C
HAPTER
23
Rescued from another world, Bianca blinked back into the reality of this one. From a soft, dreamless space she emerged into the hard dark of her laboratory. A rushlight burned behind several heads peering down at her, first four and then two. Their features were a blurred muddle of eyes and noses and concerned looks. She lifted a hand to her brow and was rewarded with a searing pain between her eyes.
“Lay you still. You’ve managed a bit of a strike on that crane. I’ll not have you stand and fall until you are right.” John gently guided her head back onto a mound of rush—a makeshift pillow—and pulled the wool blanket to her chin. “You were layin’ in a heap when I found you.”
Bianca grimaced, then turned her head to see where she was. He had fashioned a pallet of rush near the fire. Rain still fell, but a board was nailed in the window. The doors were shut, and the stoked furnace chased away a damp bite to the air.
“Is it morning?”
“It’ll soon be light.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You came by Boisvert’s earlier.” John checked a pan of boiling water and poured it into a bowl. He sprinkled in mint leaves and set it by to steep. “I heard a rap on the window, but you were already down the lane by the time I answered. I called after you, but you didn’t look back.” He blew on the bowl of tea and swirled it around. “So, I might ask the same question of you. Why did you come by?”
Bianca thought back to earlier in the evening. She remembered talking to Meddybemps and seeing a house marked with a cross of the plague. All else seemed a sea of confusion. “I don’t remember why I stopped.” She did remember why she didn’t stay. The clouds were gathering, and the wind had started to blow. She raised herself up on one arm, then realized she had nothing on under the blanket.
John tossed her a nightdress. “I promise I didn’t look . . . much.”
Bianca glowered at him as she wiggled into it under the covers. “When did you get here?”
“I had to finish with the forge and by then the rain had started. I almost didn’t bother.” John crouched and handed her the tea. “This might help. I promise—no Capsicum peppers.”
Bianca raised herself on her elbows and accepted the bowl. She smelled the steam just to be sure.
“Good thing I came along when I did,” he said.
Bianca didn’t say anything, but blew into the tea and took a sip.
“You should be glad I cared enough to see what you were about.”
Bianca furrowed her brow, trying to patch together what had happened. She stared into the fire as if it might reveal the answer. She felt she had no time for rest, but her body told her otherwise. The drink soothed her jittery humours.
John stood and took hold of the fire poke, jabbing it into the fire. “Well, you could at least be grateful.”
But Bianca was lost in thought. Had the concoction she’d made Jolyn knocked her out as well? Inadvertently, she had finished the entire bowl. She’d meant to try a little and wait for a reaction. Then the storm hit. The back door had blown open....
“Right.” John hung the fire poke and irritably dumped several dung patties into the furnace all at once. “Well, there you go.” He whisked his wet jerkin off a beam where it had been drying, startling the sleeping red cat, which swiped at him. “Since you won’t be needing me anymore,” he muttered, stomping toward the door, “I shall not trouble you again.”
Bianca blinked, rousing from her rumination. “John, wait! Where are you going?”
John stopped, then turned on his heel to face her. “It doesn’t seem to matter to you whether I’m here or not. You could have caught your death of chill if I hadn’t found you. If I don’t mean anything to you, then why am I wasting my time?”
“John, that’s not true. I do care for you.” Bianca rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know what happened. I’m confused.” She set down the bowl of tea and threw back her blanket. “Stay,” she said, sitting up. Her head throbbed, and she hesitated, waiting for the wooziness to pass. “Forgive me if I’m distracted, but I’m in a bit of a predicament.” Surely he’d remember she was facing an accusation of murder and would not abandon her. She got to her feet, the cool dirt against her soles, and immediately the walls began to veer, then slide, and she started to topple.
John dropped his coat and caught her up in his arms. Her hair smelled of dung smoke, and her body felt thin and vulnerable as she leaned against him. But he resisted the urge to kiss her, though it took all his willpower not to take advantage of the moment. She was honestly befuddled and in no shape to be left alone. He might be furious, but this he quickly forgot as he urged her down on the makeshift pallet and sat beside her.
