Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(75)

“You are a brilliant woman with strange relations,” Dare said, coming around the chair and holding out his hand to help her up.

“Ashford is merely a cousin-in-law. You’re the one whose mother hauls wallpaper to your deathbed. You should hold that over your fire and test for elements. It’s a most noxious green and I don’t know how you can tell her to cover your walls in it.”

Dare gave the box an evil look. “I hated that paper in the study.”

“So you kept scorching it.” She laughed and kissed his glower away. “Without you around, it will remain on the walls for a hundred years. Perhaps you can convince your mother it’s the wallpaper’s fault for scorching too easily, and she should paint the walls a nice bright cream. Now I must pay my respects to Christie. She grows bored confined to her chambers.”

“She doesn’t sound bored,” Dare said, listening to the laughter filling the corridor. “She sounds as if she’s driving Ashford crazy. So I will heroically rescue him while you entertain his lady. If vile odors fill the air, don’t say you weren’t warned.” He hefted the box of decorating material, placed a hand at her back, and steered her into the mayhem of Wystan Castle.



“Are you trying to make yourself ill?” Ashford demanded, peering over Dare’s shoulder as he set a makeshift beaker over a flame.

Taller, broader, and more muscular than most men, Duncan, Lord Ashford, overwhelmed the small chamber with just his physical presence. His authoritative presence was even larger. Dare still ignored the mighty marquess.

The gas and smoke from his last experiment permeated the air of the windowless closet Dare had appropriated for his work. He assumed the chamber had once been a priest’s private chapel, deconsecrated in Cromwell’s time. The stone altar was perfect for his workbench.

As the contents of the beaker began to burn and smolder, Dare coughed and waved the stench from his face. “I’m already sick. I don’t think smoke can make me sicker. Am I bothering the ladies?”

“Down here, you’re only bothering the rats. But this rot smells damned poisonous. What do you hope to accomplish?”

“A better way to poison rats? Mostly, I’m trying to determine how to detect different arsenic compounds so physicians won’t keep poisoning people with their quackery. Arsenic trioxide, for instance, creates arsine gas when treated with nitric acid and zinc.” Dare captured the smoke from the heating wallpaper in an awkward contraption created out of a glass decanter and the hollow stem of a broken wine glass. “But gas isn’t visible and doesn’t prove anything except to me. I need discernible evidence.”

“That smoke is damned visible and stinks worse than garlic. I’m regretting sending for the chemicals. Why the devil are you testing wallpaper?”

“I’m also testing paint, water, herbs, and anything else the women hand me, but the wallpaper is particularly fascinating. Look at how the paint changes color. How the devil are they making these dyes? Hand me some of that charcoal over there.”

Only after Ashford handed him the lump in wry silence did Dare realize he’d just ordered around one of the most important men in the kingdom. But the talk of poisonous smoke had ignited a new theory.

“Are you not stretching your distaste for this wallpaper a little far?” Ashford asked, apparently unperturbed by being reduced to the task of coal carrier.

“Cover your nose,” Dare ordered, using his own handkerchief to do the same. “Fragments may escape this contraption.” He added the charcoal to the beaker.

They both watched as a shiny black powder formed inside the tube from the smoke of the heated wallpaper.

“Damn, I didn’t expect that,” Dare whispered, watching the particulate floating into his makeshift beaker. “I’ve been poisoning myself.”

Holding linen over his nose, Ashford peered at the black powder. “Or your mother has,” he added helpfully. “She chose your wallpaper, did she not? Are you saying that powder is poison?”

“Arsenic, if I do not mistake. I’ll have to test further. I just did not think. . .”

“Arsenic? Are you sure? We sell copper to paint and dye manufacturers, but not arsenic,” Ashford offered. “Can you be poisoned with copper?”

“Arsenic is a naturally occurring element often found in combination with copper. The process by which they’re creating this pigment. . .” Dare began scribbling notes. “There is a very good possibility that the copper contains arsenic. I need to find out more about their process.”

“And you have been regularly burning your wallpaper?” Ashford asked in astonishment. “And breathing these particles?”

“Just heating the wallpaper would release the gas. My study is decorated completely in this noxious green. The dye could be in the wallpaper, the paint, the fabric on my chairs! I’ve spilled chemicals on them, smoked them, heated them, thrown water at fires and soaked them since my youth. And all this time, they’ve been giving off arsenic in gas and dust and fabric lint! I have been inhaling poison all my life.”

Ashford leaned over, turned off the lamp, and shoved Dare toward the door. “Remove yourself now, go breathe some fresh air before you keel over.”

As they hit the corridor, a clear celestial song echoed down the stone staircase. Ashford paled.