John stopped, then turned on his heel to face her. “It doesn’t seem to matter to you whether I’m here or not. You could have caught your death of chill if I hadn’t found you. If I don’t mean anything to you, then why am I wasting my time?”
“John, that’s not true. I do care for you.” Bianca rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know what happened. I’m confused.” She set down the bowl of tea and threw back her blanket. “Stay,” she said, sitting up. Her head throbbed, and she hesitated, waiting for the wooziness to pass. “Forgive me if I’m distracted, but I’m in a bit of a predicament.” Surely he’d remember she was facing an accusation of murder and would not abandon her. She got to her feet, the cool dirt against her soles, and immediately the walls began to veer, then slide, and she started to topple.
John dropped his coat and caught her up in his arms. Her hair smelled of dung smoke, and her body felt thin and vulnerable as she leaned against him. But he resisted the urge to kiss her, though it took all his willpower not to take advantage of the moment. She was honestly befuddled and in no shape to be left alone. He might be furious, but this he quickly forgot as he urged her down on the makeshift pallet and sat beside her.
For a while they sat companionably as if nothing bothered them or could ever bother them. John’s irritation waned, and he thought how easy they were together. She seemed as right to him as sunrise. How could he ever think of not knowing her? Of not caring for her? They’d depended on each other since they were twelve. He’d saved her then, too. But to be fair, she had helped him, too. If she hadn’t developed a balm for a nasty burn he’d suffered at Boisvert’s, he might have died from black blood. She was a talented chemiste, though frustratingly obsessed and driven.
“When I found you, the alley door was open and it looked like the pane had blown out of the front window. The floors were soaked.”
“I was testing the remnants of the tea I brewed for Jolyn. I had taken a few sips to see how I felt. I had started a fire and was sitting, thinking. I guess I was lost in thought before I realized that I had finished the entire bowl.”
“That is nothing if not foolish,” said John. “No one here to help in case you fell ill?”
“I set aside rancid goat milk in case I needed an emetic. I was careful.”
“Except you drank the entire cup.” Once again, Bianca’s pursuits had led her to a dangerous end. The girl could be as dense as marble in matters of common sense. John’s throat tightened with exasperation. “You almost killed yourself.”
“But I did not,” Bianca replied simply.
“You must stop testing your liniments and medicines on yourself. Test them on someone else!”
“Are you volunteering?”
“Bianca, you have a mind for these medicines, but I don’t fancy trying them out. Why don’t you find someone with the ailments? It may benefit them. And you.”
“But it might kill them. I’ve already been accused of one poisoning.”
“Then find an animal. There are plenty of cats and dogs and pigs roaming about.” He pointed to the cat skulking along the beam overhead. “Why not him? And you don’t have to compensate an animal.”
Bianca rubbed the back of her head, wincing at a tender spot. When she pulled her hand away, she found blood on her fingers. “Did I get this when I fell?”
John lifted her hair to check the gash. “You must have hit it on something. Maybe the furnace or the bench.”
Bianca frowned, trying to piece together what had happened. She remembered the wind blowing open the alley door after she had secured it with rope and had moved a heavy chest in front of it. How could the wind have forced it aside? She looked over her shoulder toward the rear entrance. “When you got here, did you come in the alley door?”
“I came in the front. Your window was missing its pane, and you were lying on the floor. You didn’t hear me when I shouted. I tried the front and got in. You hadn’t bolted it.”
“I did bolt it. I remember that.”
“The back door was wide open.”
Bianca squinted toward the alley and saw the latch and hasp dangling. “Did you move the chest back in front of the door?”
“It’s the only thing to keep it closed. It’s heavy, too. I can’t imagine the wind could push it aside.”
