Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(41)
Dare gritted his teeth and tried not to shout. “Someone may have tried to poison me. Your mysterious Mr. Crenshaw has robbed you after putting the entire staff out of work. We’ve not been here long enough to know if the villagers blame us or what other resentments might simmer beneath the surface. And vagrants and barn burners and madmen roam the countryside. You cannot be out here at night!”
“Poison you?” she asked, her eyes widening to mysterious midnight pools. “Your medicine may have poisoned you. I mean to experiment with that. But you cannot make me believe our servants put poison in that bottle!”
Of course she meant to experiment. Dare closed his eyes and leaned his hip against her makeshift table. It tilted. Cursing, he stood up again. “Come along then, tell me what boxes you need. We’ll both work in the workshop. At least there, I can keep an eye on you.”
“I don’t want to be kept an eye on,” she said resentfully. “And I don’t wish to be blown up or stink of sulfur.”
“I plan to experiment on the poison,” he said in desperation, hoping to lure her to safety.
She wrinkled her nose and eyed him warily. “Just that? What hypothesis are you operating under?”
The one that says women are too vulnerable to be outside alone, but Dare bit his tongue. Looking around, he found an open crate and hefted it to his shoulder. “Come along. We can work one out together.”
She hesitated, eyeing him as if he might attack her at any moment. Then with a look of dejection at her leaning tent frame, she began gathering up her few remaining boxes. “I believe your patent medicine consists of a dangerous substance mixed with less toxic ones.”
“Do you have any notion of how to sort one substance from another?” he demanded, kicking open the door for her.
“First, I will test it on plants as well as vermin. It is obvious smaller subjects are more prone to die than larger ones. Humans are larger and apparently do not die outright. Is there some mitigating circumstance that might make the medicine useful for humans and fatal to vermin?” She filled her arms with smaller boxes and followed him into the night.
“You completely dismiss my theory that someone added poison to the bottle?”
“No, I cannot completely dismiss it, but that is easily tested. You need only pour some liquid from your unsealed bottles into a dish and leave it out overnight.”
Damn, but the woman was clever—about experimentation, at least.
About financial affairs, Dare was fairly certain she had no understanding whatsoever. And if he did not find a way of completing the railroad land acquisition, they would be buried in debt by the time he stuck his spoon in the wall.
He’d finally looked over the survey maps. The tracks could cross abbey lands, or go further south and cross this property. He was fairly certain his wife would adamantly object to selling her family home—but the land part of her trust was in his control. He could do with it as he liked.
Chapter 13
“Cozy, but not as clean as I would like,” Emilia said in exhaustion as she studied their evening’s handiwork.
She’d swept out spiders and wasp nests from the walls, and worse from the floors. She was in desperate need of that bath Dare had promised. But he was equally disheveled and coughing hard after dragging together tables, hammering shelves into the walls, and unloading her equipment.
He pried open the seal on one of his medicine bottles and poured the solution into a shallow plate he set on the floor in a dark corner. “It will be enough tonight to test if the medicine is at fault. Tomorrow, when I have more light, I’ll look at our victims under the microscope.”
“I cannot say I am sorry to see bugs die,” she said, wiping her hand across her dusty brow. “I am quite certain they are good for plants, but not in the environment I need to make medicine.”
She checked on the field mouse they’d transferred to a small crate. It had burrowed into a nest of hay they’d given it for a bed. Using a dropper, she added more water to the tiny saucer, then added some cut up carrots from the neglected garden. The mouse stuck its tiny nose out and sniffed. Was it recovered already?
Dare wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s a mouse, not a pet. It will chew its way out soon enough.” He steered her toward the door. “Medicine-making requires the controlled environment of a laboratory. This shack is little better than your garden shed.”
“I know, but someday. . .” She sighed. “I am only fooling myself to believe my pharmacopeia will earn even enough to import ginger root to improve your cough medicine.”
“Publish it under your initials. Men will believe it was written by a man. And yes, I know that’s misogynistic. But not everyone can know you as I do, and you will admit that most women do not have your education.” Dare locked the workshop, and she let him lead her across the stone drive to the back door.
Even if he didn’t understand, it was a relief to know he didn’t despise her for her unusual occupation. “First, I need the funds to have it printed,” she admitted as they crept into a dark, silent house.
“That could be a problem. Color plates cannot be inexpensive. But we will worry about it another time. Tonight, we learn what can be done to produce a bath.”
He started coughing again. Having learned that her desire for this man shielded her from his pain, Emilia wrapped her arm around his waist, enjoying the unfamiliar intimacy. Dare rested his arm over her shoulders as if she might truly be more to him than a means to an end. She’d always had family to keep her from feeling lonely, so she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed by not being held.