The Apothecary's Poison (Glass and Steele #3)(67)

It was a genuine smile, and why wouldn't it be? He admitted he liked her, perhaps more than he let on. The familiar knot of jealousy tied my insides together.

"Excuse me," I said and headed to the stairs, only to have Willie catch up to me and block my path.

She gripped my arm hard and bent her head to mine. "You can't leave now, India," she whispered. "Someone has to stay and make sure she doesn't get him into a compromising position."

"Willie! He wouldn't do that."

"I said she'd do it to him. Not all ladies are prim and proper like you. Some are devious. And anyway, if they're alone, she'll ask him about what she saw and he might tell her. Someone has to stop him from confiding in her."

"You do it."

"Polite talk makes me want to gouge my own eyes out. You're good at it."

"At being dull?" I picked up my skirts and forced my way past her. "Send Duke or Cyclops in. I've got better things to do."

"Like what?"

"Like…see to the clock in the drawing room. It's running a little slow."

"Coward."

"India?" Matt called after me. "Won't you join us for tea?"

I paused on the step and smiled back at him. Hope, now holding on to Matt's arm, inspected his profile, perhaps looking for signs of the magic. "I'll be in the drawing room," I said. "The clock needs fixing."

He narrowed his gaze.

"Come, Cousin," Hope said. "It'll just be us. We can discuss private family matters."

Willie sighed heavily. "Then I better come too, since I'm family." She turned her back to them and glared at me so hard her eyeballs looked in danger of popping out of their sockets. "You owe me," she mouthed.



Matt joined me in the drawing room a half hour later. I checked behind him but he was alone.

"Found the problem?" he asked, nodding at the mantel clock in front of me on the table, its housing open and the mechanisms exposed.

"Not yet," I said.

"Perhaps that's because there is no problem."

I ignored him and inspected the wheel, barrel and spiral spring under my magnifier. All pieces were, in fact, in good working order, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Has Hope left already?"

"She grew tired of Willie making her presence known with yawns, coughs and sniffs. I got the distinct impression Willie doesn't want me to be left alone with Hope."

"She's worried you're going to fall in love with her and want to remain here in England."

He hiked up his trouser legs and sat. "She has a point."

I dropped the spring and it rolled off the table.

Matt picked it up. "As always, Willie has her own interests at heart. Pay her no mind."

"I-I'm not." I accepted the spring and used my tweezers to insert it back into the clock's housing. "Did Hope ask you about what she'd seen?"

"She asked to see my watch, so I showed it to her. That reminds me, we still need to buy me a new artless one."

"Stop trying to change the subject. What did Hope say about your watch and the magic?"

"She gave the watch a good inspection and handed it back to me. She then asked why my skin had changed color while I was clutching the watch. I told her she'd been mistaken as I was holding the watch at that moment and my skin was perfectly normal."

"She won't believe that. Hope is not the sort of girl who is easily led to believe the opposite of what she saw. Her curiosity must be piqued even further."

"Speaking from your own experience?"

"This is not a laughing matter, Matt."

He held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not laughing."

"You were smiling." I closed the housing on the back of the clock and gave the glass dome a clean with my cloth. "Hope won't give up until she learns the truth. She's clever, tenacious and devious. She'll find out about your watch somehow."

"Then perhaps I should just tell her."

I stopped cleaning and stared at him. "You're joking again."

"To be honest, I don't know. Sometimes I think it would be easier if she just knew what was wrong with me. She and my Aunt Beatrice would give up on marrying me then."

"I wouldn't be so sure. Your Aunt Letitia still thinks you're a prize, and she knows you're ill." I inspected the clock dome for smudges. "Anyway, we will find Chronos, and he will fix your watch, so your point is not relevant."

He continued to watch me as I polished the glass case, my strokes getting more and more vigorous as my nerves stretched tighter with each tick of the clock. "You're going to polish a hole through that glass," he eventually said.

When I continued, he leaned forward and laid his hand over mine, stilling it.

"What's wrong, India?"

"I'm worried. First Payne sees you using your watch and now Hope."

He stroked my hand with his thumb then pulled away. "Hope is hardly like Payne."

"But what if she confides in someone and they use the information against you in some way? Her father, for instance. Lord Rycroft may be your uncle but I don't like him."

"I don't like him either, but, as you say, he is my uncle and he ultimately wants what's best for me. He's on my side simply because I'm the Rycroft heir. The family title must continue and all that."