Bianca blinked. “Exactly,” she said. “I could barely move it in place.” Bianca pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms about her knees. She tried to remember the events leading up to her collapse. It had been so sudden—the alley door crashing open, the windowpane blowing out. She rubbed her temple, remembering a strange feeling that she attributed to her imagination. Or had it been from the tea? Either way, it hadn’t killed her. But she had seen the back side of her eyelids for a while.
She looked around the room, then took in a sharp breath as if seeing it for the first time. Indeed, she was becoming more herself and the fuzziness was beginning to clear. “John, someone has been here!”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at the table. Things are not where they were.” She pointed to a stack of bowls. “Those were not on the corner like they are now. They were in the middle. And look at my shelves—those jars have been moved to the table. That’s not where I left them.”
John looked at the table strewn with crockery and Bianca’s bizarre flasks and retorts. He could see no organization to the mess. “How can you tell?”
“John, I know!” Bianca stood and placed her hand on John’s shoulder, waiting long enough for a slight dizziness to pass. She went to the table. “No, no. This wasn’t how I left it.” She looked up at John, baffled. “Did you move anything?”
“Nay, I just got a bowl and some mint for your drink.”
Bianca gazed around the room, her eyes settling on the shattered remains of a jar lying in the rush. “Someone has been here.”
“Who?” asked John, standing.
“I don’t know.”
“Well then, why?”
Bianca shook her head.
John followed her stare, studying the surroundings. The rush that usually covered the floor in an even thatch was kicked up and pushed into little mounds. He brought it to her attention. “Someone disturbed the rush on the floor.”
Bianca looked about, then lowered herself on the bench.
John pushed aside the rush with his toe, revealing the packed dirt floor beneath. Nothing but shards of glass and pottery and the skeletal remains of a mouse littered it. He sat next to her, and together they blinked in silence, trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces. After a while, John found some cheese stashed on a high shelf. He cleared a small space on the board and, with the small knife he always kept at his waist, sliced her a piece.
“I asked Meddybemps to find out more about Barke House,” said Bianca, nibbling at her small wedge.
“You have suspicions?”
“I find it odd that Mrs. Beldam encouraged Jolyn to live at Barke House and soon aft this fellow Wynders tried to win her heart.”
“I’m not surprised a man would have designs for her. She was lovely.”
Bianca lifted an eyebrow. “It is too much of a coincidence. And then, there is Pandy.”
“Jolyn never said much about her.”
“True. But I’m beginning to put some pieces together.”
John retrieved the blanket, then removed his boots to stretch his legs toward the fire. “Like what?”
Bianca pulled the blanket over them. Her head throbbed mercilessly, but she took some comfort in leaning against John, who tucked her in close and draped his arm over her shoulder.
“I paid a visit to Barke House. I wanted to speak with Mrs. Beldam. Banes told me she wasn’t in. Pandy came down the stairs and was as flighty as a robin. Wouldn’t answer me with anything other than sarcasm. I gathered she was not particularly fond of Jolyn.”
“She’s jealous.”
“Most certainly. The moment I mentioned Jolyn’s suitor she couldn’t get ou
t the door fast enough. And then Banes told me that was a touchy subject for her.”
John pushed the hair back from Bianca’s cheek, exposing her neck. He wanted to kiss it, lay his lips on her skin and inhale, but he knew what kind of reception that might get. He knew better than to distract her when she was thinking out loud. Still, he found its graceful curve distracting and forced himself to look away.
“Remember when Banes came by for Mrs. Beldam?”
“Aye.”
“Remember what he came for?”
John shook his head. “I didn’t pay any mind.”
“He came for purgative.”
John shrugged. “I suppose that’s fairly common for a house of women.”
“For a house of women of ill repute,” said Bianca. “But Jolyn told me Barke House was reformed.”
“All good intentions, but probably not easy to succeed.”
“Perhaps, but Mrs. Beldam had rules. Besides, I believe only two things can wound a woman’s heart enough for her to seek revenge.”
John perked to hear what these could be. Any information regarding the behavior and thinking of the fairer sex was worth listening to. “Do tell.”
