The Apothecary's Curse (33 page)

His face grew hot as she searched every inch of his countenance, which he laid open for her to see into his heart and soul.

“Even should I believe your incredible story, how can you know this potion, this ‘bit of magic' as you call it, won't kill you . . . really kill you?”

“Please. I ask you to trust me, as I have trusted you with this most profound secret of mine. There is none who knows it for certain but your brother . . . and now you. After this is over, and I walk back into this house quite alive, you will have at your disposal the means to ruin me should you ever desire it. Discovery is the one thing in this life I fear most. My sanity will not withstand another ordeal as I have only just been through—”

Eleanor chewed on her lower lip. She was considering it.
Good.
She leaned into Gaelan, pressing her forehead onto his.

He waited, feeling the frisson of her assent transmit through to him. “Yes,” she whispered.

He sat beside her on the settee; Simon would return any moment. Taking her hand in his, he lifted it to his lips. “Thank you. I promise, it will be all right.” She was so close. His hands tangled in the chaos of her hair as he drew her in, gently capturing her upper lip, then the fullness of her mouth. Fire roared within him despite the situation, but there was no time, and with regret, he left her, and joined Simon in his laboratory.

The plan was simple enough. A poison—one that would kill a normal man instantly, and well match the effect of a hanging: breathing stopped, heartbeat halted long enough, he hoped, for the scaffold doctor to confirm he was, indeed, dead. An injection through a vein in his wrist at just the right moment. Timing was everything.

“And after?” she asked once they'd returned to the drawing room. “Once you come back to us?”

He bowed his head, unable to meet her eyes. “I shall leave these shores, never to return. I will be off to America and reinvent myself as I have so many, many times before, and shall do again and again. And you shall be free of this albatross, to marry and grow old and fat with many grandchildren, my sweet Eleanor. Now, retire to your room, whilst your brother and I await the inevitable.”

“But, I want to stay!”

It would not do for her to be about when the police called. She was no actress; her guilt . . . and her attachment to Gaelan would be written too clearly upon her countenance. “No, my lady. You cannot be here.”

Her tears fell, and she seemed to comprehend. Gaelan swept his thumb across the arch of her cheek to wipe them away. “Now, go.”

The trial was swift, and Eleanor gripped Simon's hand when the black cap was placed atop the judge's wig. Gaelan looked up toward the gallery, a reassuring smile crossing his features. “My death,” he had told her in the letter he'd left for her, “shall transform to opportunity. I shall arise like the Phoenix, reborn and anonymous in a vast and glorious new land. But should all go well, I hope to see you one last time before I depart Britain forever.”

Five days later, at ten in the morning, Eleanor and Simon stood at the front of the gathered mob, joining with the crowd in tossing rotted vegetables and worse as the wagon bearing the condemned man drew close. Eleanor's eyes never left him, and she couldn't help but notice when Gaelan caught the tomato hurled at him by Simon, pocketing it quickly, a silent nod exchanged.

And when the knot was tied about his neck, Simon held her close. She cheered as was expected, but could not stand to see it, refusing to witness the strangulation of the brave man who stood upon the scaffold in her place.

“Courage, sis. You must watch the show, for that is
only
what it is—”

“You do not think he suffers? I do. I know he does. And I cannot bear to watch it.”

“Hush now. You must shout your hurrahs, heartily like the mob. You do not know who may be watching.”

Gaelan swung, struggling for breath, mouth agape as the crowd around her roared—bread and circuses. She wanted to vomit. Suppressing a sob that rose from deep within, she uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to Gaelan, fervent and with desperate hope that she would be afforded the opportunity to throw her arms about him soon.

“There, d'you see, Eleanor?” Simon gestured very slightly with his head toward Gaelan's hand, clenched in a fist as he injected the poison. Cheers went up throughout the prison courtyard as the limp body was taken down and thrown onto a barrow. A doctor hovered nearby, checked for a heartbeat. Finding none, he declared Gaelan Erceldoune deceased. “So much,” he shouted with glee, “for the man who cannot die!” The crowd roared; raucous laughter filled the courtyard.

Simon explained the second half of the plan to his sister as they rode home from the hanging. “Eleanor, my dear, I have arranged through the Royal Academy, and using a few well-placed connections, to procure Erceldoune's rather unusual body for further study, something done to ‘honor' your late husband's heroic scientific efforts.”

“But what if he really is dead? He looked so lifeless lying there. So very still, Simon. I would not be able to bear it if—”

“Trust me, will you not? He will be right and fine in a few days at the most; this I know. This poison he concocted, yes, it is fatal, but only to an ordinary man, which Gaelan Erceldoune most assuredly is not. Shall you come back to my house, or will you go stay with Mama in Cheshire?”

“How can I face her now? I would likely blurt the entire thing out to her in a fit, and then we are all done for. No I shall stay with you until I know he is safely in your hands and well. Only then do I believe I can begin to place this nightmare behind me. Besides, I do want to see him, if only to thank him one last time before he vanishes from our lives.”

Late in the afternoon, Gaelan's lifeless body, wrapped in rough brown hopsacking, was brought through the back of the house and up the stairs. Eleanor joined Simon in the laboratory as soon as she heard the porters leave, locking the door behind them.

Simon was already struggling to remove the coarse bag from Gaelan's face. “Here, Eleanor, give me a hand, would you? We need to move him from the floor; it may be some hours before he revives, and I want him comfortable when he does. Between the effects of the hanging and the poison—I do not know; it could be hours or days . . . or . . . .”

