Eros Element Page 22

  “Of course.” He rose, opened the door, and stepped back. “Come in, Miss McTavish.”

  Iris nearly jumped back when the tall Irishman opened the door. She’d forgotten how brawny he was, and his bulk filled the doorway.

  “I’d like to speak with Professor Bailey,” she said.

  “O’course.” He stepped back so she could pass by. I’m glad he’s with us even if I don’t know what his motives are beyond helping Doctor Radcliffe.

  Edward sat by the window, the afternoon sun picking up the red highlights in his chestnut hair. The golden thing on the table in front of him caught her attention first, and he smiled at her.

  “Miss McTavish!” He rose, and she was relieved he seemed to do so with little effort. “I’m glad you came to see me.” He had shadows under his eyes, although not as deep as the day before, but tightness around his mouth told her he experienced pain. It reminded her of the expression on her father’s face in the latter days of his illness when he tried to put on a good front, but she could tell he hurt. And he hadn’t called her Iris.

  “I came as soon as I could,” she said. “I understand that there’s been some question of whether I’m engaged.”

  Now his lips curled into a genuine smile. “And you get right to the point, one of the best things about you. Please have a seat.”

  She sat across the table from him. The sun warmed her left cheek and hand like a couple of kisses. Kisses? Where did that come from? She closed the curtain. “Don’t want to get freckles on one side of my face,” she said.

  “Understandably. Freckles on both sides would make more sense.” He settled into his chair.

  O’Connell stood on the other side of the room, and Iris understood he was there as chaperon and possibly as bodyguard for the injured professor. Not that Edward needed one, at least not more than she did. Her hands slicked with sweat inside the stiff kid, so she removed her gloves and stretched her fingers in the sun. The words she wanted to say, that her father was dead and that they were all in danger from all sides, blocked the ones she needed to reassure him about the non-seriousness of her intentions regarding Jeremy Scott. Even though the lordling held the mortgage on her house now and would make it impossible for her to return to Huntington Village, the situation now held a much more trivial place in her mind. But she had to address it.

  “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” There, that was a good start. “And I know how much you value honesty because you’ve been lied to before, and it hurt, and hurting you is the last thing I want to do.” Please believe me.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Good.” Iris leaned forward, but a sunbeam smacked her across the face, so she had to sit back. “Before we left England, I received a marriage proposal from one of my father’s students. He’s not so much interested in me as in having access to my father and his library, all the discoveries he’s not been able to publish yet.” And never will, but I can’t cry about that now. “I turned him down, but he was determined. His footman seduced my maid Sophie into marrying him, and he sent his coach after me the morning we left.”

  “So your adventure started before we reached the airship. That’s why you looked so disheveled on the train—he must have chased you.”

  “Yes, and since I had to do my own hair, it wasn’t up securely or well to begin with.”

  Iris hoped the look on Edward’s face was of admiration, not horror at what must seem like wanton circumstances. It all sounded so ridiculous when said out loud. But she had no control over any of it, as she couldn’t determine his reaction. Whatever he felt, he appeared to be calculating, well, something.

  “Do my circumstances fit any of your physics or aetherics models?” she asked after the silence stretched for several minutes.

  “No, I’m trying to calculate what we need to do to keep you safe.” He gazed at her with eyes that matched the color of the summer sky outside. “This was not supposed to be a risky adventure, but we didn’t have all the variables, like Lord Scott’s interest in you. It hardly seems fair that you, the woman, would face more inconvenience.”

  His expression softened, and he took one of her hands in both of his, which enveloped hers. It occurred to her that his hands had both strength and dexterity, and the heat that came to her cheeks wasn’t from the errant sunbeam that found her again. What would it be like to entrust herself to them, to him?

  “I don’t mind. I’m happy to be on this adventure with you even if we’ve had our misadventures.” She leaned forward, her eyes on his lips, and a cough from across the room reminded her they had a chaperon.

  Edward started like he’d forgotten too, and sat back, leaving her hands in the false-seeming warmth of the sun on the table. “Now tell me, Iris,” he said. “Are there any other variables I need to be aware of?”

  Meaning, have I kept anything else from you? She glanced at the bedside table, where small apothecary bottles lay along with what looked like a child’s manuscript complete with scrawled writing on the cover. “Are you in pain?” she asked.

  “Not enough to count as a variable in our risk equation. Doctor Radcliffe keeps it under control with laudanum, and I’m taking a smaller dose every day.”

  Father always refused to take laudanum for his pain. He said it made his lips too loose, and he didn’t need the world to have his secrets. “I see. I have nothing else to tell you at the moment.” She rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for this evening’s gala.”

  He rose. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  Iris nodded. Her tongue hurt from biting it to keep herself from telling him everything, but her father’s words plus Bledsoe’s description of how Edward had spilled the intent of their mission to Radcliffe under the influence of the French wine made her only nod in reply.

  “You’re upset, Miss,” Marie said after she opened the door.

