Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(40)
“Do you wish to linger with your brandy?” she asked as dinner ended, despising her timidity. She certainly couldn’t ask if he wished to retire upstairs for ravishment. She flushed just thinking about it.
Dare stood and held out his hand to assist her from her chair. “No, but I probably ought to go to my office and finish up my work after spending the day away. Do you think we have enough staff for drawing a bath later? I am probably infested with fleas from that wagon ride.”
The tension flowed out of her. She would have a few hours to set up a worktable, although the problem of the leaky ceiling needed to be addressed. “I’m sure Robert could carry the tub upstairs. We’ll need to hire someone as large as him to take his place when he goes back to Ashford.”
“Shall I order him to start filling it for you, my lady?” Dare asked with a leering lift of his eyebrow.
Oh dear, she must be strong and resist temptation, drat the man! “If you don’t mind, I have a few things I must do as well. Perhaps. . .” A daring thought occurred to her, and she attempted a leer of her own. “We might share the water later?”
He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “I’ll arrange that.”
She held her cheek after he left for his office. What would it be like to exchange real kisses, the kind she’d despised when other men had tried?
Sadly, she would never know, unless someone proved consumption wasn’t contagious.
Rather than pursue that dismal line of thought, Emilia went in search of oilcloth. She would have to ask Dare if replacing glass would fit into their budget.
Dare carried his supply of Fowler’s Solution out the back door to his workshop. The bottles had been sealed when he’d purchased them. He couldn’t imagine anyone regularly adding poison every time he opened one. Cousin Peter might like to hasten his death, but his cousin had the spine of a jellyfish and the brains of a toad. It would never occur to him to use poison in such a premeditated manner—especially since it would have to include paying a servant to do the work for him.
Still, Dare needed at least to test whether the sealed bottles were dangerous, and it wasn’t just the open one which might have been tampered with. And then he needed to determine what kind of poison killed vermin and if it was equally dangerous for people. Surely all the research Fowler had done hadn’t killed anyone! The medicine had been available for decades, and the statistics on cures had warranted trying the solution on other diseases.
Dare almost dropped the lot as he passed the garden wall and saw a light flickering in the glass house. Did they have traveling Gypsies living here, poisoning bugs?
Remembering he’d found Emilia in there earlier, he cursed and set down the bottles. The crude conservatory had no doubt originally been a storage building, built with sturdy brick walls and small, high windows for light. The late Sir Harry had probably replaced a rotten thatch roof with glass to create a winter house for his plants. It looked like the light of a single lamp shining weakly through the front window.
He could hear faint hammering. The shed was too damn damp—and vermin infested—for his wife to use. And working outside at night. . . just invited trouble.
Just in case it wasn’t Emilia, Dare checked the latch and found it open. Trying to see inside without being seen, he nudged the door with his foot until the opening revealed shadows and movement.
And humming, feminine humming. With a sigh, Dare kicked himself for imagining she had gone off to the parlor to embroider.
He eased the door open and watched as she stretched an oilcloth over a stick frame she must have created out of nothing. The woman couldn’t cook a meal, but she could make a tent. It was a damned good thing they were living in rural anonymity. She would be a complete waste in a London ballroom.
“The frame needs crossbars or it will collapse under the weight of the cloth,” he informed her, striding in and checking the posts she’d nailed to the table.
Instead of shrieking in surprise or yelling at him for intruding, his inimitable wife studied the weak frame and nodded agreement. “I don’t have pieces long enough. And I fear the wood is rotten.”
“I thought you were creating your laboratory at the abbey,” he said with more irritation than he ought. “It’s dangerous working out here at this hour.”
She glanced up in surprise. “How? Will the mice eat me? I was wondering if I should sprinkle the leftover solution around the walls to kill bugs, but I was thinking it would be better to have a cat to catch the mice.”
“Cats kill mice,” he said dryly. “And strangers wander rural roads just as they do city ones. I was thinking of going back for my gun. You are not made of steel, my lady. These are perilous times.”
“Times are always perilous,” she said in irritation. “I have decided I need a place to work closer to home than the abbey. The abbey is good for practical application of my medicines, and should I ever have a microscope and the proper equipment, I can use the laboratory for studying how and why herbs work. But I also need a place to mix my herbs here. I cannot spend my evenings at the abbey.”
“You cannot spend your evenings in a shed!” he protested. “You’ve led a truly sheltered life if you think women can wander anywhere a man can and be safe!”
“I can and I have,” she said stubbornly. “Men keep everything to themselves, so I have to go out and fight for it. If that means walking the streets of London at night, then so be it. Although,” she added with a grimace, “I usually took a footman with me. I just didn’t think one was needed in my own home!”