For a while they sat companionably as if nothing bothered them or could ever bother them. John’s irritation waned, and he thought how easy they were together. She seemed as right to him as sunrise. How could he ever think of not knowing her? Of not caring for her? They’d depended on each other since they were twelve. He’d saved her then, too. But to be fair, she had helped him, too. If she hadn’t developed a balm for a nasty burn he’d suffered at Boisvert’s, he might have died from black blood. She was a talented chemiste, though frustratingly obsessed and driven.
“When I found you, the alley door was open and it looked like the pane had blown out of the front window. The floors were soaked.”
“I was testing the remnants of the tea I brewed for Jolyn. I had taken a few sips to see how I felt. I had started a fire and was sitting, thinking. I guess I was lost in thought before I realized that I had finished the entire bowl.”
“That is nothing if not foolish,” said John. “No one here to help in case you fell ill?”
“I set aside rancid goat milk in case I needed an emetic. I was careful.”
“Except you drank the entire cup.” Once again, Bianca’s pursuits had led her to a dangerous end. The girl could be as dense as marble in matters of common sense. John’s throat tightened with exasperation. “You almost killed yourself.”
“But I did not,” Bianca replied simply.
“You must stop testing your liniments and medicines on yourself. Test them on someone else!”
“Are you volunteering?”
“Bianca, you have a mind for these medicines, but I don’t fancy trying them out. Why don’t you find someone with the ailments? It may benefit them. And you.”
“But it might kill them. I’ve already been accused of one poisoning.”
“Then find an animal. There are plenty of cats and dogs and pigs roaming about.” He pointed to the cat skulking along the beam overhead. “Why not him? And you don’t have to compensate an animal.”
Bianca rubbed the back of her head, wincing at a tender spot. When she pulled her hand away, she found blood on her fingers. “Did I get this when I fell?”
John lifted her hair to check the gash. “You must have hit it on something. Maybe the furnace or the bench.”
Bianca frowned, trying to piece together what had happened. She remembered the wind blowing open the alley door after she had secured it with rope and had moved a heavy chest in front of it. How could the wind have forced it aside? She looked over her shoulder toward the rear entrance. “When you got here, did you come in the alley door?”
“I came in the front. Your window was missing its pane, and you were lying on the floor. You didn’t hear me when I shouted. I tried the front and got in. You hadn’t bolted it.”
“I
did
bolt it. I remember that.”
“The back door was wide open.”
Bianca squinted toward the alley and saw the latch and hasp dangling. “Did you move the chest back in front of the door?”
“It’s the only thing to keep it closed. It’s heavy, too. I can’t imagine the wind could push it aside.”
Bianca blinked. “Exactly,” she said. “I could barely move it in place.” Bianca pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms about her knees. She tried to remember the events leading up to her collapse. It had been so sudden—the alley door crashing open, the windowpane blowing out. She rubbed her temple, remembering a strange feeling that she attributed to her imagination. Or had it been from the tea? Either way, it hadn’t killed her. But she had seen the back side of her eyelids for a while.
She looked around the room, then took in a sharp breath as if seeing it for the first time. Indeed, she was becoming more herself and the fuzziness was beginning to clear. “John, someone has been here!”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at the table. Things are not where they were.” She pointed to a stack of bowls. “Those were not on the corner like they are now. They were in the middle. And look at my shelves—those jars have been moved to the table. That’s not where I left them.”
John looked at the table strewn with crockery and Bianca’s bizarre flasks and retorts. He could see no organization to the mess. “How can you tell?”
“John, I know!” Bianca stood and placed her hand on John’s shoulder, waiting long enough for a slight dizziness to pass. She went to the table. “No, no. This wasn’t how I left it.” She looked up at John, baffled. “Did you move anything?”
“Nay, I just got a bowl and some mint for your drink.”
Bianca gazed around the room, her eyes settling on the shattered remains of a jar lying in the rush. “Someone has been here.”
“Who?” asked John, standing.
“I don’t know.”