“First, losing a man to another woman,” said Bianca. “I believe Pandy may have been in love with Wynders.”
“It’s plausible.”
“And the second, of greater consequence”—Bianca removed John’s hand creeping down her arm—“losing one’s child.”
“Pandy had a child?”
Bianca shrugged. “Someone needed the purgative.”
“I understand the cause for rage. But to murder?” John snuffed with doubt. He rested his hand on her thigh beneath the blanket. The heat from her skin warmed his cool fingers.
“Put the two together,” said Bianca.
“Bianca, you don’t know that she was his lover.”
“Banes all but confirmed as much.”
“But you don’t know if she was with child.”
“Aye. But what if she was with his child?”
John moved his hand toward her inner thigh and watched her from the corner of his eye. “Banes’s visit to buy purgative is suspicious.”
“That’s why I think Pandy could have murdered Jolyn.”
John nonchalantly kneaded her thigh. “Could she have poisoned Jolyn with the purgative?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It might explain the cramping, but I’m not sure it would kill her.”
“Perhaps a coincidence. She very possibly could have suffered from something else being slipped into her food.”
“Mayhaps. But remember her blood took on a purple tinge. The only way I’ll know for sure is to test the purgative and see if it changes the color of blood.”
John tilted his head, then shook it. “Promise you won’t test it on yourself.” He knew she’d do what she pleased, but he hoped she’d be more careful. “Besides, you don’t want to make it easy for Constable Patch.”
“Meaning I’d deny him the pleasure of seeing me hang?”
John couldn’t resist the wry look on her face. He kissed her long on the mouth and let his fingers tangle in her hair.
Bianca felt as if her ideas were finally making sense. It wouldn’t be long before she had the proof she needed to bring Jolyn’s murderer to justice. She gave over to John’s seductive weight. She lay against his chest and let him brush his nose along her neck, nuzzling her to her clavicle.
But then, visualizing the measured tick of a pendulum, she remembered that time was not standing still, and she pushed away from John.
John started to protest, then thought better of it. His first priority was Bianca’s welfare, and he remembered why he had ventured here in the first place. She would not be glad for what he had to say. He hesitated, thinking how best to tell her. How could he not alarm her? In the end, though, he knew she’d prefer his being direct. “Bianca,” he said, “Constable Patch came by Boisvert’s asking for you.” He hated seeing her face become tight again. “If he finds you, he will arrest you.”
Bianca stood up and savagely jabbed the fire with a poke. “I can’t let that happen. I can’t prove my innocence from gaol.”
“Leave here, Bianca. It’s only a matter of time before he returns.”
“But I can’t avoid him forever. I have nowhere to test my purgative except here.”
“Why not use your father’s room of alchemy?”
When Bianca had developed her balm for the French pox, she had done so in her father’s room of alchemy. She had to sneak around when he was not there or when he was too preoccupied to care what she was doing. Even though she was beginning to become known for her medicinals, he continued to regard Bianca’s and her mother’s work as “the meaningless dawdling of simple minds.”
“No,” she said, without any hesitation. She gave John a scorching look. “I’ll have to secure the doors better.” She looked at the alley door, thinking. “It shouldn’t take me long to test my idea. I just need a little time.”
“Bianca, come with me to Boisvert’s. You can perform your experiments there.”
“You know very well Boisvert would never stand for that. He likes me, but he would never stand for me running experiments at his forge.”
John racked his brain, trying to think of what to say or do to convince her to leave her room.
But with the threat of execution looming, Bianca’s mind simmered with possible solutions and explanations to absolve herself of the crime. “Something else troubles me,” she said. “I went to the Dim Dragon Inn yesterday. I was looking for a muckraker named Henley. He was at Cross Bones when Jolyn was buried.”
John became sullen and didn’t answer.
“Remember she had mentioned a muckraker who accused her of stealing? Henley was that fellow.”
