The Apothecary's Poison (Glass and Steele #3)(8)

A polished bar ran most of the room's length. Bottles, barrels and glasses behind it and a bartender who looked at me as if a woman had never walked into his establishment before. Empty tables and chairs occupied the other side of the room, and beside those were secluded booths that weren't visible from the front door. I quickly checked each one and returned to Matt.

"There are only six drinkers at the moment," I said. "None are DuPont. I still think you should check, just in case DuPont and Chronos are not the same man."

He nodded at the barman as he passed and looked into each of the booths. With a shake of his head at me, he approached the barman. They exchanged words and Matt reached into his pocket and passed him some money. The barman pocketed it and nodded.

Matt joined me and placed my hand in the crook of his arm. He steered me toward the coach and cheerfully asked Bryce to take us home. Matt's eyes sparkled with humor and hope amid the dark circles of tiredness. We may not have found Chronos, but we were close. We both felt it.

"What did the barman say?" I asked as I climbed into the cabin, my hand in Matt's as he assisted me up the step.

"That a man known only as Chronos drinks there occasionally. He fits the description."

I clapped my hands. "We have him, Matt! We've found him."

He closed the door but hadn't sat as the coach lurched forward. He would have tumbled into me if he hadn't pressed one hand to the ceiling and the other to the wall behind my head. The angle brought him very close to me, his chest just inches from my face.

I looked up at the same time that he looked down. His face softened and his smile slipped. The hand on the ceiling moved to my shoulder, the thumb stroking the underside of my jaw.

I swallowed, hoping for his kiss, waiting for it, aching for it. His eyes turned smoky and his lips parted. He moved closer, closer until he filled my view, scrambling my senses.

"India," he murmured, his voice thick, "when I am healed—"

We turned a corner and he lost his balance. Before I could even take a proper breath, Matt was sitting on the seat opposite me. He stared out the window, his profile uncompromising, as if we'd not just shared a charged moment.

"Are you all right, Matt?"

"Fine." He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away to look at me. "You?"

"Also fine, thank you." I clutched my reticule tighter and waited for him to continue his speech, but he did not. "You were saying?"

He stroked the crease cutting through his forehead until it cleared. "My behavior just now was unforgivable. I apologize. I…I don't know what came over me."

I hoped it was the same thing that had come over me, but it didn't seem so. He showed no signs of desire—no flushed cheeks, no quickening of his breath, and no eagerness to be close to me again. He wouldn't even look at me directly. The sting of his rejection brought tears to my eyes. I studied my reticule in my lap until I'd composed myself. I looked up, only to see that he'd been watching me.

My cheeks warmed yet he remained unmoved. "Did you pay the barman to notify you if Chronos returns?" I asked, determined not to let him see how he'd affected me.

He nodded. "I asked him to attempt to find out where Chronos lived and to also send someone to fetch me immediately. Apparently Chronos drinks there once a week, sometimes twice, always alone. He paid the innkeeper to tell him when someone asked after him. He uses the staff as a sort of messaging service."

"But if the innkeeper tells Chronos about us, he might run away again."

"That's why I paid the innkeeper more than Chronos is paying him."

I blew out a measured breath. "Let's hope he's greedy enough to sell his services to the highest bidder."

Bristow met us at the front door just as the ebony and brass clock in the entrance hall ticked over to eleven-fifty. "You have visitors, sir. Lady Rycroft and the Miss Glasses."

"All of them?" Matt asked, handing Bristow his hat.

"All of them."

"Is my Aunt Letitia with them?"

"Yes, sir."

Matt glanced past me through the open drawing room door. Hope Glass, the youngest, waved and smiled. Her two sisters, on the sofa beside her, pretended not to notice us. Matt's two aunts weren't visible from where we stood, and I couldn't see Willie, Cyclops or Duke.

"Shall we, India?" Matt asked.

It would seem I couldn't get out of it. Nor did it seem like Matt wanted to make his excuses. Perhaps it was too late for that, now that we'd been spotted, but I didn't expect him to want to join them. His aunt and cousins had called twice in the last two weeks, and he'd sat with them. His uncle hadn't visited, and I didn't expect him to after Matt almost thrashed him in his own home. Matt's Aunt Beatrice looked as if she'd rather bite off her own tongue than chat with either of us, but her desire to see one of her daughters wed her husband's heir outweighed her distaste for the American and his unimportant assistant.

"Pssst." Willie hissed from the staircase and signaled us to approach her. She did not step off the bottom step, as if it offered sanctuary from a potentially horrid fate.

"Not joining your cousins in the drawing room?" I asked with mock innocence.

She pulled a face. "Those little twits ain't my cousins and you know it, India Steele."