ll see you in . . . twenty hours, give or take. Look, darling”—Paul’s tone turned ingratiating and sweet—“don’t suppose you’d be keen to pick me up at the airport?”

  “Not bloody likely.” She clicked off.

  Paul and Hammersmith had tossed aside any sort of ethical compass long ago, and she could only imagine what they had in mind for Gaelan Erceldoune. They’d not rip him apart like that sadist in Bedlam. They were far too civilized for that. But if they genuinely believed that Gaelan Erceldoune was the real deal, a man who had lived for centuries . . .

  Science had not progressed so far that the greedy could not dream of the philosopher’s stone of ancient alchemy and the guarantee of limitless wealth and life eternal. She shuddered to think of the Pandora’s box that would open if Transdiff really were that close to having an Elixir of Life.

  There would be time enough in the morning to warn Gaelan. For now, he needed to rest, without her intrusion. Anne was anxious; there was no way she would sleep. She needed something to occupy her hands and the hours until dawn. Although she’d never been very excited about housework, she had to admit, Gaelan’s flat was a disaster that needed serious tending.

  She’d known him only a few days, yet she was more drawn to him than she’d been toward Paul Gilles or anyone she’d ever known. Anne picked her way through the mess on his floor, trying to create neat piles, placing them on his desk, without trying to read anything. More papers. An iPad. A photograph . . . a very old photograph. A rotogravure image, perhaps from the nineteenth century, she thought. Sepia, barely visible beneath the faded, cracked, and yellowed surface.

  Except for the face. That was clear enough. A Victorian-era woman standing in a garden, not young, not really beautiful, yet her smile was so genuine, her eyes so warm, almost liquid. Her long hair, dark in the image, hung loosely down to her shoulders; she was clad in a simple dress that seemed to billow away from her, perhaps in a breeze. She wore a bonnet and carried a bouquet of daisies. There was something very familiar about her, as if she’d seen that face somewhere. . . . Of course, everyone had those photos stashed in albums and hanging in frames. Victorian grandmamas or spinster aunts from a long-ago era. And they all had the same pose—always carrying a basket of flowers. De rigueur. Still . . .

  She needed better light. Under the bright fluorescence of Gaelan’s magnifying lamp, the image became clearer. Yes. The face was familiar. But impossibly familiar. It could not be. Staggered, Anne lost her footing, falling backward into a high-back wing chair, the photograph clutched to her chest.

  It would be morning back home, and her mother would be having coffee with her cousin Diana, who knew everything about everyone in the family tree. Perfect. She opened Skype on her phone and clicked her mother’s icon, waiting as the app reached across the Atlantic.

  “Mum!”

  “Annie! Is everything all right? Good heavens! What time is it in America? It must be middle of the night!”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Fine. Erm . . . Look. I’ve come across an old photograph . . . at . . . a friend’s house. And I could use a quick sanity check.”

  “Why? Whatever is going on, luv? You sound quite strange.”

  “It’s been a rather strange few days indeed, and I’ll tell you all about it when I can talk longer, but do me a favor and have a look at this photograph, would you? Does this person look familiar to you? I think it looks awfully like Gran.” Anne held the image up to her phone, hoping it would transmit clearly enough.

  “Well, it might be, but firstly, the clothes are all wrong. That woman is dressed very definitely nineteenth century—early nineteenth century, I should think. Gran was born in the 1930s. So it cannot be her, unless they’re all in fancy dress, but I admit, it looks quite a bit like her. Hang on, I’ll ask Di. We’re having coffee, as always this time of day, but she’s out in the garden admiring my Norfolk tulips. Perhaps I can wrest her from them.”

  Anne waited, feeling suddenly foolish. The woman in this photo was probably Gaelan’s great-great-grandmother or other ancestor, fallen o
ut of some photo album and into the chaos on the floor. It was sweet, in any event, she thought, he would keep an old photograph like that. Hmm.

  “Annie, I’ve got Di here.”

  “Hallo, Annie. How is Chicago, luv?”

  “Fab. Di, would you mind having a look at this old photo I’ve found? I’ll hold it to the phone. I could swear it looks like my grandmother, but obviously it is not, as my mum just pointed out. It’s probably nothing to do with us, but—”

  “Well, let’s have at it, then. You never know where the family tree spreads, and—” Once again, Anne held the photograph up to her phone and waited.