“Was it necessary to take the poison injection if the hanging . . . ? He never explained—”

“He wasn't certain the hanging would actually
kill
him, even if only temporarily, and he wished to take no chances. Imagine if his body refused to die? No. He needed an assurance—immediate and fatal—as you witnessed.”

“Would that I'd have had some of that! 'Twould have been far less a mess to rid myself of that monster of a husband, I daresay.”

Simon's face registered surprise. “That is rather coldhearted.”

“The world is a far better place without Lord Richard Braithwaite.”

Eleanor sat beside Gaelan's bed tirelessly, terrified he would never awaken. She ate nothing nor slept but for an hour or two, keeping her vigil. He was cold to the touch, his lips blue.

She entwined their fingers, fighting revulsion from contact with the lifeless body. Her tears fell hour upon hour, soaking the white muslin sheet—his shroud—as she prayed for his recovery, believing with all of her soul that he and Simon had been wrong—he would never awaken, not from this.

Two days, and suddenly, a rumble vibrated through her where she'd laid her head against Gaelan's body. There was an intake of air deep from within his chest, and she leapt from her chair in surprise.

He blinked. “Eleanor,” he whispered, his voice parched and hoarse. “Water . . .” She held a cup to his lips as he propped his elbows on the mattress.

“Do not drink so fast,” she whispered in his ear, unable to suppress a smile.

He nodded weakly, gesturing for her to put aside the cup as he grasped her other hand, holding onto it as he brushed his lips across her fingers with his last ounce of energy before falling back to sleep.

CHICAGO'S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 41

Anne walked the several blocks from her hotel to Gaelan Erceldoune's shop. Hammersmith's e-mail was still on her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more adamant she became. She would reveal none of what she knew about the Miracle Man. Anyway, she was bound by the rules of patient confidentiality.

Mr. Erceldoune had agreed to have a peek at her book, and she wasn't about to betray him, especially not to Transdiff Genomics, Ltd. and Lloyd Hammersmith.

She looked to the west, noticing that the late-afternoon sun had painted the glass and brick of the buildings a surreal amber-pink as the light reflected bright off the mirrored windowpanes. She was captivated by the fusion of art and architecture. Erceldoune's shop, ancient and dwarfed by the glittering skyscrapers, was barely visible beneath the elevated tracks, and she wondered if it was an intentional choice for the reticent man. The street outside was quieter than it had been the day before; the miniature shrine she'd swept away had not yet been replaced. She smiled, satisfied that she'd done something nice for him.

“Dr. Shawe. Please come in.” Gaelan surprised her with the warmth of his greeting. The reading table at the center of the shop was set with fresh fruit: grapes and small tangerines. The kettle was steaming at the center, and the room smelled of oranges and ginger, not the mustiness of the night before.

“I see your fan club has finally abandoned you—”

“And the media vans as well. It seems my fifteen minutes of fame are at an end. Thank you, by the way, for clearing the flowers and candles. It helped, I'd venture, and had much to do with this welcome return to anonymity.”

His mood was much improved; maybe he'd finally gotten some sleep. He poured out two mugs of tea. “I love Constant Comment. Thank you,” she said.

“It's not. I blend my own teas, something I've . . . I learned to do long ago, back home. But you're close. It's fresh orange peel and clove, a bit of ginger and cinnamon bark, and black tea. A touch of cayenne. I suppose it's similar to traditional chai. Do you take milk and sugar?”

She nodded, breathing in the fragrant aroma before taking a sip. “Where
is
home?” His face darkened; he didn't like the question. Clearly.

“London?”

The lilt in his voice made his reply more question than answer. “You don't sound like you're from London.”

“By way of Scotland, then. I've lived most . . . much of my life in London. I've been here, however, for several years.” He rubbed his hands together—a pirate about to plunder a treasure. “Now, this book you've got for me. I am
quite
curious.”

“I unearthed it six months ago, and I've tried deciphering it with the help of a colleague, but he's as clueless as I am. As are a couple of old classmates, researchers in Oxford's classics department, experts in this very sort of manuscript. They believe it extremely old, and genuine.
Not a replica
. It's got them flummoxed too.

“It's written in so many languages—although I'm told that's not uncommon, but they've never seen anything this complex. I even thought of scanning some of the pages and running them through translation algorithms, but they tell me that it would confound any currently available software. It's not just the symbols and icons, but you'll see, the text is embedded within drawings within drawings and—”

“Let me have a look then, see if I can make some sense of it. I'm no Oxford don, but I seem to have acquired a way with perplexing manuscripts.”

Anne hoisted her messenger bag to the table. “I think it's some sort of alchemy manuscript or something. A lot of pagan imagery in it . . . all quite mysterious. Perhaps it's the secret to Stonehenge at last! At any rate, it's possible that the manuscript's value will eventually turn out to be purely sentimental. But it would be brilliant if I've stumbled upon a genuine historical find!”

She struggled with the heavy volume, a tight fit in the leather messenger bag. “Apparently, the thing has been in my family for generations. I was told—”

Anne fell silent as Gaelan held up a hand when the volume finally dropped to the table. He held his breath and stared, first at the cover, then at Anne. He gripped the tabletop, as if to steady himself, and Anne wondered if he was about to collapse.

“I . . .”