“Well then, why?”
Bianca shook her head.
John followed her stare, studying the surroundings. The rush that usually covered the floor in an even thatch was kicked up and pushed into little mounds. He brought it to her attention. “Someone disturbed the rush on the floor.”
Bianca looked about, then lowered herself on the bench.
John pushed aside the rush with his toe, revealing the packed dirt floor beneath. Nothing but shards of glass and pottery and the skeletal remains of a mouse littered it. He sat next to her, and together they blinked in silence, trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces. After a while, John found some cheese stashed on a high shelf. He cleared a small space on the board and, with the small knife he always kept at his waist, sliced her a piece.
“I asked Meddybemps to find out more about Barke House,” said Bianca, nibbling at her small wedge.
“You have suspicions?”
“I find it odd that Mrs. Beldam encouraged Jolyn to live at Barke House and soon aft this fellow Wynders tried to win her heart.”
“I’m not surprised a man would have designs for her. She was lovely.”
Bianca lifted an eyebrow. “It is too much of a coincidence. And then, there is Pandy.”
“Jolyn never said much about her.”
“True. But I’m beginning to put some pieces together.”
John retrieved the blanket, then removed his boots to stretch his legs toward the fire. “Like what?”
Bianca pulled the blanket over them. Her head throbbed mercilessly, but she took some comfort in leaning against John, who tucked her in close and draped his arm over her shoulder.
“I paid a visit to Barke House. I wanted to speak with Mrs. Beldam. Banes told me she wasn’t in. Pandy came down the stairs and was as flighty as a robin. Wouldn’t answer me with anything other than sarcasm. I gathered she was not particularly fond of Jolyn.”
“She’s jealous.”
“Most certainly. The moment I mentioned Jolyn’s suitor she couldn’t get out the door fast enough. And then Banes told me that was a touchy subject for her.”
John pushed the hair back from Bianca’s cheek, exposing her neck. He wanted to kiss it, lay his lips on her skin and inhale, but he knew what kind of reception that might get. He knew better than to distract her when she was thinking out loud. Still, he found its graceful curve distracting and forced himself to look away.
“Remember when Banes came by for Mrs. Beldam?”
“Aye.”
“Remember what he came for?”
John shook his head. “I didn’t pay any mind.”
“He came for purgative.”
John shrugged. “I suppose that’s fairly common for a house of women.”
“For a house of women of ill repute,” said Bianca. “But Jolyn told me Barke House was reformed.”
“All good intentions, but probably not easy to succeed.”
“Perhaps, but Mrs. Beldam had rules. Besides, I believe only two things can wound a woman’s heart enough for her to seek revenge.”
John perked to hear what these could be. Any information regarding the behavior and thinking of the fairer sex was worth listening to. “Do tell.”
“First, losing a man to another woman,” said Bianca. “I believe Pandy may have been in love with Wynders.”
“It’s plausible.”
“And the second, of greater consequence”—Bianca removed John’s hand creeping down her arm—“losing one’s child.”
“Pandy had a child?”
Bianca shrugged. “Someone needed the purgative.”
“I understand the cause for rage. But to murder?” John snuffed with doubt. He rested his hand on her thigh beneath the blanket. The heat from her skin warmed his cool fingers.
“Put the two together,” said Bianca.
“Bianca, you don’t know that she was his lover.”
“Banes all but confirmed as much.”
“But you don’t know if she was with child.”
“Aye. But what if she was with
his
child?”
John moved his hand toward her inner thigh and watched her from the corner of his eye. “Banes’s visit to buy purgative
is
suspicious.”
“That’s why I think Pandy could have murdered Jolyn.”
John nonchalantly kneaded her thigh. “Could she have poisoned Jolyn with the purgative?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It might explain the cramping, but I’m not sure it would kill her.”
“Perhaps a coincidence. She very possibly could have suffered from something else being slipped into her food.”
“Mayhaps. But remember her blood took on a purple tinge. The only way I’ll know for sure is to test the purgative and see if it changes the color of blood.”