  Silence for a long moment. Anne removed the photo to see Di, whose eyes were wide in astonishment, a hand over her mouth. She had never known her gregarious cousin ever to be struck dumb about anything—or anyone. Until that moment.

  “Di?”

  “Call you back. Wait. No. Have you . . . I will e-mail you something in about five minutes. Stay right where you are. I know exactly who that is. But how on earth . . . ?”

  Anne wandered the room, carefully avoiding the remaining piles of papers on the floor, suddenly in no mood to tidy. She checked her wristwatch. Ten minutes had passed. Why hadn’t she heard back from Di?

  Her gaze drifted to Gaelan’s bookshelves, as neatly organized as the floor was an entropic mess. She scanned the spines, fascinated by the elaborate gilded engravings on some of them, each a work of art.

  She removed a volume: Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes. She loved Holmes.

  She opened it, finding on the inside cover an inscription in a flowery hand. She read it and read it again, and a third time. “To my sceptical friend and favourite apothecary-alchemist, Mr Gaelan Erceldoune. Some day you shall know me to have spoken true—mark here my words.” At the bottom of a longer passage, the initials “ACD.”

  Arthur Conan Doyle.

  Each bit of circumstantial evidence clicked into place, from Paul’s damnable finds to this photograph . . . and then there was the matter of his recovery, which she’d seen evidence of with her own eyes. And now this. Still she tried to convince herself that the inscription was meant for Gaelan’s grandfather. Yes, that would make some sense, would it not? But the truth of it hit her like a lightning bolt. Any of these alone could be refuted, but all together . . . She was torn. She had the fucking holy grail of genetics in the palm of her hand . . . and in the next room, a man who would be destroyed with public revelation of the discovery.

  Anne blinked back surprise just as a text came through followed by her phone’s signal, startling her in quick succession.

  “Annie! Did the photo come through? It is quite old, I grant you that, but I daresay it is the same woman.”

  Anne squinted into the screen of her phone, suddenly thrilled she’d opted for a large screen. “Who is she?”

  “Her name was Lady Eleanor Douglass, and she was born in the early nineteenth century. Tragic story. Some miscreant murdered her first husband, an earl, out for revenge, it is said. It’s all rather hazy and part of the family skeletons, you know. But it all turned out right for her in the end, or so says the family legend. She would be your great-grandmother’s great-grandmother’s grandmother . . . or something like that. She had four children: three girls and a boy.” Di stopped, as if just then realizing the strangeness of Anne having a photograph of this woman. “But Annie, dear! How on earth did a photograph of Eleanor Douglass come into your possession, and in America of all places? Good heavens!”

  “That, my dear cousin, is an excellent question, and one for which I’ve no answer—at least not yet.” Anne’s hand trembled as she held the phone, shaking her head in disbelief at this latest revelation. “Thank you, Di. Would you put Mum on the phone?”

  “Annie, darling, what is going on?”

  “I’ve no bloody idea, Mum. None whatsoever! I need to go. I’ll ring you later. I promise.” She continued to stare at the texted photograph as she sat on the sofa, shaken to the core.

  CHAPTER 50

  Anne padded quietly into Gaelan’s bedroom, noting the faint aroma of hashish; no wonder he was sleeping soundly. She studied him, still coming to terms with the fact she was staring at a man possibly two centuries old.

  On the other hand, it would certainly explain some things, including “rare books and antiquities.” A perfect cover for a man not of this century. His old-fashioned courtliness, the occasional formal manner of his speech, the books—the signed Conan Doyle. She shook off the idea as bollocks fueled by Paul’s morbid zeal. But she knew there was far too much coincidence for it to be coincidence.

  But the photograph was much more difficult to explain away. Who was this Eleanor Douglass to Gaelan Erceldoune? Perhaps she was a distant relation many times removed, and nobody special. If Di had an aged photograph of this woman, why not Gaelan? So she and Gaelan were related somehow. A little strange, perhaps. A small world. And that could explain why she felt drawn to him—a sort of shared genetic history, and a far more likely proposition than the possibility he was a two-hundred-year-old immortal being.

  Her mind drifted to Paul’s phone call. She wondered what Transdiff might do to coerce Gaelan’s cooperation. Would they go to the press with it, knowing he’d be hounded by the media until a trip to London, all expenses paid, would be a welcome escape into some sort of protective, gilded cage?

  Paul would do it, threaten to reveal it all to the tabloids, or slip it anonymously, photos and all, expose decades of a hidden life, then offer protection, privacy. Money. Guarantees that would all be genuine . . . to a point.

  If Gaelan was really that man from the diaries, he’d likely agree to almost anything once backed into a corner. What an awful constellation of possibilities Gaelan Erceldoune had before him. Trapped in an intricate labyrinth with no means of escape.

  Gaelan shivered in his sleep, almost a flinch. What dreams do you dream, Gaelan Erceldoune? What horrors you must have endured. Is that what you see when you close your eyes, even decades and decades later?

  Slipping in beside him, she tried not to awaken him or get close enough to startle him. But she wanted to be near when he awoke.

  Why would morning not come?

  Then there was the book. This extraordinary manuscript Gaelan Erceldoune alone seemed able to understand, his mind flying through its acrobatics when none of the scholars—not one—she’d consulted could make heads or tails of it. And he’d been so keen on it that first moment he’d seen it. She’d thought it a bit peculiar then, for him to be so immediately . . . enraptured. Was that the word? What was his connection to the book, which was—of course—also connected to her family?

  Gaelan moved, awakening, finally with a catlike, languorous stretch, rolling to his side, facing her now, his long hair a veil across his eyes. Another stretch, followed by a yawn. He blinked and switched on a bedside lamp.

  “Hey,” he whispered, yawning again, looking puzzled, but not annoyed, a sleepy smile crossing his face. “You’re still here? What time is it?”

  “Half five,” she responded softly. “Hope you don’t mind. I was lonely, and your sitting room is a bloody mess. Thought it might use a woman’s touch.” She smiled down at him. “I wanted to be here when you awakened. Much, much has happened since you fell to sleep.”

  “Not quite awakened.” He yawned. “Too bloody early.” He pulled the duvet over his shoulder. “Nearly four hours without waking, though, a new record for me, I think. Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “You must be the reason.” His voice was soft, still floating between sleep and wakefulness. The smile turned playful. And still more than a little stoned, she guessed.

  “I—”

  He lifted an arm, inviting her in.

  “Gaelan, we have much to talk about—”

  “Can it not wait?”

  She had, after all, planned on giving him until dawn to sleep, and he was quite persuasive. Anne could think of far worse things than to snug
gle beneath the blankets. And he seemed in no mood to discuss much of anything. Fine. Settling in closer, she allowed Gaelan to draw her near; he was warm, cozy, and it felt spectacularly comfortable and right. No more than half an hour!

  “You seem to be doing better.”

  “I am. No monsters in the closet this time. Perhaps I do have you to thank—”

  “And whatever it was you smoked in that bowl.” She gestured to his nightstand.

  He shrugged sheepishly. “I do what I have to do. But it is rather good hash.”

  “Do you have them often? The dreams?”

  He gently kissed the corner of her eye—the first of a pattern, a trail that led down her jawline to her neck and shoulder. His hand followed, deft, delicate—she wondered if he was not actually touching her, but transmitting pure sensation as his fingertips floated above her skin. All other thought was being pushed from her mind by the feathery tingle of Gaelan’s hands and lips.

  “Gaelan—”

  “Shh. Can you not see, lass, I’m quite occupied?” His voice was dreamy; it flared through her every nerve ending.

  Her brain protested that this was not a good idea, but her body refused to listen, seduced by Gaelan’s tender, slow, insistent ministrations. They had no time for it. What if he was unable to . . . and it made matters worse? What if . . . ? Her questions went unanswered as he popped the buttons of her blouse, punctuating each pop with his devastating mouth, each kiss sending a kick of pleasure through her core.

  He paused suddenly, confronted with her brassiere, as if uncertain how to free her from it. Abandoning any thought of resistance, she assisted, demonstrating the art of unclasping the garment while on her back.

  “Ah!” He smiled, observing, taking it from her, examining it as if it were a novel plaything, before tossing it aside to wrestle with her jeans and panties.

  Had he never seen a bra before? Another clue in the puzzle that was Gaelan Erceldoune. She shook off the idea as Gaelan continued his exploration of her body. She surrendered all rational thought as his tongue found every sensitive spot.