  Iris entered and sat on the chaise by the window, which had the shears pulled to so the sunlight didn’t pour in like in Edward’s room. She squeezed her lips and eyelids shut, but tears escaped anyway. Marie sat beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. It must be her imagination, but Iris thought she felt soothing warmth coming from her maid. Whatever it was, she brought herself under control.

  “Thank you,” she said, although she wasn’t sure what for other than calming her. But that’s impossible. Emotions can’t be transmitted through touch or the air.

  “De Rien,” Marie said, and the French words, It’s nothing, seemed more appropriate than the odd English response of You’re welcome. “What happened?”

  “I had to lie to Edward. I told him about Lord Jeremy, but I didn’t let him know about my father. He won’t be stuck in his room much longer, and I’m concerned about the effects of the pain medication.”

  Marie nodded. “We had a girl at the theatre who broke her leg during a performance. The doctors gave her laudanum for her pain, and everything that went through her head came out of her mouth.”

  “But he hates it when people lie, and he held my hand.” Iris hiccupped, and it felt like a prelude to sobs, so she clenched her teeth. I will not cry, I will not cry.

  “Oooh la la,” Marie said. “And does the Professor have nice hands?”

  “I believe so. They seem strong and flexible. He had something on the table beside him, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, only that he made the clockwork butterflies into something else that looks like a snake.”

  Marie squeezed Iris’s shoulder and laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Oh, the combination of what you said.”

  Iris gave her a quizzical look. “I’m missing something.”

  “Bien sur. You are a proper English miss, after all. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I won’t.” Irritation and the sense of being mocked replaced distress, and Iris stood. “Now please leave me b
e. I have to do some things I need privacy for.”

  Marie rose from the chaise and curtsied, all traces of levity gone and replaced by a properly deferential manner. “I’m sorry, and yes, Miss.”

  Iris moved to the bed after the door closed behind Marie. Her room was smaller than Edward’s, so it was difficult to find the right spot to do what she needed, something away from the window but also not near the wall between the room and the hallway in case she accidentally said something and one of the little listening devices picked it up. She tossed her reticule and valise on the bed, removed her shoes, hopped in, and crawled toward the headboard. She pulled the curtains so she sat in a little room inside the room. A check under the covers and pillows revealed no hidden recorders, and the rebellious part of her smiled at the dishevelment of the bed Marie had so carefully made. Not that there’s any reason to rebel against her. But she resented the implication she didn’t belong to the world of sophisticated women or possess necessary but secret knowledge.

  Iris pulled her father’s pipe and pocket watch from her reticule and the poison hiding container from her valise. She laid them out on the bed in front of her and added the photograph of her father asleep—she couldn’t accept he was dead in that picture—to the mix.

  Is this what we come to, a collection of small things for a great man’s life?

  This time she allowed the tears to flow freely, and a memory nudged the edge of her consciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grange House, 5 May 1864

  “You’re not ready yet.” The door to Iris’s bedroom framed Adelaide, who stood in her opera clothing, her fur shawl over her shoulders in spite of the warm weather. The way she had it draped accentuated her décolletage, and she seemed to have put more care into her cosmetics than she usually did when Iris’s father was away. Irvin was due back any day now, but the last train had come, so Iris—and apparently, Adelaide—guessed he wouldn’t return until the next day at the soonest.

  Iris sat on her bed in her wrapper, the hated corset beside her. “I’m not going. I can’t breathe in that thing.”

  “But don’t you want to see your friends? I know Lettie was looking forward to you coming to play while I’m out.” Now it was the wheedling tone that made Iris hunch her shoulders. Next would come pleading, but lately her mother had progressed to yelling and tears. Iris steeled herself—if she made it through the storm, Adelaide would allow her to stay home by herself with the servants, although at this time of night, the only ones who stuck around were the scullery maid and Sophie.

  Now the muscles in Adelaide’s face hardened. Yes, we’re heading for Rageville, one more stop down the line.

  “Do what you want, you impossible child,” she hissed. “Fine, stay with the servants. You’ll be lucky if you end up being one of them someday since you don’t care about being a lady.”

  “I don’t want to be a lady,” Iris said and made sure to infuse her tone with the same contempt she heard in her mother’s voice. “Unlike you, I’m too smart for that. I want to be a scholar.”

  Adelaide crossed the room impossibly fast and raised her hand to slap Iris across the cheek. Iris tilted her head up—she refused to flinch away from her lying, deceitful mother—and braced herself for the blow. But before Adelaide’s arm descended, a strong hand caught her wrist and gently lowered it.

  “Papa!” Iris wanted to run to him, but he held his seething wife, whose expression now showed fear with a hint of guilt. At Iris’s cry, contempt flooded over both emotions. Her mother’s face had more terrifying expressions than an array of ceremonial masks, and Iris cringed against the headboard.

  “What have we talked about with regard to speaking to your mother?” Irvin McTavish’s voice held a new edge.

  “Always speak in a respectful manner.”

  “You owe her an apology, then. It’s not nice to flaunt your intelligence to insult someone.”

  Iris’s cheeks felt like they had the slow flame of the furnace in them. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Adelaide?” Irvin asked. “Your turn. I heard all of it.”

  “I apologize,” Iris’s mother said, but her tone contradicted the words.

  “Good, now come. We need to talk.”

  Iris waited for them to leave and followed their shadows down the hall to the parlor, where she sat outside the door. Their voices carried through the wood, which they later found was half-rotted on the inside.

  “You can’t carry on like this,” Irvin said. “We have a child.”

  “We have a useless girl who won’t wear a corset even though she became a woman last month.” Adelaide’s tone was now weary, and Iris curled her lip.

  Of course she’s going to sound put upon to get his sympathy.

  “We have an intelligent daughter who doesn’t find the same things important as you.”

  Iris preened. He did understand her.

  “That said,” he continued, “I don’t care if you want to have dalliances while I’m away. God knows I haven’t been an attentive husband, and you’re like a child in your need for attention. But I don’t want you leaving our daughter unprotected when you go to meet your lovers.”

  Adelaide’s startled gasp echoed Iris’s own, and Iris put a hand over her mouth.

  “Leave one of the footmen here in the evening when you’re out. I’ll pay the overtime. And please be more discreet.”

  Now Iris huddled against the wall, confused and hurt, both for herself and her mother. What madness was this? Her father was supposed to go in, sweep Adelaide off her feet with professions of undying devotion, and win her affections back with promises he couldn’t keep. Or kill her. Both were possibilities according to the novels Iris “borrowed” from her mother’s bookshelves when Adelaide was out, and passionate murder didn’t fit his personality. Nor was he the willingly cuckolded type, and his giving up disappointed Iris more than she thought. Logically, she could see how the arrangement would work, but she wanted a real family.

  “Did you say Iris became a woman last month?” Irvin asked.

  “Yes. She started her courses a few weeks ago.”

  Iris jumped up and raced down the hall so she would look like she had just descended the stairs. Her father emerged from the parlor, and his face creased in a familiar smile when he saw her. In the waning light of the hallway, he appeared more tan than previously, his skin further dried by the sun. Iris always thought he looked older than her friends’ fathers because of his job, but maybe it was also because part of him had left the youthful hope of love behind. She wondered what she could have done to stop it. Be a better daughter so Adelaide didn’t get as frustrated? She tried so hard, but nothing she did seemed right, and she couldn’t help getting dirty. There were so many interesting things to dig for in the garden.

  “There you are,” Irvin said. “I hope your mother didn’t frighten you.”

  No, you did. But she didn’t say anything, just shook her head.

  “Good. Come into my office. I brought you back something you can keep for the weekend, but then I need to bring it to the University.”

  This got Iris’s attention. She followed him into the office, where he had set his trunk and valise.

  “How did you get home?” she asked. “You weren’t on the last train. I waited until everyone got off and it pulled away.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry you were there so long, but at least the weather is nice. I needed to surprise your mother, so I got off at the previous station and hired a steamcart.” He put his valise on his desk. It was streaked with dust, and Iris ran a finger through it and rubbed the powdery stuff between her thumb and forefinger. The stress had caused her hands to sweat, and the dirt turned into a slick paste, which she wiped on a handkerchief.

  “The sands of the middle east are soft like powder,” he said. “It’s impossible to get off. When I think I’ve wipe
d it all away, it reappears.”

  The expression on his face told Iris he wasn’t only talking about the sand, but she’d learned to stay quiet rather than ask for clarification and interrupt his musing. But he didn’t say anything further. He rooted around in his luggage and pulled out a string and paper-wrapped object about the size of Iris’s fist.

  “Now remember what to do,” he said.

  “Don’t open it like a Christmas present, but very slowly because what’s inside might be fragile.”

  “Exactly. Good girl.” He handed it to her, and she smiled at the praise. That was the difference between her and Adelaide—she’d learned to be gentle and slow and not barrel ahead.

  Iris untied the string, and Irvin moved his valise so she could put the package on the desk. She unfolded and unrolled the paper as he’d shown her, with deliberation and care for whatever might be inside. At the center of it was an emerald ring, the stone large but the band small enough to fit her. She knew people in the past were smaller, but it seemed tiny even for them. She reached to touch it, but her father stopped her.

  “Listen to it first,” he said. “Every object has a story, as do the people who owned it. If you approach it with the attitude of wanting to hear what it says, it may tell you surprising things.”

  Iris nodded. She closed her eyes and pictured the ring. Tell me your story. A tingling sensation spread from the base of her spine to her skull and down to her fingers, which she wiggled. Her father didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was right there beside her in case something went wrong. She picked up the ring and held it in her right hand. The stone added some heft, but the metal of the band was also surprisingly dense. Also startling, she could feel the triumph of the person who had rescued it from the sand in the corner of the temple they excavated, silence, and further back, the sense someone held a secret, and it was for their own survival and that of their family. At the hint of danger, Iris dropped the ring.

  “What did you feel?” Irvin said.