Relieved, John answered, “She never said what he accused her of stealing, did she?”
“Apparently, it was a ring. I saw him with Mrs. Beldam at Cross Bones, and when I asked him what business he had with her, he said he had pawned some jewelry for her.”
“That’s not unusual. Mrs. Beldam has to make money somehow.”
“I suppose. But as I was leaving, a man wearing a pheasant plume cap arrived. I had sold rat poison to him earlier. I waited, then stole back into the tavern and hid in the shadows, curious why a man of such standing should frequent the Dim Dragon. He could certainly afford a finer establishment across the river in London.” Bianca tucked her hair behind her ears. “He was talking with Henley.”
John shrugged, uncertain where her logic was leading. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Meddybemps had followed the man to Barke House. And when I visited Barke House, I asked Pandy if Wynders had been by. I might just as well have told her she had a face like a mule, she left in such rage. Isn’t it odd that a muckraker who hated Jolyn and a merchant she loved would associate with each other?”
“Bianca, the Dim Dragon Inn is frequented by all sorts. Rascals and the well intentioned. That two men should know each other is not cause for alarm.”
“Why do you discount everything I say?”
“I am not discounting everything.”
“You just did it again.”
John took a breath to say something, then thought better of it. “All right,” he said. “Suppose the two of them are rascals. What do you suspect?”
“Don’t be condescending.”
“I’m not!” He stared up at the ceiling while he composed himself. He knew she was anxious and touchy, and he tried to conjure enough patience not to lose his temper. After a moment, he tried again in a more level tone. “Tell me what you suspect.”
Bianca’s irritation was more with herself than it was with John. She knew it, and yet she struggled to stay reasonable. Someone had bludgeoned her and then ransacked her belongings. He had rifled through her sacred space, where she lived and worked. She felt violated, accosted. Maybe the intruder had meant to kill her; maybe he thought he had. Was it a warning? Not
only did Constable Patch want her dead, but now it seemed someone else did, too.
The comfort she felt with John vanished, and her instincts told her she should be out pursuing Pandy and peppering the girl with questions. And she had to see if the purgative would turn a person’s blood purple. She stiffened. What was she doing arguing with John while irreplaceable minutes of her life ticked away?
“John, you need to leave.”
“What?”
“Leave and let me get on with it.”
“Get on with what?” John’s voice rose in frustration. “Why do you do this? I try to help, and you reject me.”
“You can’t help me right now.”
“I’ll do anything you need. I’ll go with you to find Pandy. I’ll sneak into Barke House and watch Mrs. Beldam without her knowing. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“I have told you. I need you to leave me be.”
John stood abruptly. “What are you going to do?”
“John!”
Only she could do what was needed to save herself. It was written on her face. If he insisted on staying, he would only further alienate her. She had been in dire straits before, and if she survived this adversity, he had little doubt another predicament like this one, or even worse, would happen again. It was Bianca. He didn’t expect her to live a sedate life, though he wished she would—at least just a little bit.
He took the fire poke from her hand, then stoked the fire so she’d have several hours of warmth before her. With the blaze crackling hot, he found his jerkin and shrugged it on. He did admire her self-reliance and grit. She had not always been so brave but had shed her fears like a dragonfly sheds its skin, emerged a confident young woman, certain of no one but herself. Without a word, he kissed her, and as he felt her skin warm his cheek, he silently wished that someday she would believe he was just as worthy of her faith and trust.
On the surface he would do as she wished, but as he edged out the door of her room of Medicinals and Physickes, he was already contemplating how best to protect Bianca from Constable Patch.
CHAPTER 24
Banes was accustomed to doing Mrs. Beldam’s bidding. For as long as he could remember, he had lived at Barke House, where his earliest memories consisted of watching scantily clad women lounging about. A steady stream of men had paraded through its halls, never staying long and always hazarding Mrs. Beldam standing guard